He missed those days with his sister. The easy times. The simple times. The times when she was speaking to him.
It had been weeks and Izzy still wasn’t answering his calls or texts. It was the longest he’d gone without talking to his sister since he’d been out of the Marines. He knew he’d fucked up, he just didn’t know how to make it right.
In an exercise in futility, he pulled out his phone and checked, again, to see if Izzy had at least texted him back. She hadn’t.
“Did you want to start a tab?” The bartender asked as he set the chilled mug down.
“Nah,” Axel said as he pulled out some cash, set it on the bar top, and started to turn.
Surfer Ken lifted his chin in recognition. “It’s Axel, right?”
“Yeah.” After being in Whisper Lake for a month, Axel was no longer surprised that strangers knew his name. This town had an information highway to rival the CIA.
The guy offered his hand. “Liam. Nice to meet you.”
“You too.” It took only a split second for Axel to realize Liam’s handshake was more than just firm. The dude was squeezing his hand and staring him down so hard that it was clearly a pissing contest. Axel wasn’t sure what this guy’s deal was, but he wasn’t one to back down. He held surfer boy’s eye contact and didn’t release his grasp first, even when it was awkwardly long.
Finally, Liam released his grip and crossed his arms, his feet planted shoulder-width apart. “So you’re staying over at Brynn’s place?”
Ahh, there it is. This who’s-got-a-bigger-dick face-off was Brynn-related.
Axel lifted the mug and inhaled the fresh, hoppy scent before taking a big swig. As he set the frosted mug back down, he wiped his upper lip with the back of his hand. “I’m staying in the apartment on her property.”
“And you’re working at the school?” Liam’s jaw ticked.
“I’m working on the theater.”
Before Liam was able to ask his next question, Axel felt a large hand slap on the back of his shoulder. “Hey, man.”
He turned his head and saw Kade McKnight standing beside him.
When Axel had been prepping this assignment, he’d immediately recognized Kade’s name when it came up on his preliminary report. Axel had followed his career for years. It was included in his briefing because Kade had recently married Brynn’s friend Ali.
“Hey.” Axel tipped his head up.
“I’m Kade and I’m here with my fantasy football league.” Kade motioned to a group of men sitting in a large booth across the bar. He recognized Sam, the assistant coach at the school, and Ethan who was Jess’s fiancé.
Ethan’s name had also been in the briefing information. Steele’s name had come up by Axel’s superiors as a point person should any shit go down. Since there was no record of Brynn being connected to Ramsey Wilson the top priority was to keep the job limited to people on a need to know basis. But if Axel got a feeling that anything was out of the ordinary, Ethan was the local law enforcement that he’d been authorized to brief.
“Can we buy you a beer?” Kade offered.
“I’m good, thanks.” Axel lifted his freshly poured brew.
“Alright, look.” Kade lowered his voice. “I could feed you a line of bullshit about wanting to talk to you about the renovations you’re doing in the theater and pretend to be interested in wood restoration. But the truth is, my wife sent me over here. Brynn’s her best friend and she wants me to make sure you’re not an axe murderer. Can you help me out? One beer.”
Axel couldn’t help but grin at Kade’s honesty and clear desire to make his wife happy.
“One beer.” Axel agreed as he followed Kade back to his booth.
Normally, Axel kept to himself. But from his research, he knew that Kade and Ethan grew up with Brynn, which meant he might even be able to get some intel on her.
He wanted know everything about her. And it had nothing to do with being good at his job. As much as he’d fought it, this was personal. And he didn’t know what in the hell to do about it.