Chapter 4
FOUR
Later that evening, indignation surged through her veins.
“Can you believe he didn’t say goodbye?” she grumbled, pacing back and forth. Turning to the Steinway, she gestured wildly. “How dare he? The spineless bastard.”
The piano didn’t reply, being an inanimate object and all, and it occurred to Mia that she’d been ranting at the baby grand for the past five minutes.
Further proof she’d completely lost her head over Travis Flynn.
A part of her wanted to forget every charged moment they had shared. After all, the roof was fixed. He was out of her life forever, and in a few weeks’ time, she’d head back to New York. Best to write the whole thing off as heavy flirtation and nothing more.
Unfortunately, her competitive nature roared to life. They’d started something, and she wasn’t one to admit defeat, so she considered her options. An easy internet search would produce the contact information for Robinson & Sons Roofing, but there was another card to play.
The DT.
With a plan in place, she changed her outfit— yes, I’m still pathetic, thanks for asking —and jumped in the car, bound for Daymont’s reliable watering hole. When she pushed through the door, the same scene welcomed her. The regular patrons, Dee behind the bar, and the smell of chicken wings and hot sauce perfuming the air.
Travis sat alone at the bar, nursing a beer without a care in the world. His quintessential smirk emerged as she crossed the threshold, and he tipped his beer to her in greeting. She glared without pretense, the sting of his Irish exit riling up her petty side.
Nothing better than an outfit change to assist in raking someone over the coals. The midi skirt she wore was a modest length, but the insanely long slit hit at mid-thigh. His jaw sagged at each exposed pop of her skin as she sauntered over. And goddamn it, she added a healthy dose of sway to her hips for good measure.
Take that, Boss Man.
Although his throat rippled, he recovered fast and arched a brow once she reached him. “Took you long enough,” he declared.
She lifted herself onto the stool and sighed wearily. “Oh, shut up.”
He laughed and passed the menu over. Dee asked for her drink order, wary eyes bouncing back and forth between them.
“Same as yesterday,” Mia said.
Quick as a flash, Dee slammed an IPA down on the bar and made herself scarce.
Travis snorted. “Think we scared her?”
She expelled an amused puff of breath. “I can’t imagine we’re the worst she’s dealt with.”
“You say that now.”
“Wanna split something?” she asked, motioning to the menu. “I have to eat, otherwise this beer will hit me like a ton of bricks.”
“You like wings?”
“I do.”
“Dee, we’ll take an order of lemon-pepper wings,” he called out to her. Then he addressed Mia, keeping his voice low as if revealing a massive secret. “The buffalo is good, but lemon pepper is superior.”
She grinned. “Whatever you say.”
A satisfied purr rumbled from his chest, and he found her gaze in the mirror behind the bar. Mia took a large gulp of her beer, relishing the juicy flavor profile. The chilled liquid helped cool her body for a few seconds, and she wondered whether to address the unspoken issue or ignore it completely.
He raised the topic before her. “I googled you.”
With a groan, she plopped the beer down and covered her face with her hands. “Don’t tell me that.”
“A Pulitzer Prize, huh?”
“Don’t.”
“ I’m okay, I guess ,” he said in a poor imitation of her claim from earlier that day.
“Don’t!”
His laughter masked an undercurrent of disillusionment in his demeanor. Catching his eye in the mirror again, she scrunched her face with reticence, and she offered an olive branch.
“I’m sure you also read about my fall from grace, too,” she murmured.
“A bit,” he admitted. “Your ex sounds like a prick.”
Concise and to the point, as seemed to be his way. An appreciative smile curled her lips, and the urge to confide in him deepened.
“I know I’m better off. It’s just…” Pausing, she pondered how to sum up such a formative relationship. “He wasn’t only my life partner. He was also my musical partner. We worked so well together, literally since the moment we met at Juilliard.”
Travis whistled through his teeth. “Fancy.”
“Don’t,” she warned again, this time in a more humorous manner. He held up his hands in surrender, and she continued. “My identity became so interwoven with him, both personally and professionally.”
“So it must’ve stung when your first project without him wasn’t, uh…well received.”
“How diplomatic of you.” After directing a look of gratitude his way, she spoke the harsh truth. “It was a spectacular flop. Twenty-five previews and only one performance before it closed. The papers ripped me to shreds. ‘Maestro Mia’s Massive Misstep,’” she said, reciting a memorable headline.
“Rude. But nice alliteration on their part.”
“Yeah, even I had to give them props for that one.”
They laughed together as Dee popped over with their wings, the savory aroma making Mia’s stomach growl. Travis passed her an appetizer dish and a stack of napkins, and they piled their respective plates with chicken.
“The whole thing was doomed from the start,” Mia reflected, still heavy with memories.
“Your marriage?”
“The musical. I rushed everything. The new lyricist I worked with? He and I didn’t have time to get to know each other. To learn the other’s quirks and processes. But the pressure to perform was breathing down my neck. To come out of the relationship as the winner, you know?”
His perfectly straight teeth pulled apart a wing, and he chewed thoughtfully. “There’s always gotta be a winner.”
“And I let that compromise my integrity. Because the truth is, sometimes great art takes time. You shouldn’t rush it. And I forgot that.” She bit into the chicken and then moaned. “Holy shit, this is good.”
“Told you,” he quipped. Then he wiggled his eyebrows. “I like that moan of yours.”
“Shut up ,” she insisted with a laugh.
Their eyes met again in the mirror, and she almost swooned at his boyish grin, elated that things were back to normal after the Maestro Mia reveal. Here was proof that she was still a regular girl he could drink a beer with, Pulitzer Prize or not.
Travis tossed a picked-clean wing onto his plate. “Well, since we’re sharing relationship woes, I’ll raise your messy divorce with being left at the altar.”
Her head whipped toward him so quickly, she almost broke her neck. “ What? ”
Ironically, he raised his beer in a toast. “Cheers to that, right?”
“Jesus, Travis. I hope she doesn’t live in town, because I’d give her a piece of my mind.”
“Nah, she’s up in Boston now. Honestly, it would’ve ended in disaster anyway. I just wish the whole thing hadn’t been so…” He hesitated, searching for the word. “Public.”
“I know the feeling,” she murmured, sending him a meaningful stare through the looking glass.
“I guess you do,” he acknowledged faintly. Now that the floodgates were open, honesty flourished from him. “I was already the embarrassment of my family. The bride not showing up certainly didn’t improve my reputation.”
Confusion filled her. “Embarrassment? Why’s that?”
“Ah, the curse of being the second son. My older brother is the golden boy. Always has been, always will be.”
As an only child, Mia didn’t understand sibling dynamics firsthand, but she could imagine how easily tension could arise if one constantly exceeded expectations. In fact, she wagered that if she had had a sibling, they likely would’ve hated her guts.
Although an apparently tense topic for him, she was hungry to uncover more. “What’s your brother do?”
“Does he own his own business like yours truly? Sure doesn’t. He works at the Daymont Yacht Club like every single member of my family has since the place first opened eight hundred million years ago. But he worked his way up ,” he recited in an unmistakable imitation of his family members. “Started as a dockhand in high school, and now he’s Director of Waterfront Operations. La dee fucking da.”
“Not that you’re bitter or anything.”
“No, of course not.”
The immediate agreement was so comical that she snickered, and even Travis permitted a laugh. Shaking his head, he focused on his beer and inhaled deeply. Compassion twinged her chest as the truth behind his personality dawned. His roguish attitude was a product of his upbringing, of always being in the shadow of another person. He’d learned at a young age that acting up guaranteed attention—even if it wasn’t the positive kind—and that conditioning followed him into adulthood.
“The same day I closed the deal with Cole to take over the roofing business was the day Thomas was promoted to director.” The confession was soft, as if he’d never spoken this truth to anyone before. “And who do you think was celebrated that night?”
“I’m sorry,” she offered in a whisper.
He wiped his hands with a napkin and tossed it onto the bar with a shrug. “Yeah. Well, you know what they say. You can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your family.”
The walls were back up, and Mia knew better than to continue pushing. “How eloquent.”
With a suggestive stare, Travis leaned in closer. “Oh, you have no idea how eloquent I can be.”
“Can you stop being a pervert for two seconds?”
“Not where you’re concerned, baby.”
Such a cheesy endearment should’ve made her balk in horror. Baby was an effortless pet name—smarmy and disingenuous if uttered by the wrong person. Travis, however, was exactly the right man to bestow such a term of affection. Her nipples tightened into hard peaks and arousal pooled between her legs, and she decided then and there that she’d take baby over maestro any day of the week.
But her competitiveness reemerged, with a determination to give as good as she got. Placing her index finger in her mouth, she sucked the dry rub seasoning from her skin, keeping her gaze on him the entire time. His icicle eyes flashed with lust at the brazen display.
The finger left her mouth with a pop , and she smiled innocently. “Delicious.”
“Evil,” he whispered, drawing the word out for emphasis.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Dee muttered at the other end of the bar.
Try as they might to squash their laughter, a fit of giggles commenced. Sure, they were full-blown adults, but being with Travis made her feel no different from a carefree teenager. Even still, Mia couldn’t justify more finger licking, so she stepped off the stool for a bathroom break.
“That’s not a bad idea,” he agreed, motioning for her to go first. “You want another beer?”
“Sure. And a water too.”
She headed to the restroom with an extra pep in her step. While washing her hands, the cold water against her red-hot skin a welcome reprieve, she glanced at herself in the mirror. A heap of warm-brown curls framed a face brimming with reckless delirium, hazel eyes that were once hollow now shined with zest, and a healthy pink flush tinted her normally pale skin.
Amazing how some spirited flirting could completely transform a girl.
Walking on air, she retraced her steps to the bar and side-stepped Travis with a playful salute as he ambled to the hallway housing the unisex bathrooms. She chugged some water and sought to get her heart rate under control while he was gone, but that endeavor went out the window when he returned with a come-hither grin.
“Let’s play a game,” he said, nodding to the pool table at the back of the tavern.
As if they hadn’t been doing that since the instant they’d met. His calloused palm extended in an obvious invitation, and she didn’t hesitate to place her hand in his, allowing him to lead her toward the billiard table.
“You play at all?” he asked, grabbing two cue sticks from the rack built into the wall.
She placed her beer on the corner of the table and took the cue stick from him with a sheepish glance. “Not really.”
“Excellent.”
“I already know what you’re thinking. You wanna give me a full tutorial, right? Bend me over the table and teach me how to hold this thing properly?” she prompted with a nod to the stick.
“Only if you’re into that.”
Rolling her eyes, she waved her hand back and forth. “Rack the balls.”
A growl rumbled from his chest, but he obeyed her command and prepped the table for their game. “Still not a betting woman?”
“Depends on the wager.”
“Loser has to answer a question. Any question the winner asks. And they have to be brutally honest.”
An intriguing proposition. They’d already engaged in one session of brutal honesty, and she couldn’t pass up the chance for more.
“Deal,” she said, holding her hand out for a shake.
He clasped their palms together and used the physical connection to tug her closer, no different from his stunt earlier that day. “Good luck.”
After one strong shake, Mia pulled away and placed her hand on her hip. “Thanks, Boss Man.”
That nickname had a different connotation coming from her, and his eyes turned dark with incendiary heat. But before things escalated, he gave her the honor of first strike, and the cue ball smacked into the colored globes. They flew to every corner of the table, and Mia considered her options before sinking the solid red ball into the top right pocket with a straight shot.
“I thought you didn’t play,” Travis remarked with a suspicious glance.
“I don’t,” she chirped. “I just really love winning.”
With the gauntlet officially thrown, they traded plays over the next forty-five minutes, their competitiveness intensifying with each move. Teasing barbs were exchanged, laughter was contagious, and in the end, she won fair and square.
Travis took the defeat in stride, bestowing her with a courtly bow. “Well done. Go ahead, do your worst. Ask me anything.”
Dozens of questions flashed through her mind. She leaned her right hip against the billiard table, placed the cue stick onto the ground for leverage, and studied him. Eventually, one question won out.
“Why didn’t you say goodbye today?”
His sandy brows knit together, and he blatantly avoided her searching gaze. “Didn’t think you’d notice.”
“Bullshit.”
Her reply was hushed but vehement enough that he pinned her with a stare so powerful she almost gasped. The rest of the tavern faded into a blur as she waited for his answer. Waited for the truth.
“I thought it would make it easier to forget about you,” he eventually admitted.
Her breath caught in her chest, but she managed to choke out a reply. “Did it?”
“Fuck no.”
All the oxygen was sucked out of the room. His confession completely consumed her, and all her defenses crumbled to the ground.
“I’m going back to New York in a few weeks,” she said, struggling to keep her voice steady.
He nodded slowly. “That’s probably a good thing.”
“Yeah. It probably is.”
The moment lingered, coiling and twisting and transforming into an unspoken agreement.
This was inevitable. They both knew that. But it would be casual. Nothing more, nothing less.
“You wanna get out of here?” he asked.
Her shaky nod was all he needed to beeline back to the bar and settle their tab with Dee. Mia didn’t bother fighting to split the cost, knowing he wouldn’t hear of it.
Dee, bless her, didn’t say a word as Travis signed the credit card receipt. But before exiting the tavern, he glanced over his shoulder to ensure the coast was clear before tugging Mia down the hallway leading to the bathrooms.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m sure you’ll give me shit for this later, but I don’t care. I can’t wait another fucking second.”
And then he pushed her against the wall and kissed her.