Page 108 of Big Duke Energy

Good.

Great.

Fuckinggreat.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

ELLIE

Damn It, Kevin

Did he have any idea how annoyed he looked?

I didn’t understand it personally, and I hadn’t even mentioned Fred for any kind of back-handed reason. It’d just passed through my mind, and I’d only said it because I hadn’t replaced my brain-to-mouth filter after writing this afternoon, but it seemed to be bothering him.

I wasn’t going to ask why.

There were no hard feelings about yesterday. I wasn’t lying. I reallydidn’tcare that he’d kissed me, but I didn’t want to start any hard feelings now by pointing out that he was clearly annoyed andwhywas he annoyed?

“He’s a nice guy,” Max said, nodding slowly. “Fred.”

I raised my eyebrows. What was he doing? “He seems to be. He was far nicer than you were the first time we met.”

“He’s far nicer than I am in general,” he grumbled. “I’m sure you’ll get along just fine.”

“And why do you care?”

“I don’t care.”

I folded my arms across my chest and stared at him. “Try again.”

Max ran his fingers through his hair. “What? I don’t care. You’re single. He’s single. You could do worse than Fred.”

“I’m sure I could.”

“You could. He’s a great guy.”

“Mm.”

He eyed me. “What?”

“Nothing.” I picked up my glass and walked through into the living room.

He followed me. “What do you mean, nothing?”

“Nothing. It is what it says on the tin.” I shrugged a shoulder and put my glass on the coffee table, switching it for my phone and checking to see if I had any updates from Kevin. He’d promised to let me know when he was almost here, so I guessed I still had a little time.

“Okay.” Max held his hands up. “As long as we’re good, there’s no awkwardness, and you’ve accepted yet another apology from me, I’ll leave you to it.”

I nodded. “All right. Well, thank you.”

“Right. Have a good evening, then.” Max nodded and walked to the front door.

“You, too.” I looked down at the rug and wrapped my arms around myself, rubbing my hand along my forearm as I left out a slow breath.

This was a mess.

It didn’t matter that he was going. Why did I care? I didn’t care. I had nothing to care about.

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