I deserved that. “There’s nothing there, but whenever—if ever—I find someone to be with, trust me to make the right decision for me and Keith. Okay?”

After a short hesitation, he nodded, and then turned to walk toward the loft where his and Grey’s room was.

I pulled myself off the couch and headed toward the bedroom, ready to crawl into bed and sleep for the few hours I had before I needed to wake up for my shift. I checked on Keith, and smiled at the way he was sleeping, completely sprawled out with all of the covers pushed all the way down.

As I was pulling the comforter back over him, my phone vibrated on my nightstand, and my heart skipped a beat.

I stared at it until the screen went black again, then slowly straightened and walked around the room to retrieve it. With shaky hands, I picked up my phone and held my breath as I prepared to check the lock screen.

The air ripped from my lungs and my heart took off when I read the message that waited for me.

Stranger: And here I’d thought you’d taken your words away from me . . .

Chapter Eight

Deacon

June 5, 2016

“JESUS CHRIST, DUDE, stop yawning,” Graham said with a groan the next morning, and kicked at my leg.

I ran my hands through my hair and bit back another yawn. “Shut up, you don’t look any better than me,” I grumbled, and picked up one of Keith’s crayons to fix some things on his kid’s menu before he woke from his nap on the short drive over.

“I need coffee,” I said distractedly as I colored. “It was a long night.”

“Ew,” Grey said, then pretended to gag. “Ew, I don’t want to know.”

“Did you really take home someone from the wedding?” Knox asked, and shook his head. “Come on, man. It was my wedding.”

“He didn’t,” Graham answered for me. “But he probably had a line waiting when we got home. I made him turn off Candy for a couple days until the wedding was over.”

Knox barked out a laugh, and everyone else sitting at the table looked among the three of us with clueless expressions.

“Didn’t,” I said through another yawn. “Just . . . I just couldn’t sleep.”

“Yeah, I bet you couldn’t,” Knox said through his laughter.

I’d spent the entire night and morning texting the owner of the journal while working on Charlie’s car outside the warehouse. After the bullshit that had gone down at the wedding with Charlie, I probably would have done exactly what Graham and Knox thought—I would have gone down my list of waiting girls in Candy. But that message, that fucking message with that one word had changed everything.

Stranger . . .

I hadn’t been able to respond fast enough.

I also hadn’t responded to anyone else, or given a shit that hours had passed or that night had turned to day as we’d texted.

I still didn’t have a name, but I didn’t care. I knew she was somewhere between the ages of twenty and thirty, so at least I knew she was legal. And I knew she was single . . . that was all I needed to know to not put a stop to this now. The rest of the specifics didn’t matter.

Her words and everything else I learned about her through them mattered more than specifics ever could.

The fact that I had been able to open up to her in a way I never had with anyone else meant fucking everything.

Because to her, to this girl, I wasn’t Deacon Carver. I wasn’t the guy everyone in Thatch knew me to be.

“Hey, everyone. What can I get you?”

My head snapped up at that voice, and my gaze locked with eyes so blue, it was hard to look away.

To this strange girl, I wasn’t what Charlie had so perfectly described me as: Unapologetic and arrogant.

A chorus of “Heys!” went up around the table, and as soon as they died down, Jagger cleared his throat.

“Well, apparently Deacon needs coffee to get through the morning after the marathon of women from last night.”

My eyes shot to Jagger, but he was looking at his sister pointedly.

“Ew,” Grey and Harlow said at the same time, and after a slight pause, I heard Charlie mumble under her breath, “Disgusting.”

Before I could say anything in my defense, Charlie looked at Harlow and said, “Shouldn’t you be on your honeymoon?”

I didn’t pay attention to Harlow’s response, or anyone else as they gave Charlie their drink orders. I couldn’t stop watching Charlie and the way she was once again so obviously trying not to look at me.

Without realizing it, my gaze slowly dropped from her face down her body, and settled on her waist. My hands curled and the tips of my fingers tingled, and I had the strongest urge to pull her against me again.

I flexed my hand and mentally shook my head, and told myself it was because I wasn’t used to having someone who didn’t throw herself at me. But when I looked back up and noticed the way her eyes kept darting over to Graham, and how her cheeks filled with heat, my hand curled into a fist. Irritation flashed through me, and something white-hot settled in my stomach and pulsed through my veins, just as it had the night before when I’d seen Graham dancing with her. I didn’t understand it, and I didn’t like it.

And I needed to stop thinking about the way her body had felt against mine.

Before I knew I was moving, I was out of the booth and following her as she walked away to get our drinks.

“Charlie Girl,” I murmured when she slowed at the POS to enter in the drink order.

She faltered for a second, but she didn’t turn to look at me, and her voice was calm when she asked, “Why are you following me?”

“Is that really how people see me?”

She looked over her shoulder, her brow pinched and eyes full of confusion.

“Unapologetic and arrogant,” I clarified.

“And unaware,” she added softly.

“Of what?”

“Exactly.” Her eyes bored into mine for long seconds before she spoke. “Deacon, why are you asking me this?”

“Because I need to know if that’s what people see when they see me.”

“Isn’t that how you want people to see you?” She looked down again to punch our drinks into the screen, and when she finished, she just stood there. She didn’t have to look to know that I hadn’t left. With a sigh, she turned, already speaking as she did. “You’ve created this image, Deacon. The three of you did. Knox got out of it, but that was different because he’d had Harlow before any of you ever became—well, the way you are.”