AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Duncan scrubbed a hand over his beard, smoothing his mustache with a thumb and forefinger. “I like you better when you don’t talk.”
Mal redirected his attention back to Harry. “You don’t know shit about my life, Harrison.”
“I know you were raised the same way we were, and you have no reason to be such a dick to everyone. The worst thing you ever have to deal with is a bit of fucking writer’s block.”
Smoke had stopped curling from Mal’s pipe. He methodically lit a match, paused to let the sulfur dissipate, and skimmed it over the pipe’s bowl. He sipped gently at the end of the pipestem, and the air filled again with the toasty, custard-honey aroma of the tobacco. “Writer’s block is a gag and a noose. Your brain takes itself hostage, puts a knife to its own neck. It’s a career-killer, and I’ve got a kid to raise. Don’t talk about what you don’t understand.”
Harry wanted to send his fist into Mal’s nose. “Your work is about creating fictional tragedy. In my profession,realpeopleactuallydie. It’s not characters on a page.”
Mal regarded Harry for a long moment. Then he clamped the pipe between his canines and reached inside his suit jacket to withdraw a leather-covered liquor flask. He spun off the top in a practiced motion, and the unmistakable scent of brandy heated the cool night air. “I heard about what happened,” Mal said to Harry, his voice dropping low. “I’m sorry.”
When Harry didn’t respond, Mal took a quick drink of the brandy and passed the flask to him. Recognizing it for the peace offering it was, Harry drank, and passed the flask to Duncan.
“I’m not going to get any surprise communicables if I drink after you two, am I?” Duncan asked.
“You’re the one with the questionable sexual history,” Harry said, swiping his hand over his mouth.
“I resent that.”
“Just drink it, dick.”
The three men stood in silent truce for a while, passing the flask. Harry thought about what Mal had said about self-righteousness. With Rowan, he’d throttled any advancement of the thing between them, simply because of his own sanctimonious ideal of how it should be. He expected her to verbalize what he already saw in her eyes, when it obviously wasn’t something she was ready for.
Christ, hewasa righteous ass.
Inside, the music faded and the lights winked on as the reception ended. Through a clear spot in the condensation on the windows, Harry saw a lone shoe on the floor inside, as if it were spotlighted. Sparkly, gold.
Hers.
As Mal packed fresh tobacco into the end of his pipe, Harry excused himself and headed straight for Rowan’s shoe.
Behind him, Harry heard Duncan ask Mal, “Ever put weed in that thing?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Rowan
It was after midnight. Rowan felt like a marionette, her joints loose and overused. She dropped her solitary shoe on the floor of the little foyer of her room, and tugged useless pins from tangled, sweaty hair. She shed the fancy gold dress and satiny underthings like a chrysalis, dropping them in a damp heap on the bathroom floor.
The past five hours of seeing Harrison Brady in that tuxedo had wrecked her. The look they’d shared during the wedding ceremony was sensual and sentimental and scary, and she’d had to avert her eyes. As Duncan’s date, she’d been at the attendants’ table at the reception, thankfully down the row from Harrison, instead of across from him. From the edge of her vision, she watched him pick at dinner, then ignore his ice cream. Helovedice cream. She watched him mostly ignore conversation with his brothers and Omar Hudson. Even Temperance. When Patrick and Mercedes were toasted by loved ones, Harry had kept his attention on his champagne, his face frozen in a melancholy half-smile.
Every moment of today’s performative matrimonial charade should have left her rolling her eyes in disdain—weddings always did. But this one had the opposite effect. She’d felt infused with a new awareness tonight. Like she’d become some kind ofcorporeal magnet, and Harrison was the object that drew her. Bring them close enough, they’d spontaneously snap together.
To deal with the big feelings, she’d done what any pragmatic, emotionally stunted adult would do. Duncan wouldn’t dance with her, so she got shit-faced on endless cocktails, and spent most of the reception dancing with a guy whose name she didn’t remember. Adrian? Austin? He’d had sour, yeasty beer breath and a short, incessant erection that poked her while they danced.
She’d used poor Alvin to punish Harrison for having the audacity to make her feel feelings. It felt like a petty reclamation of power as he watched them, his scowl deepening and darkening as the night wore on.
Yeah. Shallowandpetty. She was a real catch.
Then Harrison disappeared. The last glimpse she’d had of him, he’d been pushing through the crowd to get outside, and the look on his face wasn’t irritation. It looked like pain.
She left the dance floor that same moment, and after a futile fifteen-minute search for her second shoe, she gave up and slunk away from the celebration in shame.
Rowan let a cold shower sluice over her, washing away the traces of the night—especially the sticky fingerprints of Allen or Albert or whatever-the-hell-his-name-was. She brushed her teeth in the shower too. The chilly spray hit her in the face until it stung her skin.
She was pulling on undies when someone briskly knocked on her door. With a leg in the air, she froze like a confused, wobbly flamingo. “Nobody’s here,” she grumbled.
The peephole revealed a fish-eye version of Harrison. He glanced down the hallway toward the lobby, clutching her lost shoe—a sparkly gold kitten heel with an ankle strap—in both hands, like a precious artifact. His body language conveyed impatience, and his suit jacket and tie were gone.
