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“We’ll meet you at your parents’ house after the Summit,” Layla said. “I’ll take care of Thatcher.”
My stomach flipped and landed with a sick thud. “Right,” I said, though she’d already hurried away. Then I turned and shuffled Thatcher’s dick of a son back into the Tavern.
The warmth of the restaurant caused my throat to tickle, which made me glance fondly at the soothing mead I couldn’t allow myself to sample. I was on the clock. And my job right now was to protect Thatcher Pennington… even if it meant spending the next few hours with an insufferable, ungrateful asshole.
My brother and Flynn returned in time for the lunch rush, and while Cas and PJ caught them up on everything that had happened, I spent the next hour trying to sober Brant up in Flynn’s tiny office while trying not to think about how I’d finally shed my polite mask for good… only to jeopardize my relationship with the man I loved because I’d let my emotions get the best of me.
Brantleigh didn’t seem to notice my distraction, probably because he didn’t shut up. He quickly moved from ranting about his rich, stupid father to describing in uncomfortable detail the hot women Thatcher was able to attract simply because of his wealth.
“I mean, what girl wants to put up with someone who’s cold as ice? But they do,” Brantleigh assured me. “They all do. You shoulda seen this one chick he bagged on the Cape last summer. Fucking Christ, the body on that woman. And her lips. If he was into sharing, I would have done it with that one for her mouth alone.”
Hot bile inched up my throat at the thought of Thatcher fucking someone other than me. Of a woman’s mouth on his dick and his head thrown back in ecstasy.
“TMI,” I warned tiredly, knowing it wouldn’t stop him. “Besides, I thought you were gay.”
He waved his empty coffee mug through the air, nearly knocking it into Flynn’s laptop, which perched precariously on his cluttered desk. “That doesn’t mean I can’t ap-appp-appreciate a hot woman. You know what’s funny?”
I stared at him frostily.
“One time, I convinced Heather to show me her tits out by the pool. All natural, if you can believe it. And she shaved. Everywhere. I know ’cause I caught them in the outdoor shower once. Oops.” He dissolved into a fit of giggles, bending at the waist and laughing into his knees while his mug rolled to the floor.
I stared at the ceiling and tried not to vomit or murder him. Was this what Chris had been alluding to? If so, Brantleigh Pennington was a horrible human being, and he didn’t seem to want to change. What kind of person fucked around with his stepmother behind his father’s back? It made me hate Heather even more than I already did, which I hadn’t thought possible.
“Stop talking,” I growled. “You disgust me.”
Once he’d kept down a cup of coffee for half an hour and the Tavern was nearly empty again, I decided it was safe to take Brantleigh back to my parents’ house. Fortunately, his giggles and verbal bullshit had subsided to the point where he seemed ready to curl up and sleep, so it was easy enough to grab the keys to his rental car and drive him up the hill to my parents’ place. I considered giving him some Tylenol before I put him to bed in Thatcher’s room but decided I wasn’t that merciful. Brantleigh deserved the hangover he was about to have. He deserved a hell of a lot more than that.
I went back downstairs to wait for Thatcher’s return, and as I paced the living room, my headache from earlier came back with a vengeance, almost like I’d caught Brant’s hangover. The only saving grace was that my parents still weren’t home, so I didn’t have to hear whether there was any town gossip about my display or hear any smug recriminations about my total lack of control.
If I could get Thatcher alone for just five minutes and talk to him, I might be able to resolve things. Thatcher had stood up for me when Brant was about to make a comment about Chris Acton, and that had to mean something, right? He trusted me. He believed in me. Surely he’d understand that extenuating circumstances had led me to… throw his son against the side of a building, pin him there against his will, and scream in his ear.
In public.
Fuck, even in my own head, I couldn’t make it sound forgivable, so how could I convince Thatcher to forgive me?
At four in the afternoon, just as the sky was turning pink from early sunset, Layla arrived back at the house. Alone.
“Where’s Thatcher?” I asked immediately… and maybe a bit rudely since Layla was running her hands through her hair like she’d had a rough day, too.
“I couldn’t say.” She dropped heavily into a chair. “He took off after the event and had McGee bring me back.”
Had Thatcher not come back because he didn’t want to face his son? Or me?
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Shit.”
“Yes, well.” Layla gave me a sympathetic smile. “I can’t speak to what Thatcher is thinking, of course. He didn’t seem happy when he left, but I’m sure that’s not entirely a result of your incident with Brantleigh today. There’s also a clusterfuck in Madison that’s very stressful. The organizer of one of the original press tour stops we tried to cancel is throwing a fit because PennCo won’t be there, and I’m sure Thatcher is as worried as I am that it’ll generate bad press just when we’re emerging from the Nova catastrophe. It’s critically important for the business that we send someone, tonight, but of course, most of my team back in New York is still recovering from the flu or scrambling to keep things going while we’re short-staffed. You’re the only one who’s free… but then, you’ve got your family obligations.”
She said nothing more but watched me expectantly.
“Are you… asking me to go?” I wondered.
“If you could, I’d really appreciate it.” Layla gave me a hopeful look. “I do think it would go a long way toward… let’s say, smoothing things over after whatever that was between you and Thatcher’s son earlier today.”
I bit my tongue until it hurt at this reminder. After standing up for myself in such a huge way earlier, the realization that I was still the tiniest cog in the PennCo wheel, the guy who could be kicked off the tour and sent to Madison on a moment’s notice, was hard enough to swallow. The fact that Layla was the one doing the sending, when I hadn’t forgotten Terrance’s list of grievances or forgiven the way she’d treated me on the bus, was like swallowing jagged, broken shards of glass.
But I hadn’t decided what my next career goal was going to be, now that I wouldn’t be working for my father’s campaign, and I was unsure of my future at PennCo, so I definitely didn’t want to burn bridges. More than that… she was right. I’d fucked up today, and maybe this was the way to smooth things over with Thatcher and give him the space to deal with Brant however he needed.
“Okay,” I said in a low voice. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
