Page 21 of The Moment They Can't Forget

Chapter8

“Nina, you need to pick up that phone!” JD roared from his room in The Gnat two hours later. “Now!” he added when nobody answered it.

“You need to get some staff that respect you,” Sawyer said, wandering in through his open door.

“You find me some, and I’ll hire them,” JD snapped, hiding the sudden nerves he felt about seeing Zoe’s brother.

“True, and an employer has to demand respect from an employee, and that’s not likely to happen to you.”

“What? Why? I’m a great boss, with the perfect balance of hard-ass and leniency.” JD thumped his chest. He then exhaled slowly, realizing that he could do this. Sawyer was his friend, and this business with Zoe needn’t touch that. Especially as they would never speak of it again.

“You keep telling yourself that,” Sawyer said, wandering to the chair where he would sit for JD to work on his arm. The idiot had the name of the crazy woman he’d once thought he’d loved tattooed on it. JD was slowly removing it.

“New shorts?”

Sawyer looked down his legs as JD spoke. The shorts in question were old, worn, and denim. JD’s guess was that last week they’d been jeans.

“My mother-in-law wanted to put a flower patch over the pocket because I have a hole there, and she didn’t want any loose change to fall out.” Sawyer looked in pain as he spoke.

Meadow McAllister, one-half of Lyntacky’s hippy population, liked flowers and patched anything she could, according to Birdie, with them.

“You should let her. It would be an improvement. Honestly, man, you need to step your game up. That look was fine when you were a teenager and could pull it off. And for the love of God, use some beard oil before a colony of birds move in there.”

“Fuck off, pretty boy,” Sawyer snarled. “My Ralph Laurent is in the wash.”

“Saint Laurent,” JD said precisely. “And Ralph Lauren.”

“Whatever. Do your job.” He laid his arm on the bed.

After JD had decided to stay in Lyntacky, he’d purchased a run-down old warehouse and created Box The Gnat—yet another square dancing term—which was shortened to The Gnat by locals. He’d then set the place up into rooms for a hairstylist, beautician, massage therapist, and—his line of expertise—tattoo artist.

To begin with, the locals had thought him crazy, but they’d come around.

“Your phone’s still ringing,” Sawyer said.

“I can hear it,” JD snapped. “Nina!”

“All right, all right! Don’t get your Bulgari briefs twisted,” she shrieked. “Where the hell is Birdie?”

JD saw Sawyer stiffen.

“Settle the fuck down. She’s just asking, and Nina always uses that tone,” he said to his friend. “Outside taking coffee to your next client!” he added for his beautician’s benefit.

“Hello, you’ve reached The Gnat. This is Nina. How may I be of help?” he heard her say in a voice that was thick with sweetness.

“She’s fooling no one with that tone,” Sawyer said. “The man who ends up with that woman better be a strong one.”

JD grunted and then started working on Sawyer’s arm.

“What’s up with you?”

“What?”

“You’re usually an asshole but rarely a grumpy one,” Sawyer said to him. “What’s the deal?”

“I can be grumpy, just not to your level,” JD defended himself.

“I’m a new man,” his friend said with a sickening look that JD identified as contentment on his big ugly face.

---