Chapter Thirteen
Ripley
Ido not have a new house. It’s been standing here since the dawn of time—or so it seems with how much sound travels through the walls.
Every step results in the creak of a floorboard, turning on a faucet makes the pipes groan, and don’t get me started on the door hinges.
Those bitches are squeaky as all get-out.
It never used to bother me. Up until seven days ago, the house was so quiet I could hear a mouse fart outside.
Or maybe I wasn’t such a light sleeper.
I’m not sure if it’s my house or my sleep habits, but I know the main source of my exhaustion is the five-eight city boy down the hall.
His alarm rings at 4:30 a.m. every morning.
Every. Single. Morning.
Even Sundays.
I swear he’s part-machine.
By 4:33 a.m., he’s in the bathroom taking a leak and brushing his teeth. Then it’s straight to the kitchen seven minutes later, at which point the cabinets open and slam closed a few hundred times.
And by 4:43, he’s shaking that disgusting protein concoction. It’s the most grating sound, and putting a pillow over my head doesn’t drown it out. Ask me how I know.
The fact the man travelled with his own tumbler for his morning shake needs to be examined. I’ve contemplated stealing that little fucking shaker ball so many times. He’s lucky I prioritize being lazy over being an asshole.
The one bright spot in this early morning nightmare starts at 4:45. This is where the good stuff starts. I made the unfortunate decision to go out there the first morning to see what the noise was all about, and I watched him, hidden by the shadows in the hallway.
I’m hiding in the same spot now. Is it creepy?
For sure. Do I care? Not even a little because he’s warming up for his run.
That means he’s leaning and bending and stretching, and he’s wearing very short shorts while he does it.
He does a few sit-ups and some burpees, just enough to give his pale skin that dewy, pink glow before he’s out the door at five.
The view and the small little grunts he makes almost make me forgive him for the shaker. Almost.
But now I have forty-five minutes before he’s back. I could try to sleep, but knowing he’ll be back and banging around again makes it less appealing.
I opt for a good old wank. I haven’t called Archer since Seth moved in. Something about seeing him while Seth is in my space feels wrong. And although I don’t miss him per se, I do miss sex.
Being so close to Seth without being able to touch him is a special type of torture.
I often find myself watching him. At RED, I watch him working with Thea, that perfect face screwed up in concentration.
At home, I watch him cook with the same intensity.
It seems the man puts his all into everything he does.
And he seems stressed. This should be an easy side project for him, a break from his real work.
But his shoulders are constantly bunched, and all I want to do is knead them into submission until they relax, until his furrowed brow unwinds.
And after his shoulders, I’d like to massage the rest of him: the tight, smooth skin of his back, that firm ass with the sweet peach fuzz that blankets it, and then of course that gorgeous cock of his.
What I wouldn’t do to get my hands on that again.
With memories of West back in one of those hotel rooms mingling with visions of Seth stretching in my living room, I come fast and hard and with a few minutes to spare to bask in the afterglow then clean up before Seth arrives back at the house at 5:45 a.m. His shower takes about fifteen minutes, and getting dressed and ready is another fifteen.
By 6:15, he’s back in the kitchen cooking his usual egg white omelet.
The smell of coffee fills my nostrils, and I think back to the note he left me a few days ago after I cleaned my house and pulled out my old drip coffee maker for him to use.
He’d signed it West. That has to mean something, right?
As much as I try to deny it, I’m still crazy about the man.
Everything I wanted in November is still there.
I want to know him. I want to learn everything I can, and I want to see where we could take this.
Obviously, our distance is an issue—along with a fuck-ton of other problems—and I don’t have all the answers. All I know is I want.
All the noises cease by 6:45 a.m. when he closes and locks the door, heading to RED before anyone else.
I snuggle in under the covers and doze for a couple more hours while the rest of Indigo Hill starts waking up.
When I finally open my eyes, the sun is bright behind my shades. A glance at my phone tells me it’s just after 10:30 a.m., and I consider closing my eyes for another fifteen minutes but decide against it since I need to pee something fierce.
After taking care of business in the bathroom and brushing my teeth, I slide into a pair of threadbare PJ pants which are holding on by a hope and a wish.
These were the last ones I found at the very bottom of my dresser drawer.
The mountain of laundry in the corner of my room taunts me, and I glare at it, knowing full well I’ll address it when I no longer have any clean underwear and maybe not even then.
Dragging myself to the kitchen where I contemplate my existence while staring out the window, I debate if it’s worth getting dressed and going to Grayce’s for coffee. On one hand, coffee. On the other, I could veg for another hour, at which time Thea will be blowing up my phone asking where I am.
I stretch my arms over my head and am thoughtlessly scratching my chest when I make the decision to go get the coffee. I turn to head back upstairs when I see a person in the kitchen doorway.
I’m not proud of the screech that comes out of me, nor how high I jump before I realize it’s Seth.
“What the actual fuck?” I scream. “Why are you sneaking around?”
“Coming in through the front door is hardly sneaking around,” he says, and then after a pause, he adds, “Here.”
He holds out a large iced coffee cup with the logo for Grayce’s Cafe on the side.
“What’s this?” I ask like an idiot.
“A large iced Americano. I asked if they had the bucket size, but they were all out of the buckets,” he answers, referencing the time I told him about how my local coffee shop started carrying coffee buckets as a kitschy marketing gimmick that I immediately indulged in. “Don’t make this into a thing.”
Oh, but this is a thing. A big thing. Big. Huge.
A slight tightness around his eyes betrays his serious face, the stupid mask I’ve come to hate. Is he… nervous? Is he worried about my reaction to him bringing me God’s nectar?
I won’t lie, I’m pretty sure my heart eyes for this man are obvious right now.
The gesture may seem small, but I know how much it takes for him to deviate from his schedule.
He thought about me, about when I wake up, and came all the way here to bring me coffee.
My heart is pounding, overflowing with all those dumb feelings I’ve been trying to push aside for months.
The worst thing about it is I know he didn’t get anything for himself. He would never drink caffeine this late.
No, this was all just for me.
Excuse me while I melt into a puddle right here in my kitchen.
I’m in so much trouble. I have such a big crush on my quasi-roommate-slash-ex-fuck-buddy-slash-whatever-the-fuck, and I bet it’s written all over my face because his expression turns to one of frustration, and he starts pulling the coffee back toward himself.
“Don’t you dare!” I snap, grabbing the coffee from him and gently slapping his hand away. I wrap both hands around the cup and bring it to my body like it’s something precious. “This is mine, you gave it to me, you can’t take it back. Mine.”
His eyebrows shoot up, and his lips quirk like he’s about to laugh, or at least smile a little. But he reins it in and with another long stare in my direction, he turns to leave again.
His hand is on the doorknob when I call to his back, “So does this mean you think about me as much as I think about you?”
He pauses but doesn’t turn around. His tense shoulders move under his shirt before they drop with a heavy sigh.
Then I hear a quiet “probably,” and he’s out the door.
I finally stroll into the distillery just as the clock strikes noon. With no tours on the schedule, the space is pretty empty. There are a few people sprinkled throughout, drinking small tasting flights, and a couple looking at our merch wall.
I nod a hello to Nat behind the bar before I step into the back. I take a deep breath, and my heartbeat slows down. This is often the only place in the world where I know I’ll find peace no matter what’s going on. Things make sense in here. I know what I’m doing, and I know I’m doing it well.
Today is a clean out day. All the equipment has to be hosed down and sanitized to prepare for the new batch we’ll be cooking in a few days. Brooks should be coming in to help me, but I’m not holding my breath.
I pull out my phone and click over to my music app. The speakers in the distilling room are synced to my phone, so a second later, the first notes of Chappel Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” ring throughout the space. My cleaning playlist is killer, if I do say so myself.
I shake myself loose and get started by mixing the cleaning solution in a plastic tub and then taking off all the removable parts of the equipment and tossing them in.
While those soak, I hook up the hose and run hot water through the fermenter and mash tun, letting it drain and get up to temperature to run the cleaning cycle.
Time passes quickly as I jam out and go through the process of making sure everything is clean and ready for our next brew. I’m lost in a particularly good part of “Manchild” by Sabrina Carpenter when a throat clears behind me.
I twirl around and find Thea standing by the door watching me. She looks amused.
“How long have you been standing there?” I ask, unembarrassed by how much I may or may not have been shaking my ass.
“Long enough to see your moves haven’t gotten any better,” she teases.
“Excuse me, my moves are brilliant. It might be time for a date night to remind you just how much you love my dance moves,” I say, referring to the weekly Thursday hang outs we used to have before she and Cary got together.
Those nights were the reason the townspeople got it in their heads we were together in something other than just a platonic appreciation of tequila and old school jukebox hits.
She chuckles. “Need any help?”
“Nah, I’m almost done, just have to rinse out the still.
What’s up? Everything go okay today?” I ask, looking through the windows between the distillery and the tasting room where Seth sits at the bar chatting with Nat as she closes up for the day.
My heart squeezes at the sight of him as I think about this morning.
I may not be the king of subtlety, but Seth is. Everything he does and says is layered and usually means so much more than what’s at the surface, especially when he goes out of his way for something. I wish I knew what was going through his head.
“Yeah, it was good. We’ve established a sort of ceasefire. I can tell he’s definitely trying at least. I just wish I knew why he doesn’t like me so much.”
I nod but don’t say anything. I’m not sure how to tell her he’s in love with her fiancé without causing more issues. This whole situation is so fucked.
Thea sighs and returns her attention to me. “So, I know I said I wouldn’t ask, and I gave you carte blanche to do whatever you want for the Jack and Jill party, but I wanted to check in and see how planning is going. Do you need help?”
I chuckle. This woman needs to control everything, and it gives her so much anxiety when she doesn’t know what’s going on. “I’ve got it handled,” I reassure her. “It’s going to be lowkey at Louie’s.”
“At Louie’s? Oh.” Her face falls, and I can’t help but smirk at her disappointment.
“Yeah, I figure it’s comfortable, the drinks are cheap, and the company is great…
mostly.” My eyes stray to Seth again. My feelings for the guy are all over the place.
Sometimes I want to shake him, and sometimes I feel like he could use a hug.
Always, I want to rub up against him and do things that would get me arrested in several states. It’s frustrating to say the least.
Seeing Thea disheartened by our plans, I say, “Don’t worry, babe. I got this. Have I ever let you down?”
“No, but…” she trails off, trying to find words that won’t hurt my feelings.
“I promise the hangover will be monstrous the next morning, and you’ll probably hate me. It’s going to be great,” I say with a laugh.
She rolls her eyes and makes a face. “Looking forward to it,” she says, but her words drip with sarcasm. “I’m heading out. Should I send Seth in here to help?” She raises her eyebrows in question, the meaning a bit heavy handed, even for her.
I shake my head. “Send him home,” I say, getting caught on the word home and all it implies at the moment. “We’ve reached our own ceasefire, I wouldn’t want to ruin it by actually spending time together.”
She laughs and after a brief hug, leaves. I watch her and Seth exit the distillery while I turn back to my still.
“Just you and me now,” I whisper before I grab the hose.