Page 25 of Twice in a Lifetime

“How ’bout you and me go for a spin around the dance floor?”

“No thanks,” I answered, hoping that would be enough to move him along. Unfortunately, he was still as bad at taking a hint as he had been back when we were growing up.

He drew closer, leaning his elbow on the high-top table beside my pint glass and caging me in with his body. “Aw, come on, sexy. Don’t be like that. We can have a good time together.”

“Jesus, Oswald,” Sunny clipped, her top lip curled up in disgust. “Get a clue. She’s not interested.”

He turned to bare his yellowed teeth at my best friend. “No one asked you, trailer trash.”

My back shot straight and my eyes narrowed on the man standing too close to me. “Since you won’t listen to her, maybe you’ll listen to me,” I said, my voice growing scarily low in the way that always brought my kids to attention. “I tried letting you down nicely so you could walk away with your pride intact, but you just insulted my best friend and if there’s one thing I won’t tolerate, it’s someone insulting the people I care about. So now I’m going to humiliate you. No, Lonny, I do not want to dance with you. In fact, I’d rather have a rubbing alcohol enema than have your hands anywhere near my body.”

“Oh my God,” Rae breathed out from the other side of the table, her wide eyes pinned on me.

I didn’t miss the way Sunny grinned or that the conversations around us had gone quiet and more and more people were turning their attention our way, but I was on a roll.

“The fact that you think you have the right to call someone else trailer trash when you’re standing here looking like a reject roadie for a ZZ Top cover band is downright laughable. Butwhat’s even funnier is that you actually came over here thinking you had a shot in hell with me. You obviously took one too many hits to the head in high school, so I’m going to spell it out for you so you can’t possibly misunderstand. There isn’t a universe in which a man like you couldeverland a woman like me. You’re swinging way above your weight class, buddy. It’s time for you to move along.”

Snickers sounded from all around us, but the women at my table didn’t bother trying to cover up their laughter. They let it fly, right in the prick’s face.

Halfway through my diatribe, Lonny’s face started to grow red with embarrassment, but by the time I finished, he was an unhealthy shade of purple. “You think you’re hot shit,” he seethed, venom coating his tone.

I took a slow, casual drink. “Nope.” I made sure to pop the P obnoxiously. “I know I am. Now run along before you do something to really piss me off.”

“Fuckin’ bitch,” he hissed, shoving away from our table hard enough to make the glasses rattle, but I didn’t so much as flinch, refusing to give him any kind of reaction.

“What the fuck did you just call her?”

My blood went cold and my back shot straight. I knew who that voice belonged to, and more specifically, I knew that tone. It meant shit was about to hit the fan.

Sure enough, when I looked back over my shoulder, Rhodes was standing there, and he was staring at Lonny like he was about to rip the man limb from limb with his bare hands.

Chapter Fourteen

Rhodes

It had been two weeks since my run-in with Blythe at the lookout. Two weeks since I held her as she cried. Since I nearly kissed her. Two miserable weeks of not seeing her, and I was going out of my goddamn skin.

I wasn’t too proud to admit the reason I was currently bellied up to the bar at The Tap Room was because I managed to overhear a conversation my sisters were having about a night out on the town. Blythe’s name was mentioned and that sealed the deal for me.

My buddy, Hardin, cleared his throat, drawing my attention away from the table I’d been watching for the past hour.

“You know, not to sound all needy and shit, but when you invited me out for a beer, I thoughtmaybethere’d be a bit of conversation. Maybe a game of pool or darts. At the very least, I expected you to ask me how I’ve been since the divorce. What I didn’t expect was to sit here and be ignored all damn night so you could creep on your ex from across the bar.”

A chuckle rattled up my chest. “I’m sorry, puddin’. Are you feelin’ neglected?”

Hardin sucked in his cheeks and clicked his tongue. “Yes. But you cover the next round and I’ll consider forgiving you.”

“That I can do.” I raised two fingers to catch the bartender’s attention and pointed to Hardin’s empty rocks glass and my pint, silently requesting a refill.

“You know, you could have just told me why we were really comin’ here tonight. It’s not like I wouldn’t get it. It’s been Blythe for you since you were seventeen.”

I’d known Hardin most of my life, both of us having been born and raised in Hope Valley, but it wasn’t until Marco came into the picture that I’d gotten to know him better. Marco and Hardin’s dad were friends, and Marco’s friends quickly became family friends. Everyone in his and Gypsy’s circle had taken us in, and we’d gone from being a group of misfits to having a support system bigger than I ever would have expected.

Hardin and I had been closest in age of all the kids, so it came naturally that we’d grown tight. He knew when Blythe and I started dating. He was my sounding board as my first deployment grew closer and I started to get in my own head about not being good enough. He’d tried his best to knock some sense into me, insisting that Blythe wasn’t going to realize she could do better once I was gone, and that ending our relationship would be a mistake, not that I listened. He was also the one who used his fake ID to buy a case of beer one town over so I could get trashed after ignoring his advice and breaking up with her anyway. And not once had he said “I told you so.”

That friendship had lasted through my time in the Army and his stint in veterinary school until we both eventually made our way back here.

I stood with him at his wedding. Hell, I was godfather to his oldest daughter. And I’d returned the favor, taking him out to get him shit-faced when his divorce was finalized.

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