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“I think Emery is in with her boyfriend tonight,” I told him, sinking low in the passenger seat.
“Isn’t she dating a Wright?”
“Yes, Jensen. He’s the oldest.”
“So interesting. I don’t know much about their family, just that they’re, like, Lubbock royalty. Trevor is more into all that stuff than I am.”
“Lubbock royalty.” I guffawed. “They’re just people who happen to have money. I wouldn’t put them on a pedestal.”
That was rich, coming from me. I’d been putting them on a pedestal my whole life. But it had been easy to do that when I grew up with nothing. My father’s bar wasn’t exactly a lucrative business deal. The only money he had ever raked in had been entirely illegal…and we had all paid dearly for it. I was from the wrong side of the tracks, looking up at the mansions, wondering what it was like to live like that. I couldn’t help it. Even now that I had money, I had a certain level of fascination with the rich and famous.
Of course, with his golf career, Landon fit that mold better than all of them, and I never really felt that way about him. Probably because I had known him before his career took off.
“You ready to go in?”
I sighed. I was not ready to go in.
I had no idea why I had even agreed to this. Partly because I was competitive by nature and partly because…I wanted to see Landon. After that elevator ride, my mind had been going crazy. I’d thought the date would make me forget about him, but of course, my luck, we’d run into him on the date. Now, I was willingly going to hang out with him and the guy I was dating.
Only one explanation.
I was a masochist.
Nick was getting out of the car before I could even think about changing my mind.
I’m doing this. I’m really doing this.
I let me heels click onto the pavement and straightened out my pink-and-black dress.
Man, I was stalling.
Nick was smiling at me from the front of his car, and I hesitantly walked up to him.
“You all right?”
“Yeah,” I lied.
When we entered Flips, it was like coming home.
Having grown up in a bar, I always felt most comfortable inside its four walls. It didn’t matter that it frequently smelled of liquor, vomit, and stale cigarettes. It didn’t matter that the hardwood floor was stained from years of disuse. It didn’t matter that it was dimly lit, making it hard to see all the way to the back of the room, or that it was filled with a wide array of people from all walks of life. This felt right.
And, damn, I needed a drink.
Peter was working. Honestly, I wasn’t sure when he wasn’t working. He saw me coming and had a tequila shot waiting. He slapped the saltshaker in front of me.
“You look like you need this,” he said.
Oh, ye of few words.
“Hey, Peter. Nice to see you. This is my…this is Nick,” I said, stumbling over the word date.
“Hey, man,” Nick said, offering his hand.
Peter kind of stared at it like the guy was out of his mind. “What’ll you have?”
“Oh, I’ll take a Bud Light.” Nick let his hand drop back to his side.
Peter gave me a look that said, Bud Light? Really?
