Quit Bein' Ugly (The Southern Gentleman 3)

I turned woodenly, as if what I was about to see would traumatize me for life.

When my eyes found his, it was to see him staring at me with barely contained fury.

“What’s your problem with me?” he asked bluntly. “I live right across the road. I would’ve gotten here in less time than it took for you to call your brother.”

He had a point but… I didn’t like him.

“My automatic response isn’t to call some random man that I barely know,” I told him honestly. “It was to call the man that has been there for me through thick and thin. The man that I trust with my life. The man that I know better than I know myself. I don’t know you, Croft.”

His eyes narrowed. “And why is that, Carmichael?”

My brows rose at his words.

“What do you mean, why is that?” I stiffened. “I don’t know you because I don’t know you. It is what it is.”

His eyes narrowed. “I asked you out on a date.”

I rolled my eyes at his high-handed tone.

“And?” I asked. “We didn’t go. You were too busy. With Karen, I think was her name.”

His brows rose at the scalding anger in my voice, but there was literally no way in hell that I could hide that.

“I was working with Karen on a case. She works at the firm with me. The case was rather large,” he explained. “I don’t know what this has to do with Karen. She wasn’t the reason that you bailed on the date.”

“Actually, she was,” I said. “You brought her to the gym that day. She practically molested you through the whole workout. You barely even looked at me. And to top it all off, you walked out the door with her instead of waiting for me. So yes, I bailed on the date. Who wouldn’t?”

“I walked outside because she needed help moving a box from her car to mine,” he said. “Which you would’ve known if you hadn’t left yourself.”

“I didn’t leave,” I countered. “I was in the kids’ room saying bye to all of the kids.”

Croft narrowed his eyes. “Bullshit.”

“Not bullshit,” I snapped. “I was there. I never left.”

He drew in a deep breath, then let it out.

“Karen’s nothing” he started to say, but his phone interrupted him.

He pulled out his phone, and I saw the screen as he shoved it back into his pocket.

“Nothing, huh?” I asked. “It’s four in the morning. People who are ‘nothing’ don’t call at four in the morning.”

Croft shrugged. “Sometimes she calls and texts. I’ve been putting my phone on silent lately because of it. You’re honestly lucky that I had it on loud because I usually don’t. Otherwise I wouldn’t have made it over here as fast as I did.”

I lifted my shoulders as if I couldn’t care less.

“I didn’t call you,” I said. “And there was no one here when you got here so…”

So, let that sink in.

I didn’t need him.

I certainly didn’t need the complication and drama that Karen was likely to provide.

The only man I needed was my brother, and that was that.

CHAPTER 4

CrossFit: realizing that you’ve joined a cult and you’re okay with it.

-Text from Croft to Flint

CROFT

I arrived at work the next morning tired as fuck because not only had I been woken up out of a sound sleep, but I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Carmichael and her words since I got home.

The first person I saw was Karen.

She was practically waiting at the door with a cup of coffee in one hand and a donut in the other.

I nearly growled at her as I breached the entrance of my firm.

“Croft, hey!” she chirped as she walked to me. “I got you some coffee.”

I shook my head. “Already had some, thanks, though.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “What about a donut?”

I looked at the carb-filled morsel and shook my head. “No, I have a CrossFit competition in Shreveport in a few weeks. I don’t need any unnecessary carbs.”

She all but deflated.

I ignored her and moved swiftly to my office, anticipation for the day already humming through my veins.

“Hey, would it be okay if I borrowed your computer?” Karen asked sweetly from behind me. “Mine’s not acting right.”

“Sorry, but no,” I said. “Computers aren’t to be shared among us. There’s too much information on them that could possibly harm our clients, even unintentionally.”

“Oh.” She paused. “Well, Matthews allowed me to borrow his a few weeks ago, so I thought it wouldn’t be a problem.”

I looked at her over my shoulder. “Your computer’s been acting weird for a few weeks now?”

She opened her mouth and then closed it. “Oh, well I got it back from IT, and it was still doing that same weird glitching. So I sent it back to IT.”

“Sorry, but no,” I shrugged. “There’s a communal one in the conference room. You have to log in to it using your office ID.”