Page 65 of Done with You

The server nodded, then disappeared.

Krista was married to the oldest Harty boy. She was also a sergeant with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or RCMP, though apparently not the same municipality as Jordan. From what Jordan had explained the other day, the Greater Victoria Area was made up of thirteen municipalities and each municipality had its own police force. And to make things even more complicated, some municipalities had RCMP, while others had city police. At one point they had been in the same department, which was how they met and how Rayma and Jordan were introduced, but Jordan had since been transferred a few times.

Oona—always psychoanalyzing everyone—got that Krista was no-nonsense, but probably had a very gentle underbelly. She was scanning the area like any cop would, assessing threats and probably wouldn’t allow herself to have more than a couple of drinks, so that she remained alert and ready for anything.

They ordered food and drinks, and Rayma pumped them for information about the evening, but this was one secret that Oona was okay keeping. Everyone but Rayma knew what was going on. They had all agreed and paid their fees ahead of time.

Oona was a little nervous for her part in it, but she also knew this was something her little sister had wanted to do for a long time, and just like when they were kids, Oona would do anything to make Rayma smile.

“I wonder what Jordan and the guys are up to,” Rayma mused as she ate her cashew chicken lettuce wraps. She’d smartly, and without a care how it looked, draped herself in napkins, tucking them everywhere and hovering over her plate in a weird position so that she didn’t accidentally get sauce on her dress. For someone who had consumed twice as much alcohol as the rest of them, she was surprisingly adept at eating and not making a mess.

Krista, Stacey, Pasha and Lydia all checked their phones. “They’re at axe throwing.”

“Really?” Rayma squeaked. “That sounds like fun.”

“They did rock climbing, then the gun range earlier,” Krista said. “It takes a lot for my husband to smile—basically just boobs, bacon and beer make that happen—but I bet he’s enjoying himself right now.”

“Heath already knows he’s to snap any pictures of Brock smiling that he can,” Pasha said. “He and Rex are both on smile duty.”

Lydia snorted, then turned her phone around to show a photo. “Almost.”

It was a picture of a very handsome, very beefy, green-eyed man probably in his late forties or early fifties, with one corner of his mouth lifted, while the other corner was turned down.

“How is that even possible?” Peyton, Rayma’s best friend asked. “He’s frowning and smiling.”

Then they all tried to imitate Brock’s expression until everyone around the table was cracking up.

It was after eight o’clock when they finally left Vista 18 and headed back down to the Escalade.

“Where are we off to now?” Rayma asked, still holding her own pretty well, despite what her blood alcohol level probably was.

Oona looped her arm through Rayma’s. “I think you’re going to like this next event, kiddo. After all, you have been begging me to teach you for quite some time.”

Rayma gasped, skidded to a stop in her heels, turned to face Oona and gripped her by the shoulders. “Are we …?” Her eyes wide in anticipation and excitement.

Oona smiled. “Be prepared to do some squats.”

Chapter Fourteen

“So, I just got a text from Rayma,” Jordan said, glancing up from his phone as they all stood around a high-top table at a bar on their pub crawl. “She told me to get my ass to the Fort Street Hype Studio by eleven or she’ll never give me a blowjob again.”

Several of the guys at the table chuckled and rolled their eyes.

“Not sure how serious she is, but I wouldn’t risk it,” Jace said, sipping his festive cranberry wheat ale. They were downtown at a place called The Harbor Club. It was right on the water, loud, and busy.

But when Aiden did his research about best places to go on a Victoria pub crawl, The Harbor Club had popped up on more than one website, so he knew he needed to add it to the list. It was their second bar after rock climbing, the gun range, axe throwing and dinner at the steak house.

Set in a large, old, brick building with an industrial feel, the interior boasted high exposed ceilings, with wooden beams, and the original brick interior. There seemed to be multiple levels and different areas for drinking, eating, and socializing. They had to all walk through the crowd single file because it was shoulder-to-shoulder busy.

Jordan seemed to be having a great time, and Aiden had to say, the company his brother kept was pretty decent.

There wasn’t one guy there that Aiden was struggling to find tolerable. And just as he figured, Jace was a great guy. The bags under his blue-hazel eyes spoke of his intense training regime, and the fact that his biceps were practically bursting out of his tight black T-shirt, and his traps were swol as fuck, said he was going extra hard as the tryout day grew nearer. He’d yawned more than once since the old person bus picked him up, but he kept up with everyone and put away an impressive ribeye the size of Aiden’s size-thirteen shoe. Then he had two baked potatoes, a side salad and French bread with butter. And as they stood at their table drinking beer, Jace was perusing the menu because he was “feeling peckish.”

“Are the women going to be there?” Chase asked. He was bald, beefy, and hardly cracked a smile. Which didn’t bother Aiden. Neither Chase, or his older brother Brock seemed to be enjoying themselves, at least not if you went by their facial expressions, but then when they left the gun range and axe throwing, they both independently clapped Aiden on the back and said he did a great job and how much fun they had.

Rex and Heath, the younger two Harty boys, who were still either closing in on forty or in their early forties, seemed less serious and smiled and joked a fair bit. Heath reminded Aiden a lot of his old He-Man action figure, with his enormous arms and shaggy blonde hair that nearly reached his shoulders.

All four men were enormous, though. Bigger than Jace in both size and breadth. Aiden felt like a wilting flower between all the redwoods. Even though he was over six-feet-tall and worked out, these guys just had an enormous presence about them that made everyone in the bar take notice.

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