“Yeah, so?” He ran his hands along the length of his abdomen and rolled and thrust his hips. “This just showcases the goods so much better. Don’t you think?”
My hand flew up to cover my eyes, and I barked out a laugh. “I really didn’t want to see that. Ever. And no, I don’t think. I think it makes you look like one of those sports nutcases.”
“Sports nutcases?” He lifted both his brows before he burst out laughing and picked his beer up off the coffee table. “I am a sports nutcase, in case you haven’t noticed. It’s part of being a man, bro.”
“No, it’s really not.” Growing up, I’d played a lot of sports but never really had too much time to watch them.
Our old man lived and breathed for baseball, like so many others in my home state, but his love for it kind of put me off. Well, that, and the fact whenever Riley or I tried to join him to watch a game, he’d growl at us that if we didn’t have enough work to do, he’d happily give us more.
The television was mostly used by my mother for soap operas and my father for his beloved baseball, while my brother and I only managed to sneak in a few shows here and there. It wasn’t as bad as it sounded.
We were boys growing up on a farm. Dad was right. There was always a lot of work to be done, and whenever we had free time, I’d preferred to be either outside or busying myself with schoolwork anyway.
It had always been a priority of mine to get out of Woodstock, and I knew lying on the couch in front of a screen wasn’t going to get me there. Since moving to the city, I’d gotten slightly more into sports, but I guessed it just wasn’t part of my very DNA like it seemed to be a part of Andrew’s.
He snorted at me now, rolling his eyes as he threw himself down on the couch across from mine. “One day, bro, I’m going to get you dressed up for a game. Just you wait.”
“Wouldn’t hold my breath if I was you.” I laid my head back and sucked down more of my beer, my gaze on the exposed beams crisscrossing Andrew’s ceiling. From the way they looked now, I never would have guessed how much work it had taken to get them restored. Just like the rest of the warehouse, the beams had been pretty rotten when Andrew had bought the place.
I’d thought he was crazy, but he insisted the neighborhood was being rejuvenated and that this place was capable of being turned into the most perfect man cave. Loathe as I was to admit it out loud, he’d been right.
The area had turned into a trendy spot for young professionals to live over the last few years. It was covered in bars, clubs, bistros, and coffee shops. It boasted quirky art galleries, bike paths, and organic grocers. They even had street murals.
All in all, I thought it was bullshit.
Andrew loved it, though, and I couldn’t fault him on that. It was everything he’d ever wanted in a neighborhood, and the exposed brick walls and open-plan layout of his warehouse suited him to a tee, too.
It was a far cry from my estate out in the suburbs, not actually all that far from Bishop’s Hollow, but I was starting to see the appeal. My house had been bought because it was a solid investment. It was a good place to live and had plenty of space for whatever I might need.
Andrew’s had been bought as a den of iniquity or, as I liked to think of it, an over-sized play pen. But I had to admit that living here, cutting free, and simply being didn’t seem all that bad anymore.
“Stop ogling my house,” he joked. “It’s not for sale. Not to you or anyone else.”
“Dude, everything is for sale. The only question is the price.”
He rolled his eyes at me and chugged his beer, pounding his fist into his chest when he was done. “Not this house. I wouldn’t let it go if you offered me millions of bucks for it.”
“Yeah? So you’re still going to be living here when you’re old and gray and married?”
He winced. “Don’t say the M-word in here. You’ll scare the place.”
“If it’s that easily scared, I don’t want it anyway.” I laughed and drained the rest of my beer. “We should get going.”
“Yeah, soon. Let’s have one more drink. We haven’t pre-gamed nearly hard enough. I’m pretty sure I have a bottle of tequila around here somewhere. Give me a minute.”
Sure enough, he was back less than a minute later with two more beers, a frosted glass bottle under one arm, and shot glasses in his free hand. He grinned broadly at me. “Let’s celebrate.”
“What are we celebrating?” I asked, accepting the beer he handed over to me.
He shrugged as he set down the small glasses and filled them, pushing one across the coffee table toward me. “It’s game day, so we can celebrate that. How did your open house go yesterday? If you sold it, we could celebrate that as well.”
“I got a few offers. One of them should get accepted, but I don’t know for sure yet, and we shouldn’t celebrate prematurely.”
Andrew chuckled. “I bet you know all about premature celebration.” The way he lowered his voice and emphasized the word after a brief pause made it clear that it hadn’t been the word he really wanted to use.
“Fuck off. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Hey, you can’t blame me for thinking that. If I’d been dry for as long as you have, I’d have been premature too.”
“Shut up.” I groaned. “I’ve just been busy, and I’m bored as fuck with the usual. Get off my ass about it. Are we going to drink these before they get warm?”
“Yeah.” He threw his shot back without toasting to anything and grabbed a fistful of his blond hair, eyes stretched wide open. “You’re bored of one-night stands with hot-as-fuck women? What is wrong with you?”
“You and I have two very different definitions of hot as fuck.” Without really meaning to, I found my mind drifting back to Elsie as I tossed my own drink down the hatch. “Speaking of which, there was a woman at the open house yesterday who was pretty hot.”
“Yeah?” He spread his legs wide and popped his elbows on them, drink dangling between his fingers. “Was she waiting on her husband? The hot ones at those things always seem to be waiting on the wallet to arrive.”
I snorted, but I couldn’t argue. “Nah, she wasn’t like that. From the sound of it, she’s pretty independent. Smart too.”
“If she’s the whole package, why don’t you call her? We can meet up with her somewhere after the game.”
I sighed before taking another long sip of my beer. “I can’t call her because I didn’t get her number.”
“Dude.” He shook his head. “That’s a rookie mistake.”
“Yeah, well, there’s nothing I can do about it now. I checked the guest book from the open house, and she didn’t leave her details.”
Andrew let out a disappointed sound, then lifted his arms in the air. “Hey, I’m sorry, but it sounds like it’s just not your fate to sleep with her. Don’t despair. We’ll find you someone else to fuck later. I’ve got you.”
“No thanks.” I laughed. “I mean, thanks for the offer, but firstly, you know I don’t need any help in that department, and second, I don’t give a fuck about fate.”