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So walking into the Honeybridge Tavern in the middle of the day should have been small potatoes in comparison.
Of course, to be fair, I wasn’t acquainted with any of the people on that list quite as intimately as I was with Flynn Honeycutt.
For instance, I was not aware if any of them tended to fake right before darting left when stealing bases during overly competitive softball games. I hadn’t seen any of them wrap a scarf around their fractured wrist rather than abandon their team during an ice hockey game out at Wellbridge Lake when we were eleven or seen the dull gleam of respect in any of their eyes when the Wellbridges had still gotten the hard-fought win.
I didn’t know whether any of them had ever flushed to the roots when they were asked out on a date back in high school or whether any of them had ever left that date waiting in the freezing cold for hours with no mittens when they didn’t show up after agreeing.
I for sure didn’t hear the precise pitch of their orgasm moans in my head when I jerked off, and I’d never held the bittersweet tang of their pleasure in my mouth.
I had also not fucked shit up with any of them three years ago on Thanksgiving by kissing them when I should have insisted on talking or, later on, by talking when we probably should have kept kissing.
So, okay, maybe this meeting wasn’tentirelythe same as the others.
But, I assured myself as I stared through the windshield of the Porsche at the homey white building where a crowd of people milled outside as if waiting to be seated, none of that history mattered anymore, just like that tiny, incidental,accidentalmud bath the other day didn’t matter.
Flynn and I were adults. Able to let bygones be bygones.
And Flynn was smart—arguably smarter than me. The contract I was about to offer him was extremely fair—I’d spent the past two days poring over the numbers and research packet Alice had sent me, then studying comparable marketplace deals to make damn sure of it.
Surely a logical businessman would focus on the contract and ignore the fact that the messenger had once rimmed and sucked him until he’d sobbed brokenly and pleaded for release… Right?
As I slammed my car door shut, I conveniently ignored the fact that while Wellbridges might be known for employing ruthless logic, Honeycutts were better known for exacting bloodthirsty revenge.
A crowd of laughing people clutching bags from the nearby souvenir shop pulled open the door to the Tavern and bustled inside, and I nearly turned back to the car.
It was probably awfully crowded in there during the lunch rush. I could maybe regroup and come back later…
My phone buzzed, and I slid it from my pocket.
Alice:How’d the meeting go?
I rolled my eyes and dismissed the notification, but another popped up immediately.
Alice:Because I KNOW you didn’t decide to postpone it AGAIN because you feel like you still need to “get your ducks in a row” over the contract you had me draft TUESDAY, did you?
Damn it. I was so firing her, no matter how disgustingly competent she was. It was bad enough that I was fucking around on this, which was highly,highlyunlike me; I didn’t need her to point it out, for god’s sake.
Me:I’m about to have the meeting now.As I told you,I’ve been busy for the past two days with family obligations.
Obligations that included lunching at my mother’s club, teaching my mother’s dog—a highly anxious Bichon named Katharine Hepburn—that my shoes were not chew toys and, for one horrifying hour that would be burned into my memory until death claimed me, exchanging horrified looks with Reagan as my mother attempted to convert us into yogaerobics enthusiasts.
Jesus, I hated myself.
More to the point, I hated the person I became when I was in Honeybridge.
Which was why I needed to get shit done and get the hell out.
I gripped my leather folder more tightly and stalked into the Tavern with a purpose… but when I got inside, I stopped dead and gawked just as much as any one of the tourists because Frankie Hilo’s selfies hadn’t done the place justice.
The outside of the Tavern had looked shockingly nice the other day, but the footprint had been the same as when Flynn’s Grandpa Horace had been running the place. I’d had no clue that the inside would be so entirely changed.
Gone were the tobacco-stained walls and the wood paneling pockmarked with a million dart holes. Instead, the walls were now whitewashed shiplap that looked like it had been there for centuries, though it hadn’t. The whole back wall was made of glass, and beyond it was the pristine, white-painted meadery with its shiny fermentation barrels, making patrons feel like they were part of the action.
Gone were the low ceilings and the red tiled floor, too. Now, a metal staircase along one side of the rustic wooden bar led up to a loft-style seating area, with deep couches and comfortable chairs in what had once been a tiny studio apartment and a storage space. A storage space where Flynn and I had spent that one memorable night…
“Just one?” a friendly voice asked.
“Huh?” I turned around, searching for the mind reader… and found a slender dude with a Tavern T-shirt and a hipster haircut standing behind the host’s desk.
