2. Chapter 2
Graham peered through the crust of too many bourbons at the fan churning hot air on the bedroom ceiling. What time was it? What day? And why did I drink so much last night?
Dad. Right.
Every morning Graham ripped the bandage off the fresh, festering wound of his father’s death he managed to forget while sleeping.
Since January, the diagnosis that spelled the end of his old man chased him through his waking hours.
From sitting at red lights or behind his desk at work, to pouring his nightly drinks and the seconds before lighting a joint, prostate cancer haunted him like a ghost that wouldn’t stay in the ground.
His dad was never sick a day in his life until he was so sick it killed him.
A wave of nausea rolled over him with a whiff of car exhaust from the street below the open window.
Good bourbon didn’t usually make him this sick, and he’d been slowly—or not so slowly—working his way through his dad’s private stash.
Graham slapped his palm on the bedside table and felt around for his cell phone.
Squinting at the screen he saw it was early in the day, but they were already running late, and he didn’t have any text messages from his brother or… anyone else.
“Fuck.”
Something squeezed in his chest. The same something had been locking his heart in a vise for months. He rubbed his eyes, his fingers coming away wet.
With grief already scratching at the back of his pickled throat, he set the phone down and turned to Lindsey, whose damp brown waves spilled across her pillow.
She hadn’t spent a night in her own apartment since Graham buried his old man two weeks ago, and she was good at helping him forget how nothing in his life was right anymore, except when she was the thing that felt wrong.
He pushed through the feeling that made it hard to look at her unless she was naked and slid his hand down Lindsey’s waist to the bottom edge of her nightdress, pulling it up.
She stirred and shook off his hand.
“It’s too hot.”
He scooted across the sheet and pushed his erection into her back. “I need you.”
“Graham,” she murmured, lacing their fingers together to stop him from reaching between her legs.
“Come on, Linds.” He kissed the sweat off her neck. “This might be the last time we’re alone for a while.”
“Pretty sure we don’t have to share hotel rooms with your brother,” she said.
Lindsey let go of his hand and fumbled for her phone on the floor beside the bed.
“We’re late,” she gasped. “I thought you set an alarm.”
“Didn’t it go off?”
Graham actually had not set an alarm. If Jase didn’t need to attend their father’s funeral, Graham didn’t need to be on time for their father’s trip.
She climbed out from under his arm and shuffled around for her clothes. “I have to meet Whitlock in half an hour.”
He sat up. “What? Why?”
“No idea. He just said I had to come alone.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“He called last night after you passed out.”
“I didn’t pass out,” he said, though it was probably exactly what he’d done—had been doing for weeks.
She collected what she needed from around the room and headed for the hallway. “I’ll meet you at Jase’s, okay? Text me the address?”
“Come back to bed,” Graham practically begged. He wasn’t accustomed to working this hard. Did she forget he was grieving? “I’ll be so quick.”
“You’re never quick.”
She hadn’t used that tone in a while, and it was as irritating as the click of the lock meant to keep him out of his own bathroom.
He fell back on his pillow with a discontented sigh. Why did the crotchety old lawyer, his dad’s longtime friend, want to meet Lindsey alone?
And what would he tell her?
Graham heard the shower turn on and needed something to grip—if not Lindsey’s body, then a set of dumbbells, both of which had gotten him through the last few months.
Without access to either, Graham thumbed a quick—probably expensive—text to Whitlock, re-lit last night’s unfinished joint, and reached for the lotion under his bed to take matters into his own hand.