Page 21 of Sidelining the Safety

“Fuck you, D,” Mac threw back.

Drew snickered. “Anytime, baby. Any. Time.” He pursed his lips and blew Mac a kiss.

Lee panned slowly to Mac. “Grown men,” he muttered, knowing Mac would catch the reference from their morning chat.

Mac groaned at the reminder. “Leave it alone, please.”

Lee held up his hands as he leaned back on the stool. “Just saying.” A low growl ripped from Mac’s throat, and Lee grinned manically. His dick hardened, too. Fuck, that was sexy.

“What the hell? You’re only supposed to growl at me.” Drew crossed his arms, glaring at Mac for a moment before he burst out laughing. “Spill the T. Tell us what happened last night, and don’t you think I’ll be forgetting that you told Lee and not me.”

Mac sighed. “Really, I didn’t tell him much. We were supposed to text and some things happened at the diner.” He gazed at Drew. “You remember that sleazy guy Katy dated for like a month?”

“Trace?” Drew pulled out two cutting boards and a set of knives from his bags and placed them on the counter.

“Troy.”

“Oh yeah. Bad vibes, that one.” He slid one set in front of Lee and the other in front of Mac, placed a bowl between them, and then gave each of them vegetables to slice. “Stir fry, so long strips. You can toss the garbage in this bowl, and I’ll compost it at home.”

After putting the rice to soak, he encouraged Mac to continue. “So what about Troy? I thought they broke up.”

Mac nodded, keeping his attention on the peppers he was slicing while Lee made thinly sliced carrot sticks. “They did. She’d said he was a drinker and didn’t like it. Well, he showed up drunk off his ass at the back entrance last night. When Katy told him to go home, he went after her. We got the door shut and called the cops. She told me afterward that she broke it off because she didn’t feel safe around him when he was drinking. Momma and Dad took her over to the precinct this morning to get a restraining order.”

“No shit,” Drew said and whistled low. “That blows. You think it’s going to work?”

“I don’t know, and I’m a little scared for her. And for the diner... What if he retaliates?”

Neither Lee nor Drew responded. Lee had read too many news stories about guys who ignored their restraining orders and had hurt or even killed the person who filed against them. He figured if it was a problem in Jersey, it was probably twice as likely here in Texas, where over a million people had gun licenses—according to the article his mom had found when she’d been investigating everything Texas.

“I see your dilemma,” Lee whispered. “What are you going to do, or better question: what are the police going to do?”

Mac placed the knife down and scrubbed at his face. “Not much we can do except keep our eyes open and have some damn good situational awareness.”

“And the police?” Drew prompted.

“Well, there’s good news there, sorta kinda.” Mac wobbled his head and then smirked at Drew. “Carey Daniels was the responding officer.”

“The one who has ‘Heart Eyes’ for Katy and she doesn’t even see it?”

Mac gave him a wolfish smile. “One and the same.” Drew tossed his head back as he laughed. Mac cackled along with him.

Lee stared at the two men doing a fine impression of hyenas. Which… cute, but he felt left out of the joke. “Hold up. There’s a cop who has a crush on your sister and she’s oblivious?”

“That’s the long and the short of it,” Mac gasped out, trying to catch his breath as he calmed down. “We saw it ages ago?—”

“We speculated,” Drew interjected, “but didn’t feel it was our place to say anything. Carey would make his move when he was ready, but Katy’s pushing thirty. She’s ready to settle down. She just keeps picking the wrong guys.”

Mac tapped his nose. “Exactly. Spoken like a true surrogate younger ‘big’ brother.”

“Like you’re any better?”

Lee chuckled under his breath as the two best friends bantered about who was the better brother. Clearly it was Mac with the blood relation, but Drew countered on having been a part of their family for most of his life.

Leaning back on his stool, having finished prepping the carrots for Drew, Lee’s shoulders dropped as a feeling of peace settled over him. A sense of calm filled him, and he silently thanked his lucky stars he’d met these two men who’d taken him into their tiny circle and were quickly becoming awesome good friends.

CHAPTER 16

DREW

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