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“Well, thanks for that, sweetie. I’ll talk to her then. What’ll you have, Sawyer?” Her tone was five degrees cooler as she looked his way.
“I’ll take a triple chocolate sundae, thanks, Linda,” Ryder said.
“Meatloaf, thanks,” Sawyer added when his brother kicked him under the table.
“You should try a smile and ‘have a nice day’ occasionally too, bro,” Ryder said when Linda had gone.
“Whatever. Now, shut up and listen. I just came from Birdie McAllister’s after dropping off a delivery. Is everything all right with them? Her and her family I mean.”
Ryder frowned. “Why wouldn’t it be? I saw her three days ago, and we talked. She seemed the same old Birdie. Busy, happy, and nice. The exact opposite of you, actually.”
“I’m busy.”
“Okay, minus the busy part. But no way could you be called happy and nice like Birdie.”
She hadn’t been nice to Sawyer after he’d sprung her for whatever the hell was going on with Madame Fleur’s Flirt Line. He’d be looking that up when he got home. He rarely hid stuff from his blood, but he didn’t tell Ryder what he’d seen. It would embarrass Birdie, and besides, Sawyer had no idea what her deal was yet.
“The place looks a bit run-down,” Sawyer said as he dumped sugar into his coffee.
“I haven’t been there in a while. We usually see each other in town, or I drop into The Roll Away.”
“You two meet there?” Why was he pissed his brother was meeting Birdie in a bar?
“She works there, idiot. I’m not dating her. That would be like dating Zoe.”
“I didn’t know she worked there.”
“About three months. If you left your lair occasionally, you’d have known.”
“I go out.”
Ryder snorted. “Going to the yard and talking in meetings online is not going out and interacting with a human. It’s like you’re the bear that hibernates. All grouchy and hairy.”
“I’m not hairy. Mine is cut shorter than yours.”
“But you have the beard. When are you moving on from whatever that bitch did to you in LA? Not that you’ve told your family what she did. The family who loves you just FYI.”
“Whatever now shut up.”
“You getting her name off your arm soon?”
“It’s done with, Rye. I’m not talking about it. There’s no point.” The hell that forced him to leave LA wasn’t something he was dragging his family into. “Tomorrow J.D.’s working on my tattoo, and what’s wrong with my beard?”
“It hides your pretty face.” Ryder smiled, and Sawyer cursed silently. No one could rile him up quicker than a sibling. He raised a middle finger.
“So, you don’t think the McAllisters are in financial hardship?”
Ryder frowned at his words. “I don’t think so, but I’ll feel Birdie out next time. Mind you, she works two jobs. I’ve never thought to ask why.”
Three,Sawyer remembered her terrible French accent. He also didn’t want anyone feeling Birdie out, but he kept that thought to himself because it was stupid.
“Got a date for Autumn’s wedding yet?” Ryder asked just as one of Lyntacky’s most notorious gossips delivered his sundae with not one but three cherries on top.
“You need a date for the wedding, Sawyer?” Linda asked. “Melinda is due back any day, I’m sure she’d go with you. I know it’s a struggle for you, considering you don’t like people.”
Linda had been trying to marry Melinda, her niece, off for ten years. No man had so far stuck, but her aunt wasn’t the giving-up type.
“I like people just fine, and I already have a date. But thank you,” he added after another kick under the table from his brother.
