“Bubba, I’m thirty-nine years old,” the pregnant woman snapped.
Bubba pulled his face out of her neck, tipped his head back, and with twinkling eyes and carefully pressed together lips, he winked at me.
She was not thirty-nine.
I gave him a stretched down mouth “your-woman-is-freaking-me-out” face.
He lifted up, didn’t let his woman go, and burst out laughing.
At this point, extremely belatedly, I noticed the main entertainment behind the bar were not the only entertainment behind the bar.
Another man was there, tall, dark-haired, bearded, standing closer to where Deke and the guy with the ball cap were, leaning his narrow, jeans-clad hips against the back of the bar, grinning at the couple before me with an expression on his face like he was watching two kittens wrestling.
He was vaguely familiar.
He was also smoking hot.
“What you drinkin’, gypsy?” I heard asked, and I tore my gaze off the hot guy down the way to look at the man who was clearly Bubba of Bubba’s.
“Champagne,” I answered, and to this, the woman called Krys bafflingly threw up her hands.
“Champagne?” she asked and took a step toward me, taking her out of her man’s arms. She flicked only one hand high that time before she dropped it and asked, “Girl, what’s this place look like to you? Unless I didn’t feel it and the entire bar was picked up and transported to Manhattan, Sarah Jessica Parker has done left the building because the bitch never stepped one of her high heels in the building and never would.”
“Krys, we have champagne,” a rough, deep voice said from down the bar.
I glanced that way.
Tall, dark, hot guy was entering the conversation.
“Yeah, but we don’t got glasses,” she shot back to hot guy and looked to me. “And I’m not openin’ a bottle of champagne only for you to drink one glass, no one touches it for the next night or three or three hundred and seven so I gotta dump that shit down the drain and lose money. I don’t lose money. You want champagne, you drink it in a regular glass and buy the whole damned bottle.”
“Deal,” I stated.
“I’ll get it,” Bubba said instantly.
The woman named Krys narrowed her eyes at me, did a sweep of my head, hair and upper body, then her eyes got squinty.
“Your look don’t say champagne.”
“That’s because it normally says beer or bourbon but I have something to celebrate.”
“Babe, the troops been out of Vietnam for entire decades,” she sniped.
I decided not to explain that her hair might be a different facet of that decade, but she shared something with me.
“She gets touchy when she’s on her feet for a while,” that rough, deep voice came back and I looked toward it to see he was close and tossing a beer mat in front of me. He then turned and grabbed a milky-glassed, oft-washed, possibly purchased in Krys and my fashion inspiration decade wineglass from the back of the bar, turned back and set it on the mat.
“Tate, do not speak about me like I’m not even here,” Krys bit out.
He looked down at her. “Krys, you’re makin’ Twyla look downright friendly.”
Her lips thinned.
I braced at the same time wondering who Twyla was and hoping I didn’t ever meet her.
The champagne cork popped.
And with that distraction, I gave up the struggle, looked all the way right and saw that Deke was still at his place at the end of the bar, back now to me, attention not on the guy with the cap but across the space.
I looked where his attention was aimed and saw a mini-skirted biker babe leaned over the pool table, ready to take a shot, ass aimed Deke’s way with a purpose.
God, he didn’t only not remember me, he had no interest in me.
God.
“You’re usually beer and bourbon,” Bubba started and I jerked my gaze back to him.
I noticed he was pouring my champagne.
Krys was looking toward Deke.
The man called Tate was studying me.
I swallowed.
“Then what’s with the champagne?” Bubba finished.
“About an hour ago, I closed on a house,” I shared.
Krys turned her glare back to me. Bubba smiled huge. Tate kept studying me.
“Well, shit, woman, that’s a celebration. Welcome to the neighborhood!” Bubba cried, lifting the bottle of champagne in a salute before he set it down by my now-filled glass.
“If you want, you can all share it with me,” I offered, tipping my head to the bottle.
“Do I look like I can suck back a glass of champagne?” Krys clipped.
“No. Though you act like you need one,” I retorted to Bubba’s choked-back guffaw and Tate’s lips twitching. “But I wasn’t offering it to you. I was offering it to the guys.”
“On-duty, darlin’. But thanks for the offer,” Bubba said.
“Sweet, but I’m not a champagne kinda guy,” Tate put in. “And I second what Bubba said. Welcome to the neighborhood.”
I nodded to him.
With one last look at me, he wandered away.
I looked back to Bubba and Krys who were now attached with Bubba’s arm around her shoulders.
“So, just sayin’, good news,” Bubba noted. “Not a lotta folk been movin’ here past few years. Lotta folks been movin’ out, not a lot movin’ in. Nice to have a fresh face around.”
“And a new ass to sit on a stool,” Krys put in. “That crazy lumber guy in Gnaw Bone, hirin’ hits, kidnappin’ people and shootin’ folk. Dalton, our own personal serial killer. Fuller and his pig cops keepin’ everyone under their thumbs, framin’ Ty for murder, extraditing his ass to LA to rot in prison for five years.”