Yes, one week. She could get him out of her system in a week.
She had to.* * ** * *
Zep glanced back at the patio of Guidry’s. The sun was starting to go down, the dimming light shimmering over the water. The restaurant overlooked the small bay where his great-grandfather had built a marina complete with a bait store and mechanic shop. The restaurant had come later. He’d spent a lot of time in those shops when he was a kid. Remy had always loved working the restaurant, but Zep had preferred the laid-back boat repair business. He could fix a lot of things as long as they had engines.
That was him. Jack-of-all-trades. Master of none.
“Okay, so I’m trying to wrap my brain around this,” his big brother said as he joined him. He’d been working in the back office when Zep had explained they needed to move Otis so the out-of-towners wouldn’t freak. No one from Papillon would pay the big gator any mind. If anything, they would be happy to see him because if he was hanging out at Guidry’s, he wasn’t blocking the damn highway. “Roxie King, who is one of the toughest, most no-nonsense women I’ve ever met in my life, convinced you to be her new fake boyfriend because her old fake boyfriend—who also happens to be her boss—got married in real life. Did Armie know he was her fake boyfriend?”
Remy approached the big gator, whose head came up.
“Well, he does now.” Zep got into position. It wasn’t the first time they’d had to convince Otis to sun himself somewhere else. The sun was going down and Otis would move on, but he couldn’t explain to Roxie’s parents that the reptile had a schedule and was polite enough to keep it.
He was expecting a pretty severe lecture from his brother. Remy viewed him the way everyone else did. He was a joke. Charming and attractive and fairly useless unless one was having a party, and then he was the life of it. “Armie took it pretty well. Lila told Rox that there are days she’ll loan him back to her. That woman doesn’t get fazed by anything.”
“No, she doesn’t, but I’m a little surprised.” Remy gave him that look, the one that let him know the lecture was about to begin.
This was his life. He was standing at a big gator’s tail end waiting to get yelled at by his brother. If Otis chose to be stubborn, he would have to grab that gator tail and drag him away. He’d gotten all prettied up, and if he got muddy, he would be the one giving a lecture. To a gator.
Was it any surprise no one took him seriously?
“What was I supposed to do? She doesn’t want her mother to think she’s single. You met Pamela. She’s a lot to take. You’re right. Roxie is a steady woman. If she’s rattled by this, if she thinks her mother could disrupt her life, then I’m going to believe her.”
Remy sent him a stare he would likely one day use on whatever kiddos he and Lisa had. It was the look that told anyone on the receiving end that they should start telling the truth. “I want to know why she had to turn to you in the first place. Tell me why you were still at her house at two in the afternoon. You could have left. You could have had her neighbor look in on her. Darlene has a key to her place.”
He hadn’t even considered it. Even when he’d realized he would have to catch any rest he would get in that too-small chair she had in her too-small bedroom. “Lila told me to stay with her. Even if she hadn’t, I would have stayed. I wanted to make sure she was okay.”
Otis’s big mouth came open as if he was yawning. Yep, he was right on time.
“You wanted to get close to her any way you possibly could.” Remy managed to make the statement as accusatory as possible. “You’ve been chasing that woman for over a year. I want to make sure you’re not manipulating the situation to trick her into giving you what you want.”
That was a kick to the gut. “And what do I want, Remy? You think I want to trick her into bed with me? I’m trying to think of some other nefarious purpose I could have for upending my life, adopting a dog, and looking like a fool in front of the whole town.”
Otis lifted his big body up. At least one thing was going right.
“Why would you look like a fool?” Remy started to follow Otis down the path that would take him into the bayou.
Zep could think of a hundred reasons why. He almost always looked like the fool, but most of the time people didn’t look at him with pity. “Because I’m chasing a woman who tells everyone she meets that she doesn’t want me. Maybe I’m looking for revenge.”