Charmer (Havenbrook #1)

Chapter 33

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

FINN

By the time I got home, my anger had dissipated some. Not much, but some. Instead of focusing on what a piece of shit human being Dick was, I’d thought about what my next steps needed to be.

The money, for one thing. The money he had paid me off with to “ensure I didn’t have any reason to float back to Havenbrook” needed to be given back. Despite the circumstances surrounding it, I couldn’t deny what a lifeline the money had been, a tiny bit of light at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel.

It’d been just the three of us for as long as I could remember, our daddy having never been in the picture at all. And Momma had been sick. Fucking cancer. Working four part-time jobs—the only things that’d been available in a small town like Havenbrook—meant no health insurance. No relief from the mounds of bills sure to pile up—the prescriptions and the treatments and the office visits. At nineteen, Drew and I had had to discuss things with our momma a child never should, debating between bankruptcy or her death.

The shadows on my momma’s face, the resignation in her voice when she’d told us she hadn’t wanted her sickness to follow us even after she was gone still haunted me to this day. I’d hated that that’d been the hand we’d been dealt, that we’d never been able to get a leg up, no matter what we’d done. Even knowing how desperately we needed the money, I’d turned Dick down flat when he’d approached me in the first place. Back then, I’d thought that would be that.

But, of course, Dick always got what he wanted. And he’d wanted me gone.

I walked through the empty bar, the workers long since gone for the day. Pride swelled in my chest over what Drew, Nola, and I had accomplished—three troublemakers from the wrong side of the tracks. The opening was close now. Real close.

The bar top shone, the stone we’d picked out for the front a perfect contrast to the corrugated steel and barn wood throughout the space. Accent walls in that same stone were interspersed throughout the bar—a strategy Rory had come up with and I’d just nodded along to. Industrial lighting hung from the open rafters of the ceiling, a few lantern sconces—and yeah, I now knew what those were—on the walls. It was everything I’d imagined when I hadn’t even known what to dream up. There was no denying Rory knew what the hell she was doing, and she was damn good at it.

I climbed the stairs to the apartment before unlocking the door. Drew sat on the couch, TV on and beer in his hand. He lifted the bottle in a wave without turning around.

“We need to talk.” I tossed my keys on the beat-up card table posing as a dining table and strode into the living area.

Drew furrowed his brow as he looked at me. “What the hell happened tonight? It didn’t go well?”

“With Willow? Nah, it went great. Perfect.”

“Then what’s all this?” He gestured in my general vicinity.

I didn’t take time to wonder how he already knew something was up. Par for the course with the two of us. “History repeated itself tonight.”

His brows shot up. “No shit? Dick?”

“The one and only.”

Drew leaned forward, resting his elbows on his spread knees. “What’d he say?”

“The usual. How much money’ll it take to make you leave, get out before I make you, that sort of thing.”

“I see his originality is still horseshit.”

I hummed as I collapsed onto the couch next to my brother. Originality Dick didn’t have, but he did have something he could hold over my head, and I wanted it gone. It’d always be there, of course. I could never take back what I’d accepted, but I wanted to wash my hands of it as best I could. “We still have that fifty-thousand set aside?”

He took a slow sip of his beer, then nodded. “Yeah.”

“I need it.”

“All right.”

No hesitation. No questioning. No inquisition.

“That’s it?”

He glanced at me. “Should there be somethin’ else?”

“You’re not gonna ask what I need it for?”

He tapped his temple. “Twins. Besides, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out you’re lookin’ to pay back that slimy asshole so it’s not hangin’ over your head anymore. Been wonderin’ what was takin’ you so damn long, to be honest.”

I blew out a harsh breath, head resting on the back of the couch. “You remember after we left, how I’d fantasize about comin’ back here and all the ways I’d throw that money in his face?” I didn’t wait for a response because, of course, my brother remembered. “But when I finally got the chance, it just…wasn’t as important. I had other things on my mind.”

“Willow.”

“Yeah, Willow. And the bar. And talkin’ you into movin’ back here.”

“Didn’t have to do much coercin’ on that.”

“Don’t usually with you.”

He shrugged. “Nothin’ holdin’ me back in California. And where you go, I go. You know that.”

“I do.” Same as Drew knew it. Our bond was unbreakable. I pushed to stand and strolled toward my bedroom. “When can you get the money?”

“It’ll take a couple days. Our bank doesn’t have a location ’round here, so I’ll have to make some calls. By the end of the week, I’d say.”

“All right. And we’ll still be doing okay once that’s gone?” I leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed. “We still have enough assets to pay all of Nash’s people for the bar and get Momma moved out here? I know we’ve run into some added expenses with this venture.”

Drew barked out a laugh then downed the rest of his beer before standing. On his way to the kitchen, he stopped and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “I know you don’t pay much attention to the statements I send you, but trust me when I say we’re doin’ just fine. That 50K was nice to get us started, but we haven’t needed it in a long damn time.”

Because he had made sure of it. Fifty-thousand was a lot of money, especially to two kids like us, but it wouldn’t have even put a dent in cancer treatment bills. We’d had to make more money and make it fast. Fortunately, my brother was a goddamn genius with the stock market. All we’d needed had been the starting capital, and pretty soon, we’d had a nice little nest egg, even after paying for our momma’s ungodly high treatment bills.

If it hadn’t been for him, we’d have ended up no better than we’d left Havenbrook. And I couldn’t lie that it was a damn nice feeling to know how much we’d changed since leaving, how much we’d flourished. Despite what half the people in our hometown thought of us.

That was the one and only thing I’d thank Dick for. And I would too. At the same time I threw all that money back in his face.