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Or both.
“You have a new admirer, big guy.” Lucy’s eyes cut to the end of the bar, a curious furrow forming along her brow. “Might be careful, though. This one looks like a biter.”
Something hot slithers up my spine at Lucy’s words, as if my body knows who will be there before I turn around. My gaze finds her instantly, my worst nightmare and only dream.
“Viper?” The decades-old nickname is barely more than a whisper because fucking Hell. Charity Lawson is here, in Forest Falls, in Peaks fucking Sports Bar, staring at me with an all-knowing smirk on her gorgeous face. Soft, honey-brown eyes narrow as she sweeps dark hair over one shoulder. It’s still jet-black and pin-straight, but it’s much longer than the last time I saw her in person, and my mind instantly fills with visions of her hair wrapped around my fist.
What the Hell is she doing here?
TWO
WHISKEY NEAT
CHARITY
I pass the exit a third time, my hands physically unwilling to turn the wheel toward the Estate on the edge of Forest Falls. My mother will be fussy and overbearing, begging to know all the details and then not-so-subtly pointing out everything I should have done differently. My father won’t be able to stop himself from saying, “I told you so.” Then he’ll offer me money as if that will make everything better.
It’s too much to deal with after twenty-eight hours in the car. I’ve not slept, barely eaten, and I just want a fucking drink.
As if the Universe hears my plea, my eyes fall on a familiar-looking hole in the wall. Slowing to a stop, I peer up at the neon blue sign. Peaks was a pool hall when I lived here, and not the kind you’d want to be caught dead in, but the sign now proudly claims it to be a sports bar.
I lap the building twice before finding a spot just around the corner from the entrance. The moment the car is in park, my head tips back, a deep sigh escaping from my lips.
Another breakup.
Another idiot man I let get too close without adequately vetting him. At least I didn’t tell him anything about my past this time. I don’t know what I would have done if the psycho knew about Forest Falls. I wouldn’t have had anywhere to go. Not that Forest Falls is high on my list of places I’d go, given the choice, but there wasn’t a choice this time.
The late March air is freezing against my exposed arms and legs as I dart from the car, slipping into the packed bar with a sigh. It only takes one look around the room for my eyebrows to rise to my hairline. Peaks’ customer base appears to be primarily women these days. Comforted by the thought that I won’t have to avoid any unwanted advances by drunken idiots, I slip through the crowd toward the old wooden bar at the back of the room.
Ten paces from the door, my eyes catch the bartender, stopping me dead in my tracks. Broad shoulders taper to lean hips and an ass I can see from across the room, despite him standing behind a bar that would be waist-high on anyone else. He turns to the side, speaking to a tiny woman on a ladder, and I see his buzzcut is offset by a full beard and straight nose. If memory serves, the eyes currently hidden beneath his strong brow are a vivid shade of blue.
I’m no longer surprised this place is packed with women. It’s been almost twenty years since I last set eyes on Theodore Grady, but those years have been unreasonably kind to him. My lip grinds between my front teeth as I take stock of my current outfit. I ran out of the apartment in my gallery dress but stopped at a mall halfway between New York and Forest Falls to get clothes and toiletries. I decided to wear the most comfortable outfit I found for the remainder of the drive—a distressed Flogging Molly t-shirt dress and the worn-out black Doc Martens I was ecstatic to find in my trunk. Now I’m wondering if I shouldn’t try to sneak back to the car and change into something sexier.
The thought is immediately banished from my mind. I am not here to flirt with Theodore Dickbag Grady. I’m here for whiskey and lots of it.
Unfortunately, my traitorous eyes don’t get the message as I move toward an empty stool at the end of the bar. I can’t seem to pull my focus from the way the muscles move under his too-tight t-shirt. He’s always been big, but he’s next-level enormous now, standing an entire foot taller than anyone else in the bar. A frown pulls at my lips when he reaches to help the woman off the ladder. She smiles up at him in a way that makes my chest tighten, realization dawning in my mind and shattering the dream of mind-blowing sex with the mountain of a man.
He’s taken. Of course, he’s taken. But it doesn’t matter that he’s taken because I’m supposed to be getting over a breakup, not getting into someone else’s bed, I remind myself with a shake of my head.
I bet it’s a big bed, though. It would have to be to fit a man like Theodore Grady.
My ass has barely touched the seat when the shoulders I can’t seem to stop drooling over straighten suddenly. Time slows as Theo turns in my direction, sky-blue eyes settling on me as if he knew I would be sitting there.
“Viper?”
The word doesn’t carry over the general noise of the crowd, but I see it form on his lips. Without thought, my hand drops to my right thigh, tracing the inky black snake hidden there.
It was my first tattoo, and I often call it a drunken mistake, but I know better. I was homesick and wanted to have a piece of Forest Falls with me. So I got the only piece of Forest Falls that I ever enjoyed inked into my skin.
And now that piece of Forest Falls is moving toward me, a virtual stranger after all this time. More than one person tries to flag him down, but the tiny blonde woman cuts them all off, snatching bills from their outstretched hands with ruthless efficiency. Theo doesn’t stop until the only thing separating us is two feet of sticky bartop. He’s close enough that I all but snap my neck in half to look up at him.
“Dickbag.”
“Viper,” he repeats the nickname, his voice like gravel around the word. Fuck, if that doesn’t send shivers up my spine. I wait for him to say something else, wanting more than anything to hear him speak again, but he just stands there staring at me like he can’t believe what he’s seeing.
“You gonna get me a drink?”
