Bringing Home the Bad Boy (Second Chance #1)(17)

Asher folded his lanky body into the chair next to Evan. “Yeah. Seriously though, you and Lyon should come out with me. Maybe invite your sexy neighbor.”

Evan iced Ash with a glare and straightened from his lean. The hand that’d been casually resting on the wooden arm of the chair curled around it in warning.

It was a warning Asher didn’t heed. “Gloria told me she met her.” Contented to throw kerosene on the brush fire, he pursed his lips and slowly mimed an hourglass figure.

Evan’s blood pressure skyrocketed at the idea of Ash sniffing around Charlie. Teeth clenched so hard he swore he heard a filling crack, he growled, “Charlie’s off the table.”

Unfazed, Ash stoked the flames. “Don’t want her on the table, Ev. Want her in my bed.”

He pushed himself to standing and Asher rose, put up both fists, bounced on the balls of his feet, and grinned.

Evan continued advancing. “I’m not kidding.” He wasn’t sure he’d hit his friend, but pushed, he might.

“Bring it, bro.” Asher’s fists rose higher. “Déjà vu all over again.”

Evan stopped walking. He knew exactly what his buddy referred to.

Ash lowered his fists, his grin fading slightly. “The summer you met Rae. You got that same gleam in your eye when Donny and I agreed she was hot.”

He remembered. Rae Lynn Mosley had stepped onto that beach and into his life, a towel rolled under one arm and a huge floppy hat hiding her curls. He’d been so distracted by her that Donny had gotten him into a headlock and dragged him underwater. When he sputtered to the surface, Ash had joked he was going to go flirt with her and Evan had dunked him.

“You nearly drowned me,” Asher reminded him now.

Hell yeah he did. A small smile found his face, then faded as a new memory cozied up behind the old one.

“Charlie was there that day,” Evan said aloud. “Next to Rae.” She’d been there other days, too. Year after year. Off to the side the entire time.

“Donny and I stayed away from her, too. You staked your claim in a pretty wide arc back then.”

In an instant, Evan was completely gone for Rae. It’d taken him two more summers skirting around her to finally ask for her phone number. It took him two more to use it and call her. To him, at the time, Rae Lynn had been this unattainable beauty. A fantasy mirage he only caught glimpses of one week out of every summer. When he finally got her, he couldn’t believe it. When he lost her, he couldn’t believe that more.

“Some things never change,” Ash said, lifting his fists again. “You go soft, Downey? Or you gonna fight me for Charlie?”

Evan was being baited, and he’d be damned if he’d give into his half-wit friend and fight him over something that wasn’t gonna happen. He dropped his guard, crossing his arms over his chest instead. “You wouldn’t have a prayer with her.”

“True story.” Asher was quiet for a moment, then his fists dropped again, and his expression turned somewhat serious. “Sucks she’s not here.”

“Charlie?”

“Rae.”

Evan nodded his agreement as he walked past Asher, planks on the wooden porch creaking underfoot. Maybe not as half-witted as Evan had thought, because his buddy was right. It did suck she wasn’t here.

“Where you headed?”

“Got shit to do,” Evan answered, stepping off the porch into the gravel and dirt making up the worn driveway. “And hey, keep it in your pants. Glo doesn’t want any bad press while you’re here.”

Ash waved a hand. “There’s no such thing as bad press.”

Evan had heard that a time or three. When he was halfway around the house, Asher called out, “Tell Charlie I say hi.”

Evan lifted his middle finger in the air without turning. Asher responded with a hearty laugh. He should have hit him after all, he thought with a smile.

The *.


*


Faith lined up three bottles on the kitchen counter and described each one with so much detail, Charlie’s head spun.

“Which one?” Faith prompted.

Sofie, thankfully, seemed to have grasped onto more description than Charlie because she said, “The one with the cherry-chocolate finish.”

Faith lifted the bottle in the middle, the label a sepia tone with a cartoon cat, its tail wrapped around a wineglass. Her slim brows rose in question.

“Sounds great.” Not that Charlie’s palate was all that refined. Three-dollar wine? Thirty-dollar wine? Couldn’t tell the difference.

Wineglasses in hand, the girls went to the back deck. The sky had grown dark, and to keep bugs away, Charlie lit the citronella candles lined along her porch railing. She’d set the round glass table with dainty plates and cloth napkins, and dressed the four wicker chairs in cornflower-and-white seat cushions. Three flavors of hummus and a pile of blue corn chips sat in the center of the table and a plate of gourmet chocolates shaped like seashells and filled with white cream sat off to the side. Sofie dove into the chips.

“I love your house.” Faith reached for a piece of chocolate. “Beats apartment living.”

“No kidding. I’d love a place near the water. Or at least away from my neighbors,” Sofie agreed. “They’re so close. I hear everything they’re doing.” She hoisted an eyebrow. “And the couple in 2B”—she shuddered—“you do not want to know what they’re doing.”