Chapter 6
Avery
The next morning, I found myself up bright and early with my coffee in hand and a list of towing companies pulled up on my laptop.
After the first two of them had declined service with some bullshit excuse about not having enough trucks available, Pete’s Towing came through as my Hail Mary.
They only took two hours to get enough trucks in the area with towing capacity, and with called-in permission from me to the guard down at the garage site, my father’s cars would be showing up at Brandon’s shop come noon.
Since dropping him off yesterday, I couldn’t get the zinging thrill of excitement out of my veins.
I wasn’t going to be around much for when Brandon would be working on the cars, however, it gave me plenty of excuses to drop by and spend time with him while under the guise of checking in on the progress.
I tried not to think negatively over his hesitance, chalking his reaction up to being the jitters of rekindling a long lost friendship. After all, it wasn’t like Brandon was known to be the type of person to jump headfirst into things.
He was cautious by nature, even while wearing his heart on his sleeve at times.
That was what was always so charming about him and what drew people in wherever he went. I doubted that personality trait had been wiped from him, despite the years passing by.
But that was something I could work with—having to earn back our friendship. Being forced to leave abruptly and then us losing contact that same year had more than likely soured him toward me in an understandable way.
Blowing back into town and into his life so suddenly probably wasn’t doing me many favors, either.
In the grand scheme of things, what I hoped for was another chance at this friendship. To show Brandon that us being apart had hurt me just as much as it had him. I’d had to fill the void left in my heart with too many things to count at this point, all of which paled in comparison.
We could never go back to the way things were—us as innocent kids trying to navigate this big scary world with nothing but each other to rely on—but I could damn well try and get us back to somewhere close.
Next to my arm, my phone went off. I lifted it from its spot on the arm of the couch, expecting the towing company’s number to flash across the screen.
Instead, it was someone else entirely—their contact ID being the last one I ever expected to see come scrolling across my phone’s screen.
Well, well. Look who it is...
“Long time no talk,” I said after clicking the round green button.
The man on the other end of the line chuckled. “Oh, come on. Give me a break. I’ve been busy.”
Funny he could say that while in the past, my same excuses would get me a disappointed sigh and a guilt trip that would end in me paying for an entire bar tab after a night out.
I could already feel the damn hangover settling at the base of my skull just thinking back to those times.
Didn’t miss them one bit—the hangover or the ridiculous partying I’d inevitably been dragged into.
Though, I supposed that’s what I got for befriending two fucking extroverts who took joy in seeing me suffer.
“Too busy to call me back, I see,” I quipped. “Don’t tell me you’ve got another houseman distracting you from picking up the phone every once in a while.”
“Funny. And I like to call them wait staff, you privileged ass.”
Smirking, I said. “Spoken like true new money, Knight.”
“Oh, fuck off, McAllister. You seem to have gotten that silver spoon stuck too far up your ass.”
That had me barking out a laugh.
He could be so damn dramatic.
Sliding the laptop off of me and settling it down onto the couch, I stretched my legs out in front of me before rolling onto my feet. Teasing Marlow Knight mercilessly was one of my favorite pastimes. Especially, when it came to us battling it out about which side of the tracks we both grew up on.
Coming from the same small suburb of Ellington Heights, but having met officially in boarding school halfway around the world, was the wildest thing I’d ever experienced in my short seventeen years.
The old adage that Hazel was always fond of quoting to me as a kid, how small this world truly was, never quite hit until the day I’d gotten my room assignment and walked in to my new roommate sitting on his bed and discovering it to be Marlow.
He’d filled the void Brandon had left behind quite seamlessly. Helping to ease the pain of losing someone so important and leaving behind the only life I ever knew.
Coming from new money, unlike my family, was an added bonus.
While Marlow wasn’t able to relate to my struggles growing up as a trust fund baby, he certainly knew how difficult life could be while navigating relationships where money was a deciding factor on whether people wanted to stick around or not.
Which unfortunately, had been a startling realization the moment both of us had stepped out into the real adult world.
I stood at the window facing out to the back of the mansion’s property, overlooking the crystal clear, Olympic-sized swimming pool. “So, what brings you to calling me so early in the goddamn morning?”
“I knew you’d be awake,” was his simple reply. “I heard you came blowing back into town and didn’t bother telling anyone. Let alone your friends.”
That had me sighing at my reflection in the window.
Despite his rather cavalier tone, this was Marlow’s way of scolding me just like he’d done many times before.
There wasn’t exactly a question as to how he knew about me coming back to my—or rather, our—hometown, since it was pretty obvious that he’d heard about it through the grapevine consisting of our staff.
But rather, it was all a matter of principle.
He wasn’t a relatively patient person, a flaw in most financial analysts these days, and even giving me two and a half days to settle in was generous of him. So, calling like this was more of a formality.
The next time, I’d most likely find him showing up to bang on my damn gate.
“Is this you telling me you miss me?” I teased.
“You’re full of yourself. Silas was the one who missed you.”
That had me rolling my eyes. “Don’t hide behind him.”
“Never could. He’s too short. And he’d rather throw me to the sharks.”
“Funny coming from you when I can see clear over both of your heads.”
He scoffed at me. “Are you coming out tonight with us or what?”
I loved ragging on him. As the one only three inches taller than my companions, it always gave me a sense of satisfaction to knock both one of them down a few pegs on something as simple as height when they were getting a bit too rowdy for their own good.
With all three of us typically having our heads shoved too far up our asses at times due to our insane wealth, a little heckling now and again kept us all humble enough to not be completely insufferable to be around.
I checked the time on my watch, noting I still had time to run over to Brandon’s shop and catch up with him about the cars before I’d unavoidably get roped into whatever Marlow clearly had planned for tonight.
And as much as my instincts to hunker down and avoid everything at all costs until the situation with Ana Liapovich got settled, it was only going to make my restlessness worse.
What better distraction than to head out to whatever bar I was going to be dragged to and finding myself a woman or two to blow off some steam with?
“Text me where we’re going and I’ll meet you and Silas there tonight,” I said.
“Great.” The grin was obvious in his voice. “Hope you’ve got the day off tomorrow.”
How ominous. “We’ll see.”
“Famous last words,” Marlow said, right before ending the call.
I shook my head, letting out a chuckle, and pocketed my phone.
Hopefully, Marlow’s warpath would lead me to getting laid tonight.
Fuck knew I needed it.