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“Hey.”
She jerked her gaze up when Mal’s voice was suddenly much closer. Standing over her now, he offered her a friendly grin. He wouldn’t smile at her like that if he knew what she and Charlie had done, would he? If he were protecting his brother, he wouldn’t smile at her at all. And if he thought she was on the market for another fun afternoon, his smile wouldn’t be friendly, right? Wouldn’t it be a lecherous grin?
“Hi.”
“Everleigh said you guys had a movie night last night.”
Tatum snorted softly. “If you wanna call it that. I fell asleep fifteen minutes into the first Harry Potter.”
“How do you do that?”
“Fall asleep in a movie?”
“Harry Potter?”
“I’ve seen it about seven times,” she answered and then added, “recently.”
She’d watched it once with Bryony, though she wasn’t sure her niece was old enough to get it. Not to mention the snake had given Bryony nightmares.
“She seem okay to you?”
“Everleigh?” Tatum sat up straighter. “Why? What’s wrong?” Was she so wrapped up in her own life, she’d been blind to her only friend being upset about something?
“Nothing.” He shook his head. “Just wanted to make sure. She wasn’t too excited about going to visit her mom.”
“I think they had an okay time,” Tatum told him. Everleigh had told her so. She’d also said she told her mom not to come to Long Grove to see her. Tatum wasn’t sure which was worse: a mother who just vanished or a mother who saw her own daughter as competition with men. Everleigh swore her mom would come on to Mal if she thought he and Everleigh were too close. Both because she wanted to feel sexy and young and because she hated it when Everleigh was attached to someone else.
“Good.” He nodded. “Hey, if you see Charlie, would you tell him to call Pete?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks.” He started to walk away, but he surprised her and turned back to her. “Hey.”
“What?”
“Come to the whiskey tasting tonight.” He tipped his head at her. “It’s an Irish lineup.”
She bit her lip to keep from blurting out that she’d tasted something Irish that she very much liked not long ago. Mal seemed to expect her to answer.
“I don’t drink, Mal,” she said quietly.
He answered with a dramatic shrug. “You don’t have to. But Charlie would like to see you.”
She doubted it, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.
“Everleigh will be there.”
“Maybe.”
She had no plans to be at the whiskey tasting, Irish lineup or not. But she wanted this conversation to be over, so she told him what he wanted to hear.
19
What the hell was Tatum doing here?
Charlie opened his mouth to ask, but there was no one around at the moment but Pete. He sure as hell wouldn’t know why Tatum was here, nor would he know Tatum. She’d been here earlier today; Mal told him he’d talked to her. The knowledge made Charlie’s lunch hit him with some powerful acid reflux. Had Tatum hinted to his brother that anything had happened between them? Had she told him Charlie was a selfish dick who took advantage of her?
He'd wondered about that in the days following their one-time angry affair. Should he have walked away from her? Only a fucking saint would have been able to turn his back on her when she untied her dress and showed off her beautiful body. Charlie wasn’t even sure a saint could manage it. Not after she’d already kissed him with that hot, sweet mouth. With the vicious teeth and hungry lips and velvety, nimble tongue.
