She was wearing a dress. A little black number that looked like definite evening attire. Date attire. Not something she would wear to the office doing whatever it was that she did. Except those shoes. She still had on sexy shoes. Black heels with laces that wrapped around her ankles and tied off in a little neat bow. Her legs were still endless, still perfect, in his mind, for wrapping around a man.
Fancy Pants opened the passenger side door for her like a gentleman. Because he was a gentleman. That was the kind of man she would date because that was the kind of man she deserved.
She slid into the car with her face averted, impossible to see in the fading dusk. He still had no view of her face. Still.
North changed his mind. Instead of Joe’s Cabaret, he decided to go to Roscoe’s, his family’s bar, which Knox ran. Knox had offered him a job there when he got out, but he’d declined, feeling the need to distance himself from his brother and the rest of the family.
Two years ago, he had been angry at the world when he was paroled. And wrong or right, a lot of that anger had been directed at Knox. He’d needed time and space from his brother, who had somehow managed to build a pretty nice life for himself. Maybe he still needed that space. Maybe he always would. It was for the best. North had found his own path. He liked his work at the garage and the freelance projects he did on the side. He was his own man. No longer Knox Callaghan’s kid brother. He faced the world alone and stood on his own two feet. Just as he’d had to do in those last four years at the Rock.
He didn’t mind visiting Roscoe’s now and then though. His drinks were on the house. Knox, Aunt Alice and any of the other servers on shift never charged him. Saturday nights were always hopping. Plenty of pretty barflies for him to hook up with for the night.
He was eyeing his choices when Knox started in on him. “Hey, man, what about dinner. Tomorrow night? Briar will cook up something good.”
Of course she would. His brother’s wife was Betty effing Crocker. North was on his second beer, eyeing a petite blonde dressed in a micromini denim skirt that alerted the world she was wearing a pink G-string—the polar opposite of his uptight neighbor, and that was a good thing. He didn’t need to think about Faith Walters with her nice clothes out on her date. Maybe Fancy Pants would take her back to his place and they would have polite, nice-people sex. Lights off, missionary-style, quiet and civilized, those long legs of hers probably flat on the bed, neglected and unappreciated.
“Hey. Earth to North?”
North grunted, watching as the blonde lifted the bottle to her lips. Instead of drinking from it like a normal person, she played with the mouth of the bottle, circling it with her tongue as she stared at North. It didn’t particularly do anything for him except convey that she was DTF.
“Oh. I see you’ve spotted Mindy. She’s been a regular here since her divorce last year. She’s steadily working her way through the regulars. Loves the hardcore bikers. Looks like she’s taken a shine to you tonight, brother.”
North took a deep swig of his beer, staring at the girl on the other side of the bar who was nothing like Faith. Faith, who was on a date. He wondered where Fancy Pants took her. He snorted. Why should he care how his stick-up-her-ass neighbor spent her nights? He was spending his exactly how he preferred.
The blonde made eye contact with him and nodded for the door. Invitation sent. He nodded back. Invitation accepted.
He started to get up, but Knox stalled him, dropping a hand on his arm. “You can do better than this.”
And by this, he knew his brother wasn’t simply talking about the girl. She was just part of it. Another anonymous woman for him to lose himself in for a night.
Knox continued into the silence, “When is it going to stop, North? You’re thirty-two. You gonna be one of those tired old men who comes to the bar and drinks himself past pain every night? You won’t be young forever. There will come a time when hooking up won’t be so easy and you’ll really be alone.”
“I’m alone now,” he returned, his voice empty, without inflection, as he held his brother’s gaze across the bar top. A bright Budweiser light from behind the bar haloed his brother in red.
“By choice,” Knox shot back. “You don’t have to be.”
“Don’t try to make me into something I’m not. I’m not you. I’m not going to find some nice girl that’s gonna make me forget everything. I can’t do that.” Couldn’t forget even if he wanted to.
Knox stared at him a long moment, looking helpless and not a little guilty, and North regretted that. He didn’t want his brother to feel guilty. North wasn’t his brother’s responsibility.
He shrugged his arm out from beneath his brother’s hand. He jerked his head toward the door. “She’s waiting.”
“We’ll see you for dinner tomorrow?” he called, the hope still there, hanging in his voice.
North looked back. His brother’s gaze searched his own, looking for something. Something that wasn’t there. Not anymore.
“Sure,” he agreed, not sure if he meant it or not, but it was easier to agree at the moment.