He breathed through his clenched teeth after his first sip of caffeinated mud. “Had to take care ofsomeshit.”
I got up and kissed my dad’s cheek. “I gotta get ready to open the bar. Is Holt going in for themorningshit?”
Abel shook his head. “Honey, I need you to cover Holt’s workload today atthebar.”
Crickett glanced over at him. “As long as the four of us have fucking family dinner together like youpromised.”
“I can make thathappen.”
Crickett started to follow me up the stairs to get ready to go in with me. “There better be a damn good reason why I have to work on mydayoff.”
I started to walk into my room. “Hopefully it’s not tooserious.”
Sympathetic eyes landed on me. “If there was something wrong, your father would havetoldus.”
I nodded, gripping the doorframe. “Yeah, you’reright.”
Shutting the door to my room, a sigh of relief finally came when Ryder’s name flashed across my screen withatext.
Ryder: Good morninggorgeous.
Me: Hey babe. Longnight?
Ryder: Not too bad, a late one but nothing tooeventful.
Me: All right then. I’m getting ready for my morning shift. See youlater?
Ryder: You’ll see me soon. I need a cold one to put a little pep inmystep.
Me: Okay. See youshortlythen.
Ryder
Ihadno idea if seeing Raine while my thoughts were all jacked up from the night before was a good idea or not, I just needed to be close to her. An uncontrollable desire to just be in her presence was all consuming in thatmoment.
Crickett was stacking glasses behind the bar while Raine wiped off the liquor bottles and put them down into herspeedwell.
“Hey ladies.” I took my seat right in front ofRaine.
Crickett took one look at me and shook her head. “You look like hell,Ryder.”
“Huh, gee, thanks.” I took the beer from Raine as she stared at mysunkeneyes.
“Didn’t sleep well,didyou?”
The concern on her face broke my heart. “Just tossed and turned a bit, ain’t nothing,babe.”
After a few long swigs of my beer, I started to relax a bit. Right at noon, Raine hit the open sign and took a seat next to me, waiting for her real first customer of theshift.
“So, can you tell me what really happened last night?” she asked in her honey-coated voice, right in my ear before kissing mycheek.
I sucked in my lips while shakingmyhead.
She huffed and shifted on her stool. “I figured. Can’t blame a girl fortrying.”
I forced a smile. “You got methere.”
Crickett came from the back office with a look of satisfaction shining bright on her face. “All right you two, get the fuck outofhere.”