“Coffee?” Juke’s face sagged into a grimace. “I guess I could go for a cup. Or a beer.”
I shot him a look.
“A cup of joe it is,” he said.
Honestly, I could have gone for a beer myself, and I hardly drank anything but an occasional glass of wine. I had made an exception the night I did the stakeout with Cricket, but only because I couldn’t afford the kind of wine she’d probably casually taken from her collection. Hey, I’m an opportunist. “Where’s the closest diner?”
“We can go downstairs. Dak always has coffee.”
I wasn’t prepared for that. “Um, you want me to take you to a bar to get sober?”
“Dak makes a helluva cup of coffee.” Juke shoved the form he’d finally located at me as he passed by.
I did not want to see Dak. Not on a good day. Definitely not on a day when I wore my least favorite pair of jeans and had a grape-jelly smudge on the cuff of the vintage blouse I had found in Cricket’s castoff bin. I’m not sure why she’d tossed it. Probably didn’t feel vintage enough for her couture corner. The avocado-green silk was by some designer I had never heard of and hung beautifully, so there was that, but my hair hadn’t been washed that morning. Settling on applying a few bobby pins, I had done a twist thing that was likely super sad at present. I pressed my naked lips together. “Um, I—”
But it was too late, because someone who had obviously had—I eyed the top bottle in the wastebasket—too much Wild Turkey was already out the door.
I smoothed my hair, shoved the form for Cricket into my canvas bag, and followed my cousin down the metal steps. At the bottom, Juke pivoted toward the back door.
“Shouldn’t we go around?” I asked, not wanting to go through the rear of the bar.
“Nah, Dak don’t care.” Juke pushed into the freshly painted back door, nearly mowing someone over. “Hey, Shirl.”
“Dak said he’s not serving you, Juke, so turn back around and get on up to your place,” the woman said, pulling something from the fryer and jerking her head toward a guy wearing a cook’s cap. Like she might need backup.
“Just coffee. I swear. This is my cousin Ruby. She’s in charge of sobering me up.” Juke jerked a thumb back at me. I gave a weak smile and wave.
Shirley narrowed her eyes. “Okay. But I’m watching you.”
Juke made a face and headed for the swinging metal door. “Bring us two coffees when you gotta minute, Shirl. I’ll tip you good.”
Shirley looked at me like she expected me to say something. I had nothing. So I just followed my cousin into the bar, praying that Dak wasn’t there.
But he was.
Right behind the bar to our left, wearing a soft T-shirt, a bar towel slung over his shoulder, and jeans that clung to his muscled thighs.
Damn it. Why hadn’t he lost his hair and gained thirty pounds?
And to rub salt in the wound was the fact that he was still gorgeous. His adorable dimples were doing their thing as he laughed with a group of guys nursing beers at the bar. Two televisions behind him showed baseball games. And the variety of liquor reflected in the mirror gave any upscale bar a run for its money. Dak caught Juke out of the corner of his eye, his gaze narrowing slightly, telling me that my ex had had enough of my cousin.
But then his gaze found me.
He stilled, holding a glass in one hand, a bottle of Captain Morgan in the other.
“Hey-ya, Dak,” Juke called, bellying up to the bar.
“No happy hour for you, J-man,” Dak said, jerking his eyes back to the task at hand. But I knew him. He wasn’t as unaffected as he pretended, and something about that caused a tiny frisson of pleasure to click its heels. Which was dangerous. Because even though I had caused our breakup, my heart still ached for Dak.
“Just coffee.” Juke pulled out a stool for me, then took the one beside it. “You remember my baby cousin Ruby? Y’all may have been in school together.”
Dak turned away from us, setting the rum on the shelf. “Sure I do.”
Somehow I managed to slide onto the stool without losing my composure. It had been almost nine years since he’d left me at the Carters’ barn, tears in his eyes. I had broken his heart when I had stayed to party with kids I had no business being around. But that was the year my dad had taken off, my mom had lost her shit, and I had embarked on a death wish, smoking too much pot, drinking too much Crown, and daring anyone to tell me what to do. Even my boyfriend.
Dak had had a future—LSU baseball had been knocking at his door, along with dozens of other top programs in the nation. And I’d had nothing. I had felt like a Balthazar, destined to amount to shit, so I had self-sabotaged. By the end of that year, Dak had taken off for Baton Rouge, and I had dropped out of North Caddo, picking up my first arrest for possession and resisting arrest. My second had come six months later when I had stupidly gone with some guys who broke into cars to steal guns. I had been a dumbass in more than one way.