Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
Colt
If the line between Rowan and I was a little unclear before, it’s become so blurred now that it no longer exists.
I invited her to stay in my bed last night – it didn’t feel right to take her virginity and leave her to sleep alone – and waking up with her in my arms this morning brought a warmth to my chest that I haven’t felt in years.
It’s not often that I spend the night with a woman after sleeping with her, and on the rare occasion that I do, I almost always find a way to get out of there before there’s time to have any morning conversation or talk of a second date.
I’ve been lucky to only have been wrangled into one or two next-day breakfasts.
I spend at least twenty minutes just watching Rowan sleep, stroking her hair as she takes the softest little breaths. She looks smaller than usual, and so peaceful, it seems almost impossible after the shitty hand of cards she’s been dealt.
Her alarm waking her up and dragging her away from that peace almost feels like an act of violence, and she’s annoyed by it until she turns toward me. A soft smile washes over her and she leans forward to nuzzle her face into the crook of my neck.
“Hi,” she says, her voice muffled.
“Hi,” I laugh, then press a kiss to her head. “You feel okay?”
“I’m good, promise.” She pulls her phone toward her to check the time, then throws her head back with a sigh and starts to climb out of the bed. “Want waffles?”
I want more of you.
“Sure,” I say instead.
I watch as she walks to my dresser, naked and so fucking perfect. She digs through my drawers like she owns them and pulls out a t-shirt and a pair of boxers.
Looking over her shoulder as she presses the shirt to the front of her, she orders, “Don’t look!”
I let out a laugh and pretend to look away, but I just can’t. The way she looks slipping into my clothes is enough to drive me crazy. I could keep her in my bed all goddamn day, tasting her, touching her, fucking her.
We eat more slowly than usual, each of us throwing the other and occasional glance or smirk, hoping Macie won’t pick up on anything or ask any questions, like ‘why are you wearing Mr. Colt’s clothes?’ Or ‘why didn’t you come out of your own room for breakfast?’
Kids are smart, this one especially so. I worry that if questions were raised about my relationship with her sister, that would probably fall under the category of things ‘getting weird,’ and they’d have to pack up their things and leave.
After breakfast, I clean up while Rowan drops her sister off at school, then take a quick shower and head to the office, which is a shitshow, waiting for me in full swing when I walk in the doors; the remnants of the other day still needing sorted.
Even Davis is on high alert and raising his voice, which tells me that something has gone very, very wrong somewhere.
I spend the next five hours making phone calls, sending emails, shouting at people who need to be shouted at, and generally cleaning up the mess that did not need to turn into the catastrophe that it almost became.
Because of the mess, I’m forced to fire the three employees responsible.
I don’t like firing people, and when I can, I find a workaround to it; changing their position, restricting their access to certain areas of the company, but this security breach could have been disastrous and should never have happened, so they have to leave.
It’s nearly eight when I start locking down the building, Davis not far behind me, and all of the employees gone for the night.
A hand claps me on the shoulder and Davis appears at my side, announcing, “Drinks tonight. What a fuckin’ day, man.”
“Meet you there,” I tell him.
·
Dive bars aren’t usually my thing, but Davis and I have been coming to this one since he was nineteen – I was plenty old enough, but we liked it here because the bartenders never checked ID and the pour was always heavy even though the drinks were cheap.
It’s a dirty, run down little bar with chipped wood furnishings and a slight reek of mildew lingering in the air, regardless of the amount of air freshener the owner sprays.
My feet crunch on discarded peanut shells and shards of pretzel with almost every step, and parts of the carpet are peeled up, but it’s still a welcoming place, flaws or otherwise. I don’t think I’d enjoy it nearly as much if it was cleaner. The grime gives it character.
We take our usual seats at a booth near the back, next to a pool table and a busted pinball machine that hasn’t worked since two thousand fourteen. I don’t know why the owners never bothered with fixing it or even just dumping the thing out back with the trash.
“Hey!” Our server calls as she approaches the table, smacking me on the chest. “Colt Fowler, I haven’t seen you in ages! How’ve you been?”
I offer her a smile and answer, “Doing well, Lynn. How are the kids?”
“Spoiled and rotten, like always,” she laughs. “Get you boys the usual?”
“I’ll do a whiskey sour, actually,” Davis tells her.
“Just Johnnie for me.”
She nods and heads off to the bar, returning just a few minutes later with our drinks, and we each take a long sip from our glasses.
“She’s right,” Davis says. “You haven’t been here in a long-ass time.”
“Haven’t been drinking much, lately,” I tell him.
Huh. Now that I think of it, aside from that singular glass of whiskey, I haven’t touched the stuff since the first time I saw Rowan’s dad’s truck in their lawn.
She hadn’t said anything about it yet, but I knew he’d been drunk.
It was written all over her face and in the way her body language shifted.
I knew then that it happened often, maybe even on a nightly basis, and I guess that shifted something in me, too.
“Well, you’re drinking tonight,” he commands, gesturing with his glass. “At least until I leave you here for some hot blonde that walks in.”
“When have you ever left here with a woman?” I snort into my drink.
“Well I’ll be damned. First, you go from the grumpiest bastard I ever saw to damn near chipper, then you only raise your voice like, ten decibels today, and now you’re laughing?” Quirking up a brow at me he says, “You filled your prescription, you old bastard.”
“I did what?”
“Doctor’s orders!” He reminds me. “You finally got some pussy.”
I know that he doesn’t know about Rowan and I, but Jesus, thinking about him reducing her to ‘some pussy’ makes me want to throttle him right here and right now. Best friend or not.
He clinks his glass against mine in a toast and I tell him, “It’s not like that.”
“Bullshit it’s not. I want details.”
I could probably tell him the truth. Eric Davis has done more questionable shit in his life than I could count on my fingers.
And toes. But he’s also a talker, and no one needs to be talking about this thing between us until we know what the fuck this thing even is.
Why let a good thing get ruined before it really starts?
“You’re not getting shit,” I laugh.
“If you tell me, I’ll tell you about my night with that little clerk. You know, with the black hair and all the ass?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Isn’t she— my assistant’s age?”
“Yeah, probably. I didn’t exactly ask for a bio.”
“Jesus, Davis.”
Lynn brings us our second, third, fourth round of drinks, under clear instruction from Davis to ‘keep them coming, darlin’,’ and I start to feel a little buzz.
When I try to cut myself off, Davis makes sure to dramatically remind me that we own the company and can’t get into trouble if we show up late or hungover, then orders me another – stronger – drink.
Rounds five, six, and seven come in rapid succession, and by the time I’m finished with my last drink, I’m damn near seeing double.
I hold out my open hand across the table, dropping it onto the chipped wood with a thud. “Keys,” I demand.
Like always, Davis hands over his car keys without argument, and I stuff them into my jacket pocket for safe keeping before pulling out my phone to order the two of us a ride.
As we stand from the table, my balance falters, and I realize I’m a lot more drunk than I thought I was. Rowan’s face flashes through my mind – sad, angry, and disappointed – when she looked at her father’s car on that driveway, and I feel like a complete asshole.
“Fuck,” I whisper to myself.
Davis wraps an arm around my shoulder as we walk out to the parking lot, shouting, “Now that’s how you do fuckin’ happy hour, Fowler!”
“Huh?”
Waving down the car driving across the lot, he tells me, “Going to yours, old rat bastard.”
“Yeah, sure,” I say absently.
I’m not paying attention to anything he says.
I’m too laser-focused on Rowan and the likelihood of her being disappointed – or even hurt – that I’m this goddamn drunk.
If she’s awake when I walk into that house, I’m going to break her heart.
Just another man in her life she’ll feel like she can’t rely on, and I was already on shaky ground in that regard.
I shouldn’t care about letting her down; at the end of the day, I’m still her boss, and way too goddamn old for her. I shouldn’t care. But I do.
It isn’t until we stumble through the front door and Davis throws me a quick salute before toddling his way toward what used to be ‘his room,’ that I snap out of my own thoughts and realize that he’s about to walk right into Rowan’s room.
“Shit, wait!” I shout a whisper after him and sloppily jog to catch up as he turns the handle on the doorknob.
He turns slowly toward me, his face pinched together, and points toward the open room.
“Why am I looking at your assistant’s ass?”
I lean my head past him, just a bit, and sure enough – Rowan is on her stomach, one knee hiked up with her bedding bunched toward the foot of the bed.