Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Cody
M ick slapped my back and slugged back the last of his beer. “Good luck, brother.”
I gave him a crusty glare before he chuckled and waltzed out. Our dad had taken our mom on a weekend getaway to Salt Lake to the symphony or something. They tried to get out as much as possible before tax season because he was usually so drained between January and May, he didn’t have much energy for such things.
I’d worked until twenty after five, at which point I didn’t have any ability to focus nor the will to stay staring at spreadsheets for another second when Charlie was in my future.
I cringed away from that thought because no. Charlie might be in my immediate future, like now , but she wasn’t here long term. She wasn’t going to stay, and I needed to keep that reality front and center.
Because if not, I did stupid stuff like insinuate I wanted to draw her a bath and take her to bed like I had last night. Not that I didn’t want to do those very things—oh, I did. But to say that aloud?
We’d never been like that before. Granted, at some point I had to stop thinking about how things were the last time we spent significant time together because everything was so different now, but that felt impossible. Because in some fundamental ways, it was the same. We still clicked, still liked each other with a gut-deep ease, and I still had it bad for her.
I had to lock that crap down tonight. Maybe she’d be as tired as last night and this would end up being a simple beer, chatty catch up, and done.
Though the second I had the thought, I disliked it. I’d been looking forward to hearing what she thought of the Silver Ridge Resort and how her coworkers were. I wanted to know if she’d interacted any more with Jonas Bauer or Julian Grenier, two of the weirdest dudes I’d ever met. I wanted to hear if she’d eaten at Rise and Shine and if she wanted to get a season’s pass this year for skiing or if she’d be too busy.
A hand on my shoulder had me jumping to my feet and turning to find a beaming Charlie. My stomach swooped low as her arms encircled me and she held me close. A vague, sweet scent hit me and my head swam even while I tucked my face closer to her.
“Have you been waiting long?”
She pecked my cheek just above my jaw, and an animal impulse to grab her by the sides of her face and draw her mouth to mine had me gritting my teeth.
“No. I caught up with Mick real quick before he had to get home.” Kieran set another beer in front of me on the coaster and raised a brow at Charlie.
“For the lady?”
She smiled at him. As much as a I didn’t want to acknowledge it, jealousy lifted its head at the move—at seeing her smiling at Kieran, who was kind of ridiculous-looking and had the faintest Irish accent I definitely couldn’t compete with.
“Does Silver Ridge Brewing have a cider?” Her gaze surveyed the taps.
“That they do. Be right up.”
She thanked him and plunked down on the stool next to me, tossing her jacket over the one next to her and hanging her purse on a little hook located under the bar.
“How’d you know that was there?” I asked in an effort to distract from how stupid I was for being jealous of her smiling at another guy. Who was I?
“I read about it online—it was in one of the reviews for this place. It gets rave reviews.”
“You read up on stuff around here?”
“Of course. I love scouring for the best tips and tricks. I haven’t been a native Silverton resident in years, and people at the hotel will end up asking me questions, especially when Page isn’t there to man the concierge desk.” She crossed her legs and leaned her elbows on the bar.
Her black slacks had a sharp crease in them, her heels inches high. I hadn’t gotten a close look at them yesterday, but no wonder she was exhausted. They had to be at least three inches and tiny—why would someone willingly wear those?
Though they were pretty hot. I had no idea why they were, but… they were. I sucked in a breath and pulled my eyes away from her sexy heels. “Guess that makes sense. Page isn’t from here either though, is she?”
“No. Somewhere else in the southwest though, I think.” Her face brightened when Kieran approached with her drink. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
I rolled my eyes but at least had the presence of mind to look away before doing it. The charming, mildly mysterious Irish bartender thing was just obnoxious.
“So how was your first week at the resort? How are you feeling?” I asked, shifting so I faced her more directly. Sitting at the bar was all well and good except I wanted to be able to see her without craning my neck. I had no interest in staring ahead at the woodwork shelves behind the bar holding hundreds of bottles of liquor. I wanted to see her.
She sighed and shut her eyes before taking a quick sip of her cider. When she set it down, her lashes flicked open and she wore a small smile. “It was so good.”
Hope clutched at me immediately. “Really? Tell me.”
So she did. We sat and each drained our first glass while she explained the differences between the policies and procedures at Silver Ridge compared to the company she’d been with the last almost-decade. For the most part, she seemed to heartily approve of the places where they diverged and also where they were the same.
“Overall, they’re doing everything right that I can see. It’s an exciting place to be, especially right now before the primary tourist season begins. But I browsed the upcoming weekends to get a feel for what’s coming in terms of reservations and they’ve got more than one weekend pre-season that’s almost full. I never would’ve guessed they could draw that many people before the mountain opens.”
“Silverton does have a little more going on than just the resort, you know.” I used a joking tone as best I could, but here was a sore spot. She clearly didn’t realize it, nor did I think she meant it to sound the way it did to me, but I couldn’t pretend it didn’t bother me. Immensely.
She still thought of Silverton as the sleepy little ski town she’d burned rubber away from years ago. And while it was still small compared to almost anywhere, it had so much going for it. In the last five years, things had improved exponentially, and in the last three since they finally got the state to open up what amounted to a short cut from the airport that shaved almost forty minutes off the drive here, paired with Julian Grenier’s push for the regional airport build… it’d grown. Considerably. And the tourism wasn’t just winter anymore.
“My parents have been telling me this for years. You have too, for that matter.” She dipped her head in my direction with a wry grin. “I guess I just had to see it myself. There’s all kinds of events year-round to draw visitors and the town has grown to support that, plus it seems like day to day life here is less… I don’t know. Insulated?”
I swallowed a gulp of beer, hoping it’d chase away the rising hackles at that. Because there it was again. And I couldn’t help but link her thoughts about Silverton to what she must think about me. Quiet, lanky, insulated Cody who’s never left Silverton to see what better things the big wide world had to offer. Was that me in her eyes?
And while it wasn’t technically true anymore since I’d gone to college in Salt Lake and I’d traveled to a few places, including a few outside the US, since high school, my life and all its most important parts were here. My favorite people and places and things were here. I loved the peaks that made up these mountains. I loved the community that I’d grown up in and knew me, even though I wasn’t the most outgoing guy. I loved that my dad’s business had been here since he started it when I was a kid and that my brother and his family were settled in a neighborhood I could walk to from my house.
“Cody?”
Charlie’s voice pulled me out of that frustration-fueled mental tantrum. “Yeah, sorry. Insulated?”
Her brows dropped in confusion and her dark eyes skipped over my face. “Um. Yeah. Just, it seems like it’s grown a lot and there’s a really healthy travel industry. I knew it had to be significant to sustain all the new businesses and even a hotel that large, but I’m pleasantly surprised.”
I nodded, working to bite back my frustration with her and her way of thinking about Silverton—dang, she was maddening. Her words meant her perspective was shifting, and that was good. Experiencing the changes here and seeing for herself that it’d grown and that it had value was far better than me simply arguing the merits from my limited view.
“It’s been changing for years, you know.” Okay, so I didn’t manage to stuff that down very well.
“I know that. My parents update me on every little thing that happens—every business, every improvement. And I’m really glad.”
I ground my teeth, feeling like her words were meant to console me and not because she believed them. More than that, why was I bothered by this? Why did it feel so important that she understand Silverton had more to offer than she realized?
Her hand on my wrist drew my attention back to her beautiful, frustrating face.
“Hey. I didn’t mean to sound condescending.”
I didn’t say anything because, well, what could I say? I hate that you’ll never stop running away from this place. I wish you’d stop comparing Silverton to the huge cities you’ve been living in for the last decade. I wish you’d accept the value of home whether it has a fancy hotel or not.
Yeah, not happening.
“Seriously. I—I know I—” she cut herself short and exhaled sharply. “Will you look at me?”
I did. Sort of had been but hadn’t focused on her because even as annoyed as I was with her right now, I couldn’t ignore how magnetic she was to me. I was drawn to her even when she was ticking me off. I wanted to study every angle of her face—the bow of her top lip, the curve of her jaw. I wanted to touch her and taste her, and maybe one and a half beers were all it took, but suddenly, I could hardly breathe for wanting her.
“I’m sorry. I’ve realized that my way of talking about Silverton has been less than kind in the past, and while I always saw that as just my way of dealing with my roots and something that only affected my life, I’ve realized I’ve hurt people here while doing it. I don’t owe anyone an apology for leaving and doing the things I’ve done, but I do need to apologize for disparaging a place where so many of the people I love have chosen to live.”
Our gazes locked. She slid her hand down my wrist and took my hand in both of hers. “What I’m doing very poorly is saying that after being away so long, I can see why you chose to stay. I’ve gained perspective and while I’m thankful for that, I’m also thankful to be here. At home. With you.”
I squeezed her hand in return, a flood of emotion mixing into warmth that spread from my hand and raced through to my chest. Her genuine apology and willingness to even acknowledge that maybe her way of talking about the place she’d left and I’d clung to… it floored me.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice quiet in the loud pub.
“I want us to start over. Or, not over , but I want to move forward without that between us. I feel like it’s kind of been wedged in and we’ve talked around it, but I don’t want anything to come between us again. I want everything to be?—”
“Is that Charlotte Lane? It is you!”
I held my breath, slowly exhaling through my nose as she dropped my hand, sprang from her seat, and launched herself into Jeremy Solomon’s arms.
She’d been about to say what she wanted between us. Probably that she wanted it all to just be like it was—friends and happy, and I could give her that. But then her ex-boyfriend and all-around impressive dude-bro of a former college football player interrupted, and now instead of her holding my hand, he was twirling her in a circling hug like they were long-lost lovers.
Talk about a brutal flashback.