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She had been a little bit scarce since the town hall meeting.

He thought back to those bright eyes, her pink cheeks...

Shit.

Good thing he had a lock on control.

Good. Damn. Thing.

He opened up the front door, and went inside, closing it heavily behind him.

He paused, and listened. He couldn’t hear any movement. He went over to the fridge and opened it up, taking out a bottle of beer. He closed the fridge door, and then he heard a sound from the hallway.

“Bix?”

Soft footsteps started to head his direction.

“Bix?” he repeated.

“No,” she said. “It’s the Golden State Killer.”

“That would be a surprise.”

She held up her hands like claws. “Death is always a surprise, Daughtry.”

She lowered her hands, and looked embarrassed. He stared at her for a long moment, stunned again by how much she had changed. Not so much in personality. Shewas still prickly. And insincere at first. Every single time. Sincerity had to be dug out of her with an ice pick. And even then, it was tough to manufacture.

“What did you have for dinner?” he asked.

“Leftover pizza,” she said. “How was... everybody?”

“It was a reduced crew tonight. But good.” He opted not to tell her about the fight that he had with Denver. Because he and Bix weren’t friends. It was funny; she had told him that she didn’t know how to have friends. He wasn’t sure he did either. He had his brothers, and they bumped along just fine until they had a little dustup like tonight, and then they pushed it only so far before letting it go.

Justice had a friend. She was a woman, and he wondered if that was something to do with... Hell, he didn’t know. He didn’t have an explanation for that. Landry had Fia, but that was it. Denver sure as hell didn’t have anybody. Arizona had an expanded network these days. She and Rue bumped around just fine. And these days, Arizona even got along with the Sullivan sisters.

But Daughtry had no idea how to have friends. And it had never bothered him. He had colleagues in the state police, but the way it was structured, they didn’t really have to talk to each other much if they didn’t want to. And mostly what he wanted to do was clock in and clock out. That was it. That was what he did. His job had always been about service, not brotherhood or any other such thing.

So he could tell her about it. It would be interesting. An exercise in friendship.

But instead, he just looked down at the beer bottle in his hand. “My brother is interested in beer. Our own beer.”

She frowned. “Okay?”

“What do you know about brewing beer?”

“Oh, plenty. I haven’t done a whole lot of it, but I have before, on special request. And I know how to get a setup together.”

“You don’t need to make anything out of buckets. We can buy actual equipment. But I would like your help pricing it out. And it would be great if you could walk me through the process a little bit.”

“Sure. I can do that.”

“How would you like to head up the endeavor?”

She blinked. “What?”

“If Denver ends up agreeing after we present him with a plan, would you like to be in charge of Four Corners Beer?”

She looked like she had been slapped with a wet fish. “I... I don’t know. I really don’t. I... What does that mean for me?”