Page 10 of The Broker

We both took our customary sips, and she glanced across the way to the now empty table where I’d been seated. “Your... friends didn’t want another round?”

She was fishing for information, and I held back my smile. I couldn’t blame her for being curious, but I wasn’t going to tell her about my ‘date.’ “No, we just wanted to grab one drink together.” I needed to shift the conversation away from that. “How about you?”

Her expression was suddenly guarded. “What about me?”

She obviously hadn’t come to the bar for a drink. “When you showed up, you were already carrying a martini.”

Charlotte made a face, and it looked like she was considering whether she should tell me. Once the decision had been made, her shoulders slumped. “Okay, so, I was on a date.”

“Uh-oh.” I hesitated. “That bad, huh?”

“Yeah,” she said flatly. “I mean, he just got up and left.”

Warning alarms triggered in my head. What on Earth had she said that sent the guy running? I hoped my expression looked blank and not judgmental. “He walked out in the middle of your date?”

She stared at her drink and traced the stem of the glass with a fingertip. “It wasn’t during the middle, it was right at the beginning. We’d just sat down at the table, and I’d ordered my drink when he suddenly got up and hightailed it for the exit.” Her tone was embarrassed. “He sent me a text message right after, saying that something came up and he was sorry.” She tossed up a hand. “Whatever. The whole thing was super weird, and I shouldn’t have said yes to that date in the first place. I didn’t know the guy, and even before he bailed on me, I knew it wasn’t going anywhere.”

It just fell out of my mouth. “Then why did you say yes?”

“He was cute, and...” She glanced at me and licked her lips, nervous. “I’ve had a rough few months. It was nice to have someone interested in me for once.” Her eyes abruptly went wide. “Oh, God, that makes me sound pathetic, doesn’t it?”

“No, it doesn’t,” I said quickly. “To be honest, it’s been the same for me recently.”

Her eyebrows tugged together, shooting me a look like that couldn’t possibly be right. “You?” She shook her head, making little waves ripple through her blonde hair. “No way.”

“Afraid that’s a true story.”

“Well, that’s not true anymore.” The corner of her lips hinted at a smile. “I thought I made my interest pretty clear.”

Shit, she had a point, and I found myself smiling back at her. “Yeah, well, I didn’t like how that guy was bothering you,” I admitted, “but I’m glad it gave me an excuse to come talk to you.”

“Me too.”

We were both quiet for a moment, and I glanced around at our surroundings. “This place is nice. Have you been here before?”

“No, I think it just opened.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize.” It made sense. The place was trendy, clean, and filled with people. The newness of it was obvious now. “I just moved here.”

Charlotte tilted her head. “Yeah? From where?”

“New York.” I felt the need to elaborate. “Manhattan.”

She peered at me dubiously. “What, are you, like, a finance bro?”

It had been a joking question, but she wasn’t wrong, and I tried not to sound sheepish. “I was, yeah.”

She seemed surprised and perhaps a bit impressed, which was a nice change of pace for me. Pretty much everyone held their nose while talking to me when I’d been at HBHC. Sure, they liked me when I was making them money, but otherwise I was viewed as a pariah.

“Okay, wow,” she said. “What brought you to Nashville?”

“A new job. But actually, I grew up around here. My parents still live in town.”

I didn’t tell her the truth, that it was my father’s health that had brought me back home and not my career. I was the youngest of my siblings, and my dad was already in his late thirties when I was born. Now he was seventy-one, with a back shot to shit from years working as a roadie, and a recent pancreatic cancer diagnosis.

He was stubborn as fuck too, in complete denial of what his physical limitations were now. Even if he’d let my mother help him—which he wouldn’t—she wasn’t able to. As the baby of the family, unmarried and without kids, my older brothers had elected me as his new caregiver.

Telling her that wasn’t sexy. Plus, how would this twenty-something girl relate to any of that?

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