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"Interesting arrival status," Tyler quips with an amused grin before taking a noisy slurp of his drink.
"Don't know what you mean," I mutter in response to the group of guys I'm standing at the bar with. Me, Bishop, Fulton, Tyler, and Daly.
I'm not even lying. Even though Locky's the one with the thick Aussie accent, and I often have to do the ear equivalent of eye squinting to catch everything he says, I barely understand half of what comes out of Tyler's mouth at the best of times. Nothing like talking to a Gen Zer to make a millennial feel like a Gen Xer.
Tyler points to the remaining contingent of the group, who are sitting in their regular corner booth. Noah and Haze, Gus and Tate, Chase and Fischer, and Chester and Lawson.
And one solitary figure plonked smack bang in the middle of all the couples.
Locky.
The guy who I arrived with, and who Tyler is now quizzing me about because he wants to know why we turned up together.
The poor guy.
It was hard enough to get Locky to come at all. It took a helluva lot of convincing—and me swearing on my life I wouldn't tell anyone about his predicament—to get him here.
I managed to fire off a text to Bishop to tell Fulton to can theSmart Watch, Dumb Husbandshirts Fulton had ordered for everyone to wear as a surprise to kick things off tonight.
I'm still in the dark as to what caused Locky's dicksnot ex to choose today of all days to kick him to the curb, but I knew that whatever celebratory vibe Fulton had planned for this evening had to be taken down a few notches.
"Howdidyou end up arriving together with Locky?" my brother says, a grin stretching his lips like he's already drawn his own conclusion.
Possibly a sexy conclusion if his suggestive eyebrow waggle is anything to go by.
While I’m all in on there being something sexy going on between me and the hunky, broad-shouldered Aussie vet, I need to quell whatever scenario Bishop, and the rest of these guys, are concocting in their heads. This isn't the right time.
"I was visiting a friend," I lie, but it's the same lie I told Locky, so…points for consistency?
"Friend, huh?" Bishop repeats, not buying it for a minute.
That's because there is no friend.
I've been low-key stalking Locky ever since I heard about his divorce. That was earlier in the year, a few months after meeting him for the first time at Bishop's animal shelter. There was something about him that just pulled me right in.
But he was married so it was a non-starter.
Until he wasn't.
"Does this friend have a name?" Daly joins the pile-on.
Friend? What are they talking ab—Oh, right. They're still going on about that.
No one's even bothering to hide their grins. I haven't breathed a word about my attraction to Locky to anyone, and I thought I'd been checking him out covertly. Whenever we attended any of the same dinners or group hangouts, I kept my distance from him, only exchanging polite greetings and making the smallest of small talk.
Sure, I'd look his way every once in a while, catalog every square inch of his tall, bulky body, memorize what he was wearing, what he ate and drank, the sound of his laughter as it carried in the air. But I thought I was being discreet.
Clearly not.
"Need to piss," I announce and take off for the gents.
When I get back, all the guys have joined the others in the booth, except for my brother. Yeah, like that wasn't planned.
We'll go, you stay here at the bar, Bishop. He'll open up to you. Find out what's really going on and then report back to us.
I swing my leg over the barstool. "Did they take a vote or were you simply informed you'd be staying behind to do reconnaissance?"
"That obvious, huh?"
