Chapter 25 #2
“Anyone want another beer?” he asked, then headed in the back to the tiny kitchenette.
He remembered the days when Grayson’s refrigerator had been empty, save a six pack and some questionable takeout remains, but now it was packed with Tupperware from Summer’s bakery: neat stacks of brownies and quiches and other snacks.
He paused to read the messages, scribbled on bright post-it notes.
Sweets for my sweet.
Can’t wait to see you tonight.
XO.
It hit him in the gut, the casual affection in every note. They belonged to each other, in a way he could only imagine.
“Want to pass those brownies?”
He turned. Grayson was in the doorway, dressed casually—for the Englishman, at least—in a button-down and corduroy pants. Riley retrieved the container.
“How are things with you these days?” Grayson asked, arching an eyebrow. “We didn’t see you out over Labor Day.”
“I wasn’t in the mood,” Riley said, opening another beer.
“No?”
He caught the look on Grayson’s face. “Is this where you give me a pep talk about love and risk and following my heart?”
“You mean, the way you’ve done with the rest of us?” Grayson looked amused.
“Yeah, well maybe I should have kept my mouth shut.”
Riley sighed. That was the thing about being a bartender: you wound up giving everyone a heart-to-heart sooner or later. But just because he’d offered his share of motivational speeches, it didn’t mean he wanted them coming back to haunt him.
Luckily, Grayson could take a hint. He just chewed on a brownie and gave a thoughtful nod.
“What’s cooking?” Summer appeared behind them and wrapped her arms around Grayson’s waist. “Hey! Save some of those for the rest of us.”
“Like you don’t already have another batch of dough stashed at home,” Grayson grinned, tipping his head down to smile at her.
They shared a private look, and Riley felt that blow again, watching something intimate from the outside, a glimpse of the one thing he wanted more than anything, but was far out of reach.
“Come on, time for another hand,” Poppy called from the next room. “Double or nothing. The M he just needed to call in orders and check that his staff weren’t drinking all the profits.
He’d been feeling restless, but he’d chalked it up to things with Brooke, and wanting something he couldn’t have.
Now he wondered, why the hell was he stuck there, just killing time?
He turned the postcard over in his hand. The deal gave him a stake in Tate’s new company. He didn’t have to hold onto it—he could sell at any time. He’d always planned to keep it, though—keep that control hanging over his former partner’s head, as payback for everything he’d done.
But Riley wanted to just be done with it all. The settlement, Tate, every reminder of the whole damn mess. He’d been pretending like it didn’t exist, but that hadn’t changed anything. They were all still waiting for him to make his move. And him?
He was sitting in an empty apartment above an old bar that barely paid rent.
Who the hell was he kidding anymore?
Riley went to the desk in the corner and dug out the paperwork.
Fifty-plus pages of dense legal writing they’d fought and bickered over, and spent months hammering out.
Years of his time and effort, and love, too, poured into that company.
He’d wanted to keep hold of it for as long as possible, but who was he hurting here?
Not Tate. He’d already moved on to another flashy, high-paying gig, living it up as a king in Silicon Valley. Riley was the one stuck in limbo, waiting for Brooke to move on from her own past, when he couldn’t even put pen to paper on his own.
What could he do if this was already over?
Riley seized a pen from the cabinet and scribbled his name on the first page before he could take it back. There were a dozen sticky tabs dotted throughout the document, and he tore through them all—signing over and over, until he reached the last page, and it was done.
He took a breath. He’d expected to feel different, somehow, but instead, he just felt foolish. He’d let this drag on long enough.
It was time to start something new.