Page 99 of A Real Goode Time

I laughed. “A little. But only of all the giant men.”

The bear-man reached out a massive paw. “I’m Lucas.”

“Nice to meet you, Lucas.”

He grinned. “Come on. I’ll get you acquainted. Let’s let these ladies talk girl talk. And by girl talk, I mean dicks and periods.”

“Women talk about dicks?” I asked. “I didn’t figure that.”

“Women are nasty, kid. Get ’em alone, and they’ll be cackling about cock and comparing boobs in no time. And this crew? They don’t even need to be in a girls-only crowd, as you just witnessed.”

“I don’t believe you, sorry,” I laughed.

Lucas snagged a nearby woman—this one with fiery red hair. “Dru. When it’s just you girls, what do you talk about?”

“Our periods and, honestly, penises. How silly they are, and how obsessed you men are with them. And, after a few drinks, maybe some more complimentary things, and a few jokes.” She laughed, and reached out to shake my hand. “I’m Dru.”

“Rhys.”

“This is Torie’s boyfriend, or something like that,” Lucas said.

I laughed. “More something like that, I think.”

“Ah, the oldit’s complicated,” Dru said. “Let me uncomplicate it for you—if you try to leave her, and it feels wrong, it is. Simple as that. You can fight it, but in the end, you won’t be right until you’re with her. On the flip side, if you leave and it hurts but it’s fine, you’ll get over it.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, laughing. “I guess we’ll have to see, huh?”

Lucas whacked my back, and I think it was meant to be a playful, affectionate thing, but it made my teeth rattle. “Come on. Most of the guys are up top shooting whiskey like fools.”

“Rhys!” I heard Torie’s voice behind me.

I stopped, turned. “Miss me already, huh?”

“Of course,” she said, deadpan enough that I don’t think it was a joke. “I just wanted to say go for it.”

“Go for what?”

She gestured at the stairs to the roof. “Have fun. Be a little irresponsible.”

I held her gaze. Nodded. “You too. This is your family.”

Lucas was watching this exchange; after Torie hesitated, then waved awkwardly and went back to the circle of women, he nudged me to the stairs.

“That’s a lot of complicated you two got going on,” he noted.

I laughed, a somewhat bitter sound. “Yeah. You’re telling me.”

He directed me across the top deck to where the men, a good dozen or more of them, were all gathered in a circle, some standing, some sitting on chairs, others leaning against railings.

“Well, you’ll sort it out. For now, just relax.” Another of those teeth-jarring back pats. “Cut loose if you want. I’m the self-assigned sober daddy, so I’ll be here to pick you up if you get sloppy.”

Like I was one of the crew already.

And, as the night wore on, I found myself welcomed as I’d never been in my life. Despite being intimidatingly good-looking, muscular, successful, and cool, the guys were all warm and friendly. There were as many F-bombs dropped as if I was back home, and the triplets—Lucas’s sons, I came to discover—each had a faint southern twang that kept bringing mine out. They were all, as Liv had claimed, rough, wild, a little crazy, fun, vulgar, and just all-around great people. And without even trying, I found myself feeling like one of them. Telling rowdy stories of growing up in the holler, which were always matched by someone else’s story. I was handed a glass with a few ice cubes and roughly six fingers of whiskey. I could tell just from smelling it that it was super high-end old stuff. And when I tasted it, it went down like spicy silk, fiery in my gut.

I sipped at it, not wanting to get hammered my first time around these guys. But no matter how much I sipped at it, my glass was always full. I’d be talking to someone, gesturing, and someone would just…top it off. I lost count of the number of bottles that got emptied, and even though there was a lot of slurring as the night went on, and a lot of raucous, too-loud laughter, there was never a moment of conflict. No one ever got pissy and lost their temper. No one said anything to offend anyone else, or insulted anyone’s girlfriend or mama.

I tapped the beefy, rock-hard shoulder of…uh…Bast? I think his name was Bast. By that point I’d had enough to drink that things were fuzzy and loose, and names were getting hard to keep straight. “Hey, so.”