May the Best Man Win by Mira Lyn Kelly Read Free Book Online

was running. Whatever Emily could dish out, he could take. But still. “Maybe we could bypass the Willsons and just give them a wave good-bye. Skirt around the side or head out the back door.”
    Just then, he caught the soft, sexy scent and light touch of a hand too familiar for his taste.
    â€œOh, excuse me,” Emily murmured, choosing that minute to sort of shimmy between him and the guy in front of him, letting hints and bits of her hair, arms, hips, and ass barely graze him as she leaned through the line to reach for a glass resting on the table to his left.
    Then flashing him the softest, sweetest smile, she winked before brushing those killer legs across him in the other direction.
    Catching the pained look on his face, Brody gave him a sly grin. “What, did she get you with her heel again?”
    Jase positioned his coat in front of himself and cleared his throat. “Yeah. She got me.”
    * * *
    Joe Foster was out front when Jase pulled up to the small bungalow in Oak Park that had been his childhood home. Hopping out, he squinted up at the roof, checking the gutter they’d fixed the week before.
    â€œAny problems when it rained Wednesday?” he asked, meeting his old man at the side gate and following him around back to the garage.
    â€œNah, think we got it.” Then waving a hand at the rake Jase was reaching for, Joe added, “Put that away. Pregame’s going on. Let’s get inside.”
    Jase shrugged and returned the rake, half disappointed he wouldn’t have a chance to burn off a little of the tension he’d been banking since the night before. But he was here to hang out with his dad, not exorcize Emily through landscaping. “Sure thing.”
    â€œChrist, kid, sounds like some party,” Joe said some twenty minutes later, settling into his recliner with his hands folded over what was still a moderately lean stomach. “Romeo handling the pressure?”
    â€œI think so,” Jase answered from the kitchen. Then popping the last bite of banana bread—his dad’s specialty—into his mouth, he scanned the contents of the fridge to take inventory for when they hit the grocery store. “I had some concerns when he was getting ready to pop the question.”
    â€œThey had that blow-up fight not too far back, right?”
    Jase grinned at the sparsely stocked shelves, eternally amused at how Big Joe Foster was such a sucker for gossip. Seriously, put his dad and Janice in a room together, and they’d be in hog heaven. “Yeah, but I think it was just your typical guy pre-ring panic attack. We talked a lot, and he loves her. Like, forever loves her.”
    Yep, and that would be his mushy-hearted old man letting out a wistful sigh. “That’s the way it ought to be.”
    â€œI guess.” Then moving on to the cabinets, Jase called back, “You want chicken tonight?”
    He could throw a pack of thighs in with one of the bottled marinades and give it a couple of hours to soak before grilling.
    â€œSounds good to me.”
    Jase walked around to the main living area and pulled one of the chairs from the dining table to face the TV. In the twenty years since his mom left, the only change his dad had allowed in the decor was the position of the living room furniture. And Jase was about ninety percent sure that was because, at sixteen, he hadn’t asked before moving the couch that had acted as a divider between the table and chairs and the cluster of living room furniture to the opposite side of the room, allowing for easier viewing of whatever was on while they ate.
    Change wasn’t something his dad typically embraced, particularly when it pertained to the house his wife had decorated, so Jase wouldn’t have even tried if undoing the move hadn’t been an option. As it turned out, the old man had walked in that first night, stared a moment at the spot where the couch had always been and then, seeing