She coughs, bringing me back to the little room above the bar. “I’ll be out of here in a few minutes.”
“Is there anything else I need to know?” I ask, not quite ready to part from her.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. You’re a drinker now. You perform breaking-and-enterings. Did you join a biker gang or something?”
She laughs, shaking her head. “No.” Light streams in farther into the room, washing Hadley and me in the bright morning rays. She squints as she looks at me. The wheels are turning, and that makes me a little more nervous than it should. “Cross was telling me Nora put in her notice.”
“Yeah. Sucks because everyone loves her. But she has to do what she has to do.”
“I know you trust her a lot.”
“She’s better off finishing her degree. We’ll make do.” I stretch my arms overhead, the adrenaline from thinking I was going to war earlier making them ache. “I’ll be a little short-staffed for a while because no one can do all the things and work all the shifts Nora did.”
“Hey! I could help you.” Her eyes light up like a Christmas tree. “I mean, I don’t know how to be a bartender, but I have some time to kill.”
“You must be out of your mind.”
Even as I say the words, the idea of having her beside me every night appeals to me. I could keep an eye on her, make her smile. Feel her brush against me and hear her laugh.
“I could do it,” she says. “I’m just trying to be helpful.”
“It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.” I chuckle. “You hate the bar. You hate me, for fuck’s sake. What in the world is going on here?”
The fight in her eyes soften. Instead of answering me, she turns slowly toward the futon and starts making the bed.
“Uh, that wasn’t rhetorical,” I say.
“Maybe,” she says, jerking the blankets in place, “I’m trying to evolve.”
“Into what? Bonnie and Clyde?”
She glares at me, and it’s the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. “Maybe that was the wrong choice of words.” She goes back to making the bed. “Maybe I’m trying to move on.”
That causes a chill to rip up my spine. It cascades down my legs, rolling down my arms, covering my half-sleeve of tattoos with goose bumps.
“Trying to move on from what?” I ask.
“What do people move on from? The past. Old habits.” She sits on the edge of the bed and looks at the wall. “Life goes by so fast. It’s easy to hold onto things and ideas that aren’t the best things to cling to.”
Like me. My heart drops as I watch this girl almost wince as the words fall from her mouth.
Her sigh spills into the room. She tilts her head to the side until her golden eyes find mine. “I didn’t drink until last year because my mother was killed by a drunk driver when I was fourteen. What’s the sense in that, really?” Her lips form a small smile. “Except that night with the rhubarb moonshine.”
Words are on the tip of my tongue—explanations and promises and apologies. Probably a few profanities too. But they’re stolen by her soft laugh.
“It’s time for me to go on with my life. Stop living in the past.” She grabs her phone off the nightstand, gives it a quick look, and stands. “It’s time for a lot of things, one being breakfast.”
She walks in my direction, stopping a few inches in front of me. The smell of her body floods my senses. There’s no distracting myself from her, here, engulfed in the sunshine.
“Thanks for letting me stay,” she says, “even if you didn’t let me per se. I honestly just didn’t know where else to go. This place just feels like … Well, you know.”
I bite my lip, knowing I’m going to say something I’ll regret later, but such is life. “You know you can stay here anytime you want. Just tell me first.”
She grins. “Oh, I should’ve felt comfortable asking because you were so personable yesterday?”
“No. You should’ve asked because it’s mine.”
She presses her lips together and lets her gaze drift down my body. A path is seared by her eyes, scorching my skin beneath the clothes that now feel way too tight.
Her gaze lingers on my cock for a long second. It’s hard as a rock, and there’s no way she doesn’t notice. There’s also no way for me to try to hide it at this point.
When she finally looks back at my face, she doesn’t even try to hide her grin either.
“We still taking about the apartment?” she teases.
I’m only a man. I step toward her, my blood running hot, but she steps back with a laugh.
“You better get out of here,” I warn. My headache slides back into place as the pent-up aggression I live with on a daily basis reminds me it is, in fact, still present.
With an easy shrug, she steps around me and heads for the door. “What time should I be at work?”
“Not happening, Had.”
Her laughter, and a soft one of my own, is all she leaves me with as I watch her go.
Eight
Hadley
“I have to say,” Emily says, picking up a breadstick, “it is so much easier seeing you when I don’t have to drive all the way to Vigo to do it.”
“Like the old days, right?”
I lean back in my chair as the server from Peaches checks on us. Emily tells him we’re good and to please bring the check, so away he goes.
“Sorry I wasn’t home last night,” Emily says. “Josh wanted to go to the Mud Boggs over in Greene County, and we were there until almost three in the morning. I ended up staying the night at his house and coming home today.” She looks at me over her breadstick. “What did you end up doing last night?”
Flipping my gaze to my water glass, I shrug. “Oh, not much. Just drove around a while. Ran into Peck and—”
“Ooh. What’s he doing these days?”
“What’s it matter to you?” I laugh.
“I’ll have you know I drive by Crank sometimes just hoping he’s working on a tractor or something in the parking lot without a shirt.”
“He’s like my brother.”
“A BILF.”
“Oh my God!” I laugh. “That’s so gross, Em. Peck’s cute, but that entire BILF thought process is wrong.”
“He’s not cute.” She shakes her head, her long, black hair shining under the restaurant lights. “He’s seriously one of the best-looking guys I’ve ever seen.”
I make a face, trying to imagine Peck in the way she’s describing him. “Well, it doesn’t matter anyway because he’s all up Molly McCarter’s ass.”
“I hate that bitch.”
“Tell me what you really think.”
She shrugs. “I will. I think she’s a terrible human being that has no class or couth. She’ll suck anything that gets put in her mouth.”
I lift a breadstick and inspect it as though it’s the most fascinating thing in the world. “Seen her around much?”
Emily’s gaze is heavy on my face, but I don’t look up. If I do, she’ll call me out and ask me why I didn’t just ask if she’s been in Crave … or with Machlan. I didn’t ask because I don’t want to know in the same way I do want to know.
I toss the breadstick back in the basket.
The waiter reappears with our checks and tops off our water glasses. Emily swipes up both tickets, pointing a French-tipped fingernail my way in warning not to argue with her, then hands her credit card with the checks to the waiter. They get into a conversation about credit card companies, and my thoughts drift to Machlan.
If I hadn’t put my guard up immediately this morning, the day would’ve ended up going a whole different way. I would’ve been sitting here crying, having been shut down by him again or fired up from one of our infamous arguments. Lucky for me, lucky for us both, I saw him before he realized it, and that bought me a few seconds to get myself together.
Well, as much as I can when he’s around.
It’s hard with him because it’s not. Not really. Not about anything besides being together.
“Earth to Had.” Emily rests back in her seat, the waiter long gone. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s fine. You can lie,” she says. “I actually already know you’re thinking about Machlan.”
“And what would lead you to believe that?”
“Because I’ve been your friend forever, and I know the look you get on your face when you’re thinking about him. What did he do now?”
“He didn’t do anything,” I protest. “I actually, um, I stayed in his apartment last night.”
She sits upright, forcing a swallow. “With him or without him?”
“Without him. Obviously.”
“Yeah, of course. Otherwise, you’d still be there.” She sighs. “Why did you do that, Had?”
Although I know she’s not judging me, it feels like it on some level. I wad up my napkin and set it on my plate before looking at her again.
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” I point out. “Cross and Kallie were … occupied. You weren’t home. What was I supposed to do? Stay with Peck?”
“That’s what I would’ve done,” she jokes.
“And Mach would’ve killed him.”
“And why would he have done that?” She waits for an answer I don’t give. Then she grins. “Of course, we both know the answer to that.”
“Because he’s an overbearing asshole?”
She rolls her eyes. “Not where I was going with that.”
“But it’s the truth,” I push. “He doesn’t want me. He—”
“He loves you. He just doesn’t know what to do about it.”