Chapter Sixteen
Flynn
The snow could be holding her up. It’s what I’ve been telling myself for the last hour and a half while I practically sat in silence and waited for Katie to arrive home from a shift at the bar.
The days between Christmas and New Year’s are always such a blur.
The extra games that are on across the NFL, the NHL, and the NBA mean that the bar is busy at this time of year.
She is putting in extra hours to cover some of the staff.
I offered to come with her, keep her company, but she outright refused. She called me a distraction.
How rude.
I thought I would be able to just watch some television, go over some game tape, and then head to bed. She’d eventually just crawl in whenever she got home. I tried to, but when I woke up and saw the time was just past one in the morning, and she still wasn’t home, I started to worry.
I fiddle with my phone, my fingers tapping into our text chain and then swiping out of it again, over and over.
I texted, no response. Should I call? It could be the snow, sure, or maybe they closed later than usual tonight, and she’s still cleaning.
It could be a number of things, and I’m sure my mind is just jumping to conclusions.
Fuck it, I’m calling her.
I find her number in seconds and press call. I favorited it a few weeks ago, so even when my phone’s on do not disturb at night or while I’m in meetings, her calls will still come through. Call me a simp all you want, I never want to give up the chance to talk to my girl.
I press the phone to my ear and listen to the dial tones.
Once … twice … three times. It rings out.
Hi, this is Katie. Good chance I won’t call you back, so if it’s important, text me.
I drop the phone from my ear and hang up. Before I can even make my mind up fully, I jump out of bed and reach for my socks and a hoodie. Tugging them on, I head downstairs and slip my feet into some trainers by the door, then I swipe my keys off the hall table.
I drive slowly. The weather is shit. Snow falls softly, but enough that the visibility at the moment is awful. When the stadium comes into view as I turn onto the road that Pat’s is on, my chest cracks a little.
What if she’s been hurt? Someone could’ve gotten to her as she walked to her car. What if some asshole has hurt her?
Anxiety crawls up my throat. My stomach clenches, and I feel as if I’m going to be sick as I pull into the parking lot.
Katie’s car is still there, but it doesn’t do much to help relieve the pressure building in my chest. The building is dark.
I can see a few lights on inside, but they look to be those coming from the signs behind the bar.
I park next to Katie’s car and head for the front door.
Peering inside, I can’t see any movement, or lights, or signs that someone’s still inside.
I try the door, shaking it with a little more force than needed and making it rattle.
The anxiety builds as I head for the alleyway in the back, where I know there’s another door. It’s locked too.
When I make it back to the front door, I peer inside again. I’m covered in snow now, freezing my ass off, and the anxiety that something has happened to her is quickly turning into panic.
I dial her number again. No answer.
Again. No answer. I shoot off a few texts.
Where are you?
I’m at the bar. Are you inside?
Please just text me back, Katie. I’m worried.
I don’t wait for a response I’m sure I won’t get, and decide to dial again. This time, with my phone pressed to one ear, I press my other ear to the door and try to hear any movement or a ringtone inside.
“Flynn?” Her voice comes through the line, and I feel like crying in relief.
“Fuck. Thank god. Are you okay?” I ask quickly, standing straight and glancing around the parking lot.
“I’m fine. Still at the bar. What’s wrong? You sound weird.”
“It’s one a.m. You didn’t come home, and I hadn’t heard from you.” I peek inside the bar again as a light turns on all the way in the back. “I, uh, well, I’m here.”
“Here? As in here, here?” She laughs. She’s finding this funny. I thought she’d been attacked, and she’s finding this funny.
I keep my eyes on the back corridor, and my heart starts beating at a normal pace when I see her round the corner.
Thank fuck. More lights turn on as she makes her way through the bar and to the front doors.
The closer she gets, the more feeling I get back in my body.
Fucking hell, I’m freezing. I can’t feel the fingers that are clutching my phone, and my trainers are soaked through with water.
“I’ll let you in. Hang on,” she says before the line goes dead. Her face appears in the glass, and she shakes her head as she unlocks the door. As soon as it’s open, I slip inside. It’s still warm in the bar, the heating still on.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I hop on the spot and shake out my hands. “Fucking cold as shit out there.”
“Well, yeah. It’s snowing, Reed. What were you doing standing in the snow?” She’s got this amused smile on her face, and her eyes shine with laughter as she watches me moving around, trying to warm up.
“You didn’t come home.”
“I told you I was working tonight.”
“Yes, but then it got past midnight, and you didn’t come home. I got worried.”
“You … I …” She looks at her phone, obviously now seeing the texts and calls I’d left for her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see your messages. Or the calls. I was …”
She pauses, turning back toward the corridor where I first saw the light coming on.
“You okay?” I ask when she doesn’t start talking again.
Katie looks back at me, her eyes searching my face.
She’s deciding something, like she has something to say, but she’s not sure whether she wants to tell me or not.
“Yeah,” she says, her face relaxing. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see my phone.”
Not telling me then. Whatever disappointment I feel by her not sharing with me whatever she was obviously about to, is washed away the moment Katie steps into my arms and presses up on her toes to find my lips.
I let her, turning my head and leaning down a little to help.
I wrap my arms around her warm body and sink into the kiss.
I could honestly kiss this woman for the rest of my life and die a happy man.
She breaks off and buries her face into my neck, yawning against my skin. I turn my head and press my lips into her hair. “You scared me a little there, Rockstar.”
“I’m sorry. I honestly thought you’d go to bed and wouldn’t notice I wasn’t there.” Her words are muffled against my hoodie.
“Unlikely.” I press another kiss to her temple. I look around the bar. It’s closed up, clean and tidy. Not a chair out of place or a glass left on the bar. “What are you doing here so late anyway? When did you finish up?”
“I … I just had some paperwork to finish up in the back. I wasn’t feeling tired, so I thought I’d smash it out so I can take tomorrow off and come to the game,” she rattles off quickly.
A lie. Probably. I think. I’m getting better at reading her every day, but sometimes I can tell there are new walls around certain topics that I shouldn’t encroach on.
Her parents, for one. Or the status of our fake relationship.
Katie likes to avoid things. She doesn’t want to talk about the hard stuff when it comes to her own life, but will immediately throw it back on others.
Thought I would smash it out so I can take tomorrow off and come to the game.
She thinks throwing it back to me and the game will distract me from the real reason she was hanging around here so late at night. I damn well know it wasn’t paperwork.
I look down at her. She’s nestled against me, her nose buried into the fabric of my hoodie, and her eyes are closed. There’s a soft smile on her lips, and it makes my heart ache. So I let it go. I’ll wait for her to be ready to give me the real reason she’s hiding away in her bar after hours.
Instead, I find the top of her jeans and slip my freezing cold hands down the back of them, squeezing her ass and making her squeal.
“Oh my god!” She jumps in my arms and tries to squirm out of my grip, but I hold her steady. “Get your hands off me! Why are they so cold?”
“You made me come all the way out here,” I say, stepping forward and forcing her to step backward with me. I keep a tight grip on her ass, and truly, my hands are starting to warm back up now that they’re on her body. “In the snow and the cold.”
“I’m sorry. You didn’t have to.” She laughs, moving with me easily. She presses a hand into my chest and tries to separate us, but I keep hold.
“You had me worried you’d been hurt, or taken, or something.” I shake my head at her laughing face.
“What was the plan if I had been? You were going to channel Liam Neeson and go all spy on their ass?”
I smirk when her back hits the bartop, and she helps when I easily lift her onto it. My hands slide out of her jeans and over her hips. “I might have. I wasn’t sure what I was walking into.”
Her face softens, and she runs her fingers through my hair, leaning down to press a kiss on my lips. “I’m sorry I worried you.”
“Promise to text if you plan on staying late again?”
Her brows furrow a little. “Really? Gra—No one used to care when I stayed late.”
“I’m not your shitty ex-boyfriend.”
“No, you’re my devoted fake boyfriend.” She laughs again, and my stomach clenches at the word fake, but I ignore it.
“Promise me, Katie.” I lean back, catching her gaze. She stares for a moment before she nods. “Say it.”
“I promise,” she says easily, using a finger to draw a cross over her heart.
She leans forward and kisses me again. It starts so gentle and calm, almost as if it’s her way of an apology.
Then, she swipes her tongue across my bottom lip before gently biting down, sucking it between her teeth.
I groan, massaging my fingers into her hips, over the fabric of her jeans.
Her arms wrap around my neck, and she pulls me closer.