Chapter 16
RALEIGH
“Whoa! I’m in the wrong career.”
I rolled my eyes. Jack was supposed to be setting up for the night. Instead, he had Angel’s left hand stretched across the bar and was currently admiring the gold band on Angel’s finger. A single, tiny diamond sat in the middle.
I was the only one who could tell that Angel hated it. Despite his quiet and reserved nature, he loved things that sparkled brighter than the sun and I couldn’t believe that after so many years together that Eli had gotten it so wrong.
I side-eyed the exchange while I busied myself drying glasses and stacking them behind the bar. Angel looked at me, and I didn’t miss the worry in his eyes that softened when I smiled back at him. Only then did he relax and let Jack interrogate him about his recent engagement.
It had been two weeks since we’d slept together, and Angel hadn’t looked at me the same way since. He threw himself straight into wedding planning with Eli. They wanted a short engagement; another idea that made me cringe. Angel went along with it, but I knew he wasn’t the impulsive type.
I’d gone over our night together countless times in my head. He definitely hadn’t been wearing a ring that night. After all, I’d been the one to strip him down to nothing—I would’ve noticed another piece of jewelry I’d never seen before. I didn’t see him for a couple of days after that and when he finally resurfaced, I figured out why: He and Eli had been holed up in post-engagement bliss.
Feeling eyes on me, I glanced up from what I was doing. Ryder stood there, tongue in cheek, blue eyes boring a hole through me.
“What’s that look for?” I asked.
His gaze briefly flickered to Angel, then back to me. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
I groaned. I knew that tone all too well. That was his “I know something you don’t know” tone. Fortunately for him, I wanted out of my current situation badly enough to talk about it.
“All right,” I muttered under my breath. “Come on.”
Ryder bounded after me like a kid in a candy store. While Jack fussed over Angel and wedding plans, I led Ryder to the office and shut the door behind us. I took the desk chair, and my cocky-as-shit best friend threw himself onto the two-seater couch, manspreading wide enough that I was surprised his skin-tight jeans could accommodate it.
“Spit it out,” I demanded, unsure whether I was truly prepared to hear what he was about to say.
“Angel’s engaged,” Ryder stated, as if that hadn’t been the sole focus of the bar for the last two weeks. I leveled him with a glare. Well, tried to. He didn’t quite fall for it. “Don’t give me that look,” he laughed. “I’m not the one taking him away from you.”
“No one’s taking him away from me,” I growled.
“What happened between the two of you?” He made himself right at home. Then again, he spent so much time at the bar that he might as well have been home already. He lounged back on the couch, folding his hands behind his head.
I knew something was wrong with me when I didn’t check him out. Ryder was attractive, I’d give him that. After our quick hookup before, now I understood why everyone threw themselves at him. He was the only person I knew that kept up with my own body count.
He might’ve even surpassed me.
But sitting there now, no part of me was even remotely interested. Sure, he was pretty, but my brain was otherwise occupied. I’d never been one to talk things out before, and I’d never needed to. This time, it was different. This was Angel— my Angel. A jolt of desire shot southward at the simple memory of those words. Christ, of course that was what got my cock to pay attention.
I willed it back to sleep, reminding my traitorous body that Angel wasn’t mine to keep.
“Earth to Raleigh!”
“Huh?”
“Wow, something’s got you all twisted up.”
I bristled, squirming. “I’m not twisted up.”
“Right,” he drawled. “You reserve that face for when you’re happy.”
“Get to the point, Clark.”
“You’re not happy for your best friend.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’m thrilled for him.”
“Tell that to your face.”
I slumped in the desk chair. When it came to Ryder, the quickest way to get him off your back was to indulge him. “I wish Eli had put more thought into the ring, that’s all.”
Ryder raised a brow. “Because you could do better?”
“Pfft, you could do better.”
Ryder sat forward, gesturing for me to continue before resting his elbows on his knees.
I sighed. “Since you’re so perceptive, have you ever noticed how much Angel likes shiny things? He’s a magpie: if it glitters, it’s in his hands. Every piece of jewelry he’s ever worn has been sparkly. That ring isn’t enough for him. Anyone with a brain could see that.”
I’d been focusing on a picture on the wall—a framed mugshot from a Halloween store whose eyes seemed to move with you. When I was met with silence, I looked at Ryder, who was giving me that stare again.
“What?” I asked.
“There’s something else.”
When I hesitated, I knew Ryder had broken me down. To hell with it. If I couldn’t talk to Angel about it, I had to talk to someone . It’d been eating me up inside. Not because of the blatant fact that we’d had sex behind Eli’s back, but because I didn’t know why . Where had it come from? Forgetting how I warred with my own emotions over the situation—how did Angel feel about it?
“We had sex.”
“When?” Ryder asked, biting back a grin.
“Two weeks ago.”
“Before or after the ring appeared on his finger?”
“Before, obviously.” I sighed and scrubbed a hand over my face. “I’m still not seeing the point of this conversation.”
“Fine,” Ryder said, getting to his feet. “As much as I'd love to drag this out and watch you squirm, I’ll show you some mercy.” He braced himself on the desk, leaning over me. It would likely be the only time that Ryder would look down at me. “He’s in love with you, you giant, tattooed buffoon!”
I blinked. Moments of silence stretched between us. Surely Ryder hadn’t said what I thought he had. Angel? In love with me ? That was the most ludicrous thing I’d ever heard.
“No, he’s not,” I finally said.
Ryder spun and sauntered back to the couch. “Denial is a river in Egypt! Do you really think I would pull something like that out of my ass? Especially knowing how Angel is?”
“I don’t… see it.”
“Because you’re so wrapped up in Raleigh-land. Take it from someone who’s worked alongside the two of you for the last five years and has had to deal with the hearts in Angel’s eyes whenever he looks at you. And you’re in love with him too.”
“That’s ridiculous, Ryder.”
Something stirred in the back of my mind, but I didn’t want to entertain the thought—if for no other reason than refusing to let Ryder know he was right. That was dangerous territory. Besides, Angel and I had been best friends since we were twelve years old. That gave him seventeen years to say something, and he hadn’t. We told each other everything, or so I thought. Moreover, I didn’t think Angel was the type to string Eli along for all that time if he was in love with someone else.
With… me?
I was saved by my phone going off. Though when I fished the device out of my pocket and read the ID, I wondered why the hell the universe had it out for me.
It was Eli.
I didn’t let Ryder know that. “Will you go make sure Jack’s not out there going full Monte Durham on Angel? He can only take so much of the fuss, and we have a bar to run.”
Ryder snorted. “Sure thing, boss.”
I’d grill him about the smug grin on his face later. I waited until he’d shut the office door, and only then answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Hey,” Eli said. “I’m glad I got ahold of you before the bar opened.”
As much as it pained me, I played the part of the supportive best friend. “You got lucky. The bartenders are all fawning over your new fiancé. Congratulations, by the way.”
I could practically hear Eli’s smile over the phone. “Thanks, but that’s not why I’m calling.”
“Is everything okay?”
Clattering echoed in the background of the call, then a door shut and there was silence. “Angel told you I was on the trauma rotation this month, right?”
“He did.”
“I’ve just seen Billie.”
“Are they okay?” I was concerned, but more so because Eli was calling me about it.
“They will be, but Raleigh? I need to warn you about what’s happening. They’re claiming they were at the Hopyard last night, and someone slipped something into their drink. They said their memory got fuzzy, and when they woke up, they were…” Eli sighed, letting the silence fill in the blanks. “They asked for a chaperone, so I wasn’t the only one in the room with them. I had no choice but to get the police involved, but I wanted to call you at the first opportunity.”
My palms were so clammy that the phone slipped in my grip. I caught it before it hit the floor. “Should I come down there?”
Eli’s response was instant. “No. That could look even worse on your part. Your best bet is to wait there and let them come to you. Angel was with me, but did you work last night?”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Yeah, but I was back and forth dealing with paperwork and manning the door.”
Eli sighed. “I have to get back, but I’d start going through the security footage if I were you—see if you can get ahead of this. Between you and me, something’s not sitting right about their story. I have to follow protocol here, but?—”
“I get it,” I said, cutting him off. I didn’t want him to get in any trouble by calling me, so the less he said the better. “Thank you for calling me, Eli.”
“It’s not a problem. I’ll try to give you a head’s up if I hear anything else.”
He ended the call, and for a long while I sat there staring at my phone. I would look from that to the computer monitor sitting in front of me. It would only take a few minutes to open the security footage from the day before, but instead I found myself running through every member of my staff, wondering if any of them were capable of drugging Billie. Then again, it didn’t necessarily have to be a staff member—it could’ve been anyone.
A pang of guilt stabbed me in the chest. As much as I pretended to be annoyed with him, I couldn’t deny the fact that Eli was an amazing guy, and a good friend. He was risking his position in the residency program by calling me first. Not to mention his license.
Christ, and I’d fucked his boyf— fiancé .
That felt wrong to even think , and that was new for me. I wasn’t the type to overthink much of anything but in the privacy of the empty office, I allowed myself a few moments to worry about it. My heart raced.
I’d started having sex at fifteen and practically never stopped. At times, I hardly paused between partners to think about what I was doing. It was all about the person, the chase, and the release.
With Angel, though, things were different. I was happy to take it slow, to explore his body inch by inch until he fell to pieces beneath me. Nothing else mattered, other than making sure he was fully taken care of. And since that night? He’d monopolized so much of my mind that none of it belonged to me anymore. I wasn’t used to that feeling either. Something tugged at my chest, and for the first time ever, I didn’t ignore it.
I hated to admit it—even in my own head—but maybe Ryder had a point. Did I have feelings for Angel? I loved him, that was undeniable. I think I’d loved him since the day we met. But up until two weeks ago, it’d been entirely platonic. Then that damn kiss changed everything. Curse me and my big mouth.
Before I could spiral too far, I shook away the thoughts. They were too late anyway. Angel was engaged. He was going to marry Eli—in two weeks. Damn, the thought brought bile to my throat. I choked it down, waking the monitor on the desk in front of me. I was going to do what I did best: ignore my problems until they went away.
Once the footage from the previous night started rolling, I grabbed an energy drink from the mini fridge we kept in the office. Keeping my eyes on the screen, I texted Angel to watch the front of house while I handled the office today. To my surprise, he didn’t rush back to see what was wrong. We didn’t often switch roles, but I didn’t want to tell him about the Billie situation until I knew for sure what had happened. Angel didn’t need the stress on the best of days, much less in the throes of wedding planning.
The act of slipping something nefarious into someone else’s drink was a delicate one, something that was often missed—especially if you didn’t know what you were looking for. I couldn’t risk missing something by speeding up the footage, so I settled in for a long night.
It took two hours of watching before I even saw Billie enter the room. I’d recognize their fiery red hair anywhere. I also knew that they were a bit of a wild thinker. They could be irrational, impulsive. They didn’t always think before they acted.
That was one reason they were so fun in the bedroom.
So when they went up to the bar and ordered a drink, I leaned closer to the screen and zoomed in. Technology had come so far that the details in the footage were surprisingly immaculate. I could see everything, right down to the dainty flowers painted on their fingernails as they dropped a tablet of something into their own drink.
I couldn’t help but laugh to myself as I isolated the clip and exported it, ready to hand to the police. How Billie thought they’d ever get away with it was beyond me. The footage, combined with the tests they would’ve run at the hospital, would be more than enough to prove that our bar was a safe space.
As I shut down the computer, there was a knock at the door, and Angel stepped into the room. “Can we talk?”
Well, color me surprised. “What’s going on?”
Angel lowered himself onto the couch, but he didn’t invite me closer. He perched on the edge of the cushion, as if he were ready to bolt at any given second. I started to move, to cross the room to him, but he held a hand up to stop me. Heart pounding, I sat back on my chair.
Angel signed, “There’s a reason Eli wants the wedding to happen so quickly.”
“Are you pregnant?” I quipped.
Angel rolled his eyes, and although it had been over a decade since I’d heard his voice, I knew the exact tone he would have used.
“Okay, okay,” I relented. “I’m listening.”
“The day after we got engaged, he found out that he was accepted to an early fellowship position.”
“Okay…” Surely Angel couldn’t be about to tell me he was leaving. That would be a much bigger conversation, right?
He took a deep breath. “It’s in Seattle. He starts this summer.”
My heart sank into my stomach, but I managed to school my features. “And you’re going with him?”
A pause, then Angel nodded. “He did it for me. It’s time for me to repay the favor. It’s less than a three-hour flight. I can commute back and forth to help handle the bar. Unless,” he paused, twisting the boring gold band on his finger, “unless you can think of a reason I shouldn’t leave.”
I could think of a thousand. Angel didn’t know anyone in Seattle. His parents lived in Georgia, so he’d be even farther away from them. The bar wasn’t in Seattle.
I wasn’t in Seattle.
Tell him, Raleigh. He’d given me the perfect opening, a way for me to confess I may have thought about him as more than just my best friend. The words formed on my lips, but I couldn’t force them out. I shoved aside the emotional part of my brain that wanted to throw myself at his feet and confess—ugh, confess what, Raleigh? I was such a fool. One little spark in my belly and I was ready to ruin everything.
Ignoring those sporadic thoughts and the heat behind my eyes, I shook my head and plastered on the best smile I could manage. “Not one reason. I’m proud of you, Angel.”