Sarah Jo doesn’t say anything—and she doesn’t lower the bat. Her breath sort of whistles in and out, like she’s this close to losing her shit. I don’t know what would happen then, but I do know it wouldn’t make her happy. And she looks like the kind of girl who needs and deserves happy. Maybe it’s the pink in her hair. It’s a fucking cheerful color. It’s also still all messed up from her wrestling match, half falling out of the ponytail thing she’s pulled it back in, half bouncing around her face.
“Gotcha,” she mouths and takes a step backward. She lowers the bat but doesn’t let go of it.
“Brought company with me.” I nod toward the truck at the bottom of the driveway. If this girl gets any more scared, she might come apart at the seams. Someone picks this moment to open the truck’s door, light spilling into the cab. Looks like Adrian’s finally woken up and is in search of a tree for a pee break. Awesome. His free-swinging dick can finish the job of terrifying Sarah Jo. While she takes in the truck’s occupants, I inventory the surrounding carnage. The body count includes the dead piñata, a shit-ton of candy, and a half-dozen empty ice cream cartons. Clearly, no one here is lactose-intolerant.
“Busy night,” I say out loud.
Hunter eyes me. He’s given up looking for his phone. “What’s up?”
I lift a shoulder and check to make sure Sarah Jo isn’t sneaking up on me with her bat. “We’re headed to the bar.” I lean in and whisper-shout the next part just to give him shit. “The titty bar. You in?”
Hunter grunts less than enthusiastically. “I’m busy.”
“I can see that.” I smirk. “You and your girl are having one hell of a date night.”
Not my business if he wants to ménage a trois it with these ladies, although it’s downright selfish to hog all the single ladies. The man should learn to share his toys.
“We’re—” Hunter’s gaze slides to Lola, dips over her, and then moves on to the other ladies. He looks like he wished the words titty bar had never come out of my mouth.
“You’re seeing each other.” I drop down onto one of the logs by the fire and stretch my legs toward the flames. My seat’s not Barcalounger material, but I’ve parked it on worse out in the field. “You made her a cute little fire of her own and now you’re spending quality time together. I get it. Congratulations, man.”
Colt chooses this moment to make his grand appearance. Adrian has either gotten lost taking an epic piss or he’s crashed in the truck again. He pulled a late shift yesterday and he’s punch-drunk tired. He’ll be a lot of fun once I get a beer or six into him.
“Our boy coming with?” Colt asks.
I smirk. “Nope. He’s got a date with Lola, so we’re flying solo tonight.”
Colt looks over at Lola and his face lights up, dimples working overtime. It’s amazing the guy ever managed to win any races in his former life given how much time he devotes to thinking about girls. “He’s dating Lola Miller?”
I think he’s gearing up to offer himself as a substitute if Hunter’s not, so I jump in. Besides, if we wait for Hunter to find his words, we’ll still be here tomorrow. Hunter makes an iceberg look chatty. “Yeah.”
“Wow.” Colt whistles. “She doesn’t seem like his type.”
“I know, right?” I lean back. “She’s a class four rapid and he’s a really deep, really still pool of water.”
“Stagnating,” Colt adds.
“We’re not seeing each other,” Hunter protests. The poor sucker might even think he means it.
“Right.” My smirk gets deeper. He’s deciding where to punch me first. I can tell.
Or maybe he’s just coming up with stupid crap to say because the next words out of his mouth are: “Can you imagine anything less likely than Lola and I?”
“Oil and water,” Colt grins. “Yeah. We can see that. But sometimes that’s fun.”
Colt would know. The man’s an equal opportunity dater.
“Lola and I are not having fun together,” Hunter insists.