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Two
Holden
“No. No fucking way.” I didn’t let up glaring at my cousin Stetson. We were sitting at our normal table in the back of Rattler’s Brewhaus. The supper crowd was clearing out.
The big oaf grinned and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms in a way that usually drew a girl’s attention and distracted her from whatever reason she’d been pissed at Stetson. But I wasn’t a girl and I sure as shit didn’t get sucked in by Stetson’s muscles.
The noise of Rattler’s Brewhaus drowned out our argument.
“Yes,” he insisted. “You’re the only one who can help.”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Do it for the kids.”
I ground my teeth together. I wanted to stay far away from the kids.
Stetson shrugged and took a long pull of beer from his mug. “They’re not babies.”
“I know, but I don’t want to be responsible for them.” Never again. I could invite my other cousin Liam’s twin boys over. Squeeze his new baby’s chubby cheeks when it was born. But I wasn’t holding it, rocking it, or singing any damn lullabies. I wasn’t going to wonderwhat-if.
It didn’t help that Stetson was asking me to help him coach a fourth-grade football team. I didn’t need to be surrounded by a bunch of nine and ten-year-olds.
“You won’t be. I’m the head coach. I just need you there offering pointers and making sure kids get the instructions down.”
Leave it to Stetson to find the technicalities. “Why don’t you ask Remington?”
Our buddy Remington pulled out a chair and plopped down next to me. His black chef’s coat and black pants didn’t hide his size, but he wasn’t as built as Stetson. His muscles were lean, just shy of wiry. His sleek black chef’s hat, not puffy like a stereotypical white one, the small gold hoops in his ears, and his dark scruff capped off his look. When the place first opened, a kid asked if he was a pirate. “Ask me what?”
“He’s got this place to worry about,” Stetson answered, ignoring Remington. “I already asked him.”
Remington glanced between us, his blue eyes judging how tense the atmosphere was at the table. “I do.”
“Football,” Stetson said without taking his gaze off me.
“Ah, yeah. You have practice right when things get exciting here.” Remington was a homegrown boy who’d moved around the country and come back to open Rattler’s with a buddy he’d met in Chicago. He pushed out of the chair. “I told Stetson to give me a call if you ever have practice at nine in the morning.”
A girl called his name from across the bar and he swaggered away. If I ever wanted to get laid more than I did, I’d have to open a bar and grill. It worked for him.
Or I could do what I did last night. Try to find Em.
Then get fucking ditched.
I switched my scowl from my cousin to my mug of beer. I could dish it out, but apparently I couldn’t take it.
Stetson broke into my thoughts. “You’re not thinking about the kids anymore.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “No.” I wasn’t one to kiss and tell, but last night had gotten under my skin and rubbed me raw. “I met someone last night.”
“You meet someone most nights.”
Not most nights, but enough to keep from feeling neglected. And infrequent enough to make me wonder what it would be like to not go home alone. But I didn’t need someone around just for sex. When a relationship was founded on that, it broke apart quicker than a graham cracker dipped in milk.
I rotated my mug on the Rattler’s coaster. A picture of a rattlesnake wrapped around a mug played peekaboo as I moved the glass. “Not like this.”
Stetson snorted. “So she said no.”
Oh, Em had shouted yes several times. I turned my thoughts around before I got myself stuck at this table with an erection to hide. “She pretended she had to leave right away after.”
