Hot In Here (Ashton Heights Fire # 3) by Sami Lee Page A

I’m
sorry.”
    Blair wasn’t big on apologizing, so his
words had Leo gaping in surprise.
    “ I’m also sorry I couldn’t
keep Ally from leaving last week, but you’re wrong about me kicking
her out. In fact, I made it pretty clear she could stay if she
wanted to, and unless my radar is on the fritz, I’d say she wanted
to.” Blair held his gaze, and there was sympathy in the blue
irises. “She still left, mate. Of her own accord.”
    On some level, Leo must
have suspected that’s what happened, because he wasn’t surprised.
That didn’t stop him from feeling a pang of something like pain
deep in his solar plexus. Was this what it felt like to want
someone who didn’t want you? If so, he and Blair had both done
quite a few girls a disservice over the years.
    Oh sure, they were always upfront about
their arrangements being casual, but there’d been several ladies
who’d hoped for more anyway, who’d probably been inadvertently hurt
by what they saw as a rejection when neither Blair or Leo saw
things the same way.
    “ What the hell have we been
doing, Blue?”
    “ I don’t know any better
than you do,” Blair said on a sigh. Then he pushed off the truck
and started heading away. “I’m going to nab one of those danishes
before they’re all gone. You going to come to the Sovereign after
work?”
    “ I’m not sure.”
    Still walking, Blair turned around. “Just
for a drink. That’s what mates do, right?”
    Leo knew what Blair was
doing. In a less than forthright way, he was asking if they were
still solid, if they were still mates. Leo couldn’t help but smile.
The guy could be a first-class prick sometimes, but today he’d
surprised Leo with his insight and honesty, not to mention with his
willingness to consider a relationship. Perhaps Blair Bowman was
maturing.
    Even if he hadn’t been, Leo would still have
been his friend. Mates stuck by each other.
    “ All
right, I’ll come. But you’re buying, mate. ”
    “ We’ll play pool for it.
Loser picks up the tab.”
    Leo laughed and shook his
head, but his smile slipped when Blair was out of sight. His
friend’s suggestion only reminded him of how they’d met Ally last
week, of how much fun they’d had playing pool with her—and of
course doing the host of other things that had come after. It was
all fine and dandy for Blair to say they could find a woman willing
to enter into a triad deal with them—in fact, the idea was kind of
thrilling—but saying and doing were two different things. Where
were they going to find a woman who fit them both that
perfectly?
    Where were they going to find another woman
like Ally?
    “ Medium rare porterhouse
and a chicken parmigiana.” Ally set the meals down in front of the
couple in the corner booth. “Can I get you anything
else?”
    The couple said no, so Ally
swiped the number off their table with a smile and headed back to
the kitchen. She saw with relief that there were no more orders
currently waiting to be taken out. She was dead on her feet, but
she couldn’t sit down yet or she’d never get back up. Instead, she
headed behind the bar to grab a glass of water, making sure to stay
out of the bartenders’ way.
    “ Busy night,” said Michelle
Turner as she poured a draught beer and set it on the bar. “How’re
you handling it?”
    “ No problems.” Ally had
been run off her feet since five-thirty when the kitchen opened,
but she’d worked in places that got even busier than a Brisbane pub
on a Friday night.
    “ Kev hasn’t yelled at you
yet,” Michelle noted. Kev was the head chef, who was apparently
notorious for snapping orders at the wait staff when they weren’t
on their game. “So you must be doing okay.”
    “ Thanks.” It was only
Ally’s third shift, and the manager had decided to throw her in the
deep end to see if she could swim. Fortunately for Ally, she’d been
swimming plenty of times before. “You need help out here later? I
knock off in forty.”
    “ Need the