There were four cars, two trucks, and a bicycle. One truck was his, one car was his cousin Dixon’s, and their only server and part-time cook, Santana, cruised between the bar and her house a block away by bike. So their numbers weren’t great. Not since The Drinking Spot, the brand-spanking-new bar twenty minutes outside of Arbor Bay, had opened. Instead of trying to compete with the city he had opened the establishment in, Thomas Bleuth had decided to come for Cassidy Place’s locals.

And for the last six months, he’d been getting more and more of them.

That thought was what was occupying most of his mind when Brady had first walked through the back of the bar, the kitchen, and out into the main room. Even as Dixon tried to show him something on his phone, he was still running numbers and lightly thinking about sabotaging The Drinking Spot on his night off.

So he missed a lot of things all at once, and then he finally clued in all at once, too.

What started the chain reaction was Miss “Pain in the Ass” Carol Robertson.

Brady was an Arbor Bay local but not one of the longer-running ones like Dixon. He’d transferred in as a sophomore in high school and had the great fortune to be two years older than Carol. He’d missed living through her reign once she arrived in school and had been able to keep ahead of it as they’d gotten older. Sure, he’d talked to her every once in a while—it was hard not to talk to someone in a town this size—but Carol never seemed to be interested in anything past that. A blow to his pride in any other situation, but, in this respect, he’d been grateful. “High-maintenance” didn’t quite do the woman justice. And that was before Dixon had recapped their awful first—and only—date they’d gone on during her senior year.

So when Carol told him to google the woman at the bar, Brady had started to cue in on what was happening in the present and not the lack of vehicles in the parking lot. Not because he had any interest in googling anyone, but because he wanted to pay attention to what Carol wanted so he could do the opposite.

People like Carol, with their constant need to remind everyone of their wealth and status, rubbed him the wrong way. Though that might have had more to do with the fact that Felicity had left him for not having much of either.

Thinking, even fleetingly, of his ex made Brady more rebellious against her order. He took the name, Sloane De Carlo, and burned it into his brain so he’d make sure to never search it.

But then the woman looked at him.

Dark, mocha-colored eyes set in a face filled with not-so-hidden discomfort.

And then it clicked.