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“I guess we should get back out there…” I said, although I had no real desire to leave this little bubble of ours.
“I guess so,” she agreed, looking about as enthusiastic to rejoin the party as I was.
Her eyes strayed over my face and the air started to feel warm and thick, the same way it had just before our kiss after the wedding. Would it happen again? Her tongue slid out along her lower lip, her teeth followed, trapping the soft plump pillow between them. My fingers twitched against my jeans, hyper aware of each strand of cotton, wanting desperately to pull her lip free and then dive into the silken strands of her hair. I was losing my fucking mind. All I was aware of was the sound of our breaths as we sat there, separated by inches.
Until she abruptly stood and ripped me free from the moment. I shook my head in a vain attempt to clear the fog that had settled over my senses. It wasn't much use, my entire head was full of her. The jasmine and lime scent, with the slightest hint of sangria, the sound of her shallow breaths. The bow of her top lip. The curve of the bottom one.
The sound of a whistle broke through the haze and I realized that Chase must have heard someone approaching the office—that was what stopped her. All I needed to do was close the door and shut the rest of the world out and I might have been kissing her now.
But I could wait.
Chase marched down the hall ahead of me and I watched as, the step before she re-entered the party, she pulled herself together, shoulders back, chin high. She was just as affected by me as I was by her. I knew it. But she wasn’t letting herself feel it, or she was hiding behind these fucking walls she’d thrown up since our kiss.
No, they weren’t walls, they were doors; all I had to do was find the right keys.
The worst thingabout Thanksgiving was dragging your thoroughly hungover ass into work on Black Friday. At no point in the last five years had I ever had the forethought to consider taking it easy to help make my Black Friday go a little more smoothly. No, every year I ate and drank with abandon and little concern for Future Mack and his problems.
Well, whiskey-swilling, pie-eating Mack could go fuck himself because I felt like death and there was a chance a small rodent had crawled into my mouth and died overnight.
I was not one of those people who routinely woke up after a big night and declared they were never drinking again. I owned a bar, for fuck’s sake. If everyone who said that actually followed through, we wouldn’t have any customers. So, no, I was sure that I’d pick up another drink. Just maybe not today. Today I would do my best to drink copious amounts of water in an effort to flush out all the residual alcohol, turkey, and pie. So. Much. Pie.
After my pie-induced almost-breakdown yesterday morning, the apple-cheddar had been one of the stars of the show. I was told by numerous guests that it went particularly well with the buttermilk ice cream, which I had been exceedingly happy with. Chase even requested a pint or two as her Christmas present. Naturally, I was already thinking of tweaks to improve it further.
I’m going on a date with Chase.
The thought slammed into me as more of yesterday’s memories sharpened through the combined haze of sleep and hangover. I was going on a double date, with Chase … and two other people. She was going on a date with Brady and I was going on a date with Lindsay. But at least we were together.
We had nearly kissed in the office. I could see her in my head, the way she’d looked at me. The way the air between us came alive. A couple more seconds and I would have been able to taste the sangria on her tongue. How the hell was I going to get any sort of work done today with those thoughts rolling around in my head?
I sat up, needing to move as a restless sort of energy started to build in my chest. She’d be at Rudi later—probably bleary-eyed and hungover grumpy, but I didn’t give a shit.
When we first started Rudi, I thought that being excited to go to work meant I’d finally found the right place. Now I was wondering if it wasn’t so much the rightplaceas the right person. Being back with her after so many years away was like being able to take full breaths again. It wasn’t that I’d been unhappy while I was away, quite the opposite, but being back in her orbit … it was different. I was different. Better. Chase was my person, she always had been. I think I’d always known it, but I’d never let myself hope for more.
With unhurried steps I shuffled into the bathroom, shoved my toothbrush into my mouth and started up the shower. Yes, I was hungover—and my stomach was still working its way through yesterday’s food—but there was a spark of hope under it all that was making my chest feel light. And, as much as I detested the Black Friday sales, I remembered I had some shopping to do.
11
CHASE
I nearly kissedMack again last night.
It was the first thought that popped into my head upon waking up and it came back to me over and over throughout the day. Each time it made an appearance, I would follow it with a resounding:and it will not happen again. I wanted to believe it, I really did. But there was this little voice in the back of my head that kept calling bullshit … and it sounded an awful lot like Harley.
She had been the life of the party last night. Taking up residence behind the bar and dolling out drinks like it was her job, which I suppose it was, but the kind she usually dispensed were non-alcoholic. I didn’t think it was possible for Harley to be anything other than the life of the party, she was just that person, smiling and chatty and unable to keep a single thought in her head to herself. She turned up as a sexy turkey, for God’s sake. And the costume change saw her become a sexy pumpkin, which shouldn’t have worked, and yet did.
As soon as Mack and I had rejoined the party after the almost-kiss, she took me by the elbow (again) and sat me down for a chat. Most of which had been about her and the fact that she had decided Jeremy was probably going to be the hot naked male in her bed by the end of the night. Considering I saw them in a dark corner not thirty minutes later I had to assume she was right.
The whole night, aside from the almost-kiss and me somehow agreeing to go fucking bowling, and telling my best friend he had a perfect face (what the actual fuck had I been thinking?), had been our most successful Thanksgiving to date.
Now the only thing souring my high was the slimy, residual guilt about Mom. I’d been psyching myself up to call her all day, but every time I picked up the phone I found something else more important to do. Like deep-conditioning my hair while scrubbing the grout in my shower. Or cleaning the oven. I even vacuumed under my couch.
Eventually I decided that I couldn’t call because I wanted to see her, not have some passive-aggressive phone conversation. So I left my deep cleaned apartment with my particularly shiny hair and walked to the subway.
As had been the theme of the day, I dragged my feet getting out of the house, which meant it was going to have to be a quick visit or I wouldn't be able to make it to Rudi on time later. Would Mack care if I was over an hour late? No, but that was not the point. I was trying to go into this with positivity, while also being realistic. I had no real idea what to expect.
A tall guy with messy brown hair and over the top cologne sat down next to me on the subway and I fought off a wave of nausea, breathing through my mouth as best I could.
The fresh air of 71st Street was a welcome relief when I finally made it above ground. I had a feeling my hangover was making my nose extra sensitive today. Just what I needed.
