“I don’t speak Irish, sweetheart,” he said, laying it on thick. “Just the Queen’s English with an Irish accent the same way you speak it with a Texas twang.”
The girl’s face was flushed with flirty excitement as she called to another female server who walked by.
“Ashley, ohmygawd, c’mere. You hafta hear this guy talk.”
I snorted and was quickly elbowed in the side for my insubordination.
“Calm down,” Charlie scolded. “What’s your problem?”
“I’m thirsty.”
Ashley walked up and made fluttery eyes at Charlie. Who could blame her? With his delicate facial features, dark eyelashes, mesmerizing green eyes, and unique red hair pulled back, he seriously looked like he’d just walked off a runway in Milan.
“Say something. Anything,” the first girl said with a look of eager anticipation on her face.
“Something,” Charlie said with a grin. “Anything.”
The young women both dissolved in a fit of giggles. I couldn’t stand this. It was so stupid. And it had nothing to do with the fact they were eying Charlie like they were imagining what he would sound like in bed.
Nothing at all.
“Would you mind grabbing those drinks for us please?” I asked our server as politely as I could. “Thank you.”
She narrowed her eyes at me before walking away with her friend.
West eyed me with a smirk. “Problem?”
Jackass brother.
“I’m thirsty,” I repeated through clenched teeth. “Some of us were working hard on a construction site all day.”
“Fuck you,” Charlie said under his breath. “I know you didn’t just imply I didn’t do my fair share of—.”
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Then how exactly did you mean it?”
West and Nico looked back and forth between us.
“I meant that woman might not realize how in need of a drink I am. It has nothing to do with you.”
West looked over at Charlie. “What did my brother do?”
Charlie squeezed my arm to stop me from answering. “Someone had to go sit in a cushy design studio half the day to make the final decisions about fabrics and shit. I told Hudson to go, but he insisted it had to be me since it was critical to the authentic look and feel of the place. Now he’s complaining about having to work the site by himself.” Charlie turned to look at me. “You know I would have rather stayed back and fixed the damned glass rack situation instead of trusting it to Mark.”
“Dude,” I said, still salty over my lack of beverage and the fawning women who were still shooting glances at Charlie from across the restaurant. “I didn’t say a word about that or about you. Someone needed to go get their Rhonda on. Better you than me anyway. You know I’d do just about anything to get out of running into her.”
Rhonda Dolas was an interior decorator who had tried on several occasions to get me to ask her out. We’d gone to high school together, and she’d been close friends with one of my high school girlfriends. It seemed like she’d accepted that as the reason nothing had ever happened between us back then. As soon as she found out I was working on the big pub project Bruce Ames had hired her to consult on, she’d renewed her mission to pin me down for that elusive date I “owed” her.
“Oh right, Rhonda,” Charlie said, getting that mischievous twinkle in his eye I was beginning to know so well. He turned to face Nico and West. “She’s got the hots for our Hudson here. Asks about him all the damned time. I would have been back to the pub much quicker if I hadn’t been having to tell her everything I knew about him.”
I gaped at him. “What? Are you kidding? What the hell did you tell—”
“Yes, Hudson. I’m kidding.”
West and Nico chuckled. “I remember she used to bribe her older brother to let her borrow his car so she could go to all of Hudson’s away football games. The car was a very unique shade of teal, and every time we saw it at one of Hudson’s games, we’d laugh and say—”
I dropped my face into my hands, remembering. “‘Surprise, it’s Rhonda’s Honda.’ You guys weren’t very creative.”
Charlie snickered. “Figures you were a football player.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“You’re so… all-American. Tall, handsome, clean-cut. Small-town Texas boy who plays by the rules. You’re like a walking cliché. I’ll bet you were prom king or some shit too.”
He thinks I’m handsome.
West’s eyes lit up. “Tell him, Hudson.”
“Fuck you,” I said, craning my neck for that damned server. Was I ever going to get a drink?
West leaned across the table toward Charlie. “He was homecoming king, which is almost the same thing. Homecoming in Texas is a big deal.”
Charlie turned to me. “See? Told you so. Now tell me something about you I’d never be able to guess. Something not cliché.”