Page 29 of Barefoot Dreams
“There, did you have to make it that hard?” Jacob slumps against the booth with a satisfied smile on his stupid face.
“It is that hard!” I growl.
“Nope. Not at all. Now listen to me, Julie-bean is like a little sister to me and with that being said, don’t even think abouthurting her.” Jacob points his beer bottle at me, along with a narrowed look. “I know at least a dozen ways to cut up a body.”
A sister…Jesus, how many huge, intimidating older brothers can one girl have?
And did he just really say that?
“Jacob is a doctor,” Alec clues me in.
“Of veterinary medicine?” I ask, incredulously.
“Nah, my boy here is a big-shot trauma surgeon.”
“Seriously?” I gape at the rubber-duck-loving-shark-slides-wearing Viking with his mane of blonde hair in a man bun and I cannot put two and two together.
“Yep.” He pops thep. “I’ve left that life behind, but don’t worry, picking up a scalpel is like riding a bike. You’ll never forget it.” Jacob gives me a threatening look again and I swear I didn’t see that coming.
I’m usually pretty good at reading people, but this guy seems far deeper than he allows people to see.
I clear my throat. “You got nothing to worry. Besides, her other—you know the real one—brother already had this talk with pretty much all the guys of LC about twenty years ago.”
“Well, he didn’t see the way you eye fucked our sister last week. I did, and I’m warning you to treat her right.”
I choke on my beer that I had the misfortune to drink at the precise moment he said,eye fucked.“Fucking hell, mate, I didn’t eye fuck her.”
Jacob suddenly straightens in his seat and starts sniffing the air around us.
“What is it this time?” Alec asks.
“You smell this bullshit in the air? Because I sure as fuck do.”
Alec chuckles in response.
“I haven’t seen them together in one room for almost two decades, but I’ll take your word. So, Griffin Owling, do youpromise to be a gentleman and nothing more than a gentleman—bedroom excluded—to our Julie-bean?”
I sigh, rubbing my face. “You two are idiots, you know that?”
“They have been told that on more than one occasion,” Willa answers as she slides three new bottles onto the table and winks but then she bends lower and whispers in a way that is not a whisper at all. “Oh, honey, I put something a little extra in your beer for you. You know, for your man down there.” She points to my lap as if she wasn’t painfully obvious already and when I just stare at her in a stupefied response she decides to clarify for me. “You know, so he’s up to the test when you and Julie get to do the deed.”
“Oh my god,” I groan. “Willa, did my mom put you up to this? There’s nothing wrong with myman down below. And I’m not doing no deeds with Julie! Where in the world did you get that information?”
“Oh, you poor child.” She pats me patronizingly before sauntering away.
“What the fuck is going on?” I murmur to myself but Alec answers anyway, looking at his phone.
“Um, maybe you should log into Love Hive.”
I groan once more, already knowing the crap I’ll find on there.
There were at least ten people in the line that day in Sip of Love and they undoubtedly reported our barely decent greeting with Julie.
“About your erectile dysfunction—” Jacob starts, but I cut him off, gritting the words out.
“I don’t have an erectile dysfunction.”
He raises his hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m just saying, if anything, I am still a doctor. Patient confidentiality and all that. I can even poke it for you.”
