Page 20 of From Best Friend to Bride
Judging by the look on my sister’s face at the other end of the bar, she shared the sentiment as me.
“How do you know all that?” Danny asked.
Fred leant on the bar, grinning. “We grew up together.”
“Lilies over roses, pizza over curry,” Danny muttered. “All right.”
“Your receipt.” I shoved the slip of paper in front of him and turned to Fred with my best customer service smile. “You must have mistaken me for someone else, sir. I don’t recognise you at all.”
“That’s a shame.” Fred’s blue eyes twinkled. “You hold a remarkable resemblance to my childhood best friend, but your personality is far kinder than hers. She’d never call me ‘sir.’”
You bastard.
“I must be her doppelganger. What can I get for you? I must say, you look like a fruity cocktail guy.”
Danny hesitated for a moment before picking up the pints I’d poured and taking his leave.
Thank God.
I glanced at him and, after seeing his back was to me, gripped one of the tap handles and leant towards Fred, grabbing his collar. “What’s wrong with you?”
My redheaded friend grinned. “I was helping.”
“We have vastly different definitions of the word ‘help.’” I dropped my hand, shoving him away.
“Absolutely nothing you said there was right,” Lucy said, scooting across the empty bar stools to join the conversation. “Do you call that helping?”
“I do.” Jess gathered empty glasses at the end of the bar and sidled up to me, resting her arm across my shoulders. “Between us,” she whispered, leaning across the bar towards Fred. “He’s a little…enthusiastic… in his pursuit of our Delilah.”
Our Delilah?
I didn’t know I was community property.
I didn’t know that I was property at all, for what it was worth.
“Is that so?” Fred’s gaze flickered over towards Danny’s table, and the hint of annoyance that sparked in his eyes sent a shiver down my spine. “Are you interested in him?”
I pulled his usual pint and set it down in front of him. “It’s none of your business.”
“I disagree. It’s very much my business. After all, I did ask you to marry me yesterday.”
A loud smash made me flinch, and I turned to see Jess staring at me with a glass shattered at her feet.
“Now look what you did!” I grabbed a paper straw from the pot and leant over the bar, feebly poking Fred in the cheek with it. “Why can’t you ever keep your mouth shut?”
“You proposed to my sister? Why?” Lucy cocked her head to the side and peered at him.
“He was day drinking. Terrible habit,” I said, still jabbing the straw in his cheek. “Jess, are you cleaning up that glass?”
“Shit, sorry.” She jerked and grabbed the dustpan and brush from its hidey-hole under the bar. “That just wasn’t on my bingo card to hear today.”
Did she think it’d ever been on mine?
“Yes, well, pretend youdidn’thear that.”
“Will you stop that?” Fred snatched the straw away from me, then propped his chin on his hand, staring at me. “Don’t act as if you aren’t seriously considering my offer.”
“Will youshut up?” I hissed and glared at him. “Before I kick your stupid ginger arse out of my bar.”
