Page 24 of Found By You

Eight.

Duke

I stare at my phone for probably the hundredth time since I’ve sat down at this damn high-top bar table. I thought she’d want to come out.

Was I reading her wrong all day?

I’ve been out of the game for so long…I probably did. It took me a year after Rachel died to take a woman out. I’ve had a few scattered hook-ups over the last few years, but nothing ever gets past that. I’ve never wanted it to. I’ve been holding myself back from more, I know it.

But now… Fuck. It’s 8:37 PM and she’s all I can think about. What is she doing? Did she like her chicken wrap? Did it make her sick? Is she already asleep? Maybe if I text her—

“Duke,” Butch bites out, catching my attention. I look up to him glaring at me. “I asked you a question.”

“What do you need?” I grunt.

He doesn’t answer, choosing to scowl at me instead. Asshole.

“He asked who the hell some Maci chick is,” Stan says on a burp, sitting beside me.

Goddammit, Levi. My gaze scans the two tables we have pushed together to seat all eight of us at the rear of the bar, and a packed dance floor at my back. Yet everyone seems to have their attention on me. Something I’d rather not have.

From where I’m sitting on the end, to my right is Butch and his fiancée, Cassidy. Next to her is her best friend, Alison, then her boyfriend Tanner on the other end—who works for Butch. To my left is Stan, Butch’s best friend and head foreman for his logging company. Beside him is Levi and Rhett.

A few of Cassidy’s friends she invited are scattered around the bar, coming to and from the table. One of them perched on Levi’s lap. And I know she invited them for me.

I fucking know it. The second we got here, she gave me a look. Her words from earlier at the coffee shop coming back to me. I didn’t know you were dating. She thinks she’s slick, but I see right through her and my family.

They’re worried about me. And I hate that more than anything.

Saturday band nights are a regular thing for us, and I’m sure Cassidy is trying to get in as much time here with Butch before they’re spending Saturday nights at home—planning a wedding, a baby, a future. The same three topics of conversation I’ve been forced to sit through all evening.

“She’s a customer,” I force out, hating the sound of it even as I say it.

“You told me she was a friend,” Levi chimes in with a smirk.

“Was that whose motel room you had me at this morning?” Rhett asks, and I glare at him.

“Why were you at the motel?” Butch asks Rhett.

Rhett jerks his chin at me. “Duke had a job for me. One of the rooms had a faulty heater. I went out and fixed it. He said it was for a friend.”

These idiots are unreal. I might as well not even be here.

Butch turns his stern expression to me. “What the fuck is the deal, Duke? I don’t hear from you all week. You blow me off for some dead car on the side of the road. Now you’re callin’ Rhett for help instead of me?”

Here we go again…

Cassidy leans into Butch’s side, and he drops his arm from the back of her chair to around her waist. “Babe, relax,” she whispers as my brother’s jaw ticks.

He shakes his head, taking an angry swig of his beer.

“It’s not personal,” I say. “I’ve been busy. Shop’s been busy. Shit is coming together with the house. That’s it.” I chug a third of my beer so I don’t have to say anything else on the subject.

“So how is the house coming?” Cassidy asks with a faint smile, attempting to redirect the subject—and her fiancé. “I’d love to see the progress you’ve made.”

“You should’ve gone earlier, Cass,” Levi announces, his eyes alight with mischief. The damn troublemaker he is. Ever since we were kids, he can’t help ratting on one of us to watch the shit unfold. “Duke was giving tours.”

Cassidy’s brow furrows, but Butch beats her to the punch. “Who the fuck to?”

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