“Sure,” she replied.
“Me too,” Lexie put in.
“And me,” Faye added.
Laurie bent to her phone, mumbling, “On it.”
“Cool, thanks, Laurie,” I murmured, intent on moving back to my beer, and Deke, who had been standing behind me while I sat on my stool gabbing to Faye on one side, Jim-Billy on the other, Lexie beyond Jim-Billy. Deke had been standing in a man cluster, talking with Ty and Chace, as well as Tate, when he wasn’t with Lauren working the back of the bar.
I got close to my man. Putting my hand on his waist, I circled him from behind, trailing that hand along the small of his back in order not to interrupt the conversation he’d returned to with Chace and Ty.
And as I did, he automatically lifted his other arm high so I could duck under it. When I made it to his other side, still with his attention on the men, he curled his arm around my shoulders, pulling me in for a sideways hug before he released me so I could hit my seat.
All this participating in a chat with his buds.
But doing it managing to let me know he knew I was close. He liked me close. And he wanted me to know that.
And when I took my stool, he shifted into me so I could use his long body as a seat back then I felt his hand weave through my hair and come to rest, lightly fisted, on my shoulder.
This wasn’t claiming. Deke did not have to claim me around these people.
This was entirely affectionate.
This was just Deke being Deke.
I felt Faye climb up on her stool beside me but I didn’t look to her. I memorized the feel of Deke behind me, his hand in my hair, thinking for me, but also for Deke, that we came easy. That this came easy. That the lives we’d led brought him to me so he could give me this easy.
But more, so I could give that back.
On this thought, I felt something funny, lifted my gaze and caught Tate’s eyes on my shoulder where Deke’s hand lay.
He must have sensed he had my attention because I’d barely looked at him before his gaze came to me.
He did not smile. He did not lift his chin. His face didn’t soften. He looked reflective, actually borderline brooding. And when he looked in my eyes, he didn’t wipe any of that to hide it.
From what Deke had said, it was clear of all these folks, he was tightest with Tate.
And that look, I knew, was the look I could not see that Joss had when she was talking to me on the phone about her concerns I was getting in deep with Deke.
Catching Tate’s eyes, knowing this, I didn’t know what to do. I’d never been on the receiving end of a guy looking over the chick his best bud was into, wondering if she was right. Wondering if she’d make his friend happy. It had always been me that had to be cautious, my loved ones a hundred times more cautious than me.
But I was rich. I was famous. I was settling into a big house in the mountains.
And none of that fit with the man who was Deke.
My guy was thirty-eight-years-old and he’d looked, he’d been open to it, and he’d waited for the right woman who fit into his life as he liked to live it.
Tate was sharp. Tate was a man who cared about the people who meant something to him.
So Tate knew that.
He just didn’t know how I fit.
I didn’t suspect dudes had in-depth conversations about the women they chose to make their own, so Deke wouldn’t be sharing this with him.
And I knew there was no way for me to put Tate’s mind at ease. I couldn’t say anything that would make him know how I felt whenever I made Deke laugh. How I felt sitting right there, Deke’s hand on me, Deke doing something so casually thoughtful as positioning his body so I’d be more comfortable on a barstool.
I could not give him a big cocky smile. It was way too much to put in a look. And there were no words I could say that would put his mind at ease that I not only had this, it was beginning to mean everything to me.
The only thing I could do was sit there and hold his eyes, accept his challenge and walk the walk to give Tate the things he needed to know that I not only meant to make Deke happy, I was made to do it.
For the first time in my life, I had something to prove.
And staring into Tate’s eyes, I was intent on proving it.
I knew he understood his challenge was accepted when he reached out a hand and rapped his knuckles once on the bar in front of me before he broke eye contact and moved away.
Yes, Tate was sharp.
And Deke had good friends.
I had thought they were coming to be mine. Hell, Lauren wanted me in that photo at the back of the bar.
But I knew then I still had to earn it from all of them.
And I was going to accept that challenge too.
* * * * *
Late that night, Deke opened the door to my house and moved in in front of me.
He had a habit of this, both house and trailer.