Their father would never see what it had become.
Jamie swatted away that disquieting thought and tipped a pint glass sideways under a steady amber stream, leaving it with just the right amount of foam on top before he slid it across the bar toward a customer, accepting a twenty in exchange. Sitting beside that customer was an older man in a fitted gray T-shirt, a little salt and pepper in his hair. His gaze warmed when Jamie looked over, letting Jamie know he was interested.
There. Right there was his usual type. A mature gentleman who knew what he wanted, was secure in who he was and didn’t mind everyone knowing.
In other words, the opposite of Marcus O’Shaughnessy.
Forcing himself to stop comparing Marcus to people—or thinking about him in any capacity—Jamie met up with Andrew at the register.
“Why couldn’t the jukebox have gotten stuck on Journey or something?” Andrew muttered, his fingers flying over the touch screen. “Drunk people love Journey.”
No way Jamie was telling his brother about the bet. One, Andrew didn’t like anyone fucking around on the clock and two, Jamie had no business engaging in a bet that could equal more time with Marcus. None whatsoever. “Yes. But drunk girls love Britney, and when girls are happy, so are the menfolk. It’s basic math.”
Andrew eyeballed him while counting out singles. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed your favorite song is the other one that keeps playing.”
“Weird coincidence.”
“Sure.” His brother elbowed the register shut and left to return change to the customer, before lining up a row of tequila shots for another group. Jamie could feel Marcus watching him over the next half hour as he poured endless pints and so much vodka, any minute now the customers were going to start speaking in Russian. Rory returned from his dinner break in the bar’s back office, Olive stumbling out behind him with a dazed expression. He picked her up by the waist and sat her down in a stool at the end of the bar, sliding a Coke in front of her. Jamie shook his head as Rory approached, his brother unable to stop glancing back at his girlfriend with each step like she might have disappeared.
“How was your dinner break?” Jamie asked dryly. “Did you actually manage to eat?”
Rory plowed a hand through his hair and winked at Jamie. “Oh, I ate.”
“Christ.”
His younger brother laughed. “Not exactly the sexiest soundtrack, but I worked with what I had.” Rory nodded at a customer and started filling the order, hitting the ground running as if he’d never taken a break. That was bartending. Like riding a bike. “What’s with the Buckley/Britney mashup?”
“How would I know?”
Rory snorted. “Give it up, man. The same two songs playing on a loop? This is the kind of puzzle that you’re usually determined to solve.”
Jamie pulled the handle on the Guinness and started building a line of pints of the inky black beer. “Why don’t you worry about the lecture Andrew is going to give you for hooking up in the break room?”
“It’s not hooking up. It’s Olive.” He shook his head on a laugh. “If it was just hooking up, I wouldn’t have to stop myself from proposing nine times a day.”
That was news to Jamie—and hell if his cynical heart didn’t twitch a little hearing it.
“Someday you will,” Jamie said, nodding briskly. “And she’ll say yes.”
“Yeah.” Rory scratched his chin, looking kind of bemused. “I think she might.”
“And you’ll beg me to be your best man and I’ll drag it out, saying ‘I don’t know, I’ll think about it,’” Jamie drawled. “Even though we both know I look the best in a suit and wouldn’t deprive anyone of seeing me in one.”
Rory’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he laughed. And in the distance, Jamie could see Olive melting into a blonde puddle while watching Rory laugh. Oh yeah. She’d say yes.
Jamie assessed his brother, taking note of how well rested he looked. How light. And God, he loved seeing Rory happy. When Olive showed up in the beginning of the summer, by way of Oklahoma, Jamie had been worried. Rory projected a tough image to the world—or Long Beach, as it were—and his prison record only bolstered the notion that he was bad news.
What the judgmental bastards didn’t know?
It was Jamie’s stupidity that had put his younger brother behind bars.
A memory of what happened on the beach six years ago caught Jamie off guard and the glass slipped out of his hands, clattering on the brass drain beneath the beer spouts. The sensation of gasping for air, the laughter…it all welled up in his throat and ears until it drowned out the riot of voices in the Castle Gate. If the hands holding him underwater would just let him get a full breath—
“Hey.” Rory elbowed him, concern creasing his brow. “You all right?”