Page 2 of Desired Hearts (Bachelor Pact #2)

PARKER

“There he is, the man of the hour.”

As usual, Beck stood behind the bar at O’Malley’s Pub, raising a hand to me as I walked through the surprisingly heavy Wednesday night crowd.

Not surprising? That he was currently working a group of female tourists with his drink-making skills.

His surfer good looks, slightly out of place in upstate New York, would charm every one of them.

Question was, which did Beck have his eye on?

“Took you long enough,” Mason said. I sat in the empty seat beside him. “The brunette,” he whispered.

“Convenient of them,” I said of the women, “to differentiate themselves.”

One brunette. One blonde. One redhead.

“Speaking of brunettes,” I said as Beck poured my beer, “where’s Pia?”

Mason’s fiancée was usually not far behind him, and this “celebration” was her idea.

Not that I thought a celebration was needed. I constructed a footbridge pro bono for the town because it connected a residential area with a kids’ park, not for some award from the Cedar Falls Recreational Committee.

“Drinking wine with Delaney.”

“Couldn’t they drink wine here?” I asked as Beck pushed a beer toward me.

“Apparently not. She’s going through a bad breakup.”

“Who?” Beck asked. He hated not being part of a conversation.

“Nosy bastard. Go back to impressing your tourists.”

“Shhh,” he admonished me. “Don’t want her to hear and think I’m a player.”

Mason and I exchanged a glance, and we both burst into laughter. Neither of us needed to state the extremely obvious. Beck was the biggest player that either of us had ever met.

“Assholes,” he muttered as a guy at the end of the bar flagged him down for a drink.

“I can’t believe you haven’t met her yet,” Mason said, I assumed about Pia’s good friend Delaney. I wasn’t born and raised in Cedar Falls and therefore didn’t know every single person in town like Mason and Beck.

“I don’t think she’s lived here full-time since you came to town,” Mason said.

“But she’s been here at least since Pia moved to town so she’s been around since fall.”

“True. But with the long-distance boyfriend, Delaney’s usually out of dodge whenever she’s not working.”

I was about to ask him what Pia’s friend did for a living when Beck reappeared.

“Round of shots for the best of us.” He slid one toward each of us. As he held up his phone, a familiar face appeared.

He might be crazy as hell, but Beck was one thoughtful motherfucker too.

“Congrats on the big award,” our friend Cole said through the phone. He was the only one of us not living in Cedar Falls.

“It’s not a big deal,” I insisted.

Cole adjusted his dark-framed glasses, which made him look every inch the college professor that he was.

“To Parker,” Mason said, lifting his shot glass. “The nice one.”

Even Cole lifted a shot glass. It looked like he was at a bar too, though it would be very different from this small-town Irish pub, Cole living in Manhattan and all.

“Bound by life’s ride,” Beck said as we all finished our familiar toast. “Here’s to the journey.”

Beck handed the phone to me and went back to work.

“Thanks for checking in. When you coming back to town?” I asked him as Mason looked on.

“Can’t hear you guys well,” Cole said.

“Never mind. We’ll talk to you later.”

“See ya, Cole,” Mason added before Cole put up a hand, signing off.

“What’s next for the big award winner?” Mason pushed his shot glass toward Beck, who grabbed it walking by. The guy was a phenomenal bartender, even if he picked up nearly as many women as he served.

“Not you too?” I took a swig of beer.

Mason almost smiled. It took a lot for the corner of his lips to actually rise. “Seriously, though. What’s on tap after your weatherproofing job?”

“I was thinking we could tackle the bathrooms?—”

“With you, not the inn,” Mason clarified.

Since he took over his father’s inn, leaving the NYPD behind and moving back to Cedar Falls last year, I moved in and helped to renovate the place.

So of course Beck did too, not wanting to miss out.

Thankfully, even though Mason got together with Pia, his fiancée was on good terms with us clowns and cool with the arrangement.

“Nothing major,” I said. “A lot of odd jobs. Painting, tiling. We lost the apartment complex bid.”

“How did Jack manage to fuck that up?”

“By being Jack.”

My boss has a penchant for fucking things up.

“Park, you gotta get out on your own.”

Different day, same discussion. “Yeah, yeah.”

“I’m serious. You have enough jobs under your belt, and if you’re staying in construction, you can’t keep working for someone that flighty.”

I agreed, but there were problems with going out on my own.

With a college degree in business, and growing up working at my father’s car dealership, I knew what it took to start my own business.

It also wasn’t so simple in a town this size.

Jack would be madder than hell. Clients who were also friends would be forced to choose between us.

I was about peacemaking, not rocking the boat.

“The blonde just asked about you,” Beck said to me, thankfully interrupting our discussion. “Said, ‘Your cowboy-looking friend is hot.’ Told her you weren’t a cowboy, but she didn’t seem to care.”

“It’s the boots.” Mason clearly got a kick out of that description.

I was an outdoorsy guy, and did like my boots, but hiking and fishing weren’t exactly the same as cattle herding.

“No, thanks,” I said. “Not my type.” I didn’t need to look over, having already noticed the women when I came in.

Unlike Beck, I didn’t make one-night stands a regular occurrence. Not that I was into relationships either. All four of us swore off on those a long time ago, although Mason apparently didn’t get the memo. Or at least, lost the memo after meeting Pia.

I could hear the blonde giggling from here. Definitely not my type.

“You sure?” Beck asked, adding matchmaking to his eclectic resume.

“Positive.”

“Good call,” Mason said as Beck walked off. “They’re barely twenty-one.”

My phone buzzed. Looking at the screen, I groaned.

“What is it?”

“Shit,” I said, re-reading the text. “Dad. Wants to visit this weekend.”

I texted him back.

“That’s… strange.”

“Agreed. Something must be up. Do we have room?”

“At the inn? Sure. Valentine’s Day weekend is the only one sold out in the next month. He’s a real piece of work,” Mason added.

A guy who cheated on my mother three times before getting caught, whose mid-life crisis started when my brothers were barely out of diapers and had never ended? “That’s one word for him.”

I texted back, tossed my phone on the bar, and called to Beck. “I’m gonna need another beer. Maybe a shot too.”