Chapter 18 #2
He still looks out of place here, but also not, with his scruff and his hair a bit more mussed than normal, as if his hands have been going through it over and over.
Somehow the tee makes his shoulders look even broader, and his shorts show off his thick calves, dusted with dark hair.
I suddenly wish he were wearing the kind of slutty inseam shorts Miles favors, because even if I’ve told myself otherwise, I’ve been dying to see them again.
The way his dress pants hug them is a complete and total tease.
And while I love forearm porn, I am a complete whore for a man’s thigh.
“Oh my god,” Lainey says, eyes wide.
“Please tell me that’s him,” Claire murmurs, and I lift my hand, smiling at him as he scans the room.
“Yes. Don’t be weird,” I say through my smile.
“Oh, June. You have to fuck him again,” Claire says, nearly whining. “That’s such a wasted opportunity.” I give her a hard glare, all joking melting off my face and replaced with panic as I point at her.
“Do not. None of that. He is my boss, and I know we like to be silly, but he is my boss. Do not make this weird, Claire,” I say through gritted teeth. Her eyes are wide, and Lainey bites her lip to fight back a laugh. “Promise me.”
“I promise,” she says, lifting her hands, lifting her hands in deference.
“You too,” I say, turning to Sutton. I don’t bother to ask Lainey, since I know she will behave. It’s the Donovan sisters I have to worry about.
“Okay, okay, I promise, I won’t make it weird.” Relief moves through me. “Tonight,” she adds.
Graham is almost to us, and I don’t have the energy or time to continue to argue with her, so I just roll my eyes and shrug before turning to Graham, excitement and irritation playing in my nerves as I slide off the stool.
“Graham! You’re here! I didn’t think you’d actually come.” I stand before him awkwardly, unsure of how to greet him. I’m a hugger, but I’m not sure if that’s appropriate, and honestly, I don’t know if more contact is the best idea.
“You told me to,” he says, looking around.
“Well, I’m glad you’re here.”
The guys are moving toward us, Grant and Decker probably recognizing him. Hopefully, that will make the girls behave a bit as well. “Let me introduce you to everyone!” I say, clapping as a new wave of excitement rolls through me. “Oh, this is so fun! My work friend is meeting my life friends!
“I think that is against every aspect of work-life balance,” Graham mutters.
“Work-life balance is only needed if you have both of them. You don’t have a life, so you don’t need the balance,” I say.
Sutton lets out a loud laugh, and for a moment, I panic that I may have gone too far, but then the edges of his lips tip up, telling me I probably won’t be fired Monday. I decide to move along with introductions to be safe. “You know Grant and Decker, because they’ve been working around Daytrip.”
“Hey, man, sorry about the permitting drama. Glad to hear it got ironed out,” Grant says, shaking Graham’s hand, then pulling him in to pat his back. I have to bite back a laugh when I see how uncomfortable and unsure Graham is with the common greeting.
“You know Sutton, and this is her sister and one of my best friends, Claire,” I say, and Claire gives him a well-behaved little wave. “And this is my other best friend, Lainey. Her dad owns the bar.”
“How’s it going? What are you having?” Lainey asks. Graham looks uncomfortable.
“Oh, I don’t know if—”
‘You have to have a drink, Graham,” Sutton says. “Or I’ll tell Rowan you have no life, and he’ll go all Annette on you, locking you out of the system on the weekends.” I look at them both with furrowed brows.
“Is that… is that a real threat?” I ask because Graham looks both deeply annoyed and a bit nervous. Sutton nods.
“Rowan is a workaholic. Or was, maybe? He met Josie—oh my god, June, you’d love her, she’s so cool and the biggest badass. She’s like, an undercover spy,” Sutton says.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to tell people that,“ Graham advises, but she just rolls her eyes.
“No one here is a filthy-rich scumbag who is cheating on his wife or on his taxes or selling trade secrets. Not really the kind of people the Mavens usually target.” My interest is piqued, but she keeps chattering on, and I file it away to ask about another time.
“Anyway, she was on assignment at a Daydream property—someone was trying to sabotage it; it was a whole thing—and then Rowan was there, and they fell in love, and now he actually takes vacations and time off. But before that, Annette—she’s the CEO—kept threatening to lock him out if he didn’t take a vacation.
I’m pretty sure she would have done it, too, because Annette’s a badass, too.
Thankfully, she didn’t have to because Rowan got a life. ”
“Except, the one vacation he went on, he came to Seaside Point and found Surf and decided to buy it, so wasn’t that working?” Graham counters.
“I don’t get paid enough to figure out that kind of math, so I don’t know. But I do know he has a soft spot for overworked people, and if I tell him that’s you, he’ll get all worried. So have a drink.”
“I don’t—” Graham starts.
“Rum and Coke, then,” Sutton says, turning to Lainey. “Everyone loves a rum and Coke.”:
“I don’t,” Decker says, and Sutton looks him over.
“Sure you don’t, big boy,” she says, patting his cheek. He goes a bit starry-eyed, then blinks out of the daze she seemed to have put him in.
“What does that even mean?” he asks, a goofy smile on his lips.
“I bet you’d love to know,” she says, and they start bickering back and forth as they tend to do. With Sutton distracted, I turn fully to Graham, still a bit awed at seeing him out of his work clothes and here in a small-town dive bar.
“Thanks for coming,” I say. “I know it’s a lot, very out of your comfort zone. But it’s good for you to get to know everybody. It really is good networking.” His thick brows furrow, and he shakes his head.
“I’m not here for networking, June. I came to celebrate you.” Butterflies move in my chest, but I push them away, giving him a playful smile.
“Watch out, Graham. I might think we’re officially friends. Celebrating one another’s accomplishments is definitely friend territory.”
Before he can respond, Lainey slides a drink over to him, and he takes it with an appreciative nod.
Grant and Miles start talking to him about properties and projects, and soon Claire begs Lainey to turn on the music.
Decker and Sutton pull me into their argument, asking me to take sides, and it turns into another normal night at the Seabreeze, but this time with Graham in the mix, fitting perfectly into our little group.
At some point, Claire pushes the tables back, making a space for us to dance, and a couple of other patrons come to join us.
I check in with Graham often, but he’s nursing his drink with Grant and Miles, chatting and seeming to enjoy himself genuinely.
I should have known they’d all get along; they all have the same low-key attitude.
Almost two hours after Graham arrives, a slow song starts, one of my favorite old Atlas Oaks songs, and Claire instantly moves over to the group of guys to grab her boyfriend.
“Come on, bud, let’s go,” she says, grabbing his hand and tugging, though his work-booted feet stay planted in place.
“Claire–”
“Either dance with me or I’m finding someone else who will,” she threatens. Miles rolls his eyes, looking at the ceiling before taking in a deep breath, but he doesn’t argue any further; instead, he sets his beer on the counter and moves toward the center of the room with his girlfriend.
“I think Graham needs to dance, too,” Sutton says, a twinkle I don’t like in her eye, but I’ve had two drinks, and the buzz numbs out some of my common sense.
“I don’t think—” Graham says, shaking his head negatively, but I put my hands up, excitedly.
“Yes! It’s part of the full Seabreeze experience!”
He lifts a brow at me, and through his refusal is entertainment. He’s not fully against the idea.
“Getting forced into dancing is part of the experience?”
“Honestly? Kind of,” Decker says, with a shrug. Graham sighs, looking from me to the door.
“I was about to head out. I have a lot of—”
“You can leave after you’re done dancing with me,” I say, deciding that’s the obvious answer.
“I’m dancing with you?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow.
I blame the alcohol on the short spark of disappointment that moves through me at his shock.
“Oh, uh, no, you can dance with Sutton, if you want. Or Lainey.”
I look around, but don’t see her behind the bar; instead, Benny is serving Maggie on the other side of the bar. Graham looks at me, his face assessing me in a way I don’t necessarily like, before he shakes his head and sets his empty glass on the bar top beside Miles’ beer.
“No, no, I’ll dance with you,” he says, and my stupid, traitorous heart skips a beat. “But I really do have to leave after; I’ve got a ton to do still.”
“Of course,” I say, biting back a victorious smile as we walk toward the center of the room.
Once there, we stand before one another awkwardly before I say a mental fuck it, then move and rest my wrists on his shoulders, our chests touching.
In response, his hands move, resting on my waist in the most polite way possible before we awkwardly begin to sway.
Tension builds, and not the fun kind, and after a few moments of silence, I shake my head.
I don't want to force him into this if he’s genuinely opposed.
“You don’t have to do this,” I whisper after a moment, making to step back and relieve him from his duty. “I can walk you out—”
“No,” he says, his voice firm as his hands slide over my body to my hips, pulling me in tight, keeping me from stepping away. “I want to be here, June. I’m just not sure about the protocol. This is all new to me.”
I lick my lips and swallow.
“You want to dance with me?” I ask, a whisper. He pulls me in tighter, and he looks down at me in a way I want to imprint in my mind forever. The bar is dim, and my friends move and laugh and dance around us, but I’m a bubble, just me and Graham.
Instead of answering, he asks another question. “Friends dance, right?” he murmurs, his hand lifting to push my hair back behind my shoulders, then gliding soft from my shoulder to my hip. Each inch he touches makes my pulse beat faster.
“Are we friends?” I ask against my better judgment. My voice sounds breathy even to my own ears. Despite the music and the people laughing and chatting all around, he still hears me, his attention locked on only me.
“I wouldn’t come to a dive bar and spend two hours having small talk with people I don’t know for just anyone,” he says. It sounds like a confession instead of a statement.
“I need you to say it out loud,” I say, and despite the emotional turmoil in my chest, I’m beaming up at him. He rolls his eyes and sighs, his warm breath coasting along my collarbones, exposed in the tank top I changed into before heading here, and a chill runs through me.
“You’re a real pain in the ass. Has anyone ever told you that?” he asks, and I nod.
“Yes, every day of my life. Now say it, Hawthorne.”
He watches me for another moment as we sway.
“Yes, June. We’re friends. Okay? You win.” I squeal with excitement, my arms tightening around his neck in a hug. When I pull back, a smirk is on his lips, the tiny hint of a dimple returning.
“Does that make me your best friend? Since I’m your only friend?” I say, unable to stop myself.
“I give an inch, you take a mile, huh?” he asks, and I go to agree, but I’m distracted by what happens next.
I get a smile.
Not the small tipping of his lips and the dancing of his eyes I’ve gotten before, but a true, genuine, wide grin.
And I was right: he has dimples. Not just one, but two perfect dimples I desperately want to rub my thumb over.
The man has fucking dimples. The entire picture is so terribly handsome, beauty in its most natural form, that it feels criminal that he constantly hides it from the world.
Right then, I set a new goal: to make those full, joy-filled smiles the rule, not the exception.
And in my heart, I know I’m going to succeed. It is my lucky summer after all.
“He smiles,” I shout, throwing one arm in the air, almost giddy with joy. I expect him to hide it when I call him out, but I’m pleasantly surprised when he shakes his head, grinning a bit wider before pulling me in tighter.
“You’re a nut,” he murmurs through the smile.
“You’ll get used to it.”
He stares at me for a moment longer than necessary before shaking his head, that smile still there but somehow softer now. Sweeter.
“I don’t think anyone could ever get used to you, June Taylor.”