Chapter 6 Sierra #2
“I haven’t looked at my phone today. What fresh new hell has cracked open beneath me since yesterday?”
“None, I swear. I called Kyle after we talked, and I told him he’d better erase that meme from existence and figure out who made it. Like, immediately. As far as we can tell, it got texted to, like, everyone in his contact list. Someone had to have accessed one of his devices to do that.”
“Oh, god.”
“So, whoever it was must be close to him or tech-savvy or both. But at least it didn’t actually go viral or anything. You’re not famous.”
“I’ve never been more glad.”
“And Kyle swears up and down he had nothing to do with it. Maybe someone just thought it was funny. Like cute-funny?”
“Right. Adorable.” I might be able to laugh at it myself if the blunder immortalized in said meme wasn’t responsible for ending my relationship, throwing my boyfriend dick-first into the awaiting comfort of his hot female bestie, and now, losing me my much-needed investors.
“Well, the only people on that video call were Kyle’s family. So, if it wasn’t him . . .”
“Are you going to call him?”
“I really, really don’t want to. Not right now.”
“Then let me take care of it,” she says. “You have enough to deal with. Your focus should be on the smoothie bar. Your business. Making sure it survives the loss of the investment. And taking care of yourself. After that, maybe you sit down with Kyle and get closure?”
“Yeah.” Truth be told, until I fully sober up from last night’s drunken singalong, I’m in no shape to deal with any drama. “I appreciate you looking out for me. You know I do. But I’ll get closure with Kyle once I have my shit together. So, maybe never?”
Sophie frowns at my joke. “Well, in good news, everything is as promised here. Fridges and freezer are up and running. I picked up some things at the grocery store and a couple of farm stands along the way. I managed to load in the stock I brought, sanitize the counters, set up all the blenders, even made myself a slushy.” She holds her cup out to me. “Taste?”
“New flavor?”
“I’m calling it Watermelon Sugar. Like the Harry Styles song.”
I take a sip but say nothing, just let the cartoon hearts shooting out of my eyes say it for me.
Sophie grins. “All that’s really left to do is a little cleaning and all the fun decorating. You and I can rock that out easily.”
“Sophie, you’re a goddamn angel. I’m buying you dinner tonight. For now, can I sit down?” I sit down on the curb before she can answer, rubbing my throbbing temples, and she joins me. The Watermelon Sugar really didn’t land so well.
“Headache?”
“Oh, yeah. You know how music is my go-to when life sucks? But usually I have the decency to sing alone in the shower, like the good lord intended?”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes. I crashed a bachelorette party and screamed ‘You Oughta Know’ at strangers. You know how Very Drunk Sierra can get.”
“I haven’t seen her in so long,” she says wistfully, and drapes an arm around me. “But that song should not be allowed at karaoke nights without proper supervision.”
“I know. You should’ve been there to stop me. Or at least sing backup.” I cover my face with my hand and peer out between my fingers. “And there was no karaoke. It was a jukebox. With no microphone.”
“Oh, Si.”
“Positive note: met some cool girls from Calgary. They’re gonna swing by tomorrow to taste-test smoothies for me before they leave town.”
“Cool.”
I cringe and just spit it out. “And I slept with the hot bartender.”
Sophie’s jaw drops.
“I know. You warned me. And I know it sounds like some dumb rebound thing—”
“No, it sounds like a fun thing. I hope?”
I find myself trying not to smile, but it’s impossible.
“It was, actually. He walked me home and spooned me all night. And we kind of made out without really kissing. I was really drunk, and I think I asked him not to kiss me? So there was a lot of just rubbing against each other. And laughing.” By now, my cheeks are hot with the memories.
I’m not embarrassed to talk about sex with Sophie.
But I’m still floored by how much I like this guy.
“He made me laugh a lot. I think I made him laugh, too.”
“Wow. I guess I was wrong. He sounds awesome.”
I scrunch my nose. “I think he really might be.”
“I’m sorry if I sounded cynical yesterday. I just don’t want to see you hurt any more.”
“I know.”
“And we both know you have a real knack for attracting . . . well . . .”
“The utter douchebags of the world?” I fill in for her.
“I was going to say ‘works in progress,’” she says diplomatically.
“Fixer-uppers who can’t be fixed,” I agree sadly.
“So, if you actually met a great guy, I should eat my words? And maybe this whole week from hell is turning around?”
“Yeah. Maybe.” God, I would love that. I need that.
“When I first met him, honestly, he acted like a giant grouch. If I wasn’t stuck here, I probably would’ve just walked out of that bar and never given him a backwards glance.
” There’s a warm knot in my chest as I speak.
Hope and fear and this impossible thrill that maybe I met an amazing human when I least expected it.
It’s making me feel mushy. “But he really stepped up to help me out when I needed it.”
“Then I like him already.”
“I really think you will.”
“So, what’s he like? I want details.” She slurps her slushy, hanging on my next words as I try to find the right ones to sum up Mason Grant.
“Hmm. You know those big, burly, but pretty guys who are half lumberjack and half GQ model?”
“Uh, do you?”
“No. Not until last night. But imagine such a guy, and then he turns out to be all sweet, warm teddy bear inside . . .” I fade out, because a truck is approaching along Water Street. A black pickup . . . with the golden apple Sea Haven Cidery logo on the side.
My insides cartwheel in excitement when I recognize Mason behind the wheel.
“Oh my god. That’s him.” A ridiculous grin spreads across my face as he pulls over in front of my van and parks at the curb.
I get to my feet as Mason climbs out. His eyes cut to mine, and at the grim look on his face, my stomach plummets. My smile fades.
He retrieves something from the back of the truck.
My suitcase.
He stalks over to me and drops it at my feet.
When his eyes lock on mine, they’re heavy and dark. I almost stagger back.
Why is he looking at me like that?
Like I’m . . . the enemy?
“Mason. What happened?” My heart is pounding. Clearly, between leaving me that sweet note this morning and dumping my suitcase at my feet, something happened. Something shitty.
“What happened,” he says gruffly, “is you didn’t tell me that you leased Pier Seven from June.”
This does not compute. Why does he look so . . . angry? “I don’t understand.”
His chest rises and falls as he takes a slow, deep breath.
Like he’s really trying to rein in the anger but barely succeeding.
“When you showed up at my bar yesterday and said you were looking for June Spencer,” he says slowly, “and you had no place to stay for the night, et cetera . . . you never once said that you were in town because you were leasing this building.”
“Uh . . . why would I?”
“Because my family runs a pop-up restaurant in Pier Seven as of June first.”
“But . . . I have it leased for a pop-up shop for all of June. We’re setting up this weekend.” I’m so utterly confused. “Do you have a lease? In writing?”
His jaw sets. “No,” he grits out. “It’s . . . more complicated than that.”
Yeah. I’m getting that.
Family feud, maybe? The older generation likes to hold a grudge.
Good luck with that old battle-axe. So many things I’ve heard about June Spencer over the last twenty-four hours suggest that there’s a whole lot of small-town drama going on here that I know nothing about.
And I haven’t even gotten June’s side of it yet.
I have to wonder what she’d have to say about all this.
“So . . . why would you think you have a lease when I have a lease, on paper?”
“It’s a long-standing situation,” he mutters. “At least, it was until now.” His gaze slices down my curves, that look saying until you came along, and heat floods my body. The way this man ignites me with a look is insane.
It’s disorienting. The lust that courses through me. The embarrassment. Shame . . . for something I didn’t even do. I don’t even know what he’s accusing me of. But it’s clear, I am being accused.
“How would I know that, Mason?”
His gaze lingers briefly on my lips, his voice lowering. “I find it very hard to believe you had no idea what you were doing.”
There it is again, the accusation.
“Doing . . . when?”
“When you asked June to let you lease this place,” he growls. “You want to buy it, I assume? And leasing it first is supposed to make that happen?”
I shake my head, trying to sort this out. “I didn’t ask her. I don’t want to buy it. She invited me here. I didn’t even know Orchard Cove or this building existed before that.”
“Uh-huh. So, then you won’t mind being uninvited.”
“What?” I can’t even believe he just said that. The businesswoman in me is instantly outraged.
And the woman in me . . . the woman who’d started to like this man—very much, in a very short time—is humiliated.
He wants me to leave? Like, leave town?
I hear Sophie move closer to me. Probably ready to tell this man to F the hell off, the way only Sophie can—politely, definitively. She doesn’t speak, but Mason gives her and the building behind her a withering once-over.
Then he glares at me again. “You can just pack up and go back to the city, if this building isn’t important to you.”
I scrape my jaw off the pavement as the businesswoman in me elbows her way to the front. “I just said, I have a lease agreement.”
He scowls deeply, brow furling. Full lips in a pissed-off pout. “For how long? Just one month?”
It is truly unfair how attractive this man is, even angry. But at this moment, I’m acutely aware that he’s a stranger. And Businesswoman Sierra is, thankfully, here to protect the rest of me, pointing out that he’s being downright rude right now.
Just because he spooned me in his childhood bed and he made me laugh and made my panties fucking wet, I don’t owe him anything.
I wrap my arms around myself. “I don’t feel comfortable answering that.”
Mason takes a breath, looks away. And for a split second I glimpse the man I spent the night with. Then that man is gone, and the man I first met in the bar yesterday is back in full force. And he couldn’t give a fuck about me.
I’m just some stranger from the city.
An irritation.
The enemy.
He fixes me with his blue eyes, and there’s such searing disappointment in that look. Such finality.
“Stay away from my family,” he growls.
Like I’m some kind of danger to his family.
Then he gets back in his truck and drives away, leaving me standing here, dumbfounded as fuck.
My best friend wraps an arm around me gently. “You were saying . . . ? Something about his inner teddy bear?”
I watch Mason’s truck disappear up Cherry Way.
Then it’s just me and Sophie . . . and a few random shoppers lingering outside the grocery store and Bev & Bill’s General Store, staring.
Maybe they just witnessed that whole scene.
Sophie waves at them, then points at the building behind us. “Best smoothies you ever tasted! Grand opening on Wednesday! Bring your friends!”
“Remember that thing I said to you yesterday?” I ask her in a small voice. “If I ever plan anything more than a week in advance with a man, I want you to kick me in the junk?”
Sophie actually looks surprised, bless her. “Si. You were already planning a future with that man?”
In an even smaller voice, I confess, “When I walked by the orchard on his property, in the back of my mind, I kinda thought it would be a nice place to have a wedding.”
“That sounds more like a fantasy than a plan,” she says generously.
“It counts.”
“Shit. I really can’t kick you, though.” She turns me by the shoulders and steers me into the building, away from all the looky-loos. “So how about one tiny little ‘I told you so,’ and a bottle of wine?”
I let out a fuck my life sigh. “Make it cider and I’ll feel sufficiently punished.”