Fuck.
Not my girl.
My hand curled tighter around my pint glass.
August clapped his hand over my shoulder and pushed me toward a table away from the jukebox. “You are wound tighter than Sister Linda over at that school your kid goes to.”
I dropped into a chair and caught the waitress’s eye. I lifted my beer and flashed two fingers. “Yeah, it’s been a shitastic week.” I scrubbed my fingers through my freshly shorn hair. “It was picture day at school.”
August snorted. “Is that why you’re all pretty?” He tapped his own head of wild, spiky hair.
“Well, if I was going to get Wes in a chair, I had to go first. Of course then he decides to see how long he can get his cup to suction cup itself to his mouth.”
“Uh oh.”
“Yep.” I drew a circle around my mouth. “Unfortunately, my kid doesn’t have a beard to hide the bruised ring.”
“Sucks, but not like you to get wound up over something like that.”
“Nah. Just one more thing for my ma to yell at me about. Add in work shit and…other shit. Yeah,” I lifted my beer and drained it, “I definitely needed this.”
“I hear that. Kinleigh—the new chick upstairs?” At my obviously blank look, August sighed. “The clothing store above my shop?”
“Oh, right. My mom likes that store.” I shrugged. Chick clothes kinda went over my head.
“Yeah, well, she’s driving me insane. Dude, she plays K-pop at a decibel that would make a dog shriek.” August kicked out his big feet and crossed his ankles, then smiled warmly at the waitress when she brought over our beers.
“Hey, guys. Want anything from the kitchen?”
August glanced at me, then back up at the pretty redhead. Again, not as pretty as my redhead, but since when did we have so many of them in the goddamn Cove? “Two cheeseburgers with everything.”
Man, I must look like shit if August was trying to feed me. He definitely wasn’t the mothering type.
I nodded at our waitress with a tight smile as I twisted the short stem of my Stella Artois glass on the scarred table. Though my mind was elsewhere, I attempted to click into the diatribe of complaints out of August.
I wasn’t sure what K-pop was, but figured it was close to dance music of some sort. When he mentioned this Kinleigh’s skirt, heels, and scent repeatedly, I couldn’t help but laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“You like her.”
“No, I don’t.” He lifted his beer and took a long swallow.
“Well, if you don’t like her, you at least want to get in her pants. Or skirt—whatever. Because dude, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you mention clothes so much in the entire seven years I’ve known you.”
August tipped his head back. “I sound like a fucking girl.”
“Maybe.”
“Christ,” he muttered. “I do. My man card is going to get stripped away from me.”
“Already was,” I said as I sipped my beer. “The minute you mentioned K-Pop.”
“You haven’t heard that shit. It’ll make your ears bleed.”
I laughed. By the time our burgers arrived, we’d moved onto football as a topic of conversation. It was easy and didn’t require concentration. I even texted my mom to check on Wes. He was doing a puzzle with my pop, and wouldn’t care if I stayed out another hour.
When we killed another hour arguing about the state of our teams—My Patriots and his shitty Giants—I finally felt like myself for the first time in weeks.