“Second, I don’t wake up in the morning with anyone but me. I don’t spend the night with women I don’tknow. It’s dangerous. You could get robbed. I practice safe sex.”
He smiled then, and she couldn’t be annoyed at him. Because that was how he was.
“Okay, get out of my house,” she said, pushing at his shoulder. “I have to go take inventory at the yarn store.”
Her grandmother’s yarn store was forty minutes away, in Mapleton, and it had been part of her inheritance. It was an established shop with a full staff, but Rue worked there full-time and she loved it. She was a serious yarn addict. Her stash was the only thing in her house that was overflowing.
It was organized, though.
By fiber, weight and color.
“Okay then, see you at dinner.”
He left then, and got in his truck. As she watched him drive away, she couldn’t help but sigh in a contented sort of way.
Everything was perfect.
Everything was in its rightful place.
Chapter Two
Justice stacked rocks until his muscles ached. Until the tyranny of the night before released its hold on his head, and his muscles. The only way to survive partying this hard was to work harder.
The older he got, the more that was true.
At thirty-three he was hardly an old man, but the hard living was definitely beginning to catch up with him. So he was doing the best he could to outrun it any which way he could. Because the alternative was to grow the fuck up.
He wasn’t planning on doing that anytime soon.
He wondered, not for the first time, what his life would be like when he was less tethered to Rue. Sometimes she felt like the only thing holding him to basic human decency.
She was the only and best part of his valor.
It wasn’t like she was moving away or doing anything drastic. Rue never did anything drastic. She was a constant. The eternal port in the storm that he had grown up in. His best friend in the entire world. His better half, some might say.
She deserved the world.
He was happy as hell that she had found a man that made her happy. That she was moving on and havingthe kind of normal life that they hadn’t been able to imagine when they were kids.
Watching her win at this made him feel... He was proud of her. She deserved this. She deserved everything and more.
“You’re up early.”
He turned and saw his brother Denver standing there, staring at him. His tone was dry. Because it was 4:30 p.m., he was not up early. He had gotten up early to go to Rue’s. But this was a normal time for him to be up and about.
“Fuck you,” he said.
“Good morning,” his brother returned.
“I’ve already run errands today. Don’t be so high and mighty.”
“Oh yeah? What were you up to?”
“I had to go to a tux fitting. The wedding is in just couple of weeks.” There was no need to specify which wedding. It was the only wedding that mattered.
“Oh, that’s right. The wedding. I can’t believe it.”
“Yeah. Me neither.
