by A. J. Pine
“Look, Victoria. Can we talk, woman to woman? That is my best friend who just walked away from me, thinking the worst about me. But he’s wrong. And I’m in love with him, and if you could just tell me where his room is, I can make everything right. Haven’t you ever been in love?” she asked hopefully. Then she leaned over the counter and whispered, “I know it’s bending the rules, but it’s for a good cause, right?”
Victoria pressed her lips together, glanced at her computer monitor, and then back at Brynn.
“Yes. I’ve been in love before. And would you like to know what that got me?”
Uh-oh, Brynn thought. Abort mission. Abort. Abort! But it was too late.
“It got me double the rent after I found the love of my life in our bed with the cable guy.”
Brynn wrinkled her brows.
“Now you want to ask me if the love of my life was a guy or a girl, right?”
She chewed her bottom lip. “I kinda do,” she said. Maybe she and Victoria were bonding, and this did sound like a great story.
Victoria crossed her arms. “My sexual orientation is none of your business, and the same goes for your friend’s room number. Is there anything else I can help you with tonight?”
Brynn groaned. She wanted to sneer at the woman, give her one of her most practiced disdainful looks, but she didn’t want to risk—what was the equivalent of a waiter spitting in your food?—dirty towels or a bedspread that should never be seen under a black light? Besides, she was just doing her job. What if one of Brynn’s hypothetical muggers not only found her hidden money in her wallet but also followed her back to her hotel to mug her again? Would she want the front desk attendant to divulge her whereabouts? No. Of course not.
But Brynn wasn’t here to mug Jamie. In the past few months she’d already stabbed him and clocked him in the face. This week she’d certainly helped deplete his funds. It was as if she’d been mugging him all along. Maybe that was just her way—like punching the boy you like on the playground at recess. She was here to be with Jamie. To fight for him, even if he had finally lost all his fight.
She considered walking each floor, dialing Jamie’s cell phone, and hoping she could hear his ringtone through the door. But Jamie was a man of simplicity, which meant he always left his phone on vibrate. In a one-room home for the next few days, Brynn knew he couldn’t miss the phone’s ring. But she would. Nope, stalking the floors wouldn’t work.
She tried Jamie’s cell one more time, willed him to pick up, but this time it went to voicemail after one ring. That meant he saw it was her and actively canceled the call. He wasn’t going to make this easy.
“Jamie,” she said. “Please. We need to talk, but not like this. I need to see you. Call me back. Or…or come to my room. Room 460. Just talk to me, okay?”
She wouldn’t admit defeat. Not yet. Brynn rode the elevator to the fourth floor and found her way back to room 460. If Jamie wasn’t going to listen to her, she would find a way to make him hear.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
One swig was all he allowed himself before getting in the shower to rinse away the day—this week—all of it. Jamie knew that if he finished that pint (and he planned to finish that pint) first, he ran the risk of passing out before the whole showering thing, and that didn’t bode well for having to wake up early to get to the fest for setup. He just needed enough to dull the edges, but even now, as he braced his arm against the tiled shower wall and let the hot water pelt his skin, he still felt raw.
In a way he always expected the week to end up like this, but Amarillo and Annie let him cling to that shred of hope. He blamed himself, not Brynn. He pushed her away when he finally got what he wanted, too scared to believe he could keep it.
All the shower managed to do was make him wish Brynn was there with him. Fuck, she almost was. She was in the same building. It was just the whole with situation that wasn’t what it should have been. He sent her here to see Spencer and then lost his mind when she did what he’d asked her to do.
Not until he was sure he’d most likely depleted the hotel’s hot water reservoir did he finally turn off the shower. He plopped back down in his chair, towel wrapped around his waist, and unscrewed the bottle again. Tipping it back against his lips, he let the spicy heat of the liquid pour down his throat and warm his insides. The edges of the day’s activities were getting duller by the minute. Since he really had nothing else to lose other than his body’s ability to metabolize his intake at a speed fast enough not to give him a hangover, he let his next sip be the one that drained the bottle. Jamie hissed a breath through his teeth. For a guy who slow sips a pint in an effort to savor a brewer’s craftsmanship, a pint of Jack in one sitting was stronger than expected, to say the least.
He stood when, honestly, he should have sat for several more minutes, or at least until he got used to his slowly blurring vision.
He laughed. This must have been what it was like to be Brynn in Tulsa, but at least her vision cleared the farther away things got. For Jamie it only cleared if he pressed his eyes shut.
Yes. That’s what the back of an eyelid should look like.
He decided brushing his teeth would make things clearer because—because—shit, he didn’t know what came after because. But he remembered his errand when he got to the bathroom, so he took to brushing his teeth.
Somewhere between the bathroom and the bed, Jamie’s towel fell off, so he climbed naked into the sheets after grabbing his phone.
When the hell had that voicemail notification popped up?
He swiped the lock on his screen, grateful he didn’t have a lock code, and opened his voicemail. Even though the alcohol had made the day’s events sufficiently fuzzy, his gut still twisted when he heard Brynn’s voice—recognized its plea.
She gave him her room number, which was all well and good, but he wasn’t going to barge in on her and Spencer. Again.
Jamie wasn’t a drunk texter, but coherent speech felt beyond his capacity at the moment. Plus he was both drunk and naked this evening, a new combination, which he thought called for a new experience. Drunk texting.
Only because Brynn’s number was the last to send him a message did he choose the right one. Otherwise, the message could have gone to his brother Ben as he would have looked for Brynn in the Bs rather than under S for Sleepy Jean because, dammit, he was drunk, which is why, thankfully, he did not text his brother.
Jamie: Dr. Unk
He tried three times to get rid of the period, but damn Autocorrect won this round. He hit send without typing anything else, figuring he shouldn’t be drunk texting her, but that was the thing about drunk texting. You did it even though you shouldn’t. Because of the whole drunk part of the scenario. Somewhere in his cloudy brain he rationalized that letting her know he was drunk would also explain to her why he was drunk, that it would somehow say all the things he should have said before Amarillo and not waited for complete strangers to light the fuse that he’d been trying to douse for years.
He closed his eyes and laid the phone on his bare chest. The vibration came seconds later, which was a good thing because a few seconds more and he probably would be asleep.
He sat up and rallied, rubbed his eyes, and then read.
Sleepy Jean: Dr. Unk?
Crap. She hadn’t cracked his code. He was about to reattempt the word sans extra space and autocorrect assholery when she texted again.
Sleepy Jean: You’re drunk? I just left you thirty minutes ago.
Even in his state, Jamie had to laugh at the irony of this.
Jamie: You left me twelve hours ago, B. As you should have.
His texting fingers were working better, not that it mattered at this point.
Sleepy Jean: What room are you in?
He could tell her. He could explain that her name was actually on the reservation, but what good would that do now? And how many points would he earn by letting her see him like this? Even he didn’t want to look himself in the eye.
; He lay back down, closing his eyes just for a minute. He’d think this through, weigh the pros and cons, and if he didn’t find enough reasons not to tell her his room number, then he would.
But a pint of Jack on an empty stomach meant two things. One: Jamie passed out for an hour. And two: for the first time in at least five years, he hurled.
It only took seconds for his stomach to empty itself of its sole contents, the whiskey. Fairly sober and head pounding, he cleaned himself up and dressed in a T-shirt and flannel pants before glancing at the phone he’d unwittingly tossed to the floor on his flight to the porcelain god.
Sleepy Jean: What room are you in?
The text was time stamped over an hour ago, and he’d never responded. And Brynn, well, it looked like she’d given up. He figured she’d reached her statute of limitations for giving him another chance, and how could he blame her?
He set his alarm and crawled into bed. He’d looked forward to tomorrow for two weeks. And when Brynn agreed to go with him on this trip, he allowed himself to hope. Now all he wanted was to get through the next day and get his ass on the road back to Chicago.
…
Brynn headed down to the lobby and grimaced when she saw Victoria behind the front desk again. Did the woman not sleep?
Serenity now, she thought to herself. She approached the desk and cleared her throat, forcing Victoria to look up from whatever it was she was doing—probably intentionally ignoring the woman who wronged the gorgeous, rugged man the night before.
“My travel plans have changed, and I’m going to need to check out a day early.”
Brynn slid her hotel room key across the counter to Victoria, who pursed her lips as she stared at it.
“There is a fifty dollar surcharge for canceling less than twenty-four hours in advance.”
Brynn let out a long breath. “Then charge me,” she said.
Victoria said nothing else as her fingertips started clicking and clacking the keyboard, but then the woman’s eyes widened.
“What?” Brynn asked. “Is it a hundred dollar surcharge? I don’t care, okay? Just check me out and find someone to call me a cab to the airport. I’ll spend the rest of my savings on a same-day flight to Chicago.”
Victoria’s whole countenance changed. “Miss, I…uh…I’m terribly sorry. It seems there has been a mistake. When I typed in your name, two reservations showed up.”
Great. Now this woman wanted to charge her for two rooms?
“I don’t know what kind of racket you’re running here, lady…” She could pull off racket, right? “…but I am not paying for two rooms.”
Victoria shook her head, and her cheeks flushed. Brynn realized the woman was panicked.
“When you asked for his room number last night, I should have checked his reservation, just to be sure. But he was…he had that tortured-lover look going for him. Plus the almost beard and the baseball hat—so Midwestern…”
Brynn’s breathing grew shallow as she started to put the pieces together, but she needed Victoria to confirm it.
“Can you get over your fantasy for a second and say what you’re trying to tell me?” Brynn’s voice shocked even her—strong and demanding, because, dammit, this was her tortured lover with the beard and baseball hat.
“Your name is on his reservation,” Victoria finally blurted.
Brynn swallowed and cleared her throat again, this time not to get Victoria’s attention but to make sure she had voice enough to speak. When Jamie hadn’t texted her back last night, she’d assumed that was his final response to whatever it was they were still negotiating. But maybe he was drunker than she thought. Maybe he’d just forgotten. Maybe…she wanted to scream. Because maybe it was time for them to stop being fools and make this right.
“Did he add me to the reservation on arrival?”
Victoria shook her head. “This reservation was made two weeks ago, in both your names.”
Brynn’s throat went dry, and she choked back what could have been a laugh or a sob.
James T. Kirk, you always intended on us ending up here together!
She scurried around to the side of the desk and wheeled her suitcase behind it. Victoria flinched, and Brynn rolled her eyes.
“Do I look like the violent type?” she asked, and Victoria shook her head. “Have you seen Mr. Kingston this morning?” Now Victoria nodded. “Then I need you to watch this, and I need you to call me a cab to Center Studios. That’s where this beer festival thing is, correct?” Another nod.
In less than five minutes, Brynn was in a taxi on her way to find the man who was too stubborn and scared to admit what this trip had been all about, to prove to him that she’d been too stubborn to see what was right in front of her, and to convince him that they’d spent enough time apart already.
She looked down at what Jamie considered her godforsaken Cubs T-shirt. She’d planned on spending the day on a plane not trying to win out over Jamie’s fear. And though she’d showered and put on clean undergarments, she was pretty much out of clothes that hadn’t already been worn. Well, if he loved her, he’d take her in spite of the shirt. Now she just had to find him.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jeremy opened another bottle of the new brew to fill the sampler cups.
“We’re getting good traffic,” he said, and Jamie grunted a response he hoped came off as an affirmative.
“My sister keeps texting me saying that you and Brynn aren’t returning her texts. Can you just answer her so I can stop being the middle man?”
Jamie grunted again, this time a negative.
Jeremy continued pouring and passing out samples while Jamie occasionally greeted a patron who wanted to meet the brewer. He was happy for the band playing across the way, though he thought about requesting something other than Van Halen’s “Why Can’t This Be Love.” Instead he gritted his teeth. He could make it through the next three minutes. For the most part the music helped drown out his thoughts enough to keep working. If he stopped moving, stopped listening, he’d have a hard time keeping himself from just hopping in the truck and saying Fuck it.
“So you’re going with the stoic lumberjack thing, then?” Jeremy asked, a smirk plastered on his face as he gave Jamie’s plaid and denim look a once-over. Jamie still didn’t feel like talking. “Where is Brynn, anyway?” Jeremy asked. “Between the texts from my sister and the fact that Brynn’s not here for the big unveiling, I take it the trip didn’t quite work out as planned?”
“I’m going for a walk,” Jamie said, rolling up the sleeves of his button-down. He scrubbed a hand across his jaw. Yep. It was definitely a beard now. He adjusted his Sox hat and felt the hair tickling the tops of his ears, brushing the collar of his shirt. And just as he was about to set off for a little solitude in a sea of strangers, he heard his name.
Not from someone nearby, yet not a voice shouting across the expanse of the studio field. Nope. I’m looking for Jamie Kingston blared through the lot’s speakers, the ones being used by the cover band who just finished their song. And dammit if he didn’t know that voice.
The stage was in his line of sight, and as he got closer, he saw first—Jesus, he saw the Cubs shirt, but he didn’t care. He laughed, something he thought he wouldn’t do today or any day soon.
“Jamie. I know you’re out there. At least, I hope you are or else Chainsaw and the boys are going to really regret playing this next song if it’s totally in vain. Did you know the singer’s name is Chainsaw? Great name, dude.” She’d turned her face from the mic to acknowledge the long-haired, leather-pants-wearing band member who must have been Chainsaw.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I need to tell you something, and I was hoping if I did it with enough witnesses, you’d finally believe me.”
Jamie pushed his way through the crowd, as close to the stage as he could get. The ground was wet up front, muddied by spilled beer from patrons who were already drunk by eleven a.m.
She saw him then, and she chewed her top lip
before breaking into a smile.
“What the hell are you doing?” he yelled up to her.
She looked at the band poised to play, then back at him.
“Your laugh,” she started. “I love the deep rasp of your laugh and the way I can’t help but smile when I hear it.”
He lifted his hat and ran a hand through his hair before adjusting it again. Then he crossed his arms. Since when did he get so fidgety?
“And that!” She pointed at him. “That hat, how it’s a part of you, a reminder of your loyalty, no matter how good or bad the Sox are doing.”
“Hey!” he called to her, the crowd circling around him to listen to their show. “We’re in the playoffs. We could make it to the Series!”
Her smile broadened, and he itched to move closer, then crawl up on that stage and grab her. She was here for him. She had to be. After last night—after the past few days—he let hope wriggle its way in.
“The way you stay so even-tempered to balance my…” She threw her hands in the air in a wild gesticulation, and he laughed. “But with the things that matter—your work…and the people you love—you fill with passion, one that’s so contagious people can’t help but love what you love.”
Her voice broke on that last word, and Jamie’s heart hammered in his chest.
“That’s my checklist, Jamie. It was never a contest, because it was always you. It only took me one night to fall for you, but it wasn’t in Amarillo.”
His brows furrowed, and she beamed at him. That beautiful smile was for him.
“It was on my couch, ten years ago. You win, Jamie. Every time.”
She stepped away from the mic and allowed Chainsaw to take his rightful place. And then the band that had been covering nothing but eighties and nineties hair-band songs since the fest had begun erupted with the opening guitar solo to “I’m a Believer” by the Monkees.
Brynn inched toward the edge of the stage and sat, poised to hop down, but he could tell the stage was higher than she’d anticipated. Jamie shook his head and laughed, reaching for her, and as soon as he held her, felt the warmth of her skin against his as her arms draped around his neck, he misstepped, his foot hitting a patch of particularly slippery, beer-soaked grass, and the two of them went down not in a blaze of glory but in a puddle of mud and beer.
