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Leo
Two Weeks Later
WE WALK INTO IRONWINGPub holding hands. It feels good to bring her out into the light after we’ve been cooped up at my house for two weeks. She’s been a patient nurse, but I’m getting impatient. I want more. Not just the sex she’s been denying us until she thinks I’m healed. I want that too. But I want us to start living our real life, not the insulated version we’ve had. Not that I don’t like having her all to myself, but I’m ready to integrate our lives together.
She won’t talk about getting married, despite the fact that I remember her saying yes. I’m not completely sure she believes this will last in the real world, and I’m desperate to show her it will.
And having a drink at the bar when I know my crew will be playing darts is a good step.
Especially since this is the bar where I got that first wrong number text.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” she asks. Her concern is genuine, but the way she’s biting her lip and squeezing my hand lets me know she’s the one who needs reassurance.
“It was a short walk, sweetheart. We’ll sit, have a drink, and then walk home.” Where I plan to seduce her in short order. I’m perfectly healed. Well, not perfectly. But I’m perfectly horny. I love having her fall asleep and wake up in my arms every day—but I need back inside her.
I nod to Jenkins, and the guys across the room at the dartboard, and we take two seats at the bar. Nash is at the other end, lining up shots, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The lighting is dim, and the sound on the Mariners game is off, but they’re winning, so that’s a plus.
Nash lifts his chin in my direction, and I hold up two fingers. “Well, look who graced my bar with his presence. It’s the local hero.” He sends his lady-killer smile at my woman to piss me off. “And this must be Dixie. We’ve heard a lot about you. Glad you made it by my establishment finally.”
She blushes. “I don’t get out much.”
“Well, I’m Nash. When you get tired of this clown, you look me up.”
“Are you looking to lose some teeth, McKendrick?”
He laughs and pours our beer. I like this dive bar. We all do. It suits us. It’s not pretty, but it’s friendly and clean, and who wants a pretty dive bar anyway?
“So,” Dixie says to Nash, “isn’t Ironwing the name of a band from the ‘80s? Why did you name your bar that?”
Nash’s eyebrows shoot way up, and he looks at me like he owns my ass now. “You haven’t told her?” Nash can be real evil and my goose is thoroughly cooked.
“It hasn’t come up,” I mumble, hoping it’s the end of it. I was hoping for a little more time.
“What hasn’t come up?” she asks.
His roar of laughter would be comical if it weren’t at my expense. “Ironwing is from Brazen Bay; they graduated from Brazen Bay High. Three of the band members live here in town still. My father is one of them. And Leo’s father is another.”
Oh, hell.
“Your dad is a rock star?” Her eyes get big. “For real?”
I swig as much as I can without looking like I’m at a college kegger. “Yeah. He, ah, played bass. It was just the one album.”
Dixie pulls out her phone, which I try to grab, but she’s wily when she wants to be and swivels her chair seat so she can Google. “Oh my God. Your dad...”
“Is wearing assless chaps and has a mullet. I know. Believe me, I know.”
My dad is now a very fine lawyer, but once upon a time, he was in a one-hit wonder band that epitomized the culture of the ‘80s rock and roll scene. My sister Megan and I were both always very embarrassed by the attention he got, as well as the pictures we could never get away from. Stella, well, Stella always thought it was cool. But Stella has always been weird.
“Why didn’t you tell me? This is fantastic.”
I’m not ashamed of my dad. Not at all. He is a good man. A great father.
Nash heads down the bar again to leave me to explain. “I was worried that your parents would take that as another strike against me.”
She tilts her head thoughtfully. “Strike against you?”
“They already think I’ve brainwashed you somehow. They haven’t even met me.”
