Tangling Hearts

89. Brendan

Chapter Eighty-Nine

brENDAN

I can be myself around her. What a fucking turn-on.

G iving her soft earlobe a nibble, I whisper, hoarsely, “Text him you’re running fifteen minutes late.” My hands go under her shirt and she raises up her arms so I can pull it off. “Mmm… pink bra. I like it.” Unfastening it with a quick snap, I free her breasts and cup them in my hands. Rub them. Caress them. She slips her fingers into my hair and cradles my head as I bend my knees to sit on the coffee table in front of her and lick the soft flesh around her nipples, then sucking them until they could cut diamonds.

“That feels so good,” she breathes, watching me. But before I can do more, she moans disappointment and steps backwards, holding her head in her hands. “You’re driving me crazy!! But I have to go. I really have to go.” I rise up as she picks up her bra. “I will text him I’m fifteen minutes late, because that’s how late we’re going to be, already.”

“True.” Raking my fingers through my hair with one hand, I walk to the door to hold it for her. “You’ve made it difficult for me to walk, though. Hope this goes down before we get there.”

She swipes her shirt off the floor and glances to my crotch longingly. “I hope it never goes down.”

Chuckling, I push at my cock, trying to make it behave. “Well, it doesn’t seem to want to, when you’re around.”

She snatches up her purse. “You say the sweetest things.” With one evil rub with her hand, she walks out the door.

“That’s not cool.” I smack her ass before she gets out of reach and, yelping, she breaks into a run. “Hey! Also not fair. I can’t run!”

A few stairs down, she stops, turns and looks up at me with very mischievous eyes. “You think I’m going to pass up the one chance I have to outrun you?”

“Why would you want to outrun me?” Annie pushes out her lips like a Muppet, and looks away, considering this. “That’s what I thought.” I walk down the steps at the only speed I’m capable of and reach over to tweak her nipple through her shirt.

“Ouch!” Her eyes go wide as I pass her.

“That’s for taking advantage of a wounded man.” Breaking into a painful jog, I run down the stairs, holding both railings, my arms spread wide to block her. “Oh no! What’s happening?”

“You’re a cheater!”

“I win.” Smiling and bowing my head, I say, “I just wanted to get here first to hold the door open for you.”

She rolls her eyes, giving me a reproachful look as she walks outside. “Puh-lease. You just like to win. I see you now.” Her finger comes up to point at me. “Don’t think I don’t!”

“Name one person who likes to lose!”

A few minutes later, as we drive up to her bar, we’re fake-arguing about the merits of winning and losing and what they can do to strengthen your resolve as a human being, or not. I turn my head as she parks in front of it, and it’s like someone punches me in the gut with a hammer-fist. The plastic-bag patchwork blowing in the breeze behind yellow, police tape strips makes it look like the place is haunted. And in a way, it is.

There’s a stocky guy standing on the sidewalk, talking on the phone. From his baseball hat, jeans, flannel shirt, and tanned skin, he has to be the contractor.

“I have to go and talk to him. Do you want to take a minute?”

But I shake my head and open the door of her car. “Nah. I’m good. Let’s do this.” Rising carefully, my eyes narrow as I look at the broken window, picturing the scene as Annie had described it to me – the cops shooting through it and what I must have looked like taken out on the stretcher. I glance over to the door and see the hole. That’s where Annie shot the guy. I hope it was fatal.

“Ms. O’Brien?”

“Yes, that’s me. You can call me Annie.” She shakes his hand, turning to the front door as she searches her keychain for the right key. “I’m so sorry we’re late. I don’t mean to disrespect your time. This is Brendan Clark. He’s a friend of mine I asked to join me. Brendan, this is Mr. Donovan.”

“Oh, are you one of the owners?” He asks me, turning with his hand out.

I shake his hand, and my head. “No, no. This is all her. She’s the head honcho all on her lonesome. I’m just here since I’ve got nowhere better to be.”

Annie laughs, bringing a smile back to my face, too. He nods and follows her inside. Bracing myself, I trail in behind them, slowly walking past where it happened, seeing the event replaying itself before my eyes. Brendan? The intense pain I felt. Annie holding my head. Brendan? I stare at the cleaned floor, seeing us there before me.

“Brendan?”

Coming back to present day, I turn and see Annie looking at me. Mr. Donovan is staring and wondering what’s going on with me.

She holds out her hand. “Can I ask your opinion on this?”

I nod and walk over, the past dissipating behind me. “Sure. What do you need?”

She turns to Mr. Donovan to include him, shifting her attention back and forth between us. “We were discussing the patio and Brendan, you’d mentioned having a retractable awning for the weather. I’m in a little over my head when it comes to construction, but you seemed like you could see the image of how this should look.”

I turn to the plastic covered space and hold out my hands to show them. “Yeah. Well, you’d said you want a black awning, which is perfect, and since the front of your bar has a sleek, modern feel, I’d keep that going with a short fence around the patio around this high, so it maintains an open quality, but keeps exclusivity as well. Not just tables on the sidewalk, you know? And the awning should have a see-through plastic, rolling wall accessible for when it rains. For the rest of the year, it won’t be there. Unless you want the privacy it will afford for special parties.” I turn to Mr. Donovan, knowing I have to include him in order to spark his desire to help. “You’re the expert, though. These are just ideas. I really don’t know anything about how this would work, or if it’s even possible, so please tell me if I’m way off base here.”

“I was thinking something along the lines of what you just said.”

“Really? Oh, great. Well, What do you think would work best for security?”

He launches into his plan for a collapsible iron gate operated by a button next to the register he’ll install. “The tables and chairs will have to be taken in. The only reason this will work is because the building is already pushed back from the sidewalk, giving you space to build. Half the patio will be inside and half out. So if you’re doing six tables – high ones like these?” He gestures to the tables in the middle of the room behind us. Annie nods, glancing to them. “Then three of those will be officially outside. The awning will be relatively short, which frankly, saves you money. But you can’t cut into the actual sidewalk without pissing off the city.”

Annie’s phone goes off and she pulls it out, still looking at him to say, “We don’t want to do that!” Her eyes fall to the screen and I can’t help but look, too, since it’s right there. A photo of a man wearing no shirt, smiling with a spatula in his hand, vanishes as she rejects the call, but I couldn’t help but see the name Christiano , too. Her eyes flit up to me, but I look away. Now is not the time to ask who the fuck that was. “So… um… is insurance going to cover this? Because I know I can’t.”