AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What exactly do you want a wife for?”
“The change it’s had on my brothers... It’s completely unlike anything I could’ve guessed. I would’ve told you that they would be terrible husbands. But they’re not. They’ve gone from being some of the most unpleasant assholes I’ve ever known to being...blissfully happy. I’m not an idiot. If I think that could be out there for me...”
“Are you unhappy?”
He looked at her for a long moment. “I’m a mess.”
She looked down at her hands. “I’ve never thought that you were a mess.”
“I think that’s a lie. But it’s a sweet one.”
“Just one beer,” she said, watching him lift the bottle to his lips.
“Damn. I forgot.”
“I think one beer is probably fine.”
“You don’t think Dulce is fine?” he asked, and she had a feeling he knew full well he was needling her.
“I’m not trying to gatekeep your choices. I just...”
That was when Dulce appeared with two burger baskets filled to the brim with onion rings.
“Maybe I should consider Fia Sullivan,” he said, as the bar continued to fill up and he looked around.
“Fia?”
“Yeah. My brother’s married to her sister. The Sullivan girls are nice. Really, any of them...”
“Isn’t she sort of in love with...”
“Shehateshim. If you ask her.”
“Well... I’m not really up on all the gossip of Four Corners, but even I know that she’s preoccupied with him.”
“One thing I don’t want is to be treading on Landry King’s territory. Because he’s an unpleasant son of a bitch.”
He finished his beer and looked around.
“Coke,” she said. “Order a Coke.”
“You’re a little taskmaster, do you know that?”
She spread her hands. “I’m just doing what you asked me.”
“Your problem isn’t confidence, Charity. Your problem is learning that you can take the confidence you already have and use it anywhere you like.”
CHAPTER FOUR
HE’DHADApretty good idea of who at Smokey’s he would be considering before they’d gone out tonight. Dulce was in the running, even though Charity had expressed skepticism. He had always thought she was pretty. But had never really wanted to make drinking at the bar awkward by hooking up with the woman who served the drinks.
One point in her favor was that she wouldn’t be bothered by his drinking, since she had already seen him do it lots of times.
She’d also witnessed every hookup he’d engaged in for the past few years, so he could see where she might not think he was the greatest bet. So there was that.
There were also a couple of girls who frequented the bar, but not often enough that they would be overly familiar with him, and he wasn’t all that familiar with them. Lucy Carmichael and Lydia Holliday were pretty enough.
Charity was writing names on a napkin, which he felt like was maybe overkill. But he had asked her to overkill this endeavor. So he couldn’t be disdainful of her now that she was. He also couldn’t argue with her about the alcohol. He asked for her help. So he had to take it.
