Page 11 of Brett and Rowdy
“Huh.” He’d never been out to the career center when he was a student, but Dan told him he ate lunch at their cafe a couple times a year and went to their barbecue charity thing when they did it. His team apparently loved their burgers. No one liked cheap food like investment guys.
“Yeah.” She sniffed. “Want a beer?”
“You think they got any? I heard there was mango and uh… mojitos? Whatever.”
“Well, I could get a Sprite, I bet.”
“Sure. I’ll stroll with you.” But after this? They were totally going somewhere to get something bad for him. That was half the fun of being in South Carolina. Fried things and slow-cooked meat.
“If we skip out of here by eight, we can make it to Pete’s Drive-In before they close at nine.”
He chuckled. “God, are they still in business?” Madison had dragged him there with her friends several years ago. Someone’s dad had driven and had been super weird about his then-dog, Fred, being in his fancy SUV.
“Yep. And the food is still perfectly, wonderfully beige.”
“I bet you get tired of salads with clients and real estate agents.”
She huffed dramatically. “Oh, my God. You have no idea. You get homemade tortillas and green chile. I get chilled shrimp and whazzed up chicken mayonnaise. On lettuce. They give me shit if I salt my tomatoes because they say my feet will swell.”
“Good Lord.” He reached over to pat her hand. “Well, let’s make a couple more rounds so you can have your shock and awe, and then we’ll hit the road.”
“You’re on.” She linked her arm through his on the opposite side of Barney, and off they went on their promenade.
He heard more than a few gasps, but who knew how many were directed at him and Ash. She would tell him, no doubt. Of course a couple of people tripped over Barney, and one man growled out, “Who brings a dog to something like this?”
Ashley snapped back, “A blind man, you idiot.”
And then they were out.
“Dammit. Pete’s is closed for a private thing,” Ash told him, her nails clicking on her phone.
“Last Chance bar?”
“Eeek. No. How about the Huddle House in Seneca?”
“Breakfast for supper for the win. You bring shoes to change into?”
“Hell, yeah.” She giggled, sounding so much more free now that they were out of the gym. Even a big girl panties real estate mogul like Ash was uncertain about returning to high school. They’d try again tomorrow night.
Surely at one point they had to have pimiento cheese on the menu.
Chapter Four
“Western omelet, please,” Brett murmured. It had been a toss-up between that and the fried shrimp. “And a waffle on the side.”
“Grits or hash browns?” their server asked, pen hovering.
“Grits. And no other bread.”
“You got it.” Crystal had already ordered her honey butter chicken biscuit combo and a huddle-up sampler for them to share. He might not make it out the door before he keeled over needing a nap, but it would be so worth it.
“I have fond memories of the yumminess of this stuff when we were teenagers,” he murmured.
“You used to come here with Rowdy, huh?”
“Yeah, you know, we’d sneak out here after scrounging through the damn car seats for change, so we could buy a cup of coffee and a hash brown… Okay, so I’d buy a Coke and a hash brown, and he’d buy a cup of coffee because somehow that son of a bitch was drinking coffee by the time he was six years old.”
He rolled his eyes at himself. Rowdy had always seemed so much more fucking put together than he had, so much more sure and grown up and like he knew exactly what he was doing and how he was going to do it and damn the consequences. Rowdy never worried about any of it—not what people thought, not what people said. He just did things.
