Page 53 of Unexpected Shot
Now I know he’s stalking me, because how does he know what I was thinking about just seconds before he walked in here?
Sure, fighting with Beau is exhausting. I’d like to be tired from normal things. Like too much caffeine. Or staying up too late because you remembered a fight you got into in third grade and you suddenly have the best comeback.
But, on the other hand, fighting with Beau is my normal. My constant. My way of keeping him at the arm’s length I need for my sanity.
Before I can say something lame that would answer his question, but also not really answer it, I look down at his hand again.
There. Distraction. Perfect.
“What did you do?”
He catches on to where I’m looking, flexes it once, then tries to hide it. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. It looks like you were actually fighting.”
He flags Frank down for a refill of his beer and shot before hanging his head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Aren’t we a pair,” I say sarcastically. “You don’t want to talk about why your fist looks like it had a run-in with a wall, and I don’t want to talk about…anything. Guess that means I can leave.”
I start to stand up, but Beau grabs my arm again. “Please, Shelby. Don’t go.”
I let out an exasperated sigh. “Why do you want me to stay?”
“I…I don’t know,” he says. And though it’s a non-answer, I think he’s being honest. “But I don’t want to keep fighting.”
I should say I don’t want to either, but my stubborn ass can’t mutter the words. I can, however, give him this. “How about a truce?”
The word almost feels dirty on my tongue.
“A truce? That you’re offering up?”
“I can be civil,” I defend. “Plus, this is going to be temporary. For the weekend. A trial run, if you will.”
That makes him laugh slightly. “What would that even look like?”
“I don’t know, I just came up with it,” I say, and that’s when I notice he’s a little more drunk than I realized. His eyes are glassier than normal, and he’s a bit wobbly on the chair. Combine that with the redness on his hand, and I really want to know what happened to him tonight. “But it’s a good idea. We have a lot riding on this weekend.”
“That we do,” he says, a little slurred. “Plus, we don’t need to add in a twenty-year feud we barely remember the origin of.”
My eyebrow shoots up so high it nearly hits the ceiling.
“Fine. You remember. But I never knew all of it. I just…I’m tired Shelby. Aren’t you?”
I am. I really am. And a little drunk. Which is the perfect combination for me to think this one-weekend truce might not be the worst idea.
“You won’t cheat?”
“I’ve never cheated,” he says firmly. “You won’t call me an asshat?”
I let out a sigh. “Fine. But you need to promise not to step in and save the day when you feel like I can’t handle myself. Today was uncalled for.”
“I promise. But I won’t apologize for doing what I did today. You were going to kill him, Shelby.”
“I wasn’t going to kill him,” I say with a shrug. “Just maybe slash three of his tires.”
“Only three?” Beau asks. “Why not all four?”
I smile as I sit back on the bar stool, waving Frank over. “I’ll tell you about it during our truce.”
