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“Hell if I know. Relationships aren’t my strong suit.”
“Don’t look at me,” Jack mumbled.
I glanced at my brother. “No one serious?”
“Honestly, I’m just not interested in anyone. Rick got me out on a few double dates—oh, sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. He’s your best friend.”
“Just—well, he’s not seeing anyone seriously, either.”
“I don’t care.” Secretly, I was pleased. Then I told myself not to be happy.
Sergeant Rick Devlin. We were oil and water, fire and ice, all those clichés that basically meant that even though make-up sex between us was the best thing on earth—the kind of sex where fireworks went off and the angels sang—fighting was exhausting. We were two stubborn people set in our ways, neither wanting to give an inch.
Sometimes, I missed him.
“Anyway,” Jack said, “I didn’t like dating before I got married, and I like it less now. I even tried one of the dating apps.”
I laughed; I couldn’t help it. “You? Of all people, I can’t imagine you on Tinder.”
“Bite your tongue. Some other app, I don’t even remember the name, but I deleted it. Went out on half a dozen dates in as many weeks and it was literally hell.” He stared at his beer and I felt for him. “I loved Whitney. Even three years later, I can’t just turn it off. I don’t love her in the same way, not after everything, but she’s the mother of my son.”
I didn’t like Whitney. Never had, even before they got married. It wasn’t my place to tell him I didn’t think she was good enough. At least Jack now has an amazing, fun-loving son. But with the son came his mother.
Whitney was selfish, demanding, and manipulative. She got them so deep into debt that Jack cashed out his Phoenix PD retirement to pay it off, then ended up paying penalties because he pulled money out early. Whitney left him when he told her not to take out any more credit. She refused marital counseling and demanded a divorce.
There was a lot of other shit that went down, but in the end, when the divorce was final, Jack came over to my place and we got drunk. He cried. I’d never seen Jack cry, not like that. It was humbling, and I wished I could take his pain away. I hated seeing my big brother so broken. But after, we were good. And once some time had passed, Jack put the pieces back together and found peace.
“You should call Rick,” Jack said after several minutes of silence as we watched the room.
Fortunately, Logan Monroe walked in, so I didn’t have to answer.
Logan glanced at his watch, then looked toward the bar. We were sitting in a corner booth near the entrance, both to be inconspicuous and because it was the best place to see most of the room. The dark lighting helped obscure us in case he looked too carefully, but he didn’t even glance our way.
We’d already scoped out the place and identified three lone females. Jack had voted for the redhead; I thought the brunette with long hair in the corner drinking red wine because she looked classy and smart. And while the redhead was beautiful, she seemed...harder. Neither of us picked the cute short-haired brunette with multiple tattoos.
Logan raised his hand to the woman at the bar.
“He’s meeting the redhead,” Jack said.
“You were right.”
“Can I get that in writing?” He grinned.
Jack won; I was paying for the beers.
Logan was dressed in what I called his business-casual look—comfortable slacks, a short-sleeved button-down shirt with a small repeating pattern. This one white with navy pinstripes. He must have dozens of the same style, just different colors and patterns.
I couldn’t tell, based on his attire, whether this was a business meeting or a personal meeting. I had my phone out and discretely took pictures of both of them, then zoomed in on the woman.
The woman wasn’t dressed for a business meeting. She wore a short royal blue dress that barely covered her slender well-shaped butt, with thin straps made of fake diamonds—this was Scottsdale, they could be real, but the dress didn’t look upscale enough to include real diamonds. If I tried to walk in her heels, I’d break my neck.
The woman touched Logan; his arm, his hand. He didn’t touch her. He pulled his hand back, and then seemed relieved when the bartender put a tall drink in front of him. It looked like a Coke with lime. Could have rum or bourbon in it, I supposed.
“He’s not drinking,” Jack said as if reading my mind. “I watched the bartender.”
The woman was drinking white wine. She rose, motioned to a table, said something that my above-average lip-reading skills translated to, “Let’s go over there.”
