“I try not to think about our old video,” I said. “Shit, that thing is still up online?”

“Of course it is,” he said. “Everyone in the Liam Hardy fan base wants to know who the mysterious man in the cowboy hat is.”

“But that video is from ten years ago. And you can’t even see my face,” I said. “It’s just a stupid video where you sucked me off.”

“It’s a video where you come so hard that you get it all over the brim of your cowboy hat,” Liam said. “People love that fucking thing. They’re big fans of your cock in particular. They say the head is perfectly shaped. Do you seriously not read the comments?”

“Of course I don’t read the damn comments,” I said. “I haven’t watched that video since we filmed it.”

“Well, I have eighty thousand Instagram followers, a hundred thousand NaughtyBoyz followers, and who knows how many people on Twitter. If I announced that a new video of the Mysterious Cowboy was coming out, I’d get enough views that day to pay for a year’s worth of rent.”

“Jesus,” I said.

He shrugged. “They really want to see you jerk off on camera. But I don’t want anyone in my videos who doesn’t want to be in them. Forcing people to do porn isn’t in my agenda.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “You’re not going to win the bet, anyway, so I’m not going to be filming a solo video with you.”

He fixed his eyes on me. “You’re crazy, Red. And you’re also going to lose.”

Something stirred deep inside me. I was way too excited about the prospect of watching one of my favorite movies with Liam.

But he was going to lose the bet, of course. And once I finally found out why he left Los Angeles, I could stop worrying about him. He would stop coming into my bar, and I could focus on the things that mattered again.

I’d been independent for the last ten years. There was no reason it was going to stop now. No matter how much my body craved Liam’s.

My brain knew better. And I didn’t make bets I was going to lose.

4

Liam

“Goodness, what are all of those, dear?” Mrs. Bates said as she came over on her walker. I’d only met my elderly neighbor once before, but she walked over after I’d just pulled up onto my dirt driveway.

We both stared into the trunk of my car, which was currently open and displaying a massive haul of potted flowers—red and white and orange all over a bed of hundreds of green leaves. I’d just made a big haul from Copper General.

“Well, they’re actually a bunch of Red Hot Pokers and Naked Man Orchids,” I said. “Some roses, too.”

Mrs. Bates stared at me with her eyes bugging out. Her grey hair was in a messy bun at the top of her head, and she was wearing an old sweater that said I Ran in the Kansas City Marathon!

“Excuse me, potty mouth?” she said, a smile creeping onto her lips, wrinkling up the skin around her eyes.

I smiled. “I mean it,” I said. “That’s what the flowers are called. I admit, I bought them specifically because I liked the names.”

She let out a laugh. “You’re up and at ‘em early this morning,” she said.

“I know. I hate it.”

I’d set no less than five alarms for myself to wake up early, even though I was the furthest thing from a morning person. Since moving to Amberfield I’d been waking up at noon almost every day. I’d promised that today would be different. And now I already had a head start on getting plants for my new little garden by the time it was nine in the morning. It was supposed to be stormy later tonight, so I felt accomplished.

“It’s good to be an early riser,” she said.

“Not when you love sleep as much as I do,” I said. “But I have to be somewhere at noon.”

“Heading to the grocery? I would love to carpool.”

I shook my head. “Going to Red’s Tavern, actually. But I’ll give you a ride into town, no problem, Mrs. Bates.”

It had been a few days since Red and I made the bet about Frozen, and today, we were set to watch the movie at the bar. Red had asked me at least three times if I was okay being in a bar environment around alcohol, but I assured him that I was fine. The bar wouldn’t even be open yet. Apparently Red had a big projector set up in the tavern for their monthly movie viewing nights, and he’d told me to come by before the tavern opened so that we could watch it on “the biggest screen possible” and “do the movie justice.”

It was totally ridiculous. But I was also stupidly giddy about it.

Tags: Raleigh Ruebins Red's Tavern Romance
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