9. Owen
It was finally time to admit it: despite my apprehension to work with her, Delia Delatou was damn good at her job.
Truthfully, it didn’t shock me, not in any way that mattered, at least. It was only surprising in the way that, for someone like me who was too old school to really lean into the social media craze and use it to expand my reach—something I’d never needed to do anyway; my name, face, and status did that for me—the numbers from that first month were staggering.
Since curiosity killed the cat and all, I couldn’t help checking our accounts daily. Delia had given me our login info with specific instructions not to touch anything. I didn’t open any DMs, respond to any comments, follow or unfollow anyone. I simply…looked. Hovered in the digital background. Watched the videos she posted, read the carefully typed out captions and perfectly staged and filtered photos. It was…impressive.
Somehow, she’d found a way to make it all feel personal, like a conversation between friends, without ever giving our followers anything beyond the most surface level details. Our own faces never appeared in anything after those initial shots taken the day we broke ground. Delia focused a lot on the crew, having one guy explain the process of pouring the foundation, or another walk viewers through raising the walls and installing the trusses. She’d also conducted a few interviews with Jay, who provided progress reports and shared his confidence that we’d be open for business before Christmas.
Those words were music to my ears.
Secretly, I loved watching her work, took pleasure in the way she flitted around the job site, phone and camera permanently attached to her hands. She was so confident in everything she did, from the way she lined up a shot to the way she interacted with the construction guys.
Things were running smoothly, and I’d even pitched in to help the guys on a few occasions.
One day, at seeing me getting my hands dirty, Delia decided she also wanted to contribute.
“I want to try!” she shouted when I descended the ladder after pounding a few nails in. I could’ve done it with the nail gun, but there was nothing quite so cathartic as each strike of the hammer against the nail head.
I knew better than to judge a book by its cover, but Delia looked like she could barely lift the hammer, much less swing it and drive a nail into an oak board.
Still, the construction guys had been all for it, whistling and cheering her on. I wasn’t at all on board, terrified she’d hurt herself somehow, so I hovered nearby as she climbed up the ladder. I stood slightly off to the side, chuckling softly when her tongue slipped out from between her lips as she concentrated. Her eyes narrowed on the nail she’d pinched between the thumb and pointer of her left hand. Then she lifted the hammer and swung.
The nail tacked into the board, and Delia grinned down at me. “I did it!”
“You sure did, Whiskey,” I said. “Now finish it.”
She did as I told her, careful swings slowly driving the nail deeper.
Having gotten bored with the whole production, like watching paint dry, I couldn’t help my gaze straying to something far more interesting—her ass.
She wore a pair of obscene faux-leather pants that molded to every fucking sinful curve of her lower body, from the perfect swell of her backside to the lines of her quads, tapering to trim calves and delicate ankles.
Everything about this woman was a goddamn wet dream, and my eyes glazed over as I imagined what it’d be like to peel her clothes away, to have her naked and willing beneath me, to make her come apart over and over again.
Which is how I almost missed it when she accidentally pounded the hammer into her fingers, let go of the ladder in favor of cradling her hand, and slipped backward.
Only muscle memory from years of football had my feet moving, my arms reaching out to cradle her body against mine before she hit the ground. She landed with a soft sigh, eyes wide as she stared up at me.
“Nice catch, QB.”
“Best of my life. ”
Those last four words slipped out easily, but I couldn’t find it within myself to wish they hadn’t.
Call it…wishful thinking.
If the blush rising to her cheeks and the smile she worked so hard to hold back was any indication, Delia was more than a little pleased by my words. I preened with the knowledge.
Thankfully, she had no idea I’d been checking her out, but as I hustled her off the job site so I could take her somewhere to ice her hand, I didn’t miss the way Jay smirked at me.
Clearly, he’d seen the whole damn thing.
But as long as Delia remained blissfully unaware, I didn’t give a fuck who caught onto the fact that I was down bad for this girl—the situation growing more dire by the day.
Besides, while I’d been busy ogling her that day, she’d been sitting on a particularly, for lack of a better word, sexy photo of me. As it turned out, I hadn’t been the only one checking out my partner’s goods.
As soon as I’d seen the picture pop up on our Instagram, I called Delia.
“What the hell is that?” I asked unceremoniously when she answered.
“What the hell is what?” she replied sweetly, feigning innocence.
“Don’t play dumb, Whiskey. It’s not cute.”
“I’m assuming you’ve been lurking on our social profiles,” she said with a laugh.
I ground my teeth together. “Yes.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“The problem, Delia,” I said, her name akin to a curse word, “ is that you’re objectifying me!”
She scoffed. “Please, QB. No one has a body like that unless they want people to see it. Not to mention you’re literally fully clothed!”
“I maintain my physique because I don’t know any other way to live,” I said because it was the truth
“Suuuuuuuure,” she replied sarcastically.
“What happened to not including me in any content? You promised.”
“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely, sobering instantly. “If you want me to take it down, I will. Just say the word.”
Was that what I wanted? Admittedly, our follower count had grown drastically, and I’d be an idiot to think it had nothing to do with me. After all, I’d seen the notifications, and the comments kind of made my skin crawl. This must be how women felt all the time, when men objectified them simply because they couldn’t control themselves.
“I don’t like the way the women are talking about me. Like I’m an…object.”
“I really am sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think…”
I sighed heavily. To be fair, my face wasn’t even in the shot, and as Delia had pointed out, I was fully clothed. Taken from the back, my arms were raised overhead, back muscles flexed and pulling my white tee taut. My Levi’s hung low on my hips and molded to my backside. Above the waist, the black band of my boxer briefs and the dimples at the base of my spine were visible where my shirt had ridden up. My forearms were corded from the strain, my biceps bulging, truly testing the limits of that cotton. My Lawless Ranch ball cap was flipped backward on my head, the white logo highlighted on the faded maroon fabric in the midday sun.
The caption read, “QB’s still got it.”
So even though my face wasn’t visible, thanks to Delia, everyone knew it was me anyway.
If I were a woman, I could see my allure—and they certainly did. The comments were full of drooling faces and fire emojis, and our DMs were clogged with more of the same.
It was…a lot.
At least none of my tattoos were showing. I had a feeling that the sight of my ink would bring out a whole different level of feral from our female followers.
I had four tattoos, each of them representing some special moment, person, or place in my lifetime. The first, of course, was my last name on my left forearm. It was the first tattoo I’d ever gotten, freshly eighteen and cocky in a way that meant I thought it’d be cool to get my last name permanently marked on my skin in a tough-looking font. It spanned the full length of my ulna from wrist to elbow. There was also the barbed wire that wrapped high around my right biceps, the ends meeting to form “L for L.” Each of my brothers had the same, which stood for “Lawless for Life.” I had a compass on my left pec, right over my heart, the coordinates for my family’s ranch etched above due north, and a dream catcher running along my right ribs.
I loved all of them equally, had worked with an artist in Detroit for hours, painstakingly planning out the details of the compass and dream catcher to get them exactly right, but the latter was easily the most special.
My dad had always wanted his children to dream big. Though the Lawless Ranch had been in his family for generations, he’d never lorded it over us, never pushed us to want to run it, never forced us into thinking we had no other option but to stick around Dusk Valley for the rest of our lives. He encouraged each of us to go out and experience life, to chart our own paths, let the stars guide us wherever they may. If that journey led us home, then so be it.
My dad had been my fiercest supporter, my loudest cheerleader, and never told me I couldn’t do something. Only asked what he could do to help me achieve my goals.
Which was why his death had dealt all of us such a massive blow, the kind of soul wound that would never fully heal. At least not for me, no matter how much time and distance I put between me and the day I’d gotten that call.
Reflexively, I thumbed his wedding ring on my pinky as my eyes scanned the photos decorating the walls of my office, snagging on the one taken nearly seventeen years ago. We were all huddled at center field, the Pac-12 logo scuffed and faded from the game beneath our feet. Aria was five, all crooked teeth and pigtails, swimming in one of my jerseys as I held her in my arms. My parents stood at my sides. My brothers, ranging in age from nineteen down to ten, were a mix of gangly limbs, Ducks tees, and braces, fanned out around and behind us. All nine of us grinned widely for the camera, both because the Ducks had just won the conference championship thanks to my five—four passing and one rushing—touchdowns, and because we were simply happy to be together. It was the final time the entire Lawless clan had been photographed together.
Dad died two weeks later .
And two weeks after that, two days before I was set to play in the Pac-12 championship game, I got the dream catcher tattoo in memory of him. It became a talisman and a reminder. Everything I did from then on wasn’t for myself anymore. It was for him and the seven other people in that photo with us.
“I just…” I started, coming back to myself and the conversation with Delia. I removed my hat and drove my fingers through my hair. “Next time, ask me before you use me as a thirst trap. We make decisions together or not at all, remember?”
“Aye aye, Captain,” she said, then hung up.
God, this woman was going to be the death of me.
By the end of the week, both our TikTok and Instagram accounts had over ten thousand followers each, and buzz surrounding the distillery was reaching a fever pitch. We’d received countless messages and emails from influencers wanting to collaborate with us, everyone from travel bloggers to food and beverage reviewers. When a popular Food Network host reached out to do a segment with us after we opened, I could grudgingly admit my backside—and everything else Delia was doing—was good for business.
And the longer I watched Delia work her magic on our business, the more I realized my other ones could use the same touch.
The second week of October, when our weekly status meeting disbanded, Jay and a few of his men headed back to the site, but I asked Delia to hang back.
“What’s going on?” she asked .
Her tone was laced with apprehension, and I quickly placated her. “Nothing serious,” I said. “I just have a proposition for you.”
Delia quirked a brow but didn’t say anything, giving me room to proceed.
“I want you to take over social media management for Lawless, Birdie’s, and Overtime.”
Her eyes widened comically, her mouth popping open slightly. “Are you serious?” she asked.
“Dead,” I confirmed.
“But…why?”
“I’ve seen how hard you work, Whiskey. I’ve been paying close attention the last month, and while I was skeptical at first, the things you’ve done with the Unlawful social accounts are insanely impressive. I’d like your help driving traffic to my other businesses.”
“Really?” she asked, gaze pinging around my face, as if gauging my seriousness. Despite her clear reservation, her eyes were bright, alive with excitement and hope. In that moment, I realized that this may be the first time—or at least one of very few instances—when someone recognized Delia’s eye for detail, talent, and passion, and rewarded her for it instead of writing her off as a silly girl who spent too much time on her phone.
“Yeah,” I said with a reassuring smile. “You’re clearly talented, and I could really use your help.”
Delia leapt from her stool, arms outstretched, but held herself back at the last second. As if she was going to throw herself into my arms and barely kept herself in check. Honestly, I would’ve welcomed that hug. Instead, we settled for a handshake that felt far too impersonal .
“Oh, and as far as salary goes,” I began when she once again settled into her seat. I rattled off a number, one I’d reached after careful research of what she could be making working for some big time firm and a conversation with Cal about what I could reasonably afford.
In reality, I could reasonably afford to buy the entirety of Traverse City, but that was beside the point. I had a financial manager for a reason, and he informed me I couldn’t blow my entire wad on Delia.
No seriously, those were his exact words, and they conjured up images of blowing something far naughtier on Delia. Of her tan skin marred by my cu—
“Absolutely not,” Delia said, pulling me from my deviant thoughts.
“It’s only fair,” I told her. “I checked, and I talked with Cal.”
“I can’t accept it.”
“You can,” I assured her, brooking no room for argument, using the same tone I’d perfected over a lifetime of corralling younger siblings and two decades of leading football teams. “And you will.”
Her cheeks pinked, and she opened her mouth, presumably to refute me again.
I cut her off before she could.
“Seriously, Whiskey. You deserve this.”
“Okay,” she said quietly. “I’ll do it.”
The hue of her face deepened, and she dropped her eyes to the table in front of her, her hair falling around her, hiding her from me.
My fingers itched to tuck under her chin and force her to meet my gaze, to reassure her she was worth every good thing she got and then some.
But that wasn’t my job. My job was to be her partner—maybe even her friend, eventually. No more and no less.
Thinking of Delia Delatou in any capacity outside of anything strictly platonic was a recipe for disaster.