Chapter 16
Sabrina
Normally on any given Sunday evening, Jitter and I would head out early to Silver Horn or the pub by City Hall and our statue dedicated to Ol’ Snaggletooth, our town’s proverbial original gold miner, and hang out with friends until it’s late enough that I know I’ll have regrets Monday morning.
But today’s been a hard day, and all I want to do is watch an old Razzle Dazzle film with a cup of coffee in hand and my dog acting like a pillow while I work up the nerve to follow through with the plan that my gut tells me is the key to getting my café back.
Unfortunately, nerves and coffee mean I sit still about as well as Theo, so I eventually shut off the movie that I can recite word for word and grab my coat and Jitter’s leash.
We need to go for a walk.
It doesn’t matter that Grandma took him for forty-three walks earlier, he’s still game.
We head in the opposite direction of the dog park.
It’s too dark to let Jitter off his leash, and even though he’s a solid deterrent to some of the larger mountain predators, I don’t want him running off and chasing deer or elk.
No one’s out and about. No neighbors to stop and casually chat with. I try calling an old college friend, and my call rolls straight to voicemail.
With the sun down, it’s cold. Like, breathe in and your nose hairs stick together cold. So Jitter and I cut the walk short.
We’re walking past the townhouse next to mine which currently houses someone I’d very much like to quit thinking about when the door opens, and there he is.
Six feet, four inches of lean bulk encased in blue jeans and boots under a thick wool coat—clean now, courtesy of my dry cleaning gift card, I hear—a gray wool scarf, and a black beanie.
His beard is getting impossibly thicker, and he’s tugging on a black glove as he exits his townhouse, but he suddenly pauses and grips the doorframe.
Jitter barks and lunges for him.
I grab the leash tight. “ Sit , Jitter,” I order, but the dog won’t listen.
He pulls harder to get to Grey.
The odd part, though?
Grey doesn’t react to us at all.
He stands there, gripping the doorframe, his eyes distant, breathing deeply like he’s in a trance, lit only by the porch light.
Jitter drags me all the way over to him, and no amount of bracing myself or tugging back works to stop my dog.
He’s determined .
Worse, he’s whining.
“ Jitter ,” I repeat.
He whines louder and nudges the boss-man’s free hand, which is curled into a fist.
“Grey?” I say hesitantly.
He sucks in one more breath and blows it out while Jitter lies down at his feet. “What?” he says.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“I’m fine .”
He doesn’t sound fine either.
Not even close.
My pulse kicks into high gear.
Something’s wrong.
He blinks twice, looks at me under the yellow glow of the porch light, goes ruddy in the cheeks, and turns like he’s planning on barricading himself inside and canceling the rest of his plans for the day.
Unfortunately for him, Jitter’s a big dog and still completely in the way, so Grey catches himself again in the doorway.
“Jitter likes you,” I say while I tug on the leash.
“Poor judge of character,” Grey mutters.
Oh, yes.
Something is very wrong.
Jitter whines at Grey’s feet again.
Grey grimaces, corrects his step, and climbs over Jitter, who whines again, to get back into his house.
“Hey. Are you sure you’re okay?” I ask as I finally manage to get my dog to his feet and out of the doorway.
This time, I don’t get an answer.
This time, he tries to shut the door in my face.
This is not the same man who was massaging my ass while he dry-humped me against half the kitchen the other day.
And lucky—or unlucky—for him, I’m not in any position to let him shut me out right now.
Not when he’s being so weird.
“Jitter, Grey has steak!” I say.
And yes, that has exactly the impact you’d think it would.
Jitter leaps on the door, shoves it open, and drags me inside.
Grey stumbles backward and grabs the handrail to the stairs like he’s afraid he’ll lose his balance if he doesn’t. “What are you doing?”
“My cousin Lucky’s a nurse. He’d kick my ass if I left you alone right now.”
“I’m fine .”
I don’t argue.
Instead, I dial Bean & Nugget. And of course, no one answers, because it’s after five on a Sunday.
No one’s at the café.
Which means I have no choice but to dial Zen’s personal number. The car wasn’t out front, so I assume they’re out somewhere with it.
“What are you doing ?” Grey repeats.
He doesn’t advance on me. Doesn’t stare at me like he wants to take my clothes off. Doesn’t stare at me like he wants to stab me with a rusty spoon either.
He just looks off-kilter, and I don’t like it .
Zen answers on the sixth ring. “Sabrina Sullivan. This is a surprise. If you’re planning to ruin Uncle Grey’s life and quit, can you do me a favor and write him a super-long resignation letter? Like, twenty pages or something. Anything to stall you from making this decision.”
Do they know what I’m planning?
Are they acting like they like me so that I don’t do it?
Or have I finally gotten close enough to Zen’s inner circle to get the full force of the sass they usually aim at Grey?
Who’s playing games now, dammit? “Your uncle just had an out-of-body experience in his doorway, and he says he’s fine but he’s clearly not, and I think he’s either mad at me or doesn’t trust me since everyone in town seems to think we’re sleeping together and that’s my fault, so please come check on him so I can quit worrying about him. ”
“I’m fine ,” Grey snaps.
“Oh, that’s his stubborn ass voice,” Zen replies cheerfully.
“It’s charming. Can you please come home and check on him?”
“Probably just got lightheaded.”
“Does that happen often?”
“I’m standing right here ,” Grey says.
“And you’re using your stubborn ass voice,” I snap back. “Also, my dog is freaking out, which means someone else needs to check on you.”
“Wow. This is fascinating,” Zen says. “I’ll text him a picture of penis latte art, and if he doesn’t flip me off in response, make him lie down and put his feet up.”
I almost choke on my tongue. Make him lie down and put his feet up? Are they pranking me, or is something legit wrong here? “Oh my god.”
“I know. Penis latte art is extreme, but I like to remind him life could be worse.”
“ The other thing .”
“Oh. That. He won’t die.”
“ Oh my god .”
“Still standing right here.” Grey presses his palms into his eyes, clearly standing on his own just fine, but Zen isn’t making me feel any better.
Nor is Jitter.
My dog is still laying across Grey’s feet, whining and pressing his body to Grey’s legs while the man himself leans against the wall under the stairs.
“For real, he’s only had one trip in an ambulance, and his stress levels are much lower here compared to then, even if he’s making things worse on himself with this Super Villain Man plan.”
“I swear to caramel macchiatos, if you’re fucking with me right now?—”
Grey moves, and I cut myself off to point him toward the couch. “ Lay down .”
“I’m fine ,” he says.
“He’s grumpy again. Like, worse grumpy. Is that a good or a bad sign?” I ask Zen.
“He has a minor circulation issue that may or may not clear itself up if he can reduce his stress levels, so he should probably not be grumpy. Did you do something?”
“Are you helping or hurting with the stress levels?”
“Helping. Duh. You? What did you do to stress him out? Did you pull out the powdered cheese again?”
Am I having blood pressure issues now too? I do believe I am. “I walked my dog.”
“Aww, Jitter’s such a good dog. Hey, has he checked his phone? I texted him.”
“Check your phone,” I tell Grey when I realize Zen didn’t mean Jitter needed to check his phone.
Grey looks at the dog, then at me, and he sighs as he sinks to the floor. “My phone stresses me out.”
“He needs to change his number, but he won’t listen to me no matter how many penis latte art pictures I send him,” Zen says. “Oh, yes, there it is. He’s flipped off my latte art in text. He’s fine. Go about your day with a clear conscience, and thank you for your good deed.”
“My—”
The line clicks dead.
“—pleasure,” I finish.
Minor circulation issue ? Super Villain Man?
“You can go,” he says stiffly, not looking at me.
Jitter lifts his head and licks Grey’s face.
His whole face.
The whole damn thing.
Instead of grimacing and shoving him away though, Grey half smiles and rubs Jitter behind the ears. “Knock it off, pup. I’m fine.”
Still not looking at me.
I sink to the carpet and cross my legs, watching him. “So, Super Villain Man?”
He sighs and swipes his face. “You’re fired.”
“You’re gonna have to put more oomph behind that for me to believe it.”
“Fine. You’re not fired. But please go home.”
“With or without my dog?”
“Leave him here.”
My heart melts into a puddle of sappy, gooey, warm puddles of lovey-dovey crap that I absolutely do not have the bandwidth for.
I pull my knees to my chest and loop my arms around them, watching him not watch me while he loves on my dog, who’s attempting to climb in the man’s lap again. “I won’t tell anyone.”
Those hooded blue eyes lift and meet my gaze head-on, and my stomach drops like I’m on the best of the best roller coaster. “You have a code.”
“I have to, or I can’t live with myself.”
His focus on me doesn’t waver, and my arms break out in goosebumps.
So intense.
And I like it.
I like him .
Despite every reason I shouldn’t, despite all of my own misgivings about liking anyone , I like him.
He feels like a friend.
A complicated friend, but a friend .
“My best friend and business partner shoved a paper in front of me and told me it was a purchase authorization for a new piece of lab equipment I’d mentioned wanting to acquire,” he says.
“It was the authorization to sell off a research project I’d put six years of my life into and a commitment to send the next ten years’ worth of my research directly to a start-up that he’d bought into.
I have a code too. It’s simple. Don’t fucking lie to make money off of someone else .
And I’ve added read all of the fine print . And don’t trust people .”
It takes everything I have to not launch myself over my dog and hug him.
The thing I’ve learned about people is that they’re never all good or all bad.
Chandler?
He’s on my permanent shit list because he betrayed me, but I get it .
His parents have had issues since the dawn of their relationship, and they continuously one-upped each other in gifts and experiences to him instead of being a family unit, giving him an inflated sense of self-worth constantly battling with an inflated sense of guilt.
They fucked him up, but it’s on him if he ever wants to be the kind of person who deserves my time again.
Emma?
She has given people the benefit of the doubt her entire life, and she’s been taken advantage of. Laney and I have fended off the worst of what we could whenever we’d see someone taking advantage of her sweet nature, but we— I —failed her at her own wedding.
Laney?
Rule-following angel of a woman who’s taken to starting food fights.
We’re all complicated.
Grey?
People have hurt him. I don’t know all of it, but I’ve seen enough in this world to recognize how much it probably took for him to tell me his side of this part of his story.
I don’t take his trust for granted, and I won’t break it, no matter how much I don’t want his trust.
And that’s my biggest issue with my attraction to Grey.
We’re both complicated. We’re both afraid. And I think we get each other in a way I never thought another human being could get me.
“I didn’t mean to lie to you in Hawaii,” I whisper.
He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
“We weren’t supposed to be here .”
“But we are.”
God, that gaze.
He looks at me, and I feel like I’m the center of his universe.
That’s how he looked at me in Hawaii too.
For one amazing night, I was his entire focus.
For one amazing night, I thought he was everything I could’ve ever wanted and nothing I deserved.
But now he’s here.
And I don’t want to leave.
I want to know more.
Not because I have to know everything, but because I want to know him .
I want to see the man I met in Hawaii again. I want that Grey back. The funny, self-deprecating, smiling Grey who wanted to do good with me.
“You keep doing good deeds for me,” he says.
“You keep making it easy.”
“I’m behind on my good-deed meter.”
“I imagine being Super Villain Man probably interferes with that.”
“It’s Super Vengeance Man .”
“Justice, huh?”
“I heard you crying earlier.”
I freeze.
Hard freeze.
Only Mom was supposed to hear that.
His gaze still doesn’t waver. “I will fucking destroy him.”
Café au lait, take me away.
I believe him.
And I want to see it .
“But does it have to be at the expense of my café?” I whisper.
When it comes to staring contests, I can win them in my sleep. But holding Grey’s gaze right now is the hardest thing in the world.
He’s wavering. I can feel it.
I don’t even know what Chandler did to him, but whatever it was, it was bad enough that this man who insisted on doing good deeds with me and to me for one incredibly, earth-shattering night is only wavering.
Not breaking.
The steely determination to destroy my cousin is undeniable.
It’s sexy as hell.
The door swings open and Zen strolls inside. “Haven’t stopped breathing? Damn. I wanted your comic book collection.”
Grey still doesn’t break eye contact. He’s managed to pet Jitter to the point that my dog has melted into his lap, and he’s still watching me.
“There has to be another way,” I say to him.
“Find it.”
Fuck .
Just fuck .
I don’t actually know what Chandler cares about.
A month ago, I would’ve said Emma , but since Hawaii, I don’t think he cared so much as he thought it meant he won . He got to marry the prom queen.
She’s not his anymore.
Losing Emma isn’t enough punishment or we wouldn’t be here.
So I need to figure out what would give Grey satisfaction.
And I don’t know .
And what does that say about me? And my relationship with my best friends, when I can’t even tell you what the man she was about to marry cares most about in the entire world?
“I’ll give you two weeks,” he adds.
“What’s going on here?” Zen asks. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I think I preferred the cheese incident.”
“Deal,” I reply to Grey.
Two weeks, I can work with.
One way or another.