Needing You {Chicago Book 2} ON HOLD

four

CHAPTER FOUR - Ryker Young

I've been nursing this same beer for the past hour. It's now warm and flat and just tasting like piss in general. My attention isn't on the Cubs game on the TV across the bar or on the hot waitress who keeps trying to get my number.

It's on the one thing that I thought I left behind in high school. Kasey Williams.

I can honestly say I thought that I would never see her again after I graduated high school. I thought I'd be in Boston and she'd be in California and we'd never see each other on our opposite coasts.

Never did I ever think that we would both end up home in Chicago.

Jesus.

I take a sip of my warm beer and try my hardest to swallow it. It's disgusting. "Dude, what the fuck is going on with you?" Brody asks from the seat next to me. "You've been out of it since Friday night. What, is the new babysitter hot as hell or something?"

"Or something," I murmur. "Definitely or something."

"Is she really ugly?" He continues. "No, that's mean. Is she not as stunning as you hoped?"

"Dude, shut the hell up," I finally say to him. "Said babysitter is my ex-girlfriend. That's what's been on my mind since Friday."

"As in," he pauses for a moment. "The singular chick you dated before Heather?"

Her name still manages to make me feel like someone has stabbed a knife into my gut. It's been three years but the mention of her name is something I can never get used to.

Somehow, I nod. "Yeah. We were together my junior year before I, well, fucked it all up."

"Ooh, what did you do? Did you not answer her when she asked if she looked fat? Apparently, it's not good when you do that," Henry, our second line defenceman inputs from my other side. He was drafted last year and immediately slotted right in with mine and Brody's dynamic, giving us a new teammate friend after Sam and Harry were both traded just before he joined us.

"No, asshole," I glare at him. "It was just a whole bunch of little shitty things that I did that started to piss her off so she ended it and then I got together with Heather. End of story. Well, I thought it was until she appeared on my doorstep claiming to be Ben's babysitter."

"It's like something out a movie!" Brody exclaims, drinking what must be his fourth beer by this point. "God, Hails is gonna love this."

"Speaking of the future Mrs... when are we going to the get the invites?" I ask him with a smile, turning the conversation away from me and to his upcoming wedding planning.

He just cocks an eyebrow at me. "I literally just asked her two weeks ago. We haven't even talked about when we want it to be, let alone thought about who to invite."

"But we are going to invited, right?" Henry inputs, sounding slightly worried.

With a smirk, Brody shrugs. "Not if we decide to have a family-only wedding."

"Dude!" I exclaim with a laugh, knowing fine well that the two of them won't decide that. They both love their friends too much. "You're my son's godfather! We're practically family."

"You guys know I'm jut screwing with you," he chuckles. "There's no way Hails could have a wedding without having Georgia or Maddie or Naomi there."