Chapter Twenty-Four
Reid
Only things couldn’t possibly go that smoothly, because when I climbed out of the shower, my phone was full of messages from my cousin, begging me to cover him at the distillery for the afternoon because of a family emergency he’d tell me about when I got there.
Switching over to the text thread with Hazel, I fired off a message because I knew she’d freak out if she heard my motorcycle tearing out of the parking lot since I’d told her I’d be right back.
Reid: Jay was blowing up my phone when I got out of the shower. Have to head to the distillery to cover for him. Don’t you dare email that author. As soon as I’m done, we’re doing this.
Hazel: What’s going on? Anything I can help with?
Of course, she’d offer to help without knowing what was going on despite the current tension between us. Because that was just who she was. Hazel may have avoided putting herself into potentially stressful situations when she could, but if she thought someone needed help—even someone she was hesitant to trust—she was the first person to jump in without hesitation.
Reid: Don’t know details. All he told me was it’s a family emergency and that he needed to catch a flight to Wyoming. I’m assuming it has something to do with Tristan, but I really don’t know.
Hazel: Don’t worry about me. I’ll figure it out. Go help your family. They’re more important.
Reid: Hate to break it to you, Haz. But you’re family too. You are just as important.
Hazel: Even more reason for you to focus on your cousins and not me. Not sure family should be watching each other do…things.
Reid: Not getting out of this that easily. Send me that book and I’m coming for you as soon as I’m done.
Three little dots danced across the screen, but as another frantic text came through from Jay, I shoved my phone in my pocket, tucked my helmet underneath my arm, grabbed my leather riding gloves and headed for the door. Gray was doodling on the tablet we kept at the desk while he waited for his next appointment, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before he had a waiting list like the rest of the artists who worked here.
“Hey boss man, I thought you were doing paperwork all afternoon?”
He was right, I should be doing paperwork, because payroll waited for no man. But family was more important, and I could work on getting the numbers submitted to the spreadsheet remotely since I’d started using an outside accounting firm to do the business taxes instead of suffering through them alone.
When I’d been in Gray’s position, learning the skills I needed for the job instead of the business behind it, I didn’t know being a small business owner was in my future. It always looked easier from the outside looking in.
“Maybe I’ll start teaching you how to input the numbers for payroll, so I don’t have to do it anymore.”
“And maybe I’ll give myself a pay increase to offset the extra job duties you want to pile on me so you can go moon over your best friend’s little sister.” My footsteps halted, and I turned in his direction. I was met with a grin that told me he’d been setting me up and I had just walked right into it. “Don’t worry, I won’t spill your secrets, but my silence is going to cost you. ”
Narrowing my eyes, I tried to gauge his intentions, but he burst out laughing, holding up his hands.
“Not like in a blackmail kind of way. I meant maybe you’ll start giving me bigger pieces when they come in. I’m ready to do something other than spend my days piercing belly buttons for college girls.”
“You’ll get there. Give it time. But maybe you can mock something up for the client I had yesterday. I can already tell she’s going to be a frequent flyer and I don’t want to spend the next year turning her down.”
“So, there is something going on between you and Hazel?”
I didn’t want to lie to him, and things were still precarious because I had no idea how things at the reveal would go, but I had zero interest in messing around with clients anymore. Unless that client was the devastatingly beautiful illustrator from across the parking lot.
“No, not at the moment.”
“That wasn’t a flat out no,” he mused, raising an eyebrow. I knew he might give me shit about it, but he also wouldn’t say anything to Hudson.
“I’ll keep you updated if it changes anytime soon.”
“I kinda hope she gives you all kinds of shit and doesn’t take it easy on you.”
Grinning, I nodded at him before I pulled on my gloves, opening the door out into the frigid parking lot. “I hope she does, too.”
Because nothing worth truly having came from taking the easy route.
It was dark by the time I got home from the distillery, the lights in the shop were dimmed and only a handful of cars parked outside the bar next door. It wasn’t time for last call yet, but clearly people were waiting to come out to drink their sorrows away or find someone to hook up with until Valentine’s night.
The reveal party tomorrow was invitation only at the beginning of the evening, but the bar would open a few hours later to the public. I was sure the parking lot surrounding the bar would be packed tomorrow, along with all the spaces around my shop.
Holidays had a way of making people lonely or horny, but either way, it was good for business.
I’d spent the afternoon rearranging disgruntled clients, because my cousin Jayden was going to be out of town for longer than just a night. His older brother Tristan—who was a smoke jumper employed by the national forestry service—had been injured responding to a planned burn by the park service that had spread uncontrollably. He was apparently stable but in critical condition, so I was covering all the tours and tastings on the books for tomorrow.
With plans for his restaurant in the works for next year, Jay didn’t want to risk the negative feedback if he closed without notice. He was already under scrutiny from the chamber of commerce board since one member wasn’t a fan of him expanding his business without her son doing the architectural planning. Politics in a small town could be wild, but I was proud of him for bringing in a commercial architect to run the project for him. Even if it was one of his friends from college.
Reid: Are you still awake?
It was late, but I also knew Hazel didn’t exactly keep a regular sleep schedule. She never had. That was part of how our friendship had formed when she was still in high school. She’d sneak into the basement, where I often spent the night when I was back in town visiting. Quietly curling up into her favorite chair, she’d bury her face in a sketchbook until she drifted off.
After the first time she’d done it while I was there, I’d started keeping the door of the guest room open so I could go cover her with a blanket and save her sketches from being crumpled or smeared when she inevitably fell asleep on her work.
Each time, I’d tried to resist looking at what she’d been drawing, knowing sometimes a sketchbook was a very personal thing for an artist, but eventually I’d end up seated on the couch across from her, watching her sleep as I flipped through the pages. I’d been stunned each time as I took in the progression of her skills, and it still stunned me even when she shared her work with me to this day.
She didn’t know it, and I never told her, but sometimes when I was feeling unsure of myself as an apprentice in someone else’s shop with no formal artistic training, I drew inspiration from her determination and started sketching whenever I had free time.
They say practice makes perfect, and I could honestly say I wouldn’t be where I was in my career—running my own shop with a waiting list of clients—if it weren’t for a teenage girl with a sketchbook sneaking into a basement late at night to draw when her brain wouldn’t quiet enough to sleep. She’d saved me in ways I’d never told her about, and once she’d realized I was the one covering her up when she fell asleep after her nocturnal drawing sessions, she’d started trying to stay awake to talk to me.
We’d spent hours sitting across from each other talking while we sketched, and while it had been completely innocent—at least on my part—I could honestly say that it had stuck with me in a way spending time with someone of a different sex never had before then, and still hadn’t to this day.
My feelings for her hadn’t shifted until last summer, but once I realized that the skinny teen with wild red hair, braces and huge glasses had turned into one of the kindest and most beautiful humans I’d ever met, I couldn’t stop my feelings for her from developing.
Even when she fled the room whenever I stepped into it the last few years, I was still charmed by her from a distance, only now it was in a way that had me wanting to kiss her breathless .
It probably wasn’t healthy how much time I’d spent watching her from across a room, but I was tired of just watching from a distance now that I knew what it felt like to hold her in my arms.
Hazel: What do you think?
Reid: Someone must be feeling better if they’re resorting to sarcasm. I felt that eye roll through the phone.
Hazel: Quit pretending you know me.
Reid: Not pretending, kitten. I do know you. Gonna grab another shower and then I’ll be headed over.
Hazel: Wasn’t aware working in the tasting room required a shower afterward. Women throwing drinks at you instead of panties today?
Reid: Considering today was filled with lovers-themed couples’ tours, no panties were thrown. At least not at me. And I don’t smell like alcohol. I smell like mash. Not sure if you’ve ever smelled it, but fermented Barley isn’t a stink I want to share.
Hazel: There are stinks you want to share? Doesn’t being stinky make you want to not share it by nature?
Reid: Are you going to continue busting my balls or are you going to let me shower now so I can come put on a show for you?
Hazel: It’s not for me. It’s for my client.
Reid: You planning to film it and share? Not that I’m opposed to a little exhibitionism, but an introduction would be nice first.
Hazel: Maybe Gray accusing you of having an Only Fans wasn’t far off the mark .
Knowing I shouldn’t be sending it, I grinned as I typed out my response, locking the screen and leaving my phone on the counter while I stripped down so I could get the sickly sweet smell that had clung to me all afternoon off my skin.
Reid: There’s only one subscriber I want to watch that kind of private show. And I’m sure she’s currently trying to figure out if that comment was aimed at her. Yes, Hazel, it was. You’re the only person I’m interested in putting on a show for.
Unsurprisingly, she hadn’t responded by the time I was dressed again.
After badgering her via text this afternoon, she’d reluctantly sent me the title of the book. Despite refusing to tell me what part of the book the sketch was based on, it hadn’t taken long to find it. I’d skimmed through the eBook on my phone between tours and tastings, grinning as a plan formed in my head to get a little audience participation, like the hero in the book had from his mafia rival’s daughter.
It wasn’t playing nice, and I was sure she’d kill me come tomorrow, but if this was the last night I got to spend with her, I was going to make it one to remember.
Deciding not to bother with a tie, I buttoned my jacket, stepping into my dressier black leather boots.
Snowflakes drifted aimlessly through the air, giving the almost deserted parking lot an ethereal quality, but I was only focused on getting into the second-floor apartment without alerting the remaining patrons of the bar of my presence.
Hudson’s car was absent from the back of the parking lot, which made things infinitely easier. I wasn’t sure who was closing tonight since Hazel had the night off, but I really didn’t care as I let myself in the back door and locked it behind me before I silently ascended the staircase.
Having spent enough time here when Hudson lived in the apartment, I knew exactly which steps to avoid keeping Hazel unaware of my presence .
But I didn’t want to just let myself in like I had before when she’d been futilely trying to avoid me. She knew I was coming this time, so I was sure there was a lot of overthinking going on in there, not sneaky porn viewing.
Flexing my fingers and exhaling a rough breath, I knocked on the door, immediately getting into position with my hand braced against the top of the frame for the maximum effect of my willingness to drop into character for her. Despite her likely thinking differently, I was enjoying our role play sessions immensely.
“Gimme a second, I…” The door opened inward, and I grinned as Hazel’s eyes widened, her eyes slowly drifting down the buttons on the dress shirt I’d put on.
“Good evening, little one.” I greeted in a low voice, trying to embody the character I was playing.
“I…”
“Cat got your tongue?”
Hazel stepped to the side, using her hand to yank me through the doorway. She pushed me behind her while she stuck her head into the stairwell, clearly trying to figure out if anyone had seen me coming up to her apartment dressed in a suit. “What the hell are you doing? Did anyone see you like this?”
“I came in the back door,” I whispered, placing my palm between her shoulder blades and ghosting my hand down her soft sweater and tapping her butt suggestively.
“Yeah, don’t get any ideas,” she hissed, quietly closing the door and flattening herself against it.
“It’s cute you think I haven’t already concocted an entire fantasy in my head about it already.”
“What the fuck, Reid?” Her voice was a low growl, and I tried not to laugh as she narrowed her eyes at me. “If you’re just here to fuck with me all night, you can go back home.”
“That’s another fantasy, kitten. But no. I’m here because Giovanni can’t resist his rival’s beautiful daughter, Serafina, anymore, and has come to collect on a little bet he made with her. ”
“Oh no,” she whispered, ducking underneath my arm and escaping further into the apartment. “That’s not what’s going on tonight. This is about me getting a picture I can use to finish this drawing so I can get it rendered before I need to send it tomorrow, not about reenacting whatever you read this afternoon.”
“Come on, Haz. Where’s my brave girl who shoved an earbud at me and straddled me on my bike to drop into character for a commission? Be brave with me.”
“If you hadn’t noticed, that’s the problem between us, Reid.”
Frowning, I followed her toward the hallway where she was trying to escape, slipping an arm around her waist and pulling her back into my chest before she could avoid answering my question. “What’s the problem?”
Her body trembled against me, and I fought the urge to spin her around and wrap my arms around her for protection against whatever was bothering her. But when you’re the source of the apparent problem, that only makes things worse.
“I’m not brave,” she whispered, pushing out of my arms and slipping into her bedroom, the door closing in my face.
“Yes, you are,” I responded, loud enough she could hear it through the door, but when her answering whisper carried back to me without a problem, I knew she heard me.
“Not with you.”