Page 7 of The Hang Up

“I can still look. This is your problem, Brock. You’re old-fashioned.”

“Am not.”

“Yesterday, you quoted Mark Twain. ‘An uneasy conscience is a hair in the mouth.’”

“And you said we should get shirts made up,” I reminded her.

“Quit stalling and tell me about hot Daddy.”

“Stop calling him that. He’s…” I sighed. I didn’t want to talk about Joshua. And yet, there was a part of me that did. I wasn’t like I could talk to Sean about it.Hey, I saw your dad today. Guess what? I don’t think he’s as straight as you think. I caught him checking out my ass.

She wiggled her brows and grinned. “Come on. You know you want to.”

“Fine. Whatever.” I leaned closer so we wouldn’t be overheard. Which was ridiculous because we were in a dive bar with the dueling sounds of country music and pool balls crashing, drowning out our words. “I’m only telling you because I don’t have anybody else to talk to.”

“What about Sean? Not into hot Daddies?”

I stared up at the ceiling as if that could help me. “This particular hot Daddy is his—”

“Boyfriend?”

“No, Jesus, Nev. His father.”

Her eyes widened. “The silver fox in our restaurant is Sean’s father? I thought he died.”

“No. Sean just tells people that—it’s a long, complicated story I’m not getting into. There’s not enough liquor in this bar—”

“I say we test that theory.”

“No.”

She rolled her hand in a get-on-with-it motion. “Skip to the good part.”

“There is no good part,” I said. When she raised her hand again to signal the server, I pulled it down with an exasperated sigh. “Fine. Sean blamed his dad for his mom leaving. His dad was working all the time—the important part is that Sean and his dad don’t get along at all.”

She leaned on the table, trying to catch my eye. I resisted as long as possible, but Nevaeh could always get me to talk. “What about you and Sean’s dad? Do you get along?”

“It’s—”

“Do not say complicated.”

“Fine. It’s… I don’t know, okay. Sean’s dad and I always got along fine. I had a little crush—I mean, you saw him. The man is hot.”

She nodded, fanning herself, and I rolled my eyes.

“Stop being dramatic. You’re a lesbian.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a hot guy. I just don’t want to sleep with one. Yuck.”

I rolled my eyes and glanced around. She was way too perceptive. A guy with a scraggly beard was hunched over the bar. He looked fifty but could have been younger and just had a hard life. He was a regular. Not that we came here that often, but when we did, he was always around. Was he the same age as Sean’s dad? It seemed unlikely. Joshua Miller was full of life. Bigger than life.

Nevaeh smacked my arm lightly. “Whatcha thinkin’?”

I shook my head, trying to hold in my smile, but it slipped out. I started to tell her again how nosy she was and how she should focus on her own life—her wife, two kids, three cats, and now a dog—but instead, I said, “He isn’t interested.”

“In you? He definitely is.”

I shook my head. “No—”

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