Page 6 of Destined Predator
“How very true,” said a voice at Rhett’s elbow, and he turned to see his date, Greg Manning. “When I think of Britton, I think of Bard’s, from the neon sign of the bucking cowboy out front to the mechanical bull in the back.”
“Good to know.” Bard clammed up a little as townsfolk did around the ‘stranger’—Greg wasn’t from Britton, or Fallon County or even Wyoming.
“Hi there.” Rhett had to stop himself clapping Greg on the shoulder and shaking his hand. Maybe because he was the manager of the local supermarket? Or because he didn’t know how to greet another guy he was meeting for a date? Truth was, Rhett didn’t know how men dated men. He’d mastered the polite dance with women—hold doors, compliment hair, pretend not to notice the way he kept one hand on the table to stop himself fidgeting. With Greg, every gesture felt borrowed from a book he’d never read. Greg’s hair gleamed blond in the lights around the bar, and Rhett caught himself wishing it was darker…and longer and messier, wavy and rumpled.Where the hell did that come from?He gave himself a mental shake, then noticed the glass of drink in Greg’s hand. “Am I late?”
“No, I’m stupidly early.” Greg drained the glass, leading Rhett to suppose it was pop and not whiskey and Coke. “I’m trying to smash the laid-back California stereotype, you know?”
Rhett grinned along with him.
“Usual?” Bard inquired.
“Sure,” Rhett answered. “Greg?”
“Sounds good to me.” Greg placed his glass on the counter. He raised an eyebrow when Bard poured two drafts, and Cindy called an order through to the kitchen.
“Yeah, my usual is beer and a plate of red-hot buffalo wings,” Rhett admitted.
“That all, for a hard-working rancher?” Greg added a loud tsk-tsk noise to show he was joking.
“While I’m considering what to have next, yeah.” Was this going well or badly? Rhett had no idea. Wanting to be polite, he used his foot to nudge two bar stools out from under the counter, one for him and one for Greg.
Cindy, who was listening in, refilling far from empty bowls of beer nuts in their vicinity, looked up at the pause.
“Hmm.” Greg turned from her to Rhett. “Well, how about we add a basket of fries to that, go find a booth and…study the menu together?”
Beer in hand, he led the way, making Rhett glad he too carried a beer, else he’d have face-palmed at his cluelessness in expecting them to take seats at the bar. He’d been on dates before, some of them here, for Christ’s sake! His last date had been in here, if he recalled correctly, with—
“Hey, Rhett!” Charlie Olsen stood to greet him. “Long time. Here with Olivia?”
Withher, yep.“We split,” he explained as shortly as he could. “She left town.”
“Shame.” Charlie shook his head, sorrow heavy on his brow for at least a few seconds. “Catch ya for pool?”
“I’m…” Rhett raised his chin at Greg’s back view, then his shoulder in a half-shrug and followed his date to the booth he’dchosen. Rhett slid in and set his beer down, wondering if Greg had heard that little exchange.
“Olivia?” Greg asked, folding his arms.
Ah.“We, well—”
“Split. I heard, yes.” Greg loosened one arm to take a drink of his beer. “So you’re…”
“New at this, yeah.” Rhett moved his finger between himself and Greg, to explain.
“Hmm. That’s got to be difficult.”
Oh, it is.Rhett and Jack had met Greg in the supermarket he managed, and Jack had met Ben at the same time. Maybe Rhett had thought some of that would rub off on him? He’d made an effort and gone back to the store and asked to see the manager, just to say howdy…and ask him out. To Bard’s, the first place he’d thought of.
Should I have putmorethought in? Chosen somewhere better?“I remember seeing Marky in here,” he commented, then cursed himself. Greg’s cousin Mark had been killed.In a fucking bar fight, for God’s sake.Greg had come out to Britton to help his uncle and aunt manage, after Mark’s death, then taken over their place when they’d decided to pack up and go live in Florida.
Rhett didn’t think he’d ever been so glad to see anyone as he was to see Cindy just then, depositing two plates of wings and a basket of fries in the middle of their round table. She also placed two more beers down.
“On the house,” she announced, and Rhett was just relieved she didn’t add a wink. “Made up your minds yet? Feel like something meaty, hot and juicy? Burgers, I mean! Y’all can go classic or deluxe.”
“What’s the difference?” Greg asked.
“Four more ounces of meat, where it counts,” Cindy drawled. “You feel me?” She pulled her pencil from behind her ear. “For when you could eat the north end of a skunk movin’ south.”
“I’m happy with a classic,” Rhett burst out.
