Page 59 of When Wrecked Meets Ruined
“Good. Because it’s true.”
“Night Ridge.”
I kissed her on the cheek and watched her climb into the back of Troy’s SUV.
Being with a girl like Kelsey would have made my life easier. But taking the easy way out had never been my style.
When they were gone, Walker joined me on the porch. “Mind if I crash here tonight?”
“Do you even need to ask?” His house was just on the other side of the ranch, and he was working for my brother this summer, so he practically lived here.
“Leah doesn’t want to get back together,” he said as we climbed the stairs. We stopped on the landing.
He waited for me to say something. I sucked at relationship advice and couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. Nodding slowly, I grabbed the back of my neck, my expression serious like I was mulling this over. “Yeah. Shit. That sucks. Hold that thought.” I held up my finger. “I need to take a piss.”
A surprised laugh burst out of him as the bathroom door closed in his face. “You’re a shit friend, you know that?”
“You love me anyway.”
“Nobody else would put up with your sorry ass.”
Accurate. I washed my hands and stepped into the hallway. “Now… where were we? Oh right. I was about to give you some advice. There’s plenty of fish in the sea, Walker. What you gotta do is bait your hook and cast your line—”
He flipped me the finger and shoulder-checked me on the way into the bathroom. The door slammed in my face.
I pounded my fist against the wood twice. “Okay, glad we had that bonding session. Good chat. Catch you later.”
“Asshole. Why would you use a fishing analogy? You’ve never even gone fishing, have you?”
Sometimes he was so literal. And hell no, I’d never gone fishing. I wasn’t a country boy like him. “Just because I’ve never gone fishing doesn’t mean I don’t know how to use my rod. In fact, my rod’s seen a lot of action.”
“Too bad your hand’s fucked up.” He stepped into the hallway and headed to the second bedroom. “Guess you’ll have to use your left hand tonight.”
I heard him laughing at his own joke as I crossed the hall to my room and dove onto my bed.
The joke was on me.
I couldn’t get Evie out of my head. And sadly, my hand and I had gotten better acquainted this summer.
This shit had to stop.
I should take my own advice and move on.
The following day, I dragged Walker to breakfast and made sure we were seated in one of Evie’s booths—dark green vinyl trimmed in cheap wood with a speckled Formica table.
“You sure this is a good idea?” Walker glanced around nervously.
The last time I’d been in this diner, things hadn’t ended well. I’d been so drunk I barely remembered it. But this time I wasn’t here to fuck things up.
My eyes tracked Evie as she served coffee to a family of four at a table across the room. A few seconds later, she returned from the kitchen without the coffee pot and stopped next to our booth with her hands on her hips.
Her green eyes shot daggers at me. “What are you doing here?”
Despite the frosty reception, I still had hope. Because clearly, I was an idiot. “We heard the waffles are the bomb.” According to her yellow T-shirt, Bluebonnet Diner had theBest chicken and waffles in the Texas Hill Country!!Who could argue with two exclamation points and red font? Although I couldn’t get on board with chicken and gravy on my waffles, to each their own.
“We heard the waffles are the bomb. And the servers are even better.”
Across from me, Walker made a sound like he was choking.
