Machlan’s fingertips drift across the back of my neck. It’s not an accident this time. They sweep from side to side, the contact growing a little more each time.
“Ah, I don’t use this place to get laid,” Machlan says. “It was never about that for me.”
He says the words to Lincoln, presumably, but I feel like they were said to me. He rests his hand over my shoulder, his thumb pressing on the back of my neck. It’s like he’s telling me he’s there. To pay attention. To be in the moment. I don’t know how much more in the moment I could be because a flame of hope lights in my chest that I know I’ll have a hard time putting out at three in the morning when I’m lying in bed alone.
“I need to help Navie out for a second. I’ll come by and check on you guys in a while. It was nice to meet you all,” Machlan says. He squeezes my shoulder again before heading back into the crowd.
My body buzzes as though I’ve had a drink. I hear the sounds of everyone laughing, talking, enjoying themselves, but I can’t pay attention to any of that until Machlan is out of sight.
“Okay,” Lincoln says. “There’s Walker and Machlan and Blaire. We met her when she came down to get the corporation papers. Isn’t there another one of you?”
“Yeah, Lance,” Peck chimes.
“What’s he do for a living?” Graham asks.
“He’s a history teacher,” Peck says. “Total nerd.”
“Graham will love him then,” Lincoln says, earning an eye roll from his brother.
Graham takes two shot glasses from Navie and then turns to Peck. “Who are you in the grand scheme of things?”
“We’re first cousins. Well, me and them. Not Hadley. She’s not related or that’d be weird. And illegal, maybe.”
“You’re with Machlan?” Graham asks, taking a shot.
“Oh, no. I …”
“Yes, she is.” Peck sighs.
“I am not.”
“You are too.” Sienna smiles at me. “If you think you’re not, go talk to a guy in here and see what happens.”
“But that doesn’t mean we’re together,” I contend. “That means he doesn’t want me with anyone else.”
Lincoln grabs a shot glass in front of Graham and hammers it. Graham smacks him on the back of the head, but he swallows it with a laugh. “I’m going to give you some advice,” Lincoln says.
“First thing you should know about Linc,” Graham says, “is that you never take his advice. If he’s had any tequila, that warning triples.”
I can’t help but laugh.
“Okay,” Lincoln starts. “Here’s what you do. You—”
“Don’t listen to him. Really,” Sienna says. “He just convinced our oldest brother to buy a winery. Our family knows nothing about grapes.”
Lincoln snorts. “That’s not what I heard.”
“I think I’d like that story,” Peck says.
“I’ll fill you in, man. Your girl will love you forever.”
“He does not mean Molly,” I say. I turn as Peck starts to speak but don’t see Navie between us. The entire tray of drinks goes in the air. It’s slow motion as the liquids separate from the glass and splashes into the air.
“Oh, no!” Navie gasps as Peck and I try to get out of the way.
We don’t.
Liquid crashes down on both of us like an angry wave. My shirt is soaked, my hair sticky from the sweet alcohol.
“I’m so sorry,” Navie gushes.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say, standing up. Taking a step behind the chairs, I fling off what liquid I can. “I’ll just go change. Really. It’s no big deal.” I look at Peck. “You look like a drenched puppy.”
He laughs, running a hand through his hair. “I feel like one. I have an extra shirt in my truck.”
“I’ll just go out the back door and up the stairs. If I’m not back in ten,” I say, seeing the hesitation in his eyes, “you can come get me.”
“Had …”
“I’ll be fine. Go change.”
Not waiting for an argument or answer, I head around the table. “I’m going to clean up. It was nice to meet you all,” I say and hurry out the back door before anyone can stop me.
Twenty-One
Hadley
The cool air wallops me as I push through the back door. A couple of men standing next to the makeshift ashtray give me sideways glances.
My shirt sticks to my skin, my hair clumped to my forehead, my arms and face sticky from the drinks.
The farther I get from Crave, the harder it is to breathe.
Everything feels too tight. Too fast. Too pressurized.
The events of the day spiral around me in a turbulent blast. The music from the bar adds to the cacophony inside my body every time the door opens and the patrons’ laughter slips out to add to the mix.
It’s sensory overload.
My mind tries to find one thing to grab on to, one thing to process, but there’s just too much. The images of Machlan emotional over our child. The feel of him in my arms. The heat of his touches and the warmth of his grins.
Walker’s declaration that I’m family.
My flip-flops pound the stairs as I wonder how this day got away from me. How I made a decision to go out for lunch in a break from the storm and ended up … here. A situation I don’t even know how to describe or, much less, what to make of it.
I just need a few minutes alone. Just a few minutes to regain control.
Let it be, I remind myself. I pop the door open and step inside. With an exhale, I swing it shut, but it just swings back with full force.
“Ah!” I startle. Only now considering someone followed me from Crave, I spin around.
Machlan stands in the halo of light from the security lamp outside. His chest rises and falls, the easygoing look in his eye from earlier gone. There’s no grin, no winking, no question to explain why he’s here. Nothing but a fire in his eye that reduces me to a puddle.
“I bumped Navie …” I force a swallow. “Peck is changing. Not here,” I add quickly before he takes that the wrong way. “In his truck.”
He closes the door.
Taking a deep breath, I feel my chest vibrate. The clover on my necklace is cool against my skin as I blow the air from my lungs in hopes it settles me.
“You can be mad,” I say, “but I legit walked out the back door and up the stairs. And be mad at me because Peck wasn’t given a choice, nor should he have been saddled with watching me like a child.”
“That’s not what he was doing.”
“Oh, it wasn’t?”
Machlan walks across the room like a man on a mission. He doesn’t blink, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t break stride until he’s standing mere inches from me. “He was watching you like you’re a woman who’s special to someone.” He takes a deep breath. “To me.”
My head explodes. Every synapse misfires. Every beat of my blood echoes his words.
My plan to prove Machlan is bad news is backfiring. Like a snowball in the desert, my scheme is melting faster with each passing second.
I take a step back. He takes one toward me. I take another, but my back hits a wall. He closes the gap with no apology.
“You can’t say that to me,” I say.
“I can’t say what?”
“That I’m special to you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to hear it.” My back is against the warm wood paneling, and it creaks as I lean my head on it too. I need all the support I can get as the man in front of me looks at me like I’m the crazy one. “It’s unfair, Machlan.”
He reaches up and drags a clump of rum-infused hair off my face and tucks it behind my ear. “You wanna know what’s not fair?”
“What?”
“That I have to watch every guy in my goddamn bar look at you and not smash them in the face.”
“I am a single woman,” I say.
The vein in his temple pulses.
“Machlan, look, I—”
The words are shushed with his thumb pressing over the bud of my lips. He leans closer, the room between us barely enough for his hand. “Every time you start a conversation like that, it ends badly.”
“Don’t most of our conversations end up like that?” I ask from beneath the pad of his thumb.
He drops his arm but doesn’t move away. It takes everything I have not to grab his waist and pull him against me, to wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him like he’s everything to me.
“The last one we had didn’t,” he says.
Each breath I take sounds like a little gasp. Each time that happens, Machlan’s eyes narrow. Every time he does that, my knees wobble a little more.
Emily’s advice rolls through my brain as if she knows the position I’m in and wants to torture me. As if she’s encouraging me to let things happen. To do what I want and not what I think I should.
I know what I want to happen. Right now, in this time and place, I want to be with him. It feels entirely organic to touch him, to kiss him, to get around this stupid wall we’ve put between us. And as I look into his eyes, I think he feels the same way.
My stomach clenches, pulling my body tight, as I get the courage to move. My palms dampen as I reach up with one hand and touch the side of his face. There’s two, maybe three, days’ stubble dotting his cheeks, and the hair is rough against my palm.
Machlan doesn’t move. Not a twitch. The only thing that reacts is the light in his eyes.
“I’m warning you,” he says. “you keep this up, and my restraint will be gone.”
“You don’t have restraint anyway.”
“I’ve managed to breathe the same air as you for two minutes now and not touch you. Trust me when I tell you it takes more restraint than I ever knew I had.”
“That’s too bad …” I drop my hand and smile. “I was really hoping you’d—gah!”