The way Kincaid looks at me now is more familiar than I’d like to admit. The tilt of his mouth, the softness in his eyes both speak of disappointment, and I can see my dad in him, and the way he reacted when I got into trouble for fighting in elementary school. It’s also much the same look Kincaid gave me when I wasn’t exactly quick to agree when he told me to accompany Sylvie to Telluride.
I see it more now, the disappointment, than I did before I left for this trip.
He doesn’t want me to admit that I didn’t get a true bad vibe from Will Varon. He wants me to confess to jealousy over Sylvie.
“This isn’t going to work on me,” I snap, my reaction to the realization making my hands tremble and the coffee in my cup threaten to spill out.
“What’s that?” Kincaid asks, a twitch in his upper lip like the man is fighting a smile.
“This matchmaking bullshit. I’m not the settling down type.”
“What do you mean?” Kincaid asks, his head tilting to the side like a puppy hearing a dog whistle for the first time and being confused about it.
The man is good at almost everything he does, but I still see the playfulness in his eyes as he attempts to look perplexed.
“You sent me with Sylvie because you’re trying to set me up with her.”
“If what I’ve heard around the clubhouse has any merit, you’ve already ruined any chance you have with Sylvie from events of the first night you met her.”
“I think this goes beyond the bounds of our working relationship,” I say, feeling a twinge of guilt because it’s almost like telling my own dad to stay out of my business when really, I just want to sit him down and ask him a million questions about the things swimming around in my head that confuse me right now.
“We’re family,” Kincaid argues, and I know he doesn’t mean for it to cut into me the way it does, but that still doesn’t keep the wound from gaping inside of me.
I came to Farmington to work with an elite team of men and women. I came here to keep making progress in the world after serving my time in the Marine Corps. I did not come here looking for a replacement for the family I lost so many years ago.
“I got Sylvie home safe. If Varon checked out, then that’s good. I’m not hoping for something bad to happen to prove me right. Is that all, sir?”
Kincaid stiffens but eventually nods his head, releasing me from this conversation.
I feel no better walking away from him with unresolved shit between us than I did doing the same with Sylvie yesterday.
***
“No word?” I ask Slick as Aro heads to the bar to grab a couple more pitchers of beer.
“Nothing,” she says with a sigh. “I don’t know when we’ll head out again.”
“From what the others say, Kincaid doesn’t like to have us out around the holidays,” Boomer says, his fingers peeling the label from a bottle of water.
“I get it,” Slick says, her eyes scanning the room in an assessing way, like she’s looking out for danger rather than someone she wants to take home tonight. “But I’d rather work during the holidays.”
I raise my nearly empty glass in agreement before draining it.
Ignoring the girl at the bar that has been trying to get my attention since we walked in, I twirl my glass in my hands, watching the suds in the bottom like they hold the answers to all of life’s questions.
Monday night means slim pickings atJake’sbut I know I have to get myself back out there. I can’t keep hyperfocusing on Sylvie and a situation that’s never going to happen, something I’m both happy and sad about.
“Hi there.”
Slick chuckles, a humorless sound as I look toward the woman who just spoke.
“Amanda,” Ugly says, his voice dry and uninviting.
She doesn’t get the hint. This woman is always here, always trying to get one of us to leave with her, and although I heard that several of the guys have taken her up on the offer, no one is biting the bait at the end of her line. Apparently, she’s not the type of woman just interested in a good time, and she doesn’t give a damn if the man she’s set her sights on for the night is in a relationship. She’s one of those women who thinks her pussy is made of gold and anyone who gets the chance for a spin in it will fall in love with her, despite her being thrown back into the sea each time.
The warmth of her palm lands on my thigh as she presses herself closer, but eventually she pulls it back when I stare down at the thing rather than give her any incentive to think I’d be interested. She looks irritated for a second, but just when I think she’s going to cut her losses and walk away, she schools her face.
“I hear there’s going to be a big party at the clubhouse.”