32. Delia
The two weeks following Thanksgiving came and went in a flash, though I knew exactly where all that time went. I spent every waking moment at the distillery, getting everything ready for the big day.
Suddenly, it was three days before our soft opening party, of which my mother had taken the reins and turned it into something far more upscale than the chips and dip I’d planned on.
Though Owen seemed at peace with the fact that no one from his family would be here to celebrate with us, I simply couldn’t let it go.
Which is how I found myself on the phone Wednesday morning, waiting for the call to his mother to connect. It was a rare day when Owen and I hadn’t lingered in bed. He’d run into the city to take care of his woefully neglected businesses there after a stern phone call from Hugo, and I needed to edit and upload some content for various businesses in town. I used it as my opportunity to hopefully pull together this surprise for him .
My hands were sweating so badly I could barely keep my grip on my phone, so I pulled it from my ear, tapped the speaker button, and set it on the counter.
“Hello?”
“H-hi,” I said shakily. “Is this Mrs. Lawless?”
The woman chuckled. “Yes, this is Brigid. Who am I speaking with?”
“Oh, this is Delia Delatou, ma’am,” I said quickly. “I’m Owen’s…”
I trailed off, unsure how to label myself. I mean, he and I had settled on the standard boyfriend/girlfriend labels, but I had no idea if he’d told his mother about us.
“His girlfriend,” she breathed, and I sighed in relief. “Oh my, it’s so wonderful to hear from you, Delia. I’ve heard so much about you from Owen. And in that case, you can call me Birdie.”
“All good things I hope,” I said with a nervous laugh.
“The best,” she assured me. “He’s been talking about you nonstop for months.”
I perked up at that, wanting his mom to spill all the tea. “Months, you say?”
“He’s really enjoyed working with you,” Birdie said. “Though it was easy enough to tell when things changed for him. The way he spoke about you shifted from the respect of a business partner to the romantic kind of admiration.”
“When was that?” I asked, unable to help myself.
For me, that moment had happened that night in his office, when he first told me his father was gone, and I witnessed the absolute pain and devastation on his face. Though he’d tried so hard to keep it locked up and hidden from me, those kinds of raw emotional wounds weren’t so easy to pack away, and it had been plainly written on every line of his body.
A fierce desire to protect him surged within me that night, and even though we hadn’t gotten together for another month after that, I somehow knew we’d always end up here—even when I was fighting it, even when I’d thought it was the worst damn idea either of us had ever had.
“Oh, sometime in early October,” Birdie said. “He called to tell me about that asshat that had caused a scene at the club, and told me how you were there. I guess being his mother, I just knew things were changing between you.”
The same damn night.
“I know the one,” I said. “I guess we both felt the shift that night.”
I sniffled, tears burning my nose with this new knowledge, and she allowed me a moment of silence to collect myself.
“For what it’s worth, I’ve never seen him like this. Sure, Owen has always been a caretaker, especially after his dad died. He took it upon himself to keep us from ruin that first year while we were all still figuring out life without him. But even before then, he’d spent his whole life acting as a third parent to his siblings. So it’s nice that, with you, he’s finally doing something for himself.”
The tears fell freely now.
“He’s the most amazing man I’ve ever met,” I said, my words watery. “You raised him well.”
“Thank you, honey,” Birdie said. “He’s lucky to have you.”
“Nah,” I told her. “I’m the lucky one.”
Then again, I supposed we’d both lucked out to have found each other, to have this connection I’d never had with anyone else before. To feel like I’d finally found my other half, and to have Owen reassure me at every opportunity that he felt the same.
Owen had become a safe harbor, a soft place to land when I hadn’t been looking for one or knew I needed it.
“So to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?” Birdie asked, drawing me out of my thoughts.
“Oh!” I said, remembering myself. “As you know, we’re opening the distillery next week. He doesn’t say it much, but he misses you guys, and I know it would mean a lot to him to have you here. He told me he asked and you all can’t get away from work and whatnot, but I’m wondering if there’s any way I can persuade you? I know it’s short notice, so I understand if it’s just not possible but—”
“Delia,” Birdie cut me off. “He never asked us to come.”
All the air in my lungs left in a whoosh.
“That little shit.”
Birdie barked out a laugh, and in the background, I heard a deep male voice ask, “What’s so funny, Mama?”
“Delia, do you mind if I put you on speaker?”
“Not at all.”
A moment later, the line crackled with more sound, and Birdie said, “Say hello to Owen’s girlfriend, Finn.”
Finn . He had so many brothers it took me a moment to place which one he was. Quickly, I came to the realization that he was the tamer of the twins.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I replied a bit awkwardly. “I’m Delia.”
“Nice to meet you, Delia. Now what exactly did you say to make my mom laugh like that? ”
“I called your brother a little shit.”
Finn snorted. “What’d he do this time?”
“Apparently, he told his girl that he invited us out to the opening of their distillery and we couldn’t make it.”
“What the fuck, I never got an invite!” Finn protested.
“Language,” Birdie chastised, seemingly automatically. Knowing her eldest as well as I did, I had a feeling attempting to tame the filthy mouths of her boys was a losing battle.
“Sorry,” Finn mumbled.
“We’re going to need more details, Delia,” Birdie told me.
So I quickly filled them in on the soft opening we were having on Saturday. How my entire family would be there, including my four sisters, a fact that greatly interested both Brigid and Finn, though for different reasons.
I didn’t have the heart to tell Finn three of them were in deeply committed relationships, two of whom were pregnant.
“I’ll pay for your flights and other transportation,” I told them. “Whatever you need.”
Birdie chuckled. “That won’t be necessary, dear girl. We can get ourselves there just fine. You just tell us where to be and when.”
I gave her the address of my parents’ house, thinking it would be a good idea for them to convene there and come to the distillery together. If you were unfamiliar with the peninsula, it could be a little difficult to navigate, and the last thing I needed was Owen’s family getting lost in the wilderness.
“Are you all going to be able to come then?” I asked hopefully.
“I’ll make sure every one of my children gets on that plane, even if I have to physically carry them on it myself. ”
I smiled widely. “He’s going to be so excited.”
“After he gets mad at you for keeping this from him,” Finn said with a laugh.
“You let me worry about your brother.”
Up to that point, I’d given Owen strict instructions that he wasn’t allowed to come see the inside of the distillery until I was fully finished staging and decorating, and I finally gave him the green light on Thursday evening. The next day, our bartenders would come in for a full day of training, led by none other than Liam Danvers. I always forgot he was a talented mixologist, and when he’d asked me in passing a few months ago if there was anything he could do to help, Owen and I jumped at the chance to get him involved.
First by managing the distilling operation, and now, in taking responsibility for each of the cocktail recipes we’d be offering.
So before we headed to have dinner at Granny’s that night, we drove up to the distillery.
“You ready for this?” I asked, unbuckling my seatbelt and preparing to exit his truck.
“As I’ll ever be,” he said with a sigh as he followed me out, and I was chuckling as I met him around the front.
We threaded our fingers together, but before I could tug him to the doors, he stopped me, turning me to face him.
“There’s something I haven’t told you.”
“Okay...” I said slowly.
“This whole exterior facade? It looks exactly like the house I grew up in.”
“I…what?” I asked dumbly. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”
He shrugged, bringing our linked hands to his chest. “I guess I was afraid of what it might mean. That you had unintentionally created something so precious to me.”
“And now?”
“And now…I can’t help thinking my dad sent you to me, that he’s responsible for all of this.” He swept his arm out at the distillery, then gestured between us. “He would’ve loved you so much,” he said, his words so low they were nearly carried away by the wind before they reached my ears. “I know I’ve told you that before but…he loved Aria so much. He loved us boys too, but there’s something different about that father-daughter relationship, you know?” I nodded, extremely familiar with the phenomenon. “And he would’ve loved having another daughter. He couldn’t wait for the day me and my brothers started getting married. Always said once one of us found the one, the rest would fall like dominoes.” He chuckled softly, shaking his head. “I guess we’ll see, though I have trouble imagining West ever settling down.”
“I wish I had the opportunity to meet him,” I said, slipping my free hand around the back of his neck, lightly scraping my nails against the hair at his nape in the way I knew tended to ground him when stress or grief gripped him. I shifted our joined hands over his heart, feeling its steady, reassuring thump right down to my bones. “But he’s right here. And I get to learn about him through you, and your brothers, sister, and mom when I eventually get to meet them. He’s still with us, and when we visit his grave, I’m going to thank him.”
“For what?”
“For you,” I said, scoffing like he didn’t already know that. “And for us.”
His shoulders drooped several inches as he relaxed, exhaling on a slow breath. I rose onto my tiptoes and captured his lips with mine. He fisted his free hand in my coat and hauled me into his body as his tongue slipped along the seam of my mouth.
I’d never tire of kissing the man, of being wrapped in his arms as he devoured me. As he poured every bit of love and longing into the places where we connected. I loved the way he nibbled at my bottom lip, gently trapping it between his teeth and pulling it when he retreated. I loved how rapidly his pulse thrummed when I swept my fingers up the column of his neck and into his hair.
And fuck, I loved the way his massive palm spanned the front of mine, exerting slight pressure on my windpipe and cupping my chin, holding me exactly where he wanted.
I especially loved it when he did that in bed while he pounded into me.
With that thought, I broke away from him with a gasp.
“That’s not what we came here for,” I reminded him, attempting to marshal my breathing.
“That’s always what I come for,” Owen replied, though he yielded a step and pulled me toward the door of the distillery at last.
“If you hate it…too fucking bad,” I told him as we stepped inside, suddenly nervous that he would hate it and break up with me because I’d ruined it .
The main wall of the foyer was decorated with a large tin sign, painted white and distressed to allow some of the metal to show through. Emblazoned across its length was our brand name in a rustic, Old Western font.
“That was designed by an artist in Detroit,” I told him. “And I paid a pretty penny to have it expedited so we’d have it in time for this weekend.”
Owen glanced down at me, a brow raised. “Do I want to know?”
“Nope,” I said brightly, leading him deeper into the building. Past the foyer—which our gift shop and bathrooms branched off—the space opened up onto the main entertainment area. Our bar dominated almost the entirety of the far wall, the bottom half constructed of matte black posts and corrugated steel sheets, the top a highly polished bird’s eye maple. A massive mirror hung in the center of the wall itself, lined with glass shelves that held our branded bottles as well as an assortment of bronze, glass, and wooden trinkets. The POS system was hidden in an alcove off to the side so as to not ruin the line of sight.
The contrast of textures and materials was one of my favorite parts of the whole design scheme, and it continued into the seating arrangements.
At the bar were metal and wood stools, the seats deep brown tufted leather. And, heavily influenced by the place we’d gone in New York, I’d taken a bit of a chance for the armchairs and couches, the deep pine fabric dotting the spots between more bird’s eye maple tables with chairs that matched the bar stools.
“Green?” Owen asked when he laid eyes on them.
“Green,” I confirmed. “I thought they provided a nice contrast to all the more natural elements and colors while staying cohesive.”
Personally, I loved the way the deep green leather, the rolled arms studded with brass buttons, popped against the rest of the furniture. Still, I held my breath as Owen turned in a slow circle, surveying everything.
“You hate it, don’t you?” I asked, unable to stand it any longer.
At last, he faced me, his face softening. “Hate it? Whiskey, it’s…perfect. Masculine and rustic but warm and welcoming.” He scooped me up in his arms and spun me in a circle. I couldn’t help the yelp of surprise that left me, though it quickly morphed into happy laughter. “It’s exactly what you promised.”
“So you don’t hate it?” I confirmed when he returned me to my feet.
“I fucking love it,” he said, eyes suddenly sparkling with mischief. “And I love you.” He stepped toward me, and I retreated, my lower back connecting with the arm of one of the couches. “In fact, why don’t you let me show you how much?”
Already, his hands were dropping to the fly of my jeans, and though I opened my mouth to protest, to make it clear we couldn’t do that here, I quickly snapped it shut.
After all, the building was ours, and if my man wanted to give me an orgasm to christen the space, then who was I to deny him?