It also meant attention for others, like Chloe’s brother Matt, sister Sasha, and her soon-to-be stepbrothers, Sullivan and Gage. Lastly, it meant Dru.
As yet, Judge did not know it meant Rix.
“I’ll take your look that could kill as a no,” she drawled.
“What shit is she saying about Rix?”
“Nothing, apparently, outside the fact that he’s gorgeous, he’s a national hero, and he’s a stalwart friend.”
Judge could handle that.
He took a sip from his beer.
“Though, he’s even more of a hero than we thought, considering he’s posing as Alex’s boyfriend when she stands up as maid of honor at her sister’s wedding next month.”
Judge nearly snorted beer.
He successfully swallowed, looked to his girl, and asked, “What?”
“This acquaintance of Dru’s, she’s Alex’s sister. Her name is Blake, and, you should know, darling, Dru isn’t Blake’s biggest fan. She referred to her as a ‘mean girl,’ and I could tell by the way she talked about her the level of that is on the high end of the spectrum.”
Possible insight into why Alex was so quiet and shy.
“Anyway,” Chloe went on, “Blake is an avid watcher of Elsa, and she remembered Rix, including tales told of him being your best friend, so she was very keen to get Dru on the phone to discuss this Rix person after Blake’s sister, that being our Alex, told her he was her boyfriend and would be her plus one at the wedding.”
Well, shit.
“Things are weird between them,” he reminded her of something he’d mentioned before. “He definitely gets where she’s coming from now. He’s making an effort. I’m just not sure what kind of effort he’s making, because it’s not inappropriate, buying her coffees when he’s getting them for everyone, joking around with her. There’s still something…more to it.”
“Is that more him practicing to pretend to be her boyfriend next month in New York?” she queried hopefully.
Disappointingly, he had to dash her hopes.
“If Rix was gonna do that, he’d tell me.”
“So what is that more?”
“That more is, last Thursday in our meeting, he found out she visited Yavapai’s juvenile detention center, and I thought he was gonna go mildly apeshit…at me because I let her be around potentially dangerous youth.”
“Hmm…” she hummed, now it was her lips that were tipped up, and she turned back to the view.
“Don’t read anything into that, my beautiful but scheming matchmaker,” Judge warned. “Rix is a throwback.”
Chloe looked to him again, an eyebrow arching above her glasses. “A throwback?”
“He takes you out, he pays for dinner. If he has to park far away, he drops his date at the door and he’s the one who hoofs it. And he leaves her there to go get the car at the end of the night. Holding the door open. Pulling out a chair. If he’s wearing his legs, he gives up his seat to a woman, no matter her age and if he doesn’t know her. Offering his jacket if it’s cold. Shit like that.”
No lips tipped up, a full smile. “So, essentially, you, just rougher around the edges.”
“Peri, his ex, never filled up her own gas tank.”
“Again, you.”
Judge shook his head. “If your job meant you had to be around potentially, but nowhere near possibly dangerous individuals, I would not go mildly apeshit.”
“You totally would.”
He grinned at her.
Because he would.
“But I’d not stand in the way of you doing your job,” he noted.
“We are talking about how you behave with me, you being the love of my life, me being yours, doing this alluding to how Rix is behaving with Alex.”
He caught her drift, but felt it important to remind her. “Like I said, I think he would let me in on that, baby, if it was going there.”
“He would,” she agreed. “This means Alex’s mean girl sister did something mean which prompted Alex to grab on to the first guy she could think of when discussing her possible plus one, and for obvious reasons, that was Rix. A clever ploy, considering she has plenty of time to invent an excuse as to why he couldn’t come.”
“That sounds plausible.”
“So obviously, Rix has to go to New York with her, pretending to be her boyfriend.”
It was a long incredulous beat before Judge burst out laughing.
When he was done, though, he saw Chloe was not laughing.
Oh shit.
“Baby, don’t get involved.”
“I am absolutely, one hundred percent getting involved.”
“Were you not at the Raven the other night?” he asked.
She pressed her lips together.
Now she caught his drift.
“He knows she’s into him,” Judge continued. “He’s being gentler with her. He’s putting the effort in to coax her out of her shell. They’re co-workers, they need to get along, communicate, co-exist in a healthy and meaningful way on a team. But like I told you, and that night at the Raven proved, Alex is not his type.”
“So if it was any female who went to this detention center, he’d react?” she inquired.