you have got to be kidding me!” He shook his head, momentarily at a loss for words. “I thought you were a Wilde!”
Canton’s eyes narrowed as he swallowed the beer lodged in his throat.
He turned to the bartender and nodded his head for another before turning back to face his friend.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean, Ray?” he asked, mildly interested in Ray’s response. “Because I’m a Wilde, I have some obligation to screw any willing female?” he scoffed.
“Uh, yeah... Hell yeah, that’s what it means,” was Ray’s unrepentant reply, forcing a rusty laugh from Canton.
Canton turned back and accepted the beer the bartender had placed in front of him.
“Well, if you don’t want her...” Ray allowed the sentence to hang, his look a cross between hopeful for a chance at the blonde and disgust for his friend’s lack of interest in the willing woman.
With a half grunt, half laugh, Canton nodded his head. “Go for it,” he encouraged, with casual disregard.
Ray took one last swig of his own beer and laid it on the bar counter and turned to face him, a neutral look on his handsome face.
“Man, you need to get laid. How much longer are you gonna think about...stuff?” his friend asked, his voice as calm as his expression. “How much longer are you gonna hold on to—”
“I’m good,” Canton interrupted, before his friend went down that particular path. “Go handle your business, Ray.”
Canton chugged half his beer down with a grimace. The reason for his state of mind lately wasn’t a subject he wanted to talk about, even with his best friend.
“You need to get back out there, Canton.”
At the look Canton gave him, his friend shrugged, gave him an “I tried” type of glance, spun around on his booted feet and left.
With mild interest he observed Ray as he made his way toward the woman, a predatory look on his face.
Canton twisted his large frame in the high-backed stool to face the bar. Six months ago he would have been doing the exact same thing as Ray.
He liked tall women, as he himself was six foot four. She should have been his type. She once was his type. Tall, leggy, sexy, blonde. He mentally ticked off the physical attributes she had that usually stirred his interest and libido. He glanced over his shoulder once more and saw Ray was talking with the blonde.
Just as Ray was now doing, Canton would have leaned down and been totally in her intimate zone. Would have given her whatever smooth words she needed to hear to feel special, to know that the adult games he wanted to play with her had nothing to do with pool, darts or spades.
That she was special to him. That she was the one.
If only for this one night.
He would have crowded her in, given her a taste of the infamous Wilde charm, confident that he’d have her where he wanted. Would have led her away from the bar to wind up at either her place or one of the local motels for the night.
But lately, he hadn’t been interested in any of that. Not since his father had passed away, leaving the care of Brick and Riley, his two younger siblings, to him and his brother Tiber.
His brother and sister weren’t small children; they were something worse: teenagers. Riley, the youngest and the only Wilde female, was a senior in high school and Brick, his young brother, was in his sophomore year at the university.
Not to mention his breakup with a woman he’d once considered marrying. He knew that Ray, as well as his brothers, thought she was the reason for his state of celibacy, but he knew it wasn’t her. He’d come to realize over the past six months that he had in fact dodged the bullet with his fiancée, Anne. Fate had stepped in and actually saved him from possibly making the biggest mistake of his life.
But even to himself, he didn’t delve too deeply into what was at the core of his ennui, for lack of a better word.
Lately no woman had captured his attention long enough to make an impression on him. Not even long enough to bed her.
And although he and Anne had broken off the engagement, he knew that she was still there, waiting, wanting him to return. But under her conditions: not only that Canton move out of the family home, but that they buy their own place and also move the wedding date up.
There was no way in hell he was going to do that. His family needed him.
He soon found out why she was so hell-bent on moving the wedding date up.
Canton shook his head, throwing off the heavy thoughts and sting of malcontent.
Family came first. It was a part of the Wilde creed. It was a creed that his pop had drilled into Canton, as well as his brothers and baby sister. And if the woman who purported to care about him didn’t realize that, well, then, he had in fact dodged a bullet with her.
His family meant everything to Canton.
Unknown to him, a smile creased his rugged features when he thought of the youngest Wilde, Riley. She was growing up so fast. Kicking and raising hell from the time she came from her mother’s womb, she’d been as much of a Wilde from the moment she’d come into the world as his biological brothers.
And now, with Pop gone, all she had was Canton along with his two brothers to look after her. He and Tiber, the oldest, had made a promise to his father that they’d always look after her, that no one would hurt her. A promise he intended to keep.
Because that was what family did. Took care of each other.
It was amazing what responsibility did to a man, Canton thought with a grunt. Made him grow up quick, fast and in a hurry. Also showed who the real deal was when it came to those who loved you. Separated the true from the fair-weather. But he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Besides, after he ended it with Anne, he hadn’t been interested enough in getting “back out there” with anyone. Not exactly soured on love, but damn sure a lot more cautious when it came to trust.
He glanced at his watch, ready to call it quits for the night. He really wasn’t in the mood to get “laid” as Ray suggested. Casual sex was the last thing on his mind.
But until Ray decided what he was doing...or who he was doing for the night, he’d wait for his friend to give him the word before he left him to his own devices.
Still looking in the direction of Ray and the blonde, Canton knew it wouldn’t be long before Ray gave him the go-ahead to leave.
Until that time... Canton took another long drink from the bottle, his glance casually strolling over the clientele, bored and ready to say screw it and leave. Ray was a big boy; he could handle his own business.
At that moment, Ray gave him the signal and Canton shook his head, one side of his mouth kicked up in a grin.
“Well, no sense in hanging around,” he murmured to himself, and drank the last of his beer.
