4. Chapter Four
Chapter Four
Gunnar
I open the door to go get the trash bags from out front and by the patio exits. I assume I’ll be doing so alone since it’s almost two in the morning and I sent my staff home an hour ago. I’m surprised when I hear a familiar voice pleading with someone on the phone. Of course it’s on speaker for all the world to hear.
“-just need you to,” she pleads.
“No way. I’m not burning Jake, girl. He might be a sleaze but he just signed me on to tour with Calvin. Sorry,” the woman on the other end of the phone says.
Willow slams her phone to end the call without saying goodbye to the woman on the other line.
“Fuck her. Fuck Jake, and fuck Calvin Taylor.” She stares at her phone like it might hold all the answers to her problems.
“Calvin Taylor, the major country singer right now?” I ask .
She whirls her head around, the copper locks falling in front of her face. “What are you doing here?”
“Last I checked, I own this place and I sent you home two hours ago. So one would bargain, you’re the one out of place, what are you doing here?” I counter.
“I don’t know. I never should have left Nashville. I can’t go home to Mom’s, and it’s too late to call my sisters.” She starts crying.
If there is anything I hate more than clingy drunk girls hoping for a shot at the end of the night, it’s a crying drunk girl. Usually it’s over a broken heart, but I can’t quite figure out who broke this heart.
“Fuck. We’re really doing this again?” I murmur to myself.
I turn to face her after grabbing the trash bag out of the barrel.
“Come on, darling.”
She looks at me with hope in those emerald eyes.
“What?” She’s clearly confused since before I told her to call someone and that she wasn’t staying here.
“You can stay here again.” I open the door and hold it open for her. “But no more booze.”
She smiles wide, hopping off the bench and running to the door. At least the couple of hours she sat out here sobered her up a bit.
“Go on upstairs, I just have to shut all the lights off and lock up.” I motion to a door through the back of my office in the kitchen .
She takes off up the stairs as I stand there watching her go, running my hands over my face.
What the fuck are you doing, Gunnar?
I shut off all the lights and grab the pizza I made myself before heading upstairs.
When I open the door, Willow is roaming around my living room looking at all my photos that Mom and my sister Emma put up last time they visited. Thank God they also forced me to buy a bed when they said they were spending the weekend. At least I don’t have to cram my body on the couch again.
“You were in the military?” she asks, holding a photo of my family in her hands from my graduation. “And a twin?”
“The better looking one.” I laugh to myself at the running joke between Hunter and I.
“You’re identical.” She narrows her eyes at me.
I walk into the kitchen and place the pizza on the island, pulling plates from the cabinets.
“Who are the others?” She follows me with the photo.
“My twin, Hunter, Mom and Dad, Brothers Liam, Wyatt, and Cooper. Sister, Emma.” I point to everyone.
“Shit. You have five siblings? I thought three was bad.” She chuckles, walking the photo back to its place. “So how’d you end up owning a bar in Lupine Valley from the military?”
“Drinking away the pain of deployments and lost friends,” I answer candidly .
“What?” She turns to face me, not realizing how close I’ve walked to her.
I reach out to catch her as she kilters off balance. “Careful, darling.”
“I - uh-” she stammers, staring at me.
“Told you I was the better looking one.” I wink at her before setting her right and walking back to serve the slices of pizza to us both. Friday nights don’t leave me much time to eat so the sandwich I inhaled at four this afternoon isn’t doing much for me now.
Willow takes a spot at the island, gingerly taking a plate of pizza. “So, where do the other five siblings live? Are you close?” She takes a bite, and moans. Fuck this was such a bad idea. Not only is she my friends’ sister, she’s their baby sister, as in about six years younger than me. And clearly struggling with something.
“They all live in my hometown, Balsam Cliffs, Maine, where my family owns an inn. Except Cooper. He’s a photographer and writer for a travel magazine. I never know where he is. He might check in every couple of months. Last I knew he was in the Highlands in Scotland.”
She seems happy with this information and we eat pizza in silence. A welcome silence after open mic night at the bar on a Friday. Open mic night always pushes my patience, but even drunk, Willow’s voice was a welcome addition. She seems just as happy as I am to sit here, eating and not talking though.
She clears her plate and loads it into the dishwasher like she belongs in my space, and the thought of her belonging here is making it hard for me to shut her out of my mind. Something I haven’t been able to do since the morning she left me in my kitchen a year ago. Her fiery attitude that morning shows me she’s fearless, despite whatever circumstances she’s in now.
“I’ll sleep on the couch this time,” she offers. “Do you have some pillows and blankets somewhere?”
“No need. My mom and sister came to visit over the winter and forced me to buy beds for my spare rooms.”
She follows me down the hall. I stop at my door and point across the hall to the first spare bedroom.
“You can sleep in here. I think my sister even left some pajamas or something.” I dig through the drawers until I find the leggings I was looking for. I hand them to her, and our fingers brush.
I clear my throat, “I’ll go grab a tee for you.”
I walk past her into my room, pulling an old work shirt from my closet. “Here you go.” I turn to find Willow right behind me.
We’re maybe an inch apart, and she is staring up at me, chewing on that plump bottom lip. The smell of cherries taunting me to take her lips with mine. She starts to take a step forward but rocks back on her feet. She is clearly waiting for me to make a move first.
But I can’t.
She reaches up to place her hand on my cheek .
“Willow -”
“Kiss me, Gunnar. I know you’re attracted to me.”
“That’s not- you’re- Fuck . I can’t, Willow.” Regret ricochets throughout my entire body. I want nothing more than to lean down and take her lips, to ease the pain in her eyes.
Anger and hurt flash across her face. She rips the tee from my hands and stomps the few steps across the hall, slamming the bedroom door shut.
I’m left standing in my empty bedroom, a hard-on pressing into the zipper of my jeans, one that she clearly didn’t miss being so close to me.
Fuck.