Page 12 of My Ex for Christmas
With a sigh, I resign myself to this awkward conversation. “We went to high school together. We were just catching up.”
Brooks snorts, and I elbow him in the side. Hard.
“Right,” Thiago says, looking like he doesn’t believe me at all. “Do you have a minute?”
“Totally.” I nod, much too enthusiastically. Then I turn to Brooks, socking him in the shoulder lightly. “See you around, buddy.”
“Oh, I’ll be seeing you,pal,” he says pointedly, a gleam in his eye I can only describe as wicked.
I think I might be in trouble.
CHAPTER 5
BROOKS
It’sa quiet evening at Dirty Dick’s. The weather hasn’t been all that kind today, the snow wet and the wind blustering, so even most of the regulars have chosen to stay home.
All afternoon, Margaret was muttering under her breath, calling them wusses.
I ball up another old receipt and toss it across the bar. It sails through my makeshift goalposts and lands on the floor beside the other crumpled pieces of paper. I pump a fist in the air, and the lone patron sitting on a stool beside me cheers, raising his beer in a toast.
Luce sighs from where she leans on the opposite end of the bar. “It doesn’t take much to entertain you, does it, Brooksy?”
I round the bar and pick up my collection of papers, dumping them in the garbage. “I’m a simple man,” I say with a shrug.
She shakes her head as she walks to the back.
I reach for a cloth to do another pass over the counter, but my phone buzzing in my pocket distracts me. When I pull it out, an unfamiliar number flashes across the screen.
“Hello?” All I can hear is a groan on the other end of the line, but the sound is one I know well. “Hadley?”
“Ugh. I was trying to call the concierge,” she replies, followed by a cough. “Stupid phone.”
“How’s the ankle?” I ask. When I left her in the office with Thiago a week and a half ago, she wasn’t putting any weight on it.
“It’s fine now.”
“Why do you sound like shit?”
That isn’t entirely true. She still has that sexy Hadley rasp, but it’s clear that she isn’t feeling well. There has been a nasty cold going around town lately. It’s no surprise if it made its way up the mountain.
“Because I feel like shit, Brooks,” she snaps.
I mock gasp. “You mean to tell me the great Hadley Knight isn’t infallible after all?”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Wait!” I clear my throat, realizing my voice has come out a touch too eager. “What did you need from the concierge? Maybe I can help.”
I may be a bit of a dick, using Hadley’s sickness to my advantage, but if this is the only way she’ll talk to me, then so be it. After our kiss, I’ve been hoping to run into her, but she’s either extremely busy or she’s purposefully avoiding me. My guess is it’s a bit of both.
Avoidance is her specialty. But I’m taking a sledgehammer to that wall she has built between us.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.”
“Hadley.”
There’s a bit of a pause, and I worry for half a second that she did follow through with hanging up. But then she says, “I just need a few things from the pharmacy, okay?”
