I looked that way and felt my body get tight.

She’d timed it meticulously. I was a chick so I knew that to be true. Just after six on a weekday, the bar was full of patrons who wanted to get loose after their day by throwing back a drink.

She was there at that moment because she wanted an audience. She wanted people to know she’d thrown down with me. She might even be wanting to save face.

And if she thought Merry was testing her, she wanted that shit to get back to Merry.

As for me, I was pissed she was there. I was pissed she was there with her eyes locked to me and her expression telling me where this was going. I was pissed she was bringing this to my place of work.

But I was also curious.

Not only at what she was going to say but because Tanner Layne was there to witness it. Tanner was sitting at the end of the bar in what looked to be a debrief work huddle with his buddy Devin.

They’d both been in since things with Merry and me started officially (and even when it was unofficial). I knew they both knew what was going on, Tanner probably more than anybody.

But in that time, they hadn’t treated me any differently.

Tanner liked me. We were buds.

That said, I knew Tanner had pushed Merry to get back with Mia. And he was too good of a guy to let me know to my face that he thought Merry was making a mistake with me.

Now, if that was the case or if it wasn’t, if Mia forced something, whatever that was might be unleashed.

“Cheryl.” I heard snapped, and I stopped thinking all this and focused on Mia, who’d positioned herself at the bar where there were two vacant seats.

As I did this, I noted I wasn’t the only one focused on Mia at the bar. The entire place was almost silent because everyone was focused on Mia at the bar.

“Cher.”

That was growled angrily from behind me.

I twisted my neck and looked up to see Darryl right at my back.

“I’m good, Darryl,” I told him.

Just his eyes shifted down to me.

“And I’m good standin’ right here, makin’ sure you’re good,” he returned.

Seriously, Darryl was all right.

“Fine,” Mia bit out, and I turned my attention back to her. “Cher.”

I moved closer to her at the bar and decided to start out by playing dumb.

“You need a drink, Mia?”

“No, I don’t need a goddamned drink,” she spat. “I need you to leave my man alone.”

I sighed.

Definitely making a statement she wanted to get back to Merry.

“And I need you to know I’ll fight for him if you make me,” she went on.

“Listen, babe, I’m at work. Can we not do this here?” I requested, then added, “Or, say, at all?”

“You need to understand the way things are.”

That meant no.

I still could not engage (even if I wanted to).

“Okay, I understand,” I told her. “Now, do you want a drink?”

At that, she seemed confused, probably because she was expecting a different response from me.

“Woman, this is a bar,” Darryl entered the conversation when she hesitated one-point-five seconds. “You’re in here, you drink. You don’t drink, you’re not in here.”

“No offense,” Mia said to him. “But I’m not talking to you.”

“Don’t care if you are or if you aren’t,” Darryl returned. “Fact remains, you’re here, you drink.”

“I have a few things to say to Cher,” Mia retorted.

“You said ’em,” Darryl shot back. “Now order a drink or gonna hafta ask you to leave.”

Mia decided she was done with Darryl and looked to me. “Everyone knows he’s mine. The whole town knows. They don’t want the likes of you for him. They want him for me.”

Shit, now she was making me mad.

“The likes of me?” I asked, though I shouldn’t have. I was keeping it together. I didn’t need to give her the ammunition to make me lose it.

She looked me up and down. “You know what you are.”

Yeah, she was making me mad.

With effort, I beat it back and nodded. “I know what I am. I know Merry likes what I am. And I really don’t give a shit what everyone knows or wants for Merry. Merry wants me and that’s good enough for me.”

“Merry doesn’t know what he wants,” she fired back.

Christ, she was annoying.

“He doesn’t?” I asked sarcastically. “Weird. He seemed pretty sure Thursday night. And Friday morning. And Saturday.”

As I meant to do, I got in there. I knew it when her admittedly pretty face twisted and she didn’t look so pretty.

“I’m sure he did,” she hissed. “What you forget is you weren’t the first he was sure he wanted, though I bet with all your on-the-job experience, you gave it good.”

That wasn’t annoying.

That was infuriating.

I moved closer to the bar. Darryl moved closer to my back.

But in the back and forth, we’d missed the fact that another player had hit our scene.

“Before more shit comes outta your mouth you’re gonna regret, Mia, you need to end this and go.”

I looked to the left to see Tanner standing there.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with you, Tanner,” Mia replied, but she wasn’t done. Sliding a catty glance at me, she turned back to Tanner. “Though, I’ll say I’m surprised it seems you don’t want better for Merry.”

“Doesn’t mean shit what I want for Garrett,” Tanner stated, and I felt that in not good ways, seeing as it wasn’t a ringing endorsement or a throwdown for me. “What does is what Garrett wants for Garrett,” he went on.

“And Raquel didn’t want you for seventeen years, but you both knew better,” she returned.

I watched Tanner’s mouth get tight and I thought that was him conceding the point.

I was incorrect in this assumption.

Very much so.

“I am not Garrett and you sure as fuck aren’t Rocky,” he bit out. “This is not about that. This is somethin’ totally different. You want it, I’ll give it to you. You’re right. I do want better for Merry. I want my brother to be happy. And I know him. I know no way in fuck he’d be happy with a woman who’d spew the shit you just spewed to a good woman anytime, but sure as fuck not waltzin’ in her place of business to throw down with her in front of everybody.”

“This has to be said,” she returned, lifting her chin even though a hint of uncertainty hit her expression.

Tanner shook his head. “You’re intent to make your statement clear after five years of fuckin’ around and doin’ not one thing to get back your man. Advice? Wake up. You dicked around too long. It’s done. You lost him. And just a heads up on that, Mia, this town is talkin’. And while your women might be fillin’ your head with shit to keep you on a path that is no longer righteous, the rest of the ’burg is glad Garrett finally found a woman who’s got it in her to stick.”

Okay, right.

That was a ringing endorsement and definitely Tanner throwing down for me.

Suddenly, I wasn’t angry.

Suddenly, I grinned.

“He’s mine,” Mia told Tanner, her voice weakening but only in the face of his words. It did not reflect her resolve. I had a vagina. I saw the look on her face. I knew that as fact.

Shit.

I quit grinning.

“Heard about it. Reckon I don’t know shit about it,” Devin stated, also now there, leaning in to the bar over an empty stool, looking at Mia. “But what I heard, seems to me he’s never been yours.”

“I don’t even know you,” Mia said to Devin.

“Well, little miss, I know about you,” Devin replied. “And since you seem to be puttin’ a lotta stock into what everyone thinks, thought I’d share straight from the mouth of a member of the peanut gallery.” After Devin delivered that, he looked to me. “Now, I am here to drink, so I’d be obliged if you’d get me a fresh one. I’m half parched, waitin’ on this ridiculous drama to play out.”

It had lasted less than five minutes.

Then again, Dev could put away some booze.

“I’ll get on that, Dev,” I muttered.