Page 7 of Luck of the Draw

Thanks for nothing.

As soon as the door latched behind Orson, Connor doubled over in hysterical, thigh-slapping laughter. “Aw, shit.” He sucked in a breath between guffaws. “That was probably the best thing that’s ever happened to me here.”

“I heard that!” came Liza’s voice from the opposite end of the house, a pointed reference to the fact that she and Connor had started out as an office romance on the down-low—that is, after Connor had been an asshole to her for months after she’d arrived from out of town. Which, of course, was the whole reason Brennan and Liza had become as close as they were.

Connor had been a dick and lashed out at her in some sort of twisted, fucked-up defense mechanism.

Liza had cried over that for more than half a year, while also repeatedly threatening to leave New Orleans altogether.

And Brennan—being the bearer of a personality flaw that made him need to save people who were hurting—had come to both of their aid as a matchmaking mediator.

“Second best!” Connor amended. He laughed again and sat on the edge of the desk. “Man, what in the fresh hell did you do?”

Brennan peeled off his jacket and threw it on a chair. “He’s on yet another sanctimonious rampage over my tab at Harrah’s.”

Connor gave a low whistle. “Fuck. How much do you spend there that one of the richest men in New Orleans thinks it’s too expensive?”

“It’s not too expensive.” Brennan sat on one of the desks in the front room across the entryway and crossed one ankle over the other. “He’s just trying to teach me a lesson because he’s all hot right now.” He waved his wrist in a dismissive arc. “He’s going to forget all about this in about two weeks I’d say.”

“Yeah, I don’t know about that.” Connor cupped his hands around his mouth to holler at the other end of the house. “Babe!”

“Yes?” Liza’s voice carried from down the hall.

“Come on back over here and help me find that employee paperwork.”

Brennan pushed off the desk and crossed the room. “You’re not fuckin’ serious, Sarge.”

“Oh, I amsoserious.”

Liza sauntered into the room and attempted to step around Connor toward a file cabinet, but Connor grabbed her by the waist, dipping her, and planting a kiss on her lips.

She smiled sweetly at him and squeezed his arms as he lifted her back up. “You are very distracting.”

Brennan swiftly stepped back across the room to grab his jacket. “Hey, so, yeah, I’m going to go ahead and—”

“Stay right where you are.” Connor pointed at Brennan while his eyes were still glued to Liza’s face. After a pause, he looked at Brennan. “I’m not taking a chance on your old man checking in later and finding out I didn’t keep my word. I catch enough shit from my own dad as it is. Fill out the paperwork.”

Liza pulled a stack of papers out of a file cabinet and brought them to Brennan. She picked up a pen off the desk and handed everything to him. “Don’t fret, B. You know Jimmy doesn’t exactly run a tight ship.”

Brennan exhaled an exasperated sigh, which Liza mimicked, which forced a smile from Brennan.

“You think this is funny, huh, L.?”

She grinned. “I think you’re funny for being so grumpy about it.”

She reached to ruffle his hair, and he batted her hand away, but then he grabbed it at the last second and kissed the back of it.

“Hey!” Connor barked from the opposite side of the room, crumpling a sheet of paper into a ball. “Why the fuck are you kissing my wife?”

Brennan’s heart palpitated. He dropped Liza’s hand and looked at Connor.

Are you in love with her?

Connor had come right out and asked Brennan that on the night he broke the news that he was finally proposing. It had scared the ever-loving hell out of Brennan and left him with worse paranoia than he already had.

I know y’all are super close. I know feelings like that just happen sometimes. I trust you. I just want to know.

That was the other thing he’d said, clearly intending to make the whole conversation less awkward and terrifying, but doing the polar opposite.

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