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“You’ll need to pay his bail.”
“Bail?” Duke cries. “For what? For a speeding ticket?”
“I have here that he assaulted a police officer.”
“What?” Duke roars. “Fine. Where do I pay bail?”
“Courthouse next door.”
Before Duke walks out, I hear him call, “I’ll be right back, Tanner. I’ll look for you a good lawyer while I’m there.”
Half an hour later, he comes back, and the officer lets me out of the cell. I have to sign some paperwork, and then, we are free to go. Somehow, in this whole process, Judd has disappeared. Probably a good thing because I worry what Duke would have done to him.
When we are safely inside Duke’s truck, he says, “You want to tell me what’s going on? Why am I bailing you out of jail?”
“Because I was arrested by the ex-husband of the woman I’m now dating.”
He chews on his lip and slowly nods. “How about I buy you a beer?”
“This Judd guy sounds like a son-of-a-bitch,” Duke says after I tell him the whole story.
“Yep,” I say, taking a swig of my beer.
“What are you going to do?”
I shrug my shoulders. “What can I do? At the end of the day, this isn’t my battle. It’s Erin’s.”
“Do you think she will say something to him when you tell her what happened?”
“I don’t know that I’m going to tell her.”
His eyes go wide. “Why the hell wouldn’t you tell her?”
“Because I’m not exactly innocent in this whole thing. If I would have kept my mouth shut, Judd probably would have just given me a ticket and walked away. But I took the bait and just had to engage.”
“You think she would be mad at you?”
“Shit, I have no idea. But right now, I’m not trying to do anything to make her life any more difficult.”
“And what if this asshole really doesn’t drop the charges? You could end up doing some time for this.”
“Guess I better find myself a good lawyer, huh?”
We both sit quietly for a moment before I say, “Thanks for coming to bail me out. I’ll pay you back.”
“Eh, don’t worry about it. I figure I haven’t bought you a birthday gift in twenty-five years. Maybe this will make up for that.”
I laugh. “Getting married has turned you soft.”
“Fuck, yes, it has. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He takes another drink. “You think Erin isthe one?”
“Absolutely, but it’s sure as shit not going to be easy to make it work.”
“Look, Tanner, if Avery had wanted something easy, she sure as shit wouldn’t have picked me. But you know what she tells me all the time?”
“What’s that?”
“That the best things in life are never easy. No work, no reward.”
