Page 82 of New River Gorge(ous)
“That’s awesome. Connor’s a good dude. I wonder if he’d like to do some dad bod training with me.”
“Uh. Matt, isn’t dad bodnotthe kind of training you do?” Brooke asks.
“Exactly,” Matt says. “Dads don’t have to buy into the message that they don’t have time for themselves just because they’ve got a baby.”
“Who are these people, exactly?” Melanie interjects as she hops out of the truck.
“We worked with them at a summer camp a few years back,” Matt supplies. “Connor’s a good guy, and I’m happy they finally got together.”
“We were both at their wedding,” Brooke adds. “Matt got to seat all the little old ladies and collected butterscotch candies.”
“Uh … okay.” Melanie quirks a brow. “Youlikebutterscotch candies?”
“It was a different time in my life, Mel,” Matt says, shooting Brooke a stern look over the top of Melanie’s head.
The telepathic twin communication has me wondering what more to the story there is, but Brooke clears that up.
“Matt had a crush on Paige when we started working there.”
Matt’s scowl tells me Brooke knew exactly what she was doing by lobbing that nugget of information into Melanie’s ears.
“Yeah, well, that went away when it became obvious she only had eyes for Connor.” Matt’s eyes narrow at Brooke for a half second before he grins mischievously. “And I’m pretty sure Brooke had a crush on Connor too.”
I tip my head to the side and study Brooke. She glares at her brother and shrugs. “Yeah, he’s nice and attractive. But like you said, he was meant for Paige, and she was meant for him, so that went away real fast.”
That makes sense. I’ve met Connor. He’s a nice guy. Very,verytall, and he uses more words than I do, and I suppose he’s objectively handsome, but something about Brooke and him doesn’t seem right. That crush would have been one-sided andnothave worked. Like pickles and gummy worms—delicious on their own, but not something you put together. These thoughts are weird, but I’m willing to let them go.
Tired of thinking about Brooke’s crush on another man, I turn to her, catch her hand, and smile. While she may have had a crush on Connor, I’m the one who’s dancing with her tonight.
45
Brooke
Beck leads me into Billy’s, where a large man in a black T-shirt accepts a crisp twenty from Beck’s wallet.
“You taking these tourists in?” the man asks in a gruff voice.
“Yep,” Beck says, and while he’s not unkind, there’s an edge to his tone.
“You know the rules?”
“Yep.”
“Any trouble and—”
“I’m aware,” Beck cuts in, the irritation in his voice biting.
“Fine,” the man in black says, but as we pass into the dim bar, his eyes linger a little too long on me, Matt, and Melanie.
To my surprise, Beck doesn’t stop in the bar. He takes us across the floor and to a back door with a huge “EMERGENCY EXIT” sign. The door is beat up and partially propped open by a rock. When we shimmy through the crack in the door, my breath is taken away.
Edison lights are strung between poles overhead. A wood plank dance floor shines under them. There’s a band of folkartists playing to the side of the dance floor, and the dance floor is packed with men and women of all ages dancing.
Long tables with giant bowls of punch are set against the back of the building, and buckets of ice with bottles and cans of drinks are on tall tables. People mill about everywhere. The men are all wearing various shades of plaid and blue jeans, while the women wear everything from jeans to tiny shorts with heeled cowboy boots and dresses.
“Ok,” Beck says to Matt. “You guys go have fun and dance, but don’t cause any trouble. And Matt, if someone wants to dance with Melanie, you let them have one line dance.”
That seems weird.
