Page 44 of When We Met

“Probably not. So, Barron Grady, I met your dad, your brother, and aunt Tilly. Who is awesome, by the way. She shared a story with me about you calling her Aunt Titty until you were five, which I found very entertaining. But do I get to meet your mom tonight too?”

I try to follow everything she just said, but it sounded like word dump to me. “No, you won’t meet my mother.” My eyes drift to Morgan at the bar, standing next to Lillian. I set my beer on the table and take a shot, uncaring as to what it might be. It burns on the way down, and I realize it’s straight scotch. This is my kind of girl. “I got a stepmom you might meet sometime.”

“Okay.” She cocks her head to the side and studies me. “I’m sensing that’s a sore subject?”

I breathe in, unprepared for why bringing up my mom brings a sudden rush of nerves through me. Usually, that’s only reserved when people ask about Tara. “Are my mommy issues showing?”

“Cheers.” She clanks her glass to mine. “I’ll one-up ya, bitch. Mommyanddaddy issues here.”

I chuckle, leaning in. I motion her forward and wait until her eyes are locked on mine before I slowly wet my bottom lip with my tongue. There’s an acoustic version of “Into the Mystic” sang by Gretchen Wilson playing in the background. She blinks softly when I smile. “Did you just call me a bitch?”

She winks and sits back in her seat, running her fingertip over the rim of her glass. “Bet your ass I did.”

“Regardless. I win. Wife left.”

Something crosses her face. An emotion of some sort. Regret? No, it’s sympathy. Maybe she feels bad for me. Not enough apparently because her next words are, “Oh, bullshit. You can’t win this one. Wait for it.” She downs another shot and then slams it down on the wooden table. She points her finger at me when she says, “My boyfriend slept with my mom,” over the music.

My eyebrows shoot up. “No shit?”

“Yep. Totalshitmove by both of them.” She nods, taking another shot. When she’s finished, she shakes her head as if she isn’t surprised. “I caught them in bed.”

“Okay, so you caught them in bed, then what? Did they pull the ‘it’s not what it looks like’ card?”

“Nope. He just said, ‘sorry,’ and left it at that.”

“And your mom?”

“Well, she’s always been that way, so I really shouldn’t have been surprised.”

Man. I couldn’t imagine. My dad sleeping with my wife?Fuckthat. “Are your parents still together?”

“Yeah, they are. He just turns a blind eye because rocker, you know them types. They have averyopen relationship. But we, as in me and my mom,wedid not. She’s a bitch.”

“Wow.”

Shaking her head, her lashes lift as her eyes widen, and she blows out a heavy breath. Her skin is radiant, flushed, glowing with that cherry glow of alcohol. “I quit my job a week later, gave all my crap to my neighbor, and bounced.”

“Bounced?” I laugh.

“Yep. I broke up with California.”

I laugh again. “Better off friends?”

“Something like that.”

“I’ve never met anyone quite like you, Kacy.”

“Oh damn.” She grins, leaning in again, slowly licking her lips in the most sensual way. I fight through the need to grab her face and yank it to mine. Her eyes linger on mine a second longer before she sighs. “Say my name like that again.”

My cock twitches. “Kacy?”

She fans her face. “I think I love the South.”

I can’t help but smirk. What the fuck? Is this really a thing? “Why’d you leave home? Most people break up and move on, not out of the state.”

“I’ve always wanted to see the South. I hated California.”

“Can’t say I blame you on that one,” I mumble, wondering if my bitterness is seeping through. Kacy motions toward the bar where Morgan is. “So that’s your brother, right?”

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