Page 18 of Until Joy

He pulled back his stick, then let ‘er rip.

Yep, it missed the pocket by a mile.

“Motherfucker!”

“My turn,” I smiled.

I walked up to the table, bent over, and easily sank the eight ball.

“Game over. Forty dollars to Graham. Let’s hope he has as much luck convincing Joy to go out with him a second time,” Wes cackled.

Great.

Now I was the one feeling the pressure.

“Look at him,” Z started laughing. “I think I see sweat on his forehead.”

“Come on, man, let’s get you a beer.”

I collected my forty dollars and followed my friends to the bar. We all got our beers and settled down at one of the tables.

“Damn, I’ve been enjoying the peace and quiet,” Z said as he stretched his long legs out in front of him.

He was right about that. After all the mayhem that had gone on with all the different women associated with the Broken Eagles, it was nice that everything had settled down. “You can say that again. There was a time there, I forgot what normal felt like.” I tipped my beer in his direction.

“I don’t know, man,” Wes said. “Seems to me where there’s a boom, there’s always some drama.”

“This boom stuff still sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me.”

Both Wes and Z laughed.

“Brother,” Z said, wiping his eyes, “you’ve been talking about this woman’s baking skills for a month.”

“Three weeks!”

“Whatever.” Z smirked. You know her work schedule better than your own. And yesterday you asked me to ask Kayan what kind of ice cream she liked.”

“That doesn’t mean⁠—”

“You’re so far gone, you can’t even see it,” Wes interrupted. “But hey, if you want to keep telling yourself this is all easy and drama-free, be my guest. Just remember, pride goeth before the fall and all that shit.”

I drained my beer and stood up. “You two are just jealous that I found a sweet, mild-mannered woman who doesn’t come with a target on her back.”

As I headed to the bar for another round, I heard Z call out behind me, “We’ll see about that, Romeo.”

I flipped him off without turning around, but I was smiling. Let them tease me all they wanted. I knew what I had with Joy. Simple, sweet, and blissfully uncomplicated.

Chapter 5

I slapped so hard at my phone’s alarm, it dropped to the floor and kept playing ‘I Want To Do It All’. It was supposed to get my ass moving in the morning; instead, it was pissing me off. I’d seen Graham bare-chested and sweaty three times while he’d been painting the house Sunflower Yellow, and since then my dreams had been beyond delicious. I’m talking strawberry-gelato delicious. We had just gotten to the part where my top and bra were off, and he was pulling me against that hot, sweaty chest and I was about ready to explode.

But no… Teri Clarke had to freakin’ interrupt me! Telling me to do it all. Well, what did she think I’d been doing? I had been getting ready to do it all, for fuck’s sake!

I shut off the incessant singing and hauled my happy ass out of bed. I could already tell it was going to be one of those hot and humid days that only Tennessee could deliver. Right now, it was livable with the windows open, but come one o’clock, I’d be a sweaty mess, so it was definitely a double deodorant day.

I’d set my alarm earlier than normal because I wanted to make a special treat for Graham and give it to him when he picked me up for lunch today. It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal, going out to lunch. I mean, we’d had lunch together at least nine times.

Not a big deal at all.