Page 8 of Structure of Love

I went back out, mostly to keep an eye on the kid, and kept serving drinks to people.

My best friend Silas sat at the bar, mostly to hang out with me a little and get a beer. He often did this, and I loved having a friend come in to shoot the shit with. Although I didn’t have a lot of time to do that tonight since we were hoppin’.

Still, I paused in front of him, giving him an arch look. “That’s your second beer, my guy.”

“It was a fucking lousy day at work.”

“How lousy? Two beers, three beers?”

“Honestly, four. Don’t worry, Casey’s already set to swing by and grab me in about an hour.”

“Glad to hear it.” None of my friends were irresponsible drinkers. Anyone who had proven to be stupid with alcohol didn’t stay in my life for long. I’d had friends like that as a teen, and I didn’t need them as an adult. “What happened, anyway?”

Silas sighed. From the soul. He scrubbed a hand over his shaved head in frustration. “So this guy comes in for a tattoo, pretty standard thing, right? He wants three dates on his chest, in this stylized script. His birthday, his wedding day, and then his wife’s birthday. I’m like, okay, guy’s romantic, cool. So he pays me, I sit down, do the thing, it doesn’t even take me an hour because it’s all fine script. Then his wife comes in, and he’s showing off the tattoo, and you know that look on a woman’s face when her man hasmassivelyscrewed up?”

“Oh no, did he get the wedding date wrong?”

“No. Worse. He mixed up his ex-girlfriend’s birthday with the wife’s.”

“Ooooooh shit.”

“Pretty much my reaction and his. And he’s backpeddlin’ hard, saying he’ll fix it—I actually could have, but didn’t get the chance—and right there in the shop, she demands his phone, and he’s now really panicking. That’s when I bought a clue. So did she. She didn’t even need to look through his phone, just demanded right there to know if he was still fucking his ex. He apologized, begging her for a chance, and she wouldn’t even hear of it. Just threw the phone back at his face and stalked out. Here’s the kicker—the wedding hadn’t happened yet.”

“Wait. Wait, so this cheating asshole now has his ex-girlfriend’s birthdayanda defunct wedding date on his chest?”

“A-yup. I told him no way in hell I’m fixing that either. I don’t help cheaters.”

I bumped fists with him because right on. “I take it the drama disrupted the whole shop?”

“Oh, the fight moved out to the parking lot. I didn’t even get a chance to bandage the tattoo before he raced out after her, and the fight wasloud.” Silas took another sip of beer with a pointed look at me. “Cops-were-called loud.”

“Yeah. Okay, I can see why you need four beers.”

The job pulled me away from him, and I was serving people consistently for the next several minutes. I kind of lost track of time, which was easy to do on busy nights like this. At least, I lost track of time until something sexy walked up to my bar.

Damn. Seriously, damn. He was fine. Wasn’t often I met a man exactly my type, but this man was. Tall, built, raven dark hair in a sweep over his forehead, and beautiful blue eyes. Man could have been a model. He even moved like one, all athletic grace, and those dark wash jeans showed off toned thighs. For that matter, I saw hints of muscles from under the black T-shirt sleeves.

He walked right up to my bar but ignored me, instead focusing on the drunk kid. No way, this was the brother? Theydidn’t look a thing alike, which wasn’t uncommon, I supposed. I didn’t resemble my brothers either.

Silas saw me looking and tipped his head that way, mouthing,Your type?

I gave an adamant nod. Fuck yeah, totally my type.

“Cooper.” He shook the kid’s shoulder, but he’d crashed earlier and was dead asleep on top of the bar. “Cooper? Dammit, seriously?”

I shifted over and waved a hand to catch his attention. “Hey, I’m Logan. I called you earlier.”

His eyes met mine and he managed a polite smile. “Yeah, thanks for that. I’m Gage. Sorry for the trouble with my little brother.”

“How about I help you out? I can take a side. Help you get him into a car.”

“Honestly, that’d be great. He’s dead weight like this.”

And how often have you come in, like a hero, to clean up after little bro? Too many times, probably. I kept the thought behind my teeth.

I moved around the bar, signaled to Heather I was stepping out, and she nodded back. Heather had been bartending since she was eighteen, so she had this under control without me babysitting. I got a shoulder under Cooper’s arm, Gage took the other side, and we sort of crab walked out to the parking lot.

“The blue truck is mine,” Gage said, jerking his chin in the right direction.