Page 23 of No Cap

Mine was in the drywall/roof stage.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Luckily, they did a pretty good job on Quincy’s, giving me a little bit of wiggle room with not going out there every day. Yeah, sure. I’ll help.”

“What about you?” Quaid asked Auden.

“Big fat negative. I have a date,” Auden explained.

I rolled my eyes.

Auden’s idea of a date and the rest of our idea of a date were completely different.

The folded piece of paper seemed to heat in my pocket at the thought of dating.

I was ready to settle down.

I was the oldest of our entire group, and I was starting to feel the itch.

I wanted someone I could come home to every day after a terrible night of work. I wanted someone to talk to without judgment, and someone who would give me babies.

The rest of us kind of felt the same way, though Garrett tended to go either way at times.

But Auden was firmly in the ‘I don’t ever want to settle down’ stage of his life after a breakup.

Truthfully, the dude was still in love with his ex, and he wasn’t willing to admit it.

Then again, that was a common theme in our family.

Quinn was still in love with his high school sweetheart.

“Who wants to go eat?” I asked. “I have what, an hour and a half until I need to start?”

“Two,” Quaid said. “First, they’re going to the arena. I’ll just use you as crowd control in your police cruiser for that. Once they leave the arena, you can follow them to wherever they’re going. As of right now, it’s a club.”

Fuckin’ awesome.

I hated clubs.

Turns out, the one they went to was the worst of them all.

My least favorite out of a bunch of unfavorable clubs, this one was called Jett, and was owned by a douchebag millionaire with a chip on his shoulder. He also didn’t understand the fire code, and continuously overcrowded the club with no regard to fines. Plus, he was stuck up a buddy’s ass who just so happened to be a judge, and that meant Jett was never closed down despite multiple violations.

On top of it all, Jett also had fights break out all the time. Not to mention not one, not two, but fuckin’ four murders in the parking lot, bathroom, and surrounding area. It was a powder keg waiting to blow, and it’d never gotten better in the four years it’d been open.

Needless to say, as I was walking around Jett, wishing I was anywhere else but there, I was in a terrible mood.

I should’ve just taken the night to myself like I’d originally planned.

But again, the piece of paper in my pocket burned against my leg, and the thought of seeing Hollis Aue was enough to keep me there.

I still didn’t know why I was so obsessed with the woman.

There was just something about her, though, that kept my mind wandering back to her, even all these months later.

It was on my fifth circuit of the place that I passed the comedian.

And what I heard had me rolling my eyes.

“What are you talking about? I’m fucking hilarious,” Taite DeRosa crowed, raising his glass. “Kind of like that ugly toupee you have on your head.”