Heat Stroke (Beach Kingdom, #2)(5)

Andrew eyeballed him while counting out singles. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed your favorite song is the other one that keeps playing.”

“Weird coincidence.”

“Sure.” His brother elbowed the register shut and left to return change to the customer, before lining up a row of tequila shots for another group. Jamie could feel Marcus watching him over the next half hour as he poured endless pints and so much vodka, any minute now the customers were going to start speaking in Russian. Rory returned from his dinner break in the bar’s back office, Olive stumbling out behind him with a dazed expression. He picked her up by the waist and sat her down in a stool at the end of the bar, sliding a Coke in front of her. Jamie shook his head as Rory approached, his brother unable to stop glancing back at his girlfriend with each step like she might have disappeared.

“How was your dinner break?” Jamie asked dryly. “Did you actually manage to eat?”

Rory plowed a hand through his hair and winked at Jamie. “Oh, I ate.”

“Christ.”

His younger brother laughed. “Not exactly the sexiest soundtrack, but I worked with what I had.” Rory nodded at a customer and started filling the order, hitting the ground running as if he’d never taken a break. That was bartending. Like riding a bike. “What’s with the Buckley/Britney mashup?”

“How would I know?”

Rory snorted. “Give it up, man. The same two songs playing on a loop? This is the kind of puzzle that you’re usually determined to solve.”

Jamie pulled the handle on the Guinness and started building a line of pints of the inky black beer. “Why don’t you worry about the lecture Andrew is going to give you for hooking up in the break room?”

“It’s not hooking up. It’s Olive.” He shook his head on a laugh. “If it was just hooking up, I wouldn’t have to stop myself from proposing nine times a day.”

That was news to Jamie—and hell if his cynical heart didn’t twitch a little hearing it.

“Someday you will,” Jamie said, nodding briskly. “And she’ll say yes.”

“Yeah.” Rory scratched his chin, looking kind of bemused. “I think she might.”

“And you’ll beg me to be your best man and I’ll drag it out, saying ‘I don’t know, I’ll think about it,’” Jamie drawled. “Even though we both know I look the best in a suit and wouldn’t deprive anyone of seeing me in one.”

Rory’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he laughed. And in the distance, Jamie could see Olive melting into a blonde puddle while watching Rory laugh. Oh yeah. She’d say yes.

Jamie assessed his brother, taking note of how well rested he looked. How light. And God, he loved seeing Rory happy. When Olive showed up in the beginning of the summer, by way of Oklahoma, Jamie had been worried. Rory projected a tough image to the world—or Long Beach, as it were—and his prison record only bolstered the notion that he was bad news.

What the judgmental bastards didn’t know?

It was Jamie’s stupidity that had put his younger brother behind bars.

A memory of what happened on the beach six years ago caught Jamie off guard and the glass slipped out of his hands, clattering on the brass drain beneath the beer spouts. The sensation of gasping for air, the laughter…it all welled up in his throat and ears until it drowned out the riot of voices in the Castle Gate. If the hands holding him underwater would just let him get a full breath—

“Hey.” Rory elbowed him, concern creasing his brow. “You all right?”

The present rushed back in like a slap to the face. “Yeah,” Jamie managed, righting the glass and continuing the pour. “Sorry. I’m great.”

But Rory was perceptive. He’d been there that evening on the beach and it had changed both of their lives. A few weeks ago, Rory had run into the man who’d given Jamie those shitty, lasting memories. The guy was back in Long Beach. Living there or visiting? Jamie didn’t know. But Rory’s encounter was probably why details of that evening had been popping up without warning more and more frequently lately.

When the happiness on Rory’s face started to ebb the longer he scrutinized Jamie, Jamie rushed to patch up the moment. He was responsible for two years of Rory’s misery. Two years of his brother stuck in a dark hole, facing danger day in and day out. Never again. Rory deserved to be happy now. Jamie would do everything in his power to make sure he stayed that way.

“Look, you know how I hate to lose a bet?”

Rory shifted on his feet, clearly suspicious over the subject change. “It’s more of an extension of the fact that you hate to be wrong.”

“Right. Which is so rare. And why I need your help.” Jamie made sure Andrew wasn’t in earshot. “I’ve got a bet with Marcus that I can get people to play more Buckley than Britney.”

“I knew it was some shit like that,” Rory said, accepting a fist full of money from a customer. “You’re not losing, are you?”

“I am, if you can believe it. I didn’t take logistics into account.” Jamie grimaced. “He’s way closer to the jukebox.”

After a moment of Rory staring at Jamie, he nudged Jamie toward the register so they could keep talking while he made change. “Hey…you know I’m in no position to give advice to anyone. Especially you, man. You’ve got your shit together in a way I probably never will.”