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“Ray’s got some wings in the smoker.” Billy checked the clock on the wall. “Should be comin’ out ’bout now.”
“I’ll go grab ’em.” I’d volunteer to do anything to get out of this conversation.
“You’re only prolonging the inevitable. We will find out about her,” Billy promised.
His statement hung in the air as I walked through the double doors and down the hallway to the back patio where Ray was manning the smoker.
My brothers and I co-owned this bar now, but it had been in the family for decades, since Pop’d bought it thirty years earlier. Ray had been here even longer than the Comfort men had. He lived above the building and took care of everything from maintenance to bouncing to bartending to cooking. Anything that needed doin’, he got done. Besides Hank, he’d been the man that I’d looked up to as a father figure. Not that mine had been gone. Physically, anyway. He’d been around—just not present.
I found Ray standing next to the smoker in his “uniform.” Backward baseball cap, jeans, and a white T-shirt. In all the years I’d known him, I’d only seen him wearing different clothing on two occasions: my college graduation, and my father’s funeral.
“How’s things?” I asked, following the sweet smell of BBQ chicken.
“No complaints. What about you?” Ray moved his hat off his head and wiped his forehead with a rag. “I heard you had quite a trip on the wheel last night.”
That was exactly why I hadn’t tried to lie to my brothers about seeing Bella again. This town was too fucking small. “Ya did, huh?”
“Yep. Ran into Calvin at the Piggly this mornin’.” Ray opened the door of the smoker and started pulling out the wings with long tongs.
“Hmm,” I made a noncommittal noise as I grabbed the platter and set it down close to him.
“He said you were lookin’ mighty cozy with a pretty brunette. Said he hadn’t seen you that cozy with a girl…hell, ever.”
“He said all that, huh?” Calvin had a big mouth.
“Sure did.” He closed the smoker as the last two wings plopped onto the serving dish. “So, who is she?”
“I don’t know.”
He didn’t respond but his right brow lifted, the way it had back when I was in sixth grade and told him I hadn’t ditched school and gone to the beach and smoked weed, or when I was in high school and promised him that I hadn’t broken into Knox Montgomery’s parents’ liquor cabinet and drunk half the contents. He hadn’t believed me those times, for good reason, and he didn’t now.
“I really don’t, I swear. All I know is her first name, and that’s the God’s honest truth.” I lifted my hand and gave him the three-finger scout’s honor salute.
“Boy, you were never no scout.” Ray chuckled as he swatted the dishtowel he kept hanging from his belt at me. “I only brought it up because I don’t want to see you messin’ things up if she’s special.”
“Messin’ things up?” Ray had never talked to me about my love life. Other than saying I “did good” when I’d landed Ember Culpepper as my prom date senior year. “How?”
“Meanin’ I don’t know where your head’s at with all the malarkey about the curse.”
He’d definitely never brought the up curse before. “I don’t put much stock in it,” I answered honestly.
“So that’s not why you haven’t settled down yet?” Ray questioned.
“No.” The reason I haven’t settled down was because I hadn’t met Bella yet. That thought came out of the blue, and I wasn’t sure what I felt about it.
“You sure ’bout that? You might not even know that was the reason you’ve been keepin’ ladies at arm’s length.”
Arm’s length? Had I been doing that? I didn’t think so.
“Don’t give me that look.” Ray pointed at me, most likely because of my expression of disbelief. “You know good and well that you’ve entertained plenty of women that you’d be lucky to take off the market. But you never did. I figured you were as messed up in the head about the curse as your pop, your uncles, and your brothers. Well, at least until Billy met Reagan. I was scared you were gonna die an old bachelor like me.”
“You don’t need to worry. I’ve never been hurtin’ for female companionship.”
“That’s the point, son. You got plenty of women to do things with. I’m just worried you’re not gonna find the woman you want to do nothing with. And if you do, will you get your head out of your ass and do somethin’ about it?”
Damn.That was a deep bomb to drop before noon.
“Jimmy!” Hank’s deep voice bellowed from inside the bar.
