Adore Me (Austin Singles 3)

“Morgan asked me to have sex with her, no strings attached, for one night only.”

Tucker laughed. “Morgan? Morgan Barrett?”

When I nodded, he laughed more and made his way over to his desk.

“Tucker, I’m being serious. You know the bar I go to every year?”

He nodded, his smile fading. Tucker and Nash were the only two people I had ever told what had happened to me that night.

“It’s called Butch’s Place.”

He shrugged. “You never mentioned the name. I’ve never heard of it.”

“You wouldn’t. It’s an old bar, and the guy who owns it is a Marine. His son killed himself around the same time my mom passed. His son was Mike. Morgan’s Mike.”

“What?”

“Yeah, she was there because—”

“The anniversary of Mike’s death.”

“Yes.”

“It’s been six years. You think she’s still . . . grieving over him?”

It felt like something knocked all the air out of me. The idea of Morgan still that in love with Mike made me feel . . . sick. How fucked up was that?

“I don’t know. She said something about feeling guilty. Did you know he told her in his suicide note that he’d been cheating on her?”

Tucker’s eyes went wide. “No way.”

“Yeah. She was saying something about not being able to keep him happy, not being able to see him hurting. I don’t know. I don’t know why she was there last night, but she was. And she was drunk as hell.”

Slowly sitting down in the chair, I looked away, trying not to remember the look of pain in her eyes.

“Okay, let’s start from the beginning.”

Sighing, I stood again. If felt like I was about to crawl out of my own damn skin. “I stopped by Butch’s Place to be alone and drink. I needed to get shit-faced, and that’s where I always go. Morgan was there, and she was two sheets to the wind. I told Butch I’d take her home.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. Tucker also knew my other dirty little secret. That the painful memories of my mother’s death weren’t the only reason I’d left Texas. Every damn time I saw Morgan it felt like it killed me a little bit more.

I held up my hands. “Now hold on. I didn’t make a move on her. I got her home, got her to her bed, and left Advil and water on her nightstand. I took her house key so I could lock up the door, and I left her a note saying I had it. She called me, and we agreed to have breakfast. Dude, you know I would never do it. When I came back to town, I promised myself that even though Morgan was single, I wouldn’t do it to Nash.”

“You’ve clearly never noticed the way Morgan looks at you, Blake.”

I paused and turned to him. “What?”

He shook his head. “Keep going with the story.”

“Right. Well she called, we agreed to have breakfast, and I went to her house to pick her up. We eye fucked the hell out of each other for a good minute before we moved on and went to breakfast.”

“Okay. Are you attracted to her still?” Tucker said, leaning back and folding his arms across his chest.

I let out a gruff laugh. “I’ve never not been, Tucker. She’s beautiful, has a rocking body, but . . .”

“She’s Nash’s baby sister.”

Rolling my eyes, I replied, “His sister. Can we say that without making it sound like something sinister?”