Carter (Bourbon & Blood Book 3) by Seraphina Donavan Page B

of chips stuffed behind everything. Savannah had probably hidden them the last time she was there.
    Contraband in hand, Carter returned to the living room and the rest of the sad-ass game. Bennett had taken Mia upstairs, and he was just going to hang out until he knew he wasn’t needed. And eat the rest of Bennett’s chips.
    It was a good ten minutes before Bennett came back downstairs. He took one look at Carter who was elbow deep in a bag of corn chips and grimaced. “You dickhead.”
    “Hey,” Carter said, making to get up off the couch. The last thing he wanted was to hang around them and be reminded that his own love life was in the toilet. “I’m just getting out of your way.”
    Love life. Where the hell had that thought come from, he wondered? Sex life. Yes. He’d been having a very active one of those for a decade plus and he was all about that. But love was something else. Did he love Josie? No, he thought. Not yet. But he could. Easily. She’d just have to give him half a chance.
    “Don’t. I need you to stay here with Mia while I take care of something,” Bennett said.
    Panic hit Carter squarely in the chest. “No. Oh, hell no. I do not deal with crying women.”
    Bennett rolled his eyes. “You made that pretty clear by running like a whipped dog at the sight of her!”
    It hadn’t been the crying that sent him running. Looking at Bennett and Mia together, in an intimate moment that was not at all about being physical, that was just a little closer than he wanted to be to either of them. But it also reminded him of just how fucked up his own situation was. “I got her a blanket! That was sensitive.”
    Bennett closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose just the way their grandfather had always done when one of them was being an idiot. “That was first aid, you dumb fuck!”
    “How long?” Carter asked, thinking about the texts from Josie. He needed to go there. He needed to see her. Standing her up wouldn’t go well for either of them.
    “I don’t know. An hour. Maybe two. She’s going to sleep like the dead… she’ll never even know I left.”
    He could do that. It would put him late getting to her, but he’d text her and let her know. “Fine. But you owe me.”
    “You’ve been paid in chips and beer,” Bennett called back as he grabbed his keys and headed out.
    “The chips are stale,” Carter said under his breath. Settling deeper into the couch, he pulled out his phone and glanced at the picture of Josie that he’d snapped while she wasn’t looking. Wearing a UK sweatshirt and a smile, it cut him right to the quick.
    “I’m a fucking idiot,” he said aloud. “And this little girl is going to ruin me.”
    Even as he uttered the words, he knew they were truth. But he was still having a hard time caring.

9
    J osie glanced at the clock . He’d texted her back and told her was running late. But it was nearly ten and she’d nearly given up. Rolling onto her side, she stared out the window.
    Yes, she was curious about Bennett and Mia. Who wouldn’t be? The whole town was on tenterhooks waiting to see what was going to happen with them. But more than anything, she just wanted Carter there telling her the story. He wasn’t always sympathetic to Mia, but she understood that. His loyalty would always lie with Bennett, as it should.
    She heard the backdoor open and let out a sigh of relief. A part of her had wondered if he’d changed his mind. She wouldn’t blame him. There was a part of her that wanted to throw caution to the wind and tell her parents and everyone else in town exactly what he meant to her. But then she’d have to admit it to both herself and Carter and that terrified her.
    Carter wasn’t known for sticking. In fact, the minute any woman had started to cling, he’d run like the wind. She didn’t want to be that girl and she didn’t want to corner him and make him be that guy . So it was back to being a chicken and sticking with the status quo as long