Chapter 7
Bailey
Jesus, how did he get even better-looking? The kitchen light catches the dark stubble along his jaw, and his button-up fits just right across his shoulders.
Silas looks up at me and his whole face lights up like I’m the best thing he’s seen all day. “Hey, you!” The enthusiasm in his voice makes me want to roll my eyes and swoon simultaneously.
“Hi.” My cheeks heat with a blush, and the lace teddy shifts against my skin like a secret promise. So much for playing it cool, because it’s like there’s a giant sign over his head that says HE’S TOTALLY SEEN YOUR PANTIES.
And judging by the way his gaze drops to my mouth before snapping back up? He’s thinking about it too.
He walks into the kitchen and sets dinner on the counter. I wash my hands as he pulls out plates, and I sit at the kitchen counter. One pizza is mushroom and preserved lemon, and the other eggplant miso, the special of the day.
Silas pops the caps from two beers and offers me one. Then he holds his up in a toast.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he says, holding my gaze. It’s too intense, too . . . swoony.
I tap his bottle with mine and quickly look away.
I pick a slice of each while Silas fills Echo’s food bowl and sets it down on the floor. The cat ignores it, instead sitting at Silas’s feet and talking to him.
Silas looks up, not even slightly embarrassed. “We have a dinner routine,” he explains with an unselfconscious joy that should be illegal on a grown man.
He swoops down and picks Echo up. Then he proceeds to aggressively smooch her head—a dozen rapid-fire kisses while she purrs like a motorboat—and I have to physically restrain myself from saying I volunteer as tribute.
After maybe a dozen kisses, Silas finally lets her go, gently dropping her to the floor where she shakes off and saunters over to her food bowl and chows down.
I’m swooning. The man brought me pizza and loved on his cat and now I have to make polite conversation while wearing a sexy lacy teddy underneath my clothes? What was I thinking?
I turn away and pick up a slice. The first bite of the mushroom pizza makes me close my eyes. The crust is perfect—chewy and crispy simultaneously—and the preserved lemon adds this bright, almost floral complexity that makes me want to moan.
I catch myself before the sound escapes. The last thing I need is to make sex noises while eating pizza in front of Silas.
Too late. When I open my eyes, he’s watching me with an expression that makes my stomach flip.
“Good?” His voice comes out rougher than normal.
“Really good,” I manage, taking a sip of beer to cool down. “Though I’m pretty sure making food-porn noises in your kitchen wasn’t part of today’s agenda.”
His smile goes crooked. “I don’t mind.”
Of course he doesn’t.
I can’t believe I’m sitting here, on Valentine’s Day, with Silas. Tattooed, slutty-glasses-wearing, my-brother’s-best-friend Silas.
Silas hoists himself onto the chair next to me. “So, what is it like to be a successful manager at a renewable energy start-up?” He’s parroting my words back to me, carefully remembering what I said I do for work.
I shake off the swoon and relax, because it’s easy to talk about my job, which I love.
It’s challenging to be the only female manager in a small company, but I’m proud of the work I do.
And I do get paid really well, which makes living in the city so much easier.
I just asked for—and got—a ten percent raise.
We talk about my job, then his, and then our mutual friends.
“. . . even if Morgan and I found a place that works for him to open his own bar, he can’t get a liquor permit right now. Rance snatched the last one that went up—”
“Wait, Joseph Rance is still around?”
Silas rolls his eyes. “Sadly, yes.”
Rance is my parents’ age, and rumors have always swirled around that he’s involved with the Mafia or drug runners. It’s ridiculous, because why would either group care about a tiny small town barely supported by an old ski resort?
Regardless of the rumors, what is true is that Joseph Rance owns plenty of property in Here, property he does nothing with. Like I’d seen last time I was in town, several of the downtown storefront buildings are empty, and I’d bet good money most of them are owned by Rance.
“What is he doing with the liquor permit?”
Silas shrugs. “Who knows. Maybe he thinks he can lure a tenant in—maybe he even thinks Morgan would rent from him, which will never happen. The rates he’s asking—” Silas’s brow crinkles, and he leans back in his chair, digging his phone out of his pocket. He glances at the screen.
“Do you need to get that?” I ask, taking a sip from my glass.
“It’s your brother. I’ll call him back later. Anyway, Rance has priced the rent too high. He’ll do what he does with every other property and hold on to it until—”
Now my phone buzzes with an incoming call, muting the music.
I flip my phone over. It’s my brother. I exchange a glance with Silas and then answer. “Hello?”
“Can I come visit you for a few days?”
“Well, hello to you, too, brother dearest. I’m not home right now, but you have a key. What did you do?”
On the counter, Silas’s phone lights up and buzzes once, twice, again. Great. Whatever this is, it’s already spreading through Here like wildfire.
“Why would you assume I did something?” Hunter sounds offended.
“Because you’re calling me asking to flee the county. What happened?”
Hunter’s sigh is long, and for a moment I think he’s not going to answer me. But then it comes, so mumbled I barely hear it.
“Say that again and loud enough so I can hear you,” I needle him.
“I punched someone.”
My jaw nearly hits the table. “You did WHAT?”
Silas’s eyebrow raises at my tone. He’s been typing on his phone and then he lifts it to his ear.
My brother speaks slowly and overly loud. “I punched. A guy. At the bar.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “How . . . what . . . Never mind, I don’t want to know. Just . . . you’ve got a key, right?”
“Yeah.” Hunter’s voice sounds so dejected that I feel sorry for snapping.
“Did he deserve it?” I ask.
“Hell yeah.”
“Well, okay then. Don’t make a mess in my place, and I’ll be home in a few days.”
“A few days? Where are you?”
“In None of Your Business. Love you.”
I hang up before he can answer.
“So,” Silas starts. “I have a voicemail from your brother and a shit ton of text messages in our group chats.”
“Yeah,” I say. I bet the Herevians are going bananas with the news that my brother punched someone at On the Rocks.
Silas is scrolling, and his eyebrows get higher and higher. “Your brother punched Morgan’s brother?”
“Wait,” I say. “Hunter punched . . . Greg?”
“Graham,” Silas corrects.
“Right, Graham.” I have a vague memory of a skinny kid with Morgan’s eyes but none of his charm. “The younger brother?”
“Unfortunately.” Silas’s mouth twists.
“Why did Hunter punch Graham?”
Silas scrolls more, and then shakes his head. “Unclear. But I have three text messages from random people asking me what I know.” He sighs and puts his phone down, swapping it for a beer.
“Hunter said Graham deserved it.”
“Oh, I’m sure. Graham is like . . .” He frowns. “He’s been dealing since high school, but now it’s harder stuff. Fentanyl, maybe.”
“Wait,” I say, a memory coming back to me. “Wasn’t he going to open a dispensary?”
Silas scowls. “Yeah. Morgan lent him money and I even looked at properties for him. But Graham thinks everyone should cut him a deal and I got sick of his shit.”
Great. Just what Here needs, some dumbass drug dealer. This town really is going to shit. “Hunter can be so protective of his people and whatever Graham did, I’m not sad about it, but damn, I can’t believe Hunter punched him. I don’t think he’s punched someone in his life.”
“That’s . . .” Silas hesitates. “That’s not true. He punched me once.”
“WHAT?” That came out even louder than when I shouted at Hunter. “Oh my god. When did my brother punch you?”
Silas runs a hand over his jaw, the rasp audible despite my music still playing quietly.
“We were fifteen, I think? It was at Kit’s place, and we were playing Marry Fuck Kill and cracking each other up when I said I wanted to marry you.
Hunter wound back and punched me before I knew it was happening. ”
“You said you wanted to marry me?”
Silas shrugs, a playful smile tugging at his lips. “Yes.”
“But . . . I was . . .”
“You were what?”
“I was eighteen. And . . .” It’s on the tip of my tongue to say something disparaging about my body, and I bite it back.
It’s as if Silas knows, though. “Bailey,” he says gently. “I’ve always thought you were beautiful.”
The words land like a physical touch. I force myself to meet his eyes, expecting to see pity or kindness or the sort of gentle lie you tell someone to make them feel better.
But what I see is heat. Want. Years of it, banked behind those glasses.
“Always?” My voice comes out smaller than I intended.
“Always.” He leans closer, and I can see the exact moment he realizes what he’s doing—confessing something he’s kept locked down for over a decade. His jaw tightens. “Even when I shouldn’t have.”
Because of Hunter. Because I was off-limits. Because I was leaving.
The air between us feels charged, dangerous.
Heat floods my cheeks and I look away, my fingers fidgeting with the crust of my pizza.
My skin suddenly feels hypersensitive against the lace of my teddy, and I’m acutely aware of how close he’s sitting—close enough that I can smell the hops from his beer mixed with something woodsy that’s just him.
“That tracks, actually,” I say. “Hunter punching you. With the teasing that was going on in school, he was trying so hard to protect me.”
“I remember the bullying.”
I snort. “Yeah, Ben Hartly had nicknames for me and my friends. Big Bird, Carrot Cake, and Willie.” I roll my eyes, even though it still stings. “He was the worst.”
“Well,” Silas says, leaning toward me. “You want some juicy, small-town news?”
I lean in too. “Hell, yeah.”
“Ben Hartly got arrested for indecent exposure . . . in Las Vegas.”
I gasp. “No!”
“Yup. Not his first offense either. But this time, someone photographed him doing it, and he pled guilty.”
“Holy shit.”
We’re quiet for a moment, and then Silas clears his throat. “Hunter still told me you were off-limits though.” Silas’s knee presses against mine under the counter, and neither of us moves away. “He’d probably punch me again if he knew what we’ve been doing today.”
“Then it’s a good thing,” I say, my voice coming out huskier than intended, “that I don’t tell my brother everything anymore.” I lean closer. “Do you?”
His pupils dilate. “Not a chance.”
The air between us shifts. Charges. I can see the exact moment his gaze drops to my mouth. My heart hammers so hard I’m sure he can hear it.
“Bailey,” he says, and there’s a question in the way he says my name.
“Yeah?”
“We should probably establish some boundaries.” But even as he says it, his hand comes up to rest on my knee, his thumb tracing small circles that make it hard to think.
I look down at his hand, then back up at him. “Okay.”
He takes a long drink. “Want to hear mine?”
“Sure.”
His eyes meet mine, and they’re molten. “I don’t have any.”
The words land like a match to kindling. My breath catches. The lace teddy suddenly feels like fire against my skin.
“Good,” I breathe, and then I’m closing the distance between us.