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I was in the mood to break something, and since Leland wouldn’t be home from his bartending course for at least another hour, I’d have to find something else to take my frustrations out on.
Pulling into the driveway, I tapped the remote attached to the visor, opening all three garage doors simultaneously. One I used as a work area, the center garage stored my functional pieces that Leland had convinced me to sell, and the third served as a graveyard for my failed attempts.
I’d spent the last three days wearing my wedding band, and showing up to Nexcom—to Robert’s delight—as if the past few months hadn’t happened. I’d even had to bring Samuel out of summer retirement for a few days to chauffeur me around. Luckily he wasn’t still in Italy.
The boys were now on their way back to Massachusetts, and removing the ring felt like the first truthful thing I’d done in days.
I dropped it in the cup holder before exiting the Jeep and rolling up my sleeves as I entered the graveyard. I skipped over the heavy tool options lining the cabinets along the back wall, choosing the metal bat leaning in the corner instead. A saw or drill wouldn’t help with the type of aggression I needed to work out. I needed to beat on something.
By the time Leland arrived, grinding Betty to a screeching halt, I no longer needed that evening workout session I had planned. God only knew where my shirt had disappeared to, probably under all the rubble hiding the floor, and even my eyeballs felt drenched with sweat.
“What’s got you Hulking out?” he asked, kicking a slab of wood out of his way to get to me. He’d left his car running and the door open, and the worry lines creasing his forehead betrayed the easy attitude his question implied.
“Don’t worry, your ass isn’t in trouble—pun intended,” I said, figuring he probably thought my mood would transfer over to him. It was quite the opposite. Seeing him had made everything better.
“That’s a shame. My ass likes your brand of trouble.” His concern retreated, although there was still something anxious about his expression.
“I’ve missed you,” I said around a sigh, because maybe he needed some reassurance, and because it was true. I let go of the bat as Leland admired the corded muscles along my forearm. They tended to be more pronounced after heavy exertion.
“I wasn’t expectingthat,” he said, “but I’ll take it. So, what did I miss?” He waved hand at all the destruction.
“Well,” I said, dropping a kiss to his lips. “I was told that I needed to ‘get my head out of the clouds’ as I prepared to leave Nexcom’s headquarters earlier. I was informed that I don’t get to lead a normal life because too many people depend on me, and the success of my company, to feed their families. My future grandchildren are depending on me. My great-grandchildren are depending on me...” I made a so-on and so-on motion with my hand. “You get the idea.”
Leland snorted. “Robert?”
I wasn’t sure I’d nailed my imitation of Robert, as hyperbole wasn’t my style, but Leland guessed it after having only met the man once. “His last-resort was to guilt me with Cole.”
“How so?” Leland asked. We’d moved beyond the construction zone I’d created and now stood near his car.
“Cole came into the office with me one day. Sat behind my desk, spun around in my chair. He wants this,” I said, squinting against the sunlight. “Robert said the least I could do was preserve it for him.”
“Cole’s interested in running the company?”
“Looks like it. This wasn’t the first sign either. I used to think his interest in Nexcom might’ve come from pressure on my part throughout the years. I’d always told myself it was the one area where my father and I differed, but I could see now that while my brand of pressure may have been more subtle, it was nonetheless pressure. Nexcom was the only thing we shared, really. I’d thought maybe that connection had translated to him as pressure to be my successor. But his interest seems genuine.”
“So you’re going back full-time?” Leland asked.
“It’s not like I planned on faking my death and skipping town. I just thought I could play a lesser role. Bring someone on as acting CEO perhaps.” I shrugged. “But the market is volatile right now. The economy isn’t doing well, and the tech industry is feeling it. Nexcom has seen some losses. I need to be visible. I need to do this for Cole.”
“So then you go back,” he said. “But you fight to still find time foryou.”
“Yeah,” I said, lips thinning. Summer was coming to an end, and the real world waited at autumn’s front door. The days were whizzing by too fast, as Leland once eloquently put it. “But not right now. Not today. Today I want to get reacquainted with you.”
“What do you want to do?” Leland asked, already bouncing on his feet.
“I want to take you to dinner.”
“Like dinner outside this house, dinner?” he asked.
“Yes.” I chuckled. “Didn’t you forbid me from ever touching the stove again?”
“Yeah, but is it okay for us to be out together?”
Aside from that night at Josephine’s, we’d never gone farther than the ocean together. And we were just friends then, and on the wrong side of town, chances were slim we’d run into anyone who knew me or knew of me. It was sort of an unspoken agreement to be discreet after we’d altered the dynamics of our relationship. It’d be impossible for us to keep our hands off each other while in public, and anyone with the slightest bit of intelligence would pick up on the fact that we were more than friends. Going out hadn’t been worth the hassle or the risk. Besides, we’d had everything we needed right here, with each other. But I missed him, and I wanted to do something different tonight.
“I’ll rent something out if I have to,” I said, rubbing my nose against his. “But first, let’s go for a swim.” I had him in a fireman’s hold and jogging around the side of the house before he could warn me not to do something stupid like jump into the ocean. I at least placed him on his feet at the dock to strip him first as his laughter rustled the tree tops.
We played beneath the water like children, splashing and chasing one another, laughing until it hurt. We didn’t make it to dinner that night, choosing to stay home where we didn’t need to hold back our affection, where we could make love undisturbed and without restraint.
