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They looked like two colleagues meeting for Happy Hour cocktails until you looked closer at their serious expressions and the way they both looked up occasionally and scanned the room as though danger might be afoot.
Eventually, my thoughts moved past Calvin and my parents, past what was going on around me inside the club. Past all the crap weighing me down and I let a blissful numbness settle into my veins. My bones. That heavy, crushing weight disappeared, and I felt my lips smile on their own for the first time in weeks.
My body was light as a feather. I felt I might float away at any moment, and I welcomed the sensation.
Oh my. This is nice.
Even through the fog of inebriation, Squeaker’s thinly veiled threat lingered in my mind. I owed him money, enough that he wouldn’t just forget about it anytime soon. Enough that things would get ugly if I didn’t pay up. I would. I just had to figure out how to pay him without sacrificing my savings.
After one more drink, not even the wrath of a cranky dealer seemed like a big deal.
“Want a ride home?” Cal’s deep voice broke through my jumbled thoughts, and I gave myself a moment before looking up at him.
When I did, I regretted it. He was smirking at me with his mouth but the concern in his eyes nearly brought me to tears. “No thanks. I’m good. Have a good night.”
He blinked, surprised. “I could just toss you over my shoulder and carry you out.” Obviously, he was joking, but the thought sent a shiver down my spine.
“You could, but that would leave your family jewels completely unprotected.”
His laugh was deep and raucous, very appealing. “A risk I’m willing to take.”
Goodness, he was so infuriating! “Why?”
He shrugged. “You can’t drive, and we’re going to the same place. What kind of asshole wouldn’t offer?”
A laugh bubbled up out of me, and I stared at him. “How many different kinds are there?”
Calvin folded his arms across his chest, doing his best to look stern and unamused. “Let’s go, smart ass.”
“Ugh, fine. Anyone ever tell you how bossy you are?”
He stopped and looked at me. “Only my employees. Do you think I’m bossy?” The thought seemed to please him, and I wondered why.
“Extremely.”
“Thanks.” He kept his hand on the small of my back as he guided me out of the nightclub and to his fancy electric car in the parking lot. Before long we were in motion, the silent car ride pushing my thoughts to the forefront.
“So, Calvin Ashby. How did you get to be so different from the rest of your family?” It was a question I’d wondered about ever since Maisie and Virgil had become an item. He was nerdy and studious, serious and kind.
“Even Kat?”
I nodded. “Especially Kat. She’s a mix between Sadie and one of those badass corporate women who doesn’t take anyone’s crap.”
“And I am?”
I shrugged. “Different. Even though Virgil and Jasper are polar opposites, I can see where they’re similar too. Not so much with you.”
“That’s true, I guess.” The words came out slowly. Thoughtfully. “What about you, Bonnie? Have you decided what your new life plans will look like?”
I groaned. “Why’d you have to ask me that? I spent the whole night trying to forget my screwed up life!” I looked at him and his gaze locked with mine, only momentarily. We both shared a nervous, awkward laugh.
“Sorry?” Goodness, he was so adorable. Geeky but in a gorgeous way. A hidden way that I didn’t realize at first or even second glance. He was the kind of guy I might have ended up with if my life had turned out differently, another thought I tried not to dwell on because I couldn’t change it. Not now.
“You don’t sound sorry.”
“I’m not,” he said with a laugh and shut off the car inside the confines of the Ashby Manor estate. “I know it’s hard Bonnie, but you’ll figure it out.”
He seemed sincere, smiling before he stepped out of the car. I joined him a moment later, nearly gasping at the way the moonlight lit up his red hair. “How can you be so sure?”
He shrugged. “You’re a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for.”
His words, they touched me. They mattered. They meant something to me. The fact that this man who, most of the time, I was pretty sure hated me, believed I was strong, made me believe it.
“I’m not sure that’s true,” I told him honestly, but hearing Calvin say it, I wanted it to be true.
I needed it to be true.
Desperately.
So, I did what any bold, confident, drunk and stoned woman would do when facing a handsome man with a kind heart. I waited until he rounded the car and stood not even a foot away from me, and I stepped in close, pressing my lips to his.
