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I blot my eyes, swallowing past the dryness in my throat and trying not to appear in distress. “I just confronted my mom.”
“Before you came here?” Ruby asks.
I nod.
The door opens and a filter of light streams into the dark bar. I quickly wipe my eyes.
“Landry,” Ruby says, “I kidnapped your girl, and she’s going to buy my bar.”
I don’t turn around to look, but I hear him walk across the room.
“Buy the bar, huh?” He doesn’t take the stool next to me but stands beside me.
“Ruby is trying to persuade me.”
“It takes a tough woman to kick out all these girls fluttering their eyelashes at the guys who live here.” Ruby finishes her coffee and takes her cup back to the coffeepot. “Coffee?” she asks Rowan.
“Nah. Sorry, Ruby, we have somewhere to be.” He holds out his hand for me, and I swivel on my stool to face him. Rowan is dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, hair still a bit sweaty. “Unless you want to stay here while I shower.”
His tongue runs across his bottom lip, and I squirm.
“Just go get it on. I don’t need to hear your weird foreplay.” Ruby shoos us with her hand, never turning around.
“Thank you, Ruby. How?—”
“Go. It was nice meeting you. Let me know when you want to buy the bar.”
Rowan shakes his head as I climb down from the stool.
“You’ll be the first one to know,” I say with humor.
We say our goodbye and walk out of Peeper’s Alley to the street as a car pulls up curbside. A man gets out with a drink carrier holding two iced drinks. Rowan walks over and thanks the man before walking back over to the gate and typing in the security code.
“What are those?” I ask once we’re secure behind the gate.
“These?” He holds them up.
“Yeah.”
“Iced coffees.”
“Two of them?”
“They’re my favorite.” He smirks, and we climb the stairs.
“Is one of them mine?”
We reach his door, and he presses in his other security code. “I’m undecided because I was told not to do anything nice for you.”
“Did Rowan Landry order me an iced coffee?”
He pushes the door open with his foot and holds it open for me to walk through first.
“No.” He takes an iced coffee out of the holder. “Rowan bought you an iced coffee.”
My stomach does a somersault. I should probably stop using his first and last name like he’s some icon I’m sleeping with. I wish I was confident enough not to wonder out of all the women he’s had, why does he seem to keep wanting me?
“Thank you, Rowan,” I say, accepting the straw he’s offering. “I’ll let the gesture slide this one time.”
