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With a burst of energy and inspiration, I began hauling everything onto the patio.
Maybe it wasn’t too late for us, and even if it was, maybe I could give Leland back some of what he’d lost because of me.
I changed into something more comfortable, slid my goggles down, and began working on my most important project yet. By my rough calculations it would take me a little more than a month to finish if I worked around the clock.
Just in time to make it to New York for Christmas.
Chapter 29
Leland
Babysitting my beer on my cold-as-fuck fire escape, I listened for the click of my apartment door letting me know that the two strangers I’d let in my bed tonight had dressed and left me to beat myself up without an audience.
Every day was a struggle. Living in a new city, doing a job I hated but was surprisingly good at, and still fucking every chance I got for less than a moment’s peace.
It didn’t help that my window now faced a brick wall belonging to an apartment building more dilapidated than my own, instead of a park and a peeping Tom I loved to hate.
“Leland!”
Cole.Always showing up when I needed him, but because of the lies I had to keep, the ones that would follow me to my grave, I could never lean on him. He could neverknow.
I dropped my chin to my chest, taking repeated deep breaths and letting the mask of the man my best friend knew slide over my face. This version of me was all I could give him.
“I’m here,” I said, entering my kitchen through the window and then slamming it shut on the frosty night air.
“You move fast,” he said, looking back at the front door, then over to me. Like any professional addict, my first order of business was to get the lay of the land, to know where to go for my supply, except my drug of choice was distraction in the form of sex.
“So you think I’m a slut,” I said, shit-eating grin in place. If Cole sensed a problem with me he’d pounce and then I’d have to spend the night deflecting or outright refusing to tell him what was wrong with me. “What else is new?”
“I don’t think you’re a slut. I think you’re in pain, but you won’t tell me why.” His gaze became probing, the atmosphere suddenly heavy. I turned the topic to him, lightening things up with a joke that teetered too close to the truth.
“Ready to wreck a marriage?” I asked, sucking down my beer.
“I respect Jasper’s vows.” The lie rolled smoothly off his tongue as if rehearsed a thousand times in preparation for the showdown he’d be facing at his stepbrother’s surprise birthday party tonight. “I’m just hoping for a place in his life.”
Cole would never not want his stepbrother, and not a day went by since he learned Jasper had tied the knot that Cole didn’t drift off during a conversation, or a business call, or a meeting, with thoughts of him. If he had a chance to slip into Jasper’s bed and his heart, Cole would snatch it up without a second thought for Jasper’s husband. I knew the feeling.
I wanted him to be happy. For him, I wanted to believe that true love could win no matter what. I tried never to let my own cynicism get in the way, so I let him have his slice of denial without any interruptions from me.
“Okay,” I said. “Are you nervous about tonight?”
“It’s been six years since I’ve last seen him. I’m eager, not nervous.”
Cole resembled his father to an uncomfortable degree, and sometimes, especially in moments where his confidence and strength rivaled that of a god, it was almost too much to bear. I averted my gaze to the folder he tapped against his suited leg.
“What’s that?” I gestured with my bottle to the folder. Cole handed it over. Confused, I set my drink on the kitchen counter and accepted it. A sticky note with a hand-drawn smiley face clung to the first page of the paperwork inside.
“It’s perfect,” Cole said when I gaped up at him. I’d re-written the damn mission statement at least twenty-times on account of him. He’d wanted to help in some way with the process of me opening up my own bar, and since I refused to accept money from him that I hadn’t earned, I figured allowing him to look over my mission statement was harmless enough. That was until he picked it apart—repeatedly.
“You think so?” I asked absently, looking over a few harmless notes he’d left in the margins. Hard to believe I’d gone from daydreaming about owning a bar with a gallery space reserved for art—the creating and selling of it—to now considering a possible chain of them. Well, minus the art part. My dream had been downgraded to just a bar, and lucky for me, Cole didn’t have a clue.
“Yeah,” he said, voice dripping with pride.
“You could have emailed this to me, you know,” I said, holding it up.
He shrugged. “I needed a reason to check in on you.” Cole worried about me. Worried about the neighborhood I lived in, worried about how much sex I had, worried about how I was adjusting to the move. I hated his worry because I didn’t deserve it, and so I refused to feed into it.
“I’m fine. I had a little night-cap, and now I’m ready for bed.” We both understood the beer bottle on the counter wasn’t the night-cap I referred to. “Go,” I said, motioning for him to leave.
