Dammit.
"I hope you have better luck with your lady than you do at pool," Luke said as he held his hand out. I stuck a twenty in it.
"Fine, but winner goes and buys a round of beer." I grabbed the pool cube and racked them up for the next game.
I had to think of my next move.
"You want to go where?" I asked Jess as I looked at her. We were both stuffed to the brim with cake, and she was a little tipsy. I'd opted for cake only and mainlined water instead.
One of us had to be sober to get us home.
"I want to stop by the pool hall, show Brandon all the things I like." Brandon worked part-time at his father's bar, must've been his shift.
"Seriously?" I asked.
"Yeah, we have to discuss this stuff sometime. Why not now? He's always working, I'm always working."
I rolled my eyes. "As you wish, princess."
It was an hour drive from Billings to the pool hall in Laurel, but that little bar was a staple. It was open to families until nine and then after that, it was strictly twenty-one and up. Everyone went there in high school.
Hell, it was even my main hangout in high school.
I hopped out of the car and followed her in as she ran up the steps and into the hall.
"Honey, I saw so many things I want to show you," she said as she spotted her fiancée bartender and started towards him. I'd say it was the wine talking, but every time she saw him in high school she got the same look on her face, and the same tone of voice.
“You let her into the wine, didn’t you?” he asked.
I just smiled. “It’s not my wedding.”
He was her soul mate. I was sure of it. I grinned at him as I walked up to the bar.
"Did you have a good time?" he asked me while glancing at her phone. She'd taken so many pictures that I knew they'd be there for a good long while.
"It was educational,” I answered.
"Did you find our wedding colors?" a voice said from behind me.
I knew it the instant I heard it. I closed my eyes and swore before turning.
Wyatt.
"Our wedding colors?" I asked. "I don't think so."
"We'll decide them together, then." Wyatt's sense of humor wouldn't work on me. Not today.
“Oh wait, I remember. I did. They were ‘never’ and a coordinating color of ‘not going to happen.’ It’ll make a cute set.” I was all tongue in cheek.
Jess just laughed.
"Did you know he would be here?" I asked Jess.
"A little birdy told me," she admitted, grinning.
Team Wyatt, right. Was anyone team Rose?
There was nowhere I could go that people weren't rooting for this man. No one except me.
"And you are going to be a while, aren't you?" I asked.
They both nodded. "You too, Brandon?" I asked.
"Hey, she's my fiancee. What do you want from me? I support what she supports."
I sighed. I was trapped with them and him. Wyatt.
"What are you so smug about?" I asked Wyatt. He was grinning from ear to ear.
"Besides seeing you? I just kicked Luke's ass at pool."
"Of course, you did."
"Do you want to play a game?" he asked.
The pool hall might've been my hangout. Where I went with Jess to do homework at the bar or watch the guys play pool, but I'd never learned how.
"I might as well watch a game," I said honestly. It sure has hell beat listening to Jess go on and one about the different cakes we tried.
"No, not watch. Play." Wyatt had a way of honing in on the things I was trying to avoid and teasing them out.
It was annoying as all get out.
"I don't know how to play," I finally admitted.
"Really?" he asked.
I nodded.
"Well, then, let me teach you." He pulled me towards the table, his hand on the small of my back.
Dammit, he had a way of touching me that sent chills up and down my spine. Every time. I tried to ignore it, but a heat started at the place of contact and spread up and down my body.
"Luke you want to wager a bet? Me and her against you,” Wyatt said.
"That hardly seems fair, but if you want to just give me your money we can skip the game," Luke was waiting next to the pool table up against a wall.
I hadn't seen him in years. Anyone who knew Wyatt knew Luke. They'd been best friends since they were kids and they'd always stuck together.
I knew them both vaguely growing up, enough to be told to stay away from them.
Both of them were troublemakers and players. Father's warned their daughters about men like Wyatt and Luke.
For good reason too.
Luke broke the balls, sending them flying all over the table, spread out.
"Okay, so you hold the pool stick like this," he placed it in my hands, positioning my figures so that I was holding it similarly to a pen or pencil, but looser, but honestly, I couldn't remember how to hold it if you paid me. I was so focused on his arms around me, his body up against mine that I forgot there was even a pool table there.