Page 9 of I've Got You

“Hey, good-looking.”

He looked her way and grinned. “Hey, yourself. Good day?”

She nodded, just as she made eye contact with me. “Hey, Davis. You joining us?” Her grin was wide.

I smiled back. She really was cute, but cute was not what I was after. “I sure am. It’s good to take a break.”

“It is that,” she replied. “And yes,” she faced Carter once more, “no dramas from my end. Just busy catching up with paperwork. I haven’t seen you all day.”

Carter bobbed his head. “I know. Getting on top of things is good though.”

“Yeah, I suppose. I just wish Denver would figure out what he was going to do about Scott’s position.”

I perked up at the mention of Scott.

Carter sighed. “I know. I get it though. I think he’s just hoping like I am that Scott will get his head together and come back.”

Lauren’s face twisted.

“What?” I asked, curious. “You don’t like the guy?”

She shot a look at Carter, and I followed her gaze.

“He knows everything,” he responded, without her having to voice her question.

Ah, it all made sense. The whole “Scott is an asshole” debacle.

“I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I’m not as forgiving as our friend over here,” she said to me.

Carter rolled his eyes. “You need to move on. I’ve forgiven him, so that’s all that should matter.”

“Meh.” Lauren shrugged, then laughed when Carter prodded her side. “I will, I will. And if he does come back, I’ll be on my best behavior.”

I glanced over at Carter, who didn’t exactly look convinced.

Carter and Lauren continued to chat about work, Tanner, and a whole heap of stuff that I admittedly zoned out from. While I made the odd grunt of approval or acknowledgment where I thought one was needed, my mind kept drifting to Scott. As much of a prize asshole as he had been, I kinda felt sorry for the guy, especially based on what I’d learned about him from Carter, which to be honest, was very little. But still, from my brief encounter with Scott, on top of his history, as well as him being a hermit—according to Carter—it was obvious he was hurting. And while I’d already tried to talk myself down and lose interest in the guy, it seemed I was full of shit. Not only did I spend too much time thinking about our kiss, him, what his issues were, but also, whenever I heard his damn name, my ears perked up in interest.

Having completely lost all strands of their conversation, I was about to excuse myself and get back to work when I noticed their chatter had stopped and Carter was looking at me expectantly.

“Did I miss something?”

Carter rolled his eyes while Lauren snorted a laugh before she said, “I was inviting you to drinks Saturday night if you’re interested. Nothing wild or fancy obviously, since we’ll stay in town, but there’s a group of us meeting up at Wild Oak. It’s just been taken over and redone, I think.”

“It has,” Carter interrupted. “Tanner did some work on it. He said it’s been done well and that the guys who own the place seem really nice.”

“Cool,” Lauren responded. “So what do you think?” She looked at me. “There are others going too, so it’s not just guys from work. We won’t bore you to death with work chatter.” Lauren ended with a wide grin.

“I already said we’d have Libby, so this works perfectly.” Carter’s grin was almost the mirror image of Lauren’s. I eyed them both, wondering why they were so wide-eyed. A more paranoid version of myself would have gone on red alert, but living in Kirkby didn’t exactly leave a lot to the imagination of wild nights and evil plots. Plus, heading out and socializing sounded like a good plan.

“Sure,” I agreed, “that sounds great.”

Lauren actually clapped her hands. “Yay!”

I laughed. She was pretty damn cool, and I was kinda relieved I wasn’t attracted to her. She truly was a handful and too much for me to handle. Hell, I didn’t have the energy for her enthusiasm.

“Fabulous,” she continued. “We’ll be at Wild Oak at eight-ish on Saturday. We should be there for at least an hour before we decide if we’re staying or moving on.”

“Sounds good.” I stood and picked up their empty cups. “You want another?”

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