Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
B y eight o’clock, Joel was ready to lose his ever-loving mind. He’d come home at noon to a sticky note from Lucy saying she was out visiting her cousin and would be home around dinnertime.
Now, seven hours later, he sat at the dining room table trying to concentrate on the figures on his laptop, but his eyes kept wandering to the note stuck to the table beside him. Lucy’s chaotic, loopy handwriting stared back at him.
Back at dinnertime.
Even considering that people ate at different times, and Italians generally ate later, eight o’clock would still be considered past dinnertime. Right?
His unavoidable trip had taken longer than expected, and what he’d hoped would only be one night had become two. They’d only spent one full day living together in this apartment, but damn, he missed her. And it annoyed him how much he did knowing she planned to leave as soon as their year was finished .
It didn’t bode well for his self-preservation, this pining and making himself totally vulnerable to her again. And now she wasn’t coming home for dinnertime like her sticky note said she would. He couldn’t fucking take it.
With a gruff sigh, Joel shoved his seat back and took off the glasses he only wore when he was staring at a computer screen for too long. He loosened another button on his white-collar shirt. He’d discarded his tie hours earlier. He’d come straight from the airport to the apartment, only to find it empty, and the attempt to distract himself by catching up on the work he’d fallen behind on had clearly failed because other than burning out his old man eyes, he hadn’t gotten much done.
He picked up his phone for the hundredth time, thumbing to her contact, and checked messages. Nothing. Four years ago, she would have texted regularly, but apparently the Lucy of today did not. His fingers hovered over the message icon. The Joel of four years ago would have sent her a message by now asking when she’d be home or if she needed a ride or…
Quickly he tapped out a brief message.
I’m home. Let me know if you need to be picked up from anywhere.
The car fob was gone, so he knew she took the car. But he wanted her to know she could call on him if she was stranded somewhere for any reason. Because if she was stuck somewhere in a city she was unfamiliar with, alone while it was getting dark… His chest tightened with anxiety. He knew all too well the harm that could come to women, his experience with Ivy had taught him that, and the thought of any harm coming to Lucy made him want to put a bodyguard on her twenty-four-seven. Better yet, she could ne ver leave his side, that would work too. He glared at his phone willing those three dots to start blinking. Nothing.
By eight forty-five he was considering driving around the city until he found her, when his phone buzzed. His hand flew out so quickly he nearly knocked his glass of water over.
The guys are at the bar if you want to come down for a drink.
Gabe. Not who he was hoping to hear from. Digging his fingers through his hair, he stared at his phone. It was either sit here and wait for God knows how long or go down to the bar and try to distract himself with friends. With a heavy sigh, he shut his laptop and set his glasses on the table. He could use a Scotch.
A few minutes later, he walked through the side door that separated Bowie’s from the apartments and headed toward the front. Gabe was drawing beers behind the bar while Sean and his brother Jordan sat on the other side, sipping their drinks. Joel plopped down on a bar stool beside them.
“Sometimes it’s nice living a flight of stairs away from a drink, huh?” Sean slid a bowl of pretzels Joel’s way. “Beats sulking alone in your apartment.”
“Who says I was sulking?” Joel tossed a pretzel in his mouth.
“The frown that’s burned into your forehead kind of gives you away, my friend,” Gabe said.
Two fingers of Scotch slid under his nose, and he tipped his head in gratitude toward his brother-in-law, who knew his taste well by now. He took a swallow, savoring the warm burn of liquid.
“What do you do when you get a note in the morning saying, ‘be home by dinner’ and then nothing else all day?” He caught the look that passed between Gabe and Sean. “What?”
Sean’s lower lip stuck out as he shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Bullshit. Explain that look?” Joel waggled his finger between the two men. “You guys know something. Spill it.”
Gabe busied himself wiping down the bar while Sean took a long sip of beer and became fascinated with a piece of art on the other side of the wall.
Joel leaned forward and caught Jordan’s eye. Sean’s brother was a massive motherfucker, built like a beast, and scary as hell when you first looked at him. But as it turned out, Jordan was a quiet introvert. He tended to mind his own business and keep a low profile. Like right now, as he sat hunched over his soda.
“Jordan, what are these losers not telling me?”
Jordan shrugged. “Why should I know? The only reason I’m sitting here is because this guy”—he jerked his thumb at his brother—“made me come out tonight.”
Gabe’s jaw dropped. “It is freaking scary how well you can lie.”
Joel whipped his head to glare at his brother-in-law.
“Come on man!” Sean leaned over the bar and gave Gabe a shove. “You just gave us away. I knew you would.”
“Shit, sorry. It’s scary though, right? Like he didn’t even flinch.” Gabe gestured to Jordan, who still stared into his soft drink. “You should play poker.”
“No thanks,” Jordan mumbled.
“Okay, that’s it, someone tell me what’s up or I will buy this place and turn it into a Garden Center.”
“Jesus, no need to get nasty,” Gabe chided. “Nothing’s up. The girls are out, that’s all. ”
“What girls? Out where? Is Lucy with them?” His questions tumbled out in a wave of relief.
“Well, Ivy is with them. I think her hairdresser too, and Lucy’s sister, maybe,” Sean told him.
“Vanessa,” Joel supplied.
“That’s the one,” Sean said. “Ivy was excited to get to know your fiancée better, and apparently her sister is a famous model or something, so she wanted to meet her. Anyway, they went to Silk.”
“Silk?” Joel leaned forward. “That nightclub across the river.” Techno music and strobe lights didn’t sound like Lucy’s style. At least not the Lucy from four years ago. Then again, a drunken Vegas wedding hadn’t sounded like her either.
“They’re fine. Jordan is a bouncer there twice a week. He put a guy on it. Anything off happens and we’ll know,” Sean reassured.
Jordan grunted in assent.
A guy on it? What the hell did that mean? What guy? He gulped down the rest of his Scotch. He didn’t like the idea of some random bouncer in charge of his wife’s safety.
“Trust me, my friend. You do not want to go over there and interrupt their night,” Gabe said, reading his mind.
“Don’t I?”
“You absolutely do not,” Sean agreed. “I get it, I do. I, myself, have been there and done that. They don’t like it. Don’t mess with girls’ night unless they allow it.”
Joel didn’t like it.
“They’re usually home before midnight,” Gabe reassured him as he filled his Scotch glass again. “Just distract yourself in the meantime.”
Right, easy. He’d been distracting himself for four years. What was a few more hours?