Real Thing (Brighton Family #4)

Real Thing (Brighton Family #4)

By Cassie-Ann L. Miller

Chapter 1

NOLAN

1

“I’ve waited my entire life to find the person I’d say this to—Inez Machado, you are the woman I see myself spending forever with.”

Eyes focused on the clipboard clenched in my hand, I keep my head down.

I try my best to focus on my inventory form. I try to ignore the reality TV show blasting from the wall-mounted flat-screens positioned all around the room.

But this sappy love declaration booms through the hi-tech speaker system of my old-fashioned bar, bouncing off the exposed brick walls.

Taunting my head.

Twisting my guts.

Hacking away at the cool, calm, collected persona I’m struggling to portray.

I’ve changed the damn channel on multiple occasions tonight. I even tried hiding the remote. But all my big screens somehow keep getting switched right back to this freaking TV show.

“Wow…I, uh…” a feminine voice responds. Her tone is soft. Quiet. Vulnerable. “That’s…that’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

From the feathery quiver of her words and the way her voice cracks as she speaks, I can tell that she genuinely means it.

And the burning pressure inside my chest only amplifies.

I set down my clipboard on the bartop and rifle around in the first aid kit beneath the counter. I’m in desperate need of the strongest antacid known to man. Coming up empty-handed, I rub the center of my chest.

I’d like to convince myself that this feeling is nothing but heartburn. But the persistent ache inside my ribcage feels a lot like regret.

Fuck.

Against my better judgment, my eyes lift to one of the oversized wall-mounted TV screens, craving one fleeting glimpse of Inez’s pretty face. But all I see is that goofy-ass bachelor dude dropping to one knee with that goofy-ass grin on his goofy-ass face…and a massive diamond ring in his hand.

My lungs tighten. My stomach gurgles. I know exactly what happens next.

“Inez, make me the happiest man alive. Tell me—will you be my wife?”

Around me, the crowded bar falls completely silent. Tension throbs in the room. Everyone is holding their breath. Like they’re seeing this television scene for the very first time. Like they haven’t been gathering here to watch this same exact episode—over and over, on repeat—for the past week.

All of Starlight Falls, Iowa is addicted to this show, and I’m still trying to figure out how The North Node Tavern became the unofficial movie theater of my five-thousand-person hometown.

A Chance with Vance is one of those dating reality shows with a ton of attractive women all vying for the attention of one famous bachelor. Vance Cavendish is some Hollywood actor with a fake tan, a corny haircut and a pretentious personality. Everyone loves him.

Me? I think he’s a certified douchebag. And I’m sick of his stupid face.

I hate every second of this show. This episode especially. Because in this most recent episode, the bachelor has eliminated all the other contestants.

The last woman standing? Inez Machado.

Fuck.

Just so there’s no confusion—there’s nothing romantic between Inez and me. There never has been. She’s my friend. Sort of. Well, at least, she used to be.

Up until a few short months ago, she used to work right here in this dingy old bar. Night after night, she stood beside me behind this counter, slinging drinks and telling jokes and charming the socks off of anyone who walked through the front door.

I can’t deny that she and I go way back. Inez was the very first employee I hired when my grandfather handed the keys to this bar over to me a little over six years ago. At the time, I was just a twenty-one year old, in way over my head. I was a brand new father and I’d just walked away from my professional hockey dreams in order to take care of my young family.

I had no fucking idea what I was doing running a business. Inez was even more clueless than I was, but together, we managed to figure shit out. We learned the ins-and-outs of managing a bar, safely feeding customers, and how to run the books correctly.

And she was the one who picked up the slack around here all those times when my ex-wife would run out on me and leave me alone with the baby. She picked up late shifts, weekend shifts, night shifts. Bartender, waitress, manager. She jumped in wherever she was needed, and nailed it. Hell, she excelled at any job around the bar.

She never complained. She always had my back and was great at her job.

For six years, she was my best employee and everyone’s favorite bartender.

And then, she was gone.

She quit to go on that damn TV show and my whole life has been a dumpster fire ever since.

Head down, Nolan. Just keep your head down.

But every time I try to look away, I get lured back to the television screen. I watch as Inez swallows hard. Her crystal blue gaze bounces off to the side. It’s like she can’t quite decide what to do with the marriage proposal currently hanging heavily in the air.

After a long moment, her eyes swivel back to the eager man kneeled before her. Still looking unsure of herself, she tucks the silky caramel strands of her hair behind her ears. “Y-yes…” she squeaks out.

And that single word is the dagger that pierces my gut for the hundredth time this week.

Fuck.

Meanwhile, the bar goes up in wild cheers.

The women are clutching their chests and blotting their eyes and sobbing into their onion rings. The men are pounding the tabletops and stomping their feet as Vance slides the enormous rock onto Inez’s trembling hand.

Again—fuck.

Across the bar, my eyes meet Karli’s. My younger sister shoots me a worried glance from where she’s cozily tucked against her husband, Mason’s side.

I roll my eyes.

For the past week, my siblings have been overbearing as hell. Ever since this episode was first released, Karli and our four brothers have been treating me like a grenade that might spontaneously combust at any minute.

Hell—I just might. But I’m not about to admit that out loud.

Unwilling to acknowledge my sister’s pity, I bring my attention back to the TV screen. Vance is wiping manufactured tears from his eyes as he triumphantly rises to his feet and yanks Inez into a hug.

My chest officially catches on fire when the obnoxious Hollywood fucker leans in, mouth all puckered up like a frog’s asshole, ready to kiss Inez on the lips.

But at the very last second she turns, giving him her cheek and a small, forced smile.

I can’t help but smirk to myself. Atta girl.Small mercies, y’know?

Vance grins like the clueless jackass he is and squeezes Inez tighter. “I’m going to whisk you away on my private jet and show you off to the world,” he promises her as sentimental music animates the background. “I can’t wait to walk the red carpet with you on my arm. And I’m going to take you on my yacht. You’ll look so good laid out on the deck, in the middle of the Mediterranean, wearing a little string bikini with that cute little butt of yours.” He emits a slimy chuckle.

The bar chuckles along. Like this misogynistic bullshit is supposed to be funny.

The dude is a clown and this whole damn television production is a circus.

Inez stares blankly at Mr. Hollywood. She’s still sporting that plastic smile. “This is all so…exciting.”

Except she doesn’t look excited at all. She looks queasy, to be honest.

He opens his mouth and another never-ending jet stream of bullshit flies out. “You haven’t seen exciting yet, baby,” he tells her. “We have our whole fairytale ahead of us. You’ll steal the spotlight next to me at the MET Gala and at the film festival in Cannes…”

And on and on and on.

By this point, most of the women in the room are bawling shamelessly, snotty noses and runny mascara everywhere, passing the napkin dispensers from table to table.

I swear, this show is the reason we keep running out of napkins. I make a note of that on my order form.

All of America sees Inez and Vance as some epic love story. The epitome of romance. But I know Inez well enough to recognize that something between her and this dude is not quite right.

“Seriously, what does everyone see in the guy?” I mutter to myself.

The new waitress passes by me, drinks sloshing around on the wobbly tray balanced on her palm. “You mean aside from the fact that he’s rich? And famous? And good-looking?” Suzy side-eyes me like I’m a dumbass.

Maybe I am. Ugh.

I turn back to my inventory sheet.

I’m acting weird. I get it. But it’s not like I’m jealous or anything. Hell naw. I just think that Inez deserves better. She deserves the best. And the most inconvenient truth? She definitely deserves more than a life out here in the Iowa backwoods.

Don’t get me wrong—I always paid her as well as I could. Hell, her paychecks were usually bigger than my own. But deep down, I always knew she deserved…more.

That’s why I didn’t try to stop her when she put in her notice and told me she was ready to move on from this bar.

She’s larger than life. Her pretty blue eyes. Her infectious laugh. The way she could make me feel alive by just walking into the room. She was always too much for Starlight Falls.

I glance around at the dark, dingy tavern. It was obvious from the start that Inez Machado was destined for bigger things. I always knew that fate would take her away from this place.

I just didn’t realize her absence would hit me this hard.

“Order up!” my cook, Joe, hollers from the back, ringing the service bell.

My attention is drawn to the plates he’s sliding through the tiny window that separates the kitchen from the seating area of the bar.

When I don’t notice any of my servers heading back to grab the plates, I ring the service bell again to get their attention.

“Anyone gonna get that?” I call out to my employees.

No one answers.Each and every one of them is ignoring me tonight, busy chatting and gossiping with their customers about the reality show.

Completely exasperated, I grunt resentfully. I grab the meals and drop them off to my waiting patrons before returning to my clipboard.

My oldest brother, Archer, saunters across the bar, coming to squeeze onto a stool at the counter. “You’re going soft, man,” the 36-year-old bearded lumberjack mumbles before taking a sip of his beer.

The rest of my siblings approach, all of them crowding around the bar.

“Tell me about it,” Darius says. He mindlessly grabs a tall chair from a nearby high-top table, his narrowed eyes focused on the screen of his phone as he speaks. It’s virtually impossible to rip that guy away from his phone. But who can blame him? At only 30 years old, he runs a billion-dollar empire from that thing. “Back in the day, you would have canned them all for slacking on the clock. What gives, brother?”

My shoulders heave in a defeated shrug. “Trust me—on nights like tonight, I’m ready to fire everybody and just start over. But the idea of going through more interviews and more training wears me out even more than picking up the slack for my incompetent staff.”

Ronan merges right into the conversation, not missing a beat. “Damn. You’ve really been a cranky asshole ever since Inez put in her notice and took off for Hollywood, huh, buddy?” He rounds the counter and gives my head a sympathetic ruffle.

I elbow my identical twin in the ribs to push him off me. “I’ve always been a cranky asshole,” I retort under my breath.

Being a divorced single father and struggling to run an under-funded business for the past few years will do that to a guy.

Felix pulls his fiancée, Daphne, into his lap and frowns at me. “Nah, you never used to be this cranky. You used to know how to crack a smile now and then. Ever since Inez left, you’ve been a permanently broody asshole.”

“Is that a medical diagnosis?” I snark, tossing my 32-year-old brother a side-eye. “You gonna write me a prescription, Dr. Brighton?” I hate when he talks to me in his doctor voice, like I’m one of his patients from the medical clinic.

With a snort, Ronan fills a pint glass from the beer tap and slides it across the counter to his girlfriend, Nicky.

“Stop being so hard on him, guys,” Nicky comes to my defense. But the pitying look she’s giving me makes me feel like even more of a loser.

Huffing through my nose, I turn my back on the lot of them. I hate how they always do this. They can take one tiny, little conversation and turn it into a full-blown Brighton family meeting in the blink of an eye. It’s annoying.

I don’t have time for this right now. I need to figure out how many cases of toilet paper and napkins I need to order. Because if I don’t do it, no-one else will. Again, I try to focus on my clipboard. But it’s all useless. I can’t think straight.

I feel lost. I never felt lost when Inez was around.

Ronan throws an arm around me and gives my shoulder a hard squeeze. “It’s safe to talk about your feelings, Nolan. This is a safe space.”

“A safe space? Be for real.” Shooting him a dangerous look, I roughly shrug him off. “And would you quit touching me?” So clingy, this guy. My twin brother is a six-foot-three professional hockey player with the soul of an over-stuffed teddy bear.

Safe space or not, there’s no way to say what I’m actually thinking without looking like I’ve lost my mind.

How do I tell them that I’m worried about her? The Inez I know is outgoing, vibrant, larger-than-life. Meanwhile the Inez on that TV screen? She’s just a pretty shell of herself, thirsty for the validation of some clout-chasing actor.

This Hollywood dude is slowly sucking all the juice out of her. He’s going to turn her into a bland Stepford wife, then he’s going to stick her on his shelf of trophies and leave her there to wither away. And there’s nothing I can do about it. This whole thing is fucking with my head.

Karli props her chin on Mason’s shoulder and scans my face, one eyebrow arched knowingly. “Admit it—you miss her.”

I toss the clipboard aside, folding my arms over my achy chest. “Of course I miss her.” I start rambling. “She left the bar in a crappy place. She was my best bartender. All the new employees I’ve hired to replace her are straight-up incompetent. Everything has been a shitshow around here since she quit on me.”

Daphne watches me, her eyes full of sympathy. “Are you sure that’s all it is?” she asks softly.

“Yes, that’s all it is.” At least, that’s all I’m willing to admit out loud.

None of them believes me.

“Sure, sure,” Darius mutters without looking up from where he’s typing on his phone.

Archer sits there, staring at me, like he’s waiting for me to lose my cool.

Felix purses his lips, clearly trying to keep from saying the wrong thing and starting a full-blown argument.

Ronan just smirks.

Boy, this is fun.

I’m about to defend myself—with more denial and lies—when a loud crash draws my attention to the other side of the room. My head swings around just in time to see the last of the drinks sliding off the new waitress’s tray.

Glasses smash and shatter on the floor. But Suzy barely takes her eyes off the flat-screen long enough to glance down at the mess at her feet. She’s too damn busy gossiping about the reality show with her customers.

I have a fucking headache.

With a sigh, I grab some rags and a broom from behind the bar. “Look—Inez is on TV, getting her happily ever after. And I’m here in this version of reality, where I have a business to run and a daughter to raise. That’s all there is to it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go clean up that mess before someone hurts themselves.” My aching feet move in the direction of the spilled drinks and shattered glass.

When she sees me approaching, Suzy finally gets her butt in gear and hustles off to replace the spilled drinks. “Sorry, boss.”

Yeah, yeah. Whatever.

As I sweep up the mess, cheesy upbeat music pours from the speakers and the show’s end credits run.

A bubbly TV announcer in a glittery evening gown pops up on the screen. “Stay tuned, folks. We’re experiencing a slight technical difficulty at the moment,” Sabrina Whatever-Her-Name-Is says, her fake smile faltering subtly. “But don’t go anywhere! Up next—Vance and Inez’s much-anticipated two-hour wedding special is coming to you ‘live’ from Sin Valley, Iowa! We’ll be right back after these messages.”

Fuck.

Inez is getting married. To that guy. On national television. Tonight.

It’s making me physically sick.

I can’t fucking watch anymore of this. If I don’t step away, I’m going to snap and say something I’ll regret.

Anxious and annoyed, I duck into the kitchen.

“Hey, Joe.” I tip my chin, offering a tired greeting to my cook.

He’s a mild-mannered old man who’s been here longer than I can remember. He was working here in the kitchen long before I took over the bar from my grandparents.

Joe doesn’t move as fast as he used to, but he knows his way around and fries up the best onion rings in the county.

The old man observes my expression, then he sighs. “It’s sure hard finding good employees these days, isn’t it?”

“Right.”

He flips a burger patty and then mindlessly points his spatula in my direction. “All they want to do is watch that damn reality show.”

“Right.”

“But who can blame them? Inez is a special girl. She’s got star power. She’s not an easy woman to forget.”

“Right.”

He has no idea how much I wish I could forget her. Replace her like I’ve replaced the dozens of employees who have come and gone over the years.

But Inez has always been here. She’s always been this stable part of my life. Someone I could count on.

And now, everywhere I look is a reminder that she’s gone.

I feel like a damn idiot, because I never realized how much I relied on her. How much her presence meant to me. How much I care about her wellbeing. I feel like I’m drowning.

With a rough exhale, I accept that this is my new reality, and I’ve got to make the best of it.

I duck into my back office, pull out my cellphone and call home to say good night to my baby girl.

My former mother-in-law answers the call in her usual cheerful voice. Like always, Genevieve immediately passes the phone to my six-year-old daughter, Stella.

I ask my little girl about her day and she talks my ear off, catching me up on all the hot schoolyard gossip.

Like always, she asks me to sing her a song. Like always, I complain that I have a terrible singing voice. But in the end, I cave. Because I’m a sucker for that kid and she knows it.

I sing her a few lines from In My Life by The Beatles, and she sings right along with me, filling my heart to the brim.

This is our bedtime routine every single night that I work. No matter how busy the bar is.

I wish I didn’t work nights at all. When Inez was here, we’d try to trade off a day here and there, to lighten the load for each other.

But now that she’s gone, I have no one I trust the way I trusted her. I know my inexperienced crew can’t handle the busy weekend crowds without me. So I’m back to working late three nights a week. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, I’m here while Stella stays over at Genevieve’s place. Then I pick her up in the mornings.

It helps that Gen lives in a camper van that is currently parked in my front yard, just sixty-five feet from my porch.Is it weird that my ex-wife’s mother lives in my front yard? Yes. But it’s also incredibly convenient.

I need the help. Simple as that.

And as every single parent knows, sometimes convenience takes priority over luxuries like ‘personal boundaries’.

After chatting a few more minutes, I say goodnight to Stella and I hang up, hating that I have to be away from her right now.

Running this business isn’t easy. I’ve got no formal training in business management and an education that was lightyears away from business school. But I keep going, day after day, because this bar is what’s going to punch Stella’s meal ticket into a good college some day. This bar is going to open doors for my baby girl, so she can be whatever she wants to be. I’ll sacrifice anything to make sure Stella is set up for a great life.

Still sitting at my desk, I find myself scrolling through the contacts in my phone. My index finger hovers over Inez’s name.

Fuck.

I know she’s getting married tonight but every part of me is aching to just hit that ‘call’ button. Just to hear her voice. To make sure she’s okay.

Because she’s my friend.

…And I miss her.

…A lot.

…Too much.

So I do it.

Her contact picture pops up on my screen as the call tries to connect. My chest pounds with anticipation and my palms grow sweaty as I wait.

But the result is the same as it was last night. And the night before that. And every other night of the past week. “The number you are calling is out of service,” a robotic voice reminds me before a deafening mechanical screech fills my ear.

When the call disconnects, I lean my skull against the back of my chair, shutting my eyes. Thinking back to the night of her very last shift at the bar. She’d been waltzing around the place in a plastic crown and a too big grin on her lips, saying her goodbyes to everyone. And I’d never wanted to kiss someone as badly as I wanted to kiss her in that moment.

Even though we’ve only ever been friends.

Even though I know she’s way out of my league.

Even though I’m trying to be the responsible single dad.

Even though kissing her would have been a selfish and messed up thing to do.

Even though she would have high-kicked me in the nuts and then rode off into the sunset, in search of her perfect Hollywood Prince Charming.

Regret sets my chest on fire again. I should have kissed her. At the very least, I should have kissed her just once.

Instead, I chose to do the right thing. Sometimes doing the right thing sucks.

“What the hell is wrong with me…?” I whisper, scrubbing a rough palm down my face. I’m so goddamned exhausted. And goddamned horny. It’s messing with my mind tonight.

My phone’s still in my hand when it suddenly starts ringing.It’s an unknown number and I’m tempted to ignore it. But I don’t have the luxury of ignoring unknown calls. Because my flighty ex-wife is so unreliable and more often than not, she’s the one on the other end of any unknown number calling my phone.

I sigh, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. “Hello…” I answer tiredly.

A female voice fills my ear. “Hello? Nolan?” Soft. Quiet. Vulnerable.

I blink, instantly sitting up straighter in my chair. That’s definitely not my ex-wife’s voice.

My heart leaps into my throat, making it hard to speak. “I-Inez…?” I’d recognize her voice anywhere. Even over the staticky line.

No. There’s no way. It can’t be her…because Inez should be in Sin Valley getting ready for her wedding tonight.

But here she is, on the other end of this phone call.

“Yeah. Hi, yeah. It’s me. Inez.”

“Um, hey…” I answer stupidly. I really, really wasn’t expecting to hear from her any time soon, if ever. I have no freaking clue what to say.

Good thing she speaks first. “I know it’s probably a bad time. And you’re probably really busy, but…c–can you do me a huge favor?”

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