Chapter 10
GINNY
New Year’s Eve
Everett: Happy New Year.
Ginny: You’re an hour early.
Everett: It’s the new year on the East Coast, and I wanted to be the first to say it.
Everett: I also just got home from a party and I’ve been thinking of you all night. And in another hour you’re going to tell me that it’s inappropriate to tell you that I wish you were here so I could kiss you.
Everett: Or I wish I was there to kiss you. Because I bet the party in Sapphire Falls is a lot more fun than the one I was at.
I decide not to comment on that being appropriate or not. It probably won’t be, but I love that he’s thinking of me. And dammit, I wish he was here to kiss me too.
I also love that he wants to be here because Sapphire Falls would be more fun than a Denver party.
But I stupidly reply, Don’t kiss anyone else.
It’s probably the spiked punch I’m drinking. I’m going to blame it on that anyway.
I have absolutely zero right to tell him not to kiss anyone else. If he said it to me, I’d…
Probably get tingles, smile, and then say something flirty and teasing.
I wouldn’t be offended. I would find it possessive and hot, and it would further prove that I’m being really stupid about this guy who I shouldn’t be feeling anything for other than maybe mild admiration.
Can’t even imagine that is his reply a moment later.
Hell, I get tingles just from that.
Then he adds: I’d like it very much if you didn’t even smile at anyone else. You’re really fucking gorgeous when you smile.
Yep, tingles. I knew it.
Then he adds, You’re also really fucking gorgeous when you come for me.
Oh, dammit. I squeeze my thighs together. Right there on a stool in the middle of the very crowded Come Again bar.
No pun intended.
I start to type, but another message arrives before I even get You’re typed in.
If you were here with me, I’d have you spread out on my bed and would time your orgasm with the last chime at midnight so the first thing you do in the new year is scream my name.
What the hell am I supposed to do about this guy?
I can picture that vividly. I don’t need to know a single detail about his bedroom to have a very graphic image in my head because I know that if I were there, I wouldn’t be focused on anything other than this man anyway.
I swallow and type in, DEFINITELY don’t do that with anyone else.
Everett: Absolutely not.
I was so disappointed that he had to leave on December twenty-seventh and that he didn’t say when he would be back.
We’d spent the holiday out in the town, with my family, doing all the classic Christmas things. There were more board games, lots of food, Christmas movies, gift exchange, caroling, and more time down at the Come Again with old friends.
We did have more late-night time in the kitchen, too, but Jefferson, Harlow, Carver, and Kaelyn all slept over on Christmas Eve, which was for the best. No more buttercream on body parts.
But we’d had fun. A lot of fun. He’d fit right in and had seemed so happy.
I’d loved that.
And he and Graham and Carver and my dad are so excited about Jack Bennett’s interest and the interest of Sofia’s father in New Mexico that I’m almost not as jealous of the gorgeous woman who Everett will see sometime next week according to the company calendar.
I don’t text him to not kiss anyone else next week either, but I want to.
Everett: I was at a party where I saw a couple of investors.
And I also wished you were here to talk to them about IES.
Because you’re amazing at that. Plus then I could have kissed you at midnight.
Because one, I wouldn’t be your boss yet and B.
you have to kiss someone at midnight so it’s not an HR problem or anything.
I laugh as I read his message. One and B? This doesn’t sound like the usual put-together Everett Clark.
Everett: And now I’ve eaten the last of the Christmas cookies your mom sent home with me and that sucks. Did you know she doesn’t have mail-order options?
I start to type that yes, I do know that when another message comes in.
Everett: I want her to just send me some frosting even. But I can’t ask her for that b/c she’ll want to know why and I can’t tell her that I lick it off the cookies and think about her daughter’s nipples and jerk off.
My eyes widen and I look around to ensure no one is reading over my shoulder.
This is definitely not the usual Everett.
Ginny: Are you drunk?
Everett: Yes.
I giggle.
Everett: Will you call me and have phone sex with me? We have about fifty-one minutes until I’m your boss.
Everett: I won’t fire you if you say no.
Everett: Or if you say yes.
Oh my God.
He’s funny when he’s drunk.
And I’d kind of like to talk to him when he’s drunk. I bet he’s cute.
And I wouldn’t mind having phone sex with him at all.
Which is a problem.
Ginny: I can’t. I’m at the Come Again.
Everett: Don’t say ‘come’.
I laugh.
“That’s better!” Harlow climbs up on the stool at the table I’m occupying alone for the time being.
“What’s better?” I ask.
“You’re finally smiling! You’re supposed to be happy on New Year’s Eve!”
“I’m happy,” I assure her. I even pick up my half-full glass of New Year’s punch and lift it in a toast. “Here’s to a kick ass new year!”
She laughs and clicks her glass against mine. “You’ve been moping tonight.”
“I have?” Dammit. I don’t want to be mopey about Everett. I haven’t even started working at the job that’s going to have me interacting regularly with the guy I want but can’t have.
If I’m going to have a little crush on Everett—and I am determined to keep it little—then I need to enjoy the times he’s here but not think about him all the damned time he’s not.
“You have. You need to get on the dance floor, have another couple of drinks, and find someone to kiss at midnight,” she says.
I love Harlow. She’s been one of my best friends since I was a kid. I don’t even feel that weird about her dating my brother, Jefferson. Okay, they’re more than dating. They’re going to get married, and she’s going to be my sister and give me nieces and nephews, and I love that.
So I decide to confide in her.
“I don’t want to kiss anyone. Or dance with anyone,” I say. “Well, not anyone who’s here.”
She looks at me for a couple of seconds, then asks, “Everett?”
I sigh and nod. “Yeah.”
Harlow lifts a hand and waves at someone.
Within seconds, Sloan and Margot are at the table too.
“What’s up?” Sloan asks, sliding onto a stool.
She’s wearing a gorgeous long-sleeved black wrap dress that hits her just above the knee, showing off her toned, trim runner's body. I’m reminded for the four-thousandth time that if she weren’t such a sweetheart, and I hadn’t known her all my life, I’d probably hate her just for how effortlessly gorgeous she is.
But she is a sweetheart. Everyone likes Sloan. She’s impossible not to like.
And there was no way she wasn’t going to be gorgeous.
Her mom, Hailey, is a bombshell blonde. She’s in charge of, well, the entire town. She was the mayor for a long time, and even though TJ Bennett now gets written in even when he doesn’t officially run, Hailey is his Chief of Staff and is more or less in charge.
Sloan’s dad, Ty, was an Olympic silver medal triathlete back in the day, and even though all of the Bennett boys are good-looking, he’s magazine-cover good-looking. Even now, in his early fifties. Maybe even more so now.
Sloan got not only her good looks from her parents but also an unfairly fast metabolism and lots of charm and charisma.
“Ginny was just about to tell me how she’s falling in love with Everett. I didn’t think you’d want to miss it,” Harlow says.
I open my mouth to protest, then catch Margot’s eye.
She’s giving me a knowing grin.
Fine. These women are my friends. And it would feel good to talk about this.
I’ve been denying my feelings to myself and Everett, and it’s definitely not helping them go away.
Maybe talking it out will help. Because I have good reasons for avoiding this relationship, and I’m sure these three women who know me very well and are incredibly intelligent will validate me.
“Love might be a little bit of an exaggeration,” I say. “But I really like him. I definitely have some feelings. And it’s really complicated. I’m trying to remember all the reasons that I shouldn’t pursue this. But he’s making it really difficult.”
Margot leans onto the table and props her chin on her hand.
Sloan lifts her glass to her lips and sips daintily from the straw. “Tell me everything,” she says.
“It’s really simple,” I say. “Everett is my boss. Or he’s going to be anyway. I can’t get involved with another coworker. Especially a superior.”
“But you want to,” Sloan says.
I sigh. “Yeah.”
“When will he be your boss?”
“In less than an hour.” I sigh. “Which is a technicality. I’ve already been working for them. With them. I talked to Jack Bennett about working with Everett and Graham’s company just before Christmas.”
I notice how Sloan perks up a little. “What does their company have to do with Jack?” she asks.
“Jack is taking on more and more of the responsibility with the farm,” I say.
She nods. “I heard that. Mom said Delaney said it’s been really good for him. He’s working a lot, but it seems to have given him some purpose outside of worrying about the girls.”
Sloan’s dad, Ty, and Jack’s dad, Tucker, are brothers. I guess that makes Sloan and Jack cousins. Kind of. Though not really. Jack is actually Delaney’s nephew. Delaney and Tucker adopted Jack and his brothers after their parents died.
“Do you ever talk to Jack?” I ask her. “Are you guys close at all?”
She shakes her head. “No, not really. I’ve run into him a couple of times since he’s moved back, but none of us younger kids were close to those boys. They were so much older than all of us.”
“How much older is Jack?” I try to figure it out. But Jack and his brothers, Henry, Charlie, and David, are a lot older than all of us and I’ve never really thought about it.