“Jesus, man. If you could see the way you’re looking at her.” Quinn shook his head. “Should I get another ride?”
“What? No. It’s fine.” Though he wanted to tell his friend to do exactly that. Get a hold of yourself, idiot. He had to control himself—he was about to be up close and personal with Jules, and jumping her bones the second he saw her wasn’t acceptable.
“Sure it is.” Quinn hopped out of the truck, and Adam took several deep breaths and focused on getting his body’s reaction minimized. He didn’t have long, because Jules climbed up and scooted over until she was pressed against him from shoulder to hip, Aubry on the other side of her.
Quinn wedged his big body into the tiny space between the redhead and the door. “There’s plenty of room for you right here, sweet cheeks.” He patted his lap.
She shot him a look that would have sent a lesser man bolting from the truck. “Touch me and lose the attached body part.”
Quinn just grinned. “You’re all sugar and spice and everything nice, aren’t you?”
Hearing the redhead’s hiss of rage was almost enough to distract Adam from how good Jules smelled—like coconut and suntan lotion. He smiled at her. “You ready for this?”
“Not in the least.” Her eyes were a little too wide. “It’s bringing back all sorts of memories I could do without.”
Memories of her and Grant. The thought sent a completely irrational spike of jealousy through him. That shit had gone down years ago. There was no reason for him to want to wring the man’s neck for knowing that he’d once gotten to touch Jules whenever he wanted, or that he’d held her heart close enough to break it.
Or, hell, that he still affected her strongly enough nine years later that she was willing to get up close and personal with a near stranger to prove a point.
Adam turned back to the road, clenching his jaw to keep words inside that he had no right to. He didn’t have any rights when it came to Jules, and it’d do him good to remember that.
The rest of the trip up was done in painful silence. He was almost grateful for the fact that Aubry had taken an instant dislike to Quinn’s poking at her, because her icy one-word answers to him made conversation between Adam and Jules damn near impossible. He parked next to two other trucks. Of the two, he pegged the shiny pavement queen to be Grant’s—the red Ford must have had all of ten miles on the engine. His ten-year-old Dodge looked battered and beaten by comparison.
He’d be an idiot not to see the similarities between the trucks and their owners.
It was enough to give a lesser man a complex.
Adam got out of the cab before anyone could say something to tip him over the edge and strode around to the back to start unpacking the tubes.
“Is everything okay?”
He didn’t look over at Jules. “I could live the rest of my life happy knowing I wouldn’t hear that question again from another damn person.”
If he expected her to rabbit away from his snarled words, he was sadly mistaken. “You don’t have to do this. We can just say something came up and skip it.”
Even if he was willing to do that—and piss-poor mood or not, he couldn’t let Jules down so spectacularly—the chance to bolt disappeared when Grant came around the back of the truck and waved. “I’m glad you made it.” He did a double take when he saw Jules. “I can’t believe your mama let you out of the door dressed like that.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Funny thing—I have my own place, and I’m not sixteen anymore.”
“I can see that.” And then he proceeded to rake her with his gaze in a way that had Adam seeing red. He stalked over to slip an arm around her waist, telling himself all the while that he was playing a part.
It sure as fuck didn’t feel like a part. It felt like he was half a second from beating that smug piece of shit’s face in. Adam put every ounce of that desire onto his face when he clenched his teeth in a way that only a fool would call a grin. “Didn’t your daddy ever teach you that it’s not nice to eye-fuck another man’s woman, let alone when he’s standing not two feet away?”
Grant took a step back and seemed to catch himself because he straightened, his shoulders going back. “You know as well as I do that she’s not the kind of—”
“Boy, I suggest you rethink the words that are about to come out of your idiot mouth.”
Grant’s teeth clicked together when he snapped his mouth shut. He glared. “Hurry up. The party’s already started.” Then he strode away, yanking his shirt off and pausing to shove it into his truck before he disappeared down the path leading to the swimming hole.