The Best Thing by Jaci Burton Read Free Book Online

this place since they were in their twenties. He brews the beer himself, along with his sons now. Taste it.”
    She took a drink of the beer. It was mellow, with a honey flavor. “Oh, it’s good.”
    “Told you. They’re a small operation, but this place is never empty. I stop by for lunch a lot when I’m driving through town on a job.”
    “For the beer?” she asked with a smirk.
    “For the burgers, smartass. Though after a shitty day, I can pound down a few beers.”
    She preferred margaritas with Calliope after a bad day. She wondered who Brody unloaded on when he had problems. His brothers? Or was the familial bond too close, the fact that they all worked together too much to share troubles. Who did he tell his problems to?
    “So when you have a bad day at work and you want to let off some steam and have a few drinks, do you grab your brothers and go out for beers to talk it out?”
    He looked horrified. “Hell, no. It’s bad enough I grew up with them, and now I work with them. Half the time it’s them I’m pissed off at. The last thing I’d want to do is unload my problems on them.”
    She swirled her finger over the top of the glass. “So...who do you talk to?”
    He shrugged. “Nobody.”
    “Surely you have friends to talk to.”
    “I have friends, yeah. But we aren’t like girls, Tori. We don’t have to have...chat sessions or whatever you women call them where we discuss every problem we have.”
    “You hold it all inside.”
    “I didn’t say that.”
    “You didn’t have to. You don’t talk to your brothers or your friends, and you being a man and all are obviously not going to talk to your parents when you have a problem.”
    He let out a laugh at that one.
    “Okay, so that means you keep all your problems bottled up inside and don’t talk to anyone about them, right?”
    He finished off his beer and set the mug to the side of the table so Pat could refill it for him. “I don’t have a lot of problems. I’m generally a pretty content guy.”
    “Please. Everyone has problems. Even if it’s just a bad day at work, a job doesn’t go right. Someone pisses you off—like your brothers. You have to let off steam. How do you do that?”
    “I have ways of letting off steam.”
    He gave her a look that melted her to the chair. “Well, yes, there is that. But I mean talking.”
    “Oh, I like talking. Verbalizing is good.”
    This was not helping to cool her off.
    Fortunately, their food arrived and Brody dragged his very direct gaze away from her to offer his trademark grin to Pat. After that, she dug into her cheeseburger and tried to shift her thoughts away from one very sexy man to the incredibly delicious burger. She ate every bite, had another beer to wash it down and wasn’t even embarrassed about picking the last crumb off her plate with her fingers.
    “You were right. This is the best cheeseburger I’ve ever had.”
    Brody crumpled his paper napkin and laid it on his empty plate. “Told you it was awesome. I wouldn’t let you down, Tori.”
    The way he said it made her cock her head to the side, as if he’d meant something else entirely, and wasn’t talking about burgers anymore.
    Probably her imagination. “You’re right. It was a great meal. Good beer and good burgers. Thank you.”
    “I actually brought you here to talk to you.”
    She laughed. “We have been talking.”
    “I meant I brought you here to talk about something else.”
    “About what?”
    “Us.”
    Uh-oh. “What about us?”
    The words had spilled out before she could correct herself, correct him and tell him there was no “us.”
    “Why did you stop that kiss the other night? What are you so afraid of?”
    She looked around, but televisions were blaring, people were playing pool and engaged in their own conversations. There were no people around them listening in. Still, she leaned forward. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
    He leaned in, too, and grasped her hands. “I do. And it’s time