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“What the hell areyoudoing?” Tim is about the same height as Archer. About the same size, but where Archer is mostly clean shaven except for a sexy five o’clock shadow, Tim has a beard straight out of the men’s magazines. “You break into my bar and expect me not to meet you at the door?”
“You gave me keys!”
“I gave them to youweeksago. You haven’t used the fuckers once.” Spinning away, he leaves me in his dust and crosses the sparkling clean bar. “You rejected me! You live twenty seconds away, and you’ve avoided me ever since your birthday. So fuck you!” He steps behind the bar and rests his elbows on top. “Give me my keys back.”
I wander forward, my nerves in my throat, my pulse still skittering beneath my skin. But I remember back to the first thing that reached my senses when I stepped in here. “You brewed the coffee anyway.”
“What?” He does that thing where he pops a bullet out of the chamber of his gun, then drops the magazine from the handle.
My steps falter, because that stupid thing was loaded and almost pointed at me.
“You’re mad at me for staying away.” My eyes flicker between his and the gun. I can’t help it. I can’t not notice the gleaming steel. “You’re mad and you feel rejected and you’re asking me to leave.” I stop on the opposite side of the bar and meet his eyes. “But you brewed the coffee anyway.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
A warm wash of pleasure rushes through my blood.
I don’t have feelings for Archer’s brother, and I never would consider jumping across to sample the older Malone, but there’s still a part of my heart that thrills because Tim likes me.
He was my first friend when I arrived in Copeland City. My first confidant. He fed me my first meal, and for my birthday less than a week after meeting him, he spoke my love language and got me a coffee machine.
“I missed you too.” Reaching across the bar, I rest my hand on his forearm for just a moment. Then pulling back, I slide onto one of the stools bolted to the floor. “I’m sorry I ditched you. But to be fair, I was busy, and Archer was annoying me. I thought he was dating some chick named Chloe.”
“The cat?”
I shrug. “Not my proudest moment. He hurt my feelings, so I hid away and buried myself with work. So sue me.” But then I smile. “And still, you set the coffee timer each night for me.”
“Made me dump out almost two weeks of wasted coffee,” he grumbles. “Not cool, Mayet.”
“I heard your old man is mafia.”
And just like that, his eyes narrow to threatening slits. “Come again? Say it slower, and look me in the eyes while you die.”
Amused, I nod toward the steaming pot of coffee. It takes only one look for Tim to snatch a mug and start pouring.
“The night we met, you said you were Tim, and your daddy was Tim, and so was your granddaddy. I didn’t think anything of it. But being Tim’s Tim’s Tim makes you the firstborn son of Timothy Malone of the New York City mafia family.”
Smug with myself, I watch him pour my coffee and inhale the delectable scent of caffeine first thing in the morning.
If he was any other man, from any other family, I’d find I’ve already said too much and was about to be fitted with a pair of cement shoes.
But not withthisTim. He only sets my coffee on the bar and watches me with a lifted brow.
“Such a regular name,” I continue. “Nothing unique about it, which is why I didn’t connect you and them at first. But once a girl knows, she knows.”
Tim’s chest is twice as broad as mine. Muscular and defined, and when he leans on the bar once more, his arms and shoulders fire up under the weight they’re forced to hold. “What do you think you know, Mayet?”
“I know your daddy was on the news only a few weeks back for a suspected execution-style murder in New York.” I bring the mug to my lips and sip. “I almost caught that case, but I’d not long before put in my resignation letter, and my superiors weren’t likely to give me a job that would roll into overtime.”
“And you’re telling me this because…” He pops his lips. Though, I could never say it’s a goofy sound. He’s danger, through and through. “Why?”
I shrug and cross my legs. “Archer told me, and now I’m—”
“Fucking Archer!” He explodes from the bar and turns on his heels to pace. “Of course he told you! Because he’s so fucking whipped by your very existence, he breaks every rule we’ve ever set down and talks about this shit like it’s pillow gossip.”
Spinning back to me, he grips the bar and sneers. “He did you no favors by telling you that shit.”
“Tim, I—”
