Denver
Strolling into the big house shortly after eleven a.m., I follow the scent of freshly brewed coffee to the kitchen. Beryl, our kitchen manager and pseudo-mom, is armpit deep in the oven, scrubbing every last speck of grime away.
“Morning,” I say as I squeeze past her to get to the coffeepot.
“Morning, honey. There’s fresh coffee and some scones.” Her voice echoes from inside the oven. “What are you doing bumming around here in the middle of the day?”
My niece, Odessa, and nephew, Rhett, are playing at the kitchen table, Play-Doh and Play-Doh accessories scattered across nearly every square inch of the massive wooden tabletop. Odessa looks up when she hears my voice, sticking her tongue out at me. Naturally, I return the gesture.
“Gonna head to town shortly,” I answer Beryl.
Her head pops up to look at me with confusion, and she drags her wrist across her forehead. “If you need something, Austin and Cecily just went to town for wedding stuff.”
“Oh, no. I don’t need anything.”
A smile creases around her lips and eyes, glimmering as she stands and sinks her hip into the edge of the kitchen island. “Ah, I see. You’re going there for some one, not some thing .”
Taking a long swig of black coffee, I mumble a yeah into the cup.
“Does someone happen to be a woman? About this tall”—her hand raises above her head—“with gorgeous brown hair and a very lovely personality?”
“It might be.”
She slaps the countertop with a yip that makes me and the kids jump. “Your brother owes me five dollars.”
I pull a face, clunking my cup down and staring at her. “What the hell?”
“Bad word. I get a quarter,” Odessa pipes up, pointing to a mason jar sitting on the china cabinet, covered in bright flower stickers and a Swear Jar label with the E facing backward.
“Hell no. That’s not a bad word.” I shake my head at her, trying not to laugh as she places her tiny hands on her hips in defiance. “I’m not giving you any money.”
“It is a bad word. Just like the S-word, and D-word, and fuck .”
My hand shoots up to cover my mouth in a failed attempt to stop from laughing, and an even worse attempt at keeping the mouthful of coffee from spraying out between my fingertips. Brown liquid splatters across the white countertop, and I cough repeatedly into my elbow. Beryl’s no better, doubling over until her forehead is firmly against the counter, shoulders shaking vigorously. And Odessa’s watching it all with a shit-eating grin on her face. Even if she’s not fully aware why her words were funny, she’s always going to repeat anything I laugh at. She and I can be a bit of a hell-raising duo because of that.
Throwing my head back, I stare up at the white ceiling to compose myself. “Odessa…kiddo…I think we’re even now. Unless you’re gonna put some money in the jar, too.” I risk another sip of coffee, turning back to Beryl. “Now, what in the H-E-double-hockey-sticks do you mean, you bet my brother?”
“The boys were all placing bets, and I decided to get in on the action. It’s been a long time since I’ve done any gambling and, well, I knew I’d win.” She looks awfully pleased with herself, leaning against the counter and wringing her weathered hands together. “I bet Jackson that you’d be dating Blair before the end of the summer.”
“Don’t go buying anything with your big winnings just yet, then. We’re not dating.”
“It’s only June, and you’re driving to Wells Canyon midday to visit her. If you aren’t dating yet, I’d wager you’re well on your way.”
I wish that were the case, but Beryl doesn’t know our history. This isn’t as simple as Blair moving away for college and us losing touch.
“Wouldn’t count on it. I’m going to have to pull some miracles.” My knuckles scrape across my jaw. “I really messed up back in the day.”
She leans across the counter, grabbing my hand in hers. And after a comforting, motherly rub of her thumb across my knuckles, she raps them hard with her fingers. “Then quit wasting time. Go show the girl how much has changed since she left…how much you have changed. Nothing you did as an eighteen-year-old should carry so much weight when you’re in your thirties.”
“You should use that as your platform for justice reform. Get all the eighteen-year-old serial killers out of prison before they turn thirty.”
“Making jokes isn’t going to get the girl.”
“Works pretty well for me most of the time, actually.”
She tilts her head, silently calling me out.
“ Okay. She needed me, and I wasn’t there. And she implied that part of why she didn’t come back to town before now was because she thought I’d moved on with other girls. So when I should’ve been here waiting for her, I wasn’t. It’s a bit deeper than the shit I did at eighteen.”
She clears her throat, raising a brow, preparing to call me on my shit. And, truthfully, that’s why I come to Beryl when I need to talk things out. She knows when I need a quiet listener, and she knows when I need a whupping. Looks like today is a whupping.
“Hadn’t you moved on? Lord knows you never bring these women around here, but the way I hear you boys talk? It’s no wonder why she thought you’d gone on to greener pastures, if even a fraction of the gossip got back to her.”
“It was never anything serious,” I protest, but Beryl slaps my hand again.
“Then prove that to her.” She grabs the coffee mug from in front of me, dumping the contents in the sink. “You said you have your work cut out for you, right? As much as I enjoy your company, you being here right now seems like killing time because you’re scared. What you should be scared of is losing her all over again because you F-worded your second chance.”
Who am I to argue with that?
—
I pull into a parking spot outside of Blair’s office and straighten myself out before heading through the glass front door. It’s been a little over a week since the rodeo, and when I saw her at the ranch a couple days ago, she straight-up ignored me when I asked her to go for dinner. Essentially ghosted me while face-to-face by pretending to be preoccupied with Hazel.
So when it looked like a relatively easy day on the ranch—the kind I could sneak away from without much interrogation from Austin—I figured it was now or never.
“Mornin’,” I say to the receptionist pointing to Blair’s closed office door. “Just here for Hart.”
My entire arm trembles when I lift it to knock on the heavy wood door.
“Come in,” Blair’s voice fills the dark spaces inside me, and I take a deep breath before entering.
Instead of being prim and proper behind her large oak desk, she’s sitting cross-legged on the floor. Heels tossed aside, hair up in a ponytail, and a sea of scattered paperwork around her. Despite the warm lighting, sugar cookie aroma, and instrumental music playing softly, the vibe of the room is tense.
She looks up at me and confusion washes over her face. “Hey, what are you doing here?”
With false confidence, I smile. “Taking you for lunch. Repayment for dealing with Peyton, remember?”
Narrowing her eyes, she gestures to the stacks of disheveled paper. “I’m too busy for lunch today. I’ll eat something later.”
“Good thing my plan A came with a built-in plan B.” I wink and head back out the door, leaving her sitting on the floor with her eyebrows pinched, mouth agape.
I knew she’d blow me off, even if she had no reasonable excuse. Although it looks like she genuinely has a good excuse today, and that makes me even more thankful I’d planned a picnic-style lunch. Though I’d hoped for an impressive mountain view while we ate, I’ll take whatever I can get.
I stroll out to my pickup and grab the brown paper bag from the passenger seat, then walk back past the bewildered receptionist and plop down facing Blair on the cold linoleum floor.
“I think your receptionist hates me because she can’t see over the counter, so she has to stand up every time I go through the door.”
“I heard about the face you made when she showed you pictures of her dog last time you stopped in. Bet that’s why she hates you.”
“That dog looks to be at least four years past its expiry date.”
“Oh my God, she might hear you,” Blair whispers in a threatening voice, eyes nearly bulging from their sockets.
“Enough talk about living taxidermy when we’re about to eat. Thought we could have a nice picnic outside…enjoy the sunshine or whatever. But I guess this cave you call an office works just as well.” I start unpacking the bag, handing her a can of Diet Coke. “Seriously, though. How can you work when it’s this dark in here?”
She leans forward to look at the small cardboard boxes I’m pulling out of the bag, clearly interested in lunch despite saying she didn’t want it. “The overhead lights are obnoxiously bright and make a revolting humming sound. It’s too overstimulating.”
“Right. Sorry, I should’ve guessed that was the reason.”
A huff of air blows from her nose. “No need to apologize. You’re not expected to know every single thing about me anymore.”
I expect that of myself, though.
“What if I want to know everything?”
Wiggling a finger under the metal tab, Blair opens the can of pop with a fizzing hiss. “Then you can ask me questions. For now, though, you can know about my time-consuming project—organizing every single file in the office so Wanda can upload the info to the server.”
“Organizing? Blair Hart? You’re right, I don’t know everything anymore.”
She laughs. Fuck me, I want to hear more of it. Sweet and soft, but with a rasp to it. To somebody who didn’t know her, they’d likely assume she was getting over a cold. But I know her voice has had a permanent rasp at certain pitches ever since the winter she came down with a bad viral infection in ninth grade. I love that it’s still there after all this time.
“Only for as long as this hyperfocus lasts, which is why I can’t risk taking a break for lunch.”
“Fair enough. Get back to it, then.”
I slide a box of chicken strips and fries toward her, watching with a smile as she grabs three fries and shoves them into her mouth without taking her eyes off the paper resting on her lap.
“Want me to feed you while you work?”
Her eyes briefly flit up to mine once she’s finished chewing. “If you could blend this and give me a really long bendy straw, that would be wonderful.”
“Don’t tempt me, Hart.”
We sit across from each other while we eat, and I watch her focus intently on sorting medical records—tapping a pen against her chin in thought, then simultaneously scribbling and reaching for food. I offer once to leave her to her work, but she doesn’t respond, and I assume that’s an invitation to stay. I don’t mind at all; I’ve always loved watching her when she gets in the zone, with laser-focused eyes, a tiny crease between her brows, and a concentrated worrying of her bottom lip.
At one point, she mixes up her hands, bringing her pen to her mouth instead of the chicken tender and smudging blue ink on her top lip. When she realizes the mistake, she cracks up and looks over at me, a smile extending beyond her eyes.
“Tell me how stupid I just looked.” The pen falls to the floor and she rubs at her lip, missing the ink stain entirely.
“I didn’t even question you trying to chew on the pen because you seem like you totally know what you’re doing. Thought it was part of your process.” I laugh and rock forward onto my knees. “But I don’t know if blue lipstick suits you.”
She doesn’t pull back when I reach for her, and the pad of my thumb swipes across her upper lip. I rub delicately at the mark, taking my time because the last thing I want to do is remove any part of my body from her smooth, plump lips.
“Tough stain?” she asks quietly.
“You must use some pretty fancy pens. It won’t budge.”
Without hesitation, her lips part and she slowly licks the pad of my thumb, sending shivers down my spine and arresting my breath. And now I’m fucked, because all I can think about is her doing the same motion to the tip of my cock. How badly I’d love the pen ink to leave streaks down my shaft. I swallow hard and resume scrubbing, unable to do anything else right now. Every thought in my head’s gone, and the blood responsible for keeping my brain functioning is relocating to my hardening dick.
“Better?” she asks.
I reluctantly let my hand fall from her face.
“Better,” I say about the fact that her lip is mostly back to its normal color. But absolutely nothing is better about the situation between us. It won’t be until I feel those beautiful lips on mine, and I find out if her kisses are as honey sweet as they once were.
She takes a sip of her drink, muscles in her jaw tensing in the dim light.
Still leaning into her personal space, I ask, “Can I ask you a question?”
Those big brown eyes of hers are searching mine. “Sure.”
“Do you ever think about me the way I think about you?”
She scrunches her nose with a small laugh. “I don’t know. What way is that?”
And I guess the blood flow still hasn’t returned to my brain, because the next words I say do nothing to help the case I made to her about being nothing more than friends. “Your body wrapped around mine, my cock buried inside you, moans muffled by our kissing, feeling so fucking good we’d both be happy to die right in that moment. That way. ”
She shifts in her seat, staring at the patch of floor between us. I’m the world’s biggest idiot. Friends. I asked her to be friends—and then we almost kissed mere seconds later, but that’s beside the point. She’d been drinking the night of the rodeo, and it was late. Now she’s sober and seemingly sitting in combined disgust and shock.
“Blair, forget I said—”
“All the time.”
Her gaze cuts to meet mine, and I’m about half a second from launching myself at her, kissing her until she can’t breathe, and fucking her on the office floor. That half a second is all it takes for my plans to be kiboshed by a loud knock, followed by Dr. Brickham barging in. Blair and I must look absolutely bizarre, sitting on the floor surrounded by paperwork and fast food, our faces flushed. And Brickham does a double take.
Smiling awkwardly down at me, clearly realizing he was interrupting something, he says, “Denny, how are ya?”
I clear the pooled saliva in the back of my throat with a rumbly cough. “Oh, uh, good. And you?”
“Good, good. Looks like we’re in for another hay shortage this year.”
Fucking hell, I was about to indulge in the girl of my dreams, and this man interrupts to talk about hay?
“Sorry, we were kind of in the middle of something,” Blair speaks up. “Can we have a minute?”
A minute isn’t long enough for what I want to do, but I’ll take anything I can get.
“I need you right now. This stupid space-age system you insist on having is absolute junk.”
“You mean the electronic record keeping?” She bites back a smile.
“All I know is I have a patient coming in ten minutes, and everything is gone. The damn computer won’t even let me log in. I need you to come to my office.”
Blair looks at me, and I open my mouth to protest, but she shakes her head. “Um, we’ll…get back to what we were talking about later, yeah?”
“Bet your ass we will.”