46. Beck
Beck
“Billy,” I say as he shoves me through the bar. “What on earth did I do?”
“The young lady said the tourists you brought were bothering her. Wouldn’t back off when she said she wouldn’t dance with him.”
I roll my eyes. Matt did not ask Addie to dance. This entire thing stinks of vindictive malice. “How much did she pay you?”
“Now, Beckett, you know that I can’t be bought,” Billy responds.
“How. Much. Did. She. Pay. You?” I grind out, but Billy just flashes a smile, complete with a missing tooth on the left upper row, a result of a bar fight he broke up single-handedly, if his own tall tales are to be believed. Billy is not someone I believe.
Billy pushes me through the front door and gives me a salute before disappearing back into the bar.
I shake out my arm before realizing I left Brooke alone in there.
I don’t have to panic for long because Brooke, Logan, and Ben spill out of the front door of Billy’s just moments after I start worrying.
“What happened?” Logan asks.
I tell him.
“Well, I’m not staying here on principal,” Logan quips. “C’mon, Ben.”
Ben shakes his head. “I’ll keep an eye on Lynette before Liggly gets to her. He was eyeing her.”
Logan gives him a stern nod before Ben disappears back into Billy’s.
Matt and Melanie stand with their arms crossed in front of my truck. I head to the two of them.
“What happened, man?” Matt asks. “One second, we were dancing, and the next, we were told we weren’t welcome here anymore.”
“My ex,” I grumble.
Melanie’s eyebrows shoot up into her hairline. “That woman. She’s … your ex?”
“Uh, yeah. Why?”
“Oh, I just … know her from a few years ago at a conference in California for content creators... She was never very nice.”
“That sums it up.”
I check my watch—there’s still an hour before I had planned to be back at June’s. Addie might be trying to ruin my date, but she’s not going to ruin my life anymore. I knew it the moment I started singing to Brooke. I can’t help it, I’m in love with her, and will be until I die.
That prayer to know when it’s time—it was answered when I held her in my arms and a lifetime of love flashed before my eyes.
“Hey, Logan?” I call.
Logan rolls his eyes because he already knows what I’m going to ask, but he owes me.
“Would you take Matt and Melanie back to June’s?”
Logan shakes his head. “You sure?”
Beck nods. “Positive.”
“I can’t talk you out of it?”
“Not a chance.”
Logan shrugs. “Then sure.” He looks at Matt and Melanie. “There’s absolutely no making out in my truck, you two. I let it slide on the boat, but not while I’m driving.”
The three of them walk away, leaving just me and Brooke standing in the dirt lot of Billy’s. Brooke’s blue eyes sparkle in the starlight, and I’ve never been so sure of something in my entire life.