Page 54 of The Bartender Special

Instead, he took the picture and hung it back on the wall as Benny confirmed his suspicion.

“I was just curious, I guess. About Felicity.” He perched on the edge of the bed and sighed. “I don't really know much about her, and now I feel like she’s going to be a topic I can’t avoid. What's she like? You know, as a human.”

“Tough for both of us, all I know about her is as a werewolf,” he joked.

Benny wasn’t amused.

His face was also losing its unnatural color.

He didn’t even seem to mind that Jack was one flap-opening away from showing off Jack Junior. He genuinely was asking. So, Jack decided to give the same respect as he went for a pair of his jeans.

“She’s fine, I guess. Really work driven, always respectful to the elderly, no road rage. She’s nice when you earn it and even if she’s mad, you wouldn’t know it. Unless she wants you to, that is. She’s good at—what’s that word—masking. I think a bomb could go off next to her and she’d be smiling like it was her wedding day.”

Jack zipped his jeans and internally winced at his last choice of words.

Now that she was about to have one of those, and with Benny’s true love, the joke comparison didn’t exactly feel joke-like.

“She must be more than fine if she still has a place on your wall despite the breakup. Not to mention, you didn’t ask me to fake-date until you found out she was the one who Marcus was marrying.”

Jack felt a flare of defensiveness.

“Me agreeing to the deal wasn’t about her.”

Benny didn’t look convinced.

“Okay, I admit, some of it might be about her, but not because I’m offended that her and Marcus are tying the knot.”

“You want to prove her wrong about the bar.”

Jack had already put a shirt on, but in that moment, with Benny staring, he felt like he was still somehow undressed.

He nodded.

“She said Cassidy’s was a building and one day I’d look around and see that I gave up an actual life to stay there.” He shrugged. “Hell, she might be right but if the bar fails, there’s no way I can deny that she isn’t. I want to try and avoid that, if I can.”

Jack felt the old anger, and hurt, rise a little at his admission.

It was the truth.

He didn’t want to date Felicity.

He wanted to prove her wrong.

Benny, now his normal coloring, sighed.

“I was never one of those people who dreamed about their wedding day, but for some reason, I love helping other people plan theirs. I also love working for myself—being the big boss, I mean. Not having to answer to someone over me or some kind of board I’m forced to listen to. Just people I need to work with to make sure a plan all comes together.” Excitement widened his eyes. He bounced a little as he readjusted to speak with his hands. “You know, I've spent the last few years building contacts and relationships in Nashville that will help me eventually start my own event planning business. One where I have the freedom to do what I love and with the people who love it too. I know it’s not the most important job in the world but—” He shrugged. “It’s just what I love doing. Which is what I’ve been telling my brother and best friend who don’t understand why I’ve been killing myself over a billion little odd jobs for the last few years. Why I don’t do something easier or more stable. But, honestly, I can’t imagine giving up on this.”

He shrugged.

“Sometimes people just don't understand when you love something they don't, especially when it's a job. So, I get it.”

Jack had gone slightly slack-jawed.

He had known a bit about Benny’s job back in Nashville, but he’d never heard the love attached to it.

He’d also never had someone other than Dixon say they understood his choice. Not when it came to Cassidy’s.

Benny, however, didn’t stop there.