“No, she is definitely not.”
Both of us pulled away slightly so we could whip our heads in the direction of the kitchen, where Taylor was standing as she opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water.
She smirked. “Though she can be convinced to leave for indeterminate amounts of time every now and then. But not tonight, lovebirds. I’m beat.” She gave us one more smile and went back into the bedroom.
Drew and I looked back at one another and promptly burst out laughing.
Chapter Nine
D R E W
“This can be all yours for the summer,” Sean said as he gestured widely with his arms. “What do you say?”
I wanted to say that this was some bullshit.
Sean had had the brilliant idea of adding a deck to Rafferty’s, but now that it was there, he had no idea what to do with it—and clearly no desire to figure it out. Pawning it off on me meant he’d have someone to blame if the deck didn’t bring in any extra money.
He’d asked me to come in a little early with Brody so we could discuss a few things. I’d thought it had to do with me training Brody behind the bar, since he was relegated to barbacking until he got some training, but instead Sean wanted to discuss the new deck and how it was my responsibility.
Beyond having to stay within a set budget, he would pretty much give me free rein to do what I needed to attract a crowd.
I looked around. While the area was spacious—probably even big enough to have a small band perform—and had a small service bar to quickly throw together simple cocktails, it was in no way ready to handle a large influx of customers without a lot of help from the bar inside, which would be incredibly limiting.
There was no doubt in my mind that in order to be a success, we needed a full bar out there. And on top of that, the deck was bare bones. The wood looked like it still needed to be treated, there were no tables or chairs, no outdoor servingware, the small bar it did have didn’t look like it was hooked up to the water line yet, and obviously it wasn’t stocked.
Nice weather had arrived, but the deck wasn’t ready for people to take advantage of it. It felt like we were already behind the eight ball with selling this to the public.
When I didn’t reply, Sean clapped a hand on Brody’s back. “I figured I could give you full use of your buddy here.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Like giving me a guy with no experience and a penchant for mishaps was a selling point. But I didn’t point that out to Sean, nor did I air any of my other gripes.
Instead, I smiled like a schmuck and nodded. “Yeah, man. Sounds good.”
I told myself it would’ve been stupid to refuse. After all, this was what I’d wanted: to run a bar. This was my chance, even if it wasn’t optimal. It would be good experience for when Brody and I ventured out on our own, and it would be something to show off to his dad if it ended up being a success.
“Great. I’ll leave you guys to it, then. Let me know what you need.” Sean hurried away before I could actually ask him for anything.
When we were alone, Brody clapped his hands together. “Where do we start, boss?”
There was no missing the excitement thrumming through him. It was good to see, even if I was about to extinguish it.
“You ever stain a deck before?”
Brody’s eyes widened comically. “Uh, no.”
“Looks like you’re about to experience something new, then.”
“Can’t we, like, hire someone to do that?”
I shrugged. “Probably. But by the time we got someone out here, we’d probably lose another day or two minimum. Not to mention we’d have to take it out of the budget Sean’s giving us to set up, and I’d rather put that toward things we need to purchase or can’t realistically do ourselves.”
“But…what if we can’t stain this deck ourselves?”
I put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Brody, we can do almost anything.”
“Those words aren’t as motivating as you think. Your tone makes them…ominous.”
“It’ll be fine.”
Brody dramatically unleashed a full-body shiver. “Terrifying.”
“Shut up and come to the store with me.”
With a resigned sigh, Brody followed me back inside. I hoped I was leading him into a future that would benefit us both rather than toward disaster.
Knowing us, I wasn’t sure how good our odds were.
S O P H I A
My first day at Margot Nathan, the marketing firm where I’d gotten a summer internship, was insane.
I’d met with a red-haired, bespectacled woman from HR for almost two hours as she droned on about the intricacies of my internship and not-so-subtly threatened to sue me if I strayed beyond the limits of my job.
I was then sent to find Mr. Prescott, the chief marketing officer and one of the partners of the firm, but his secretary had informed me, rather snidely, that he rarely met with interns, and we’d be reporting to executives named Carole Hawthorne and Jeff Phillips.
When I’d finally managed to track Jeff down, he pointed to a chair next to a long table and told me to sit. My jaw nearly hit the floor as I watched him riffle frantically through a stack of papers on a desk. Was everyone in this place fucking rude or just the people I had the pleasure of interacting with?
Despite my rage threatening to make me rise to the ceiling, I managed to sit down in the chair and looked around the office. It was open-concept, with desks organized around the perimeter of the room and a large conference table—where I sat—in the center. There were two offices that likely belonged to the executives who would be overseeing my internship, but they were currently empty.
Over the rest of the day, I watched people run around the room, sniping at each other and tossing papers back and forth. Everyone seemed to hate each other, which I understood because they all acted like assholes.
The other interns all kept their heads down and stayed out of the way. We’d barely even risked speaking enough to exchange names, but I’d managed to learn that Abigail was from a state school an hour away, Kevin had graduated from a school across town and was hoping this internship led to a job, and Jake was going into senior year like me at a school just outside the city. We traded whispers when no one was looking in an attempt to figure out why everyone seemed manic.
I’d managed to deduce there was an important client who wasn’t happy with their most recent proposal, and the entire firm was frantic to try to make things right before the client walked.
The chaos resulted in my being mostly ignored all day other than being told to run to the corner to get coffee for everyone. Somehow I managed to not poison anyone’s drink.
I was taking that as a victory, albeit a minor one.
Taylor and I had decided to meet up at Rafferty’s since it was close to home anyway, and we both figured we’d need a drink. Or five. Taylor might have actually needed more than that.
As a criminal justice major who hoped to go to law school, she had lined up an internship at a summer program for adjudicated teenagers whose probation officers had referred them to the program to keep them out of trouble. But that program wouldn’t start for about another month, so they’d allowed her to volunteer at an alternative school program so she could get her feet wet.
I thought it would be hell, but I didn’t want to tell her that.
We agreed to meet out front, so I leaned against the stone exterior wall and thumbed around on my phone. After about five minutes of perusing Instagram, I heard Taylor’s voice.
“Vodka,” she yelled, still about twenty-five yards from me. “Must have vodka.”
Passersby turned and stared at her as she plodded toward me, looking as if she’d gotten caught in a gang war on her way home.
“Good day, huh?” I said when she reached me.
“I feel unprepared for the real world.”
“Wow. So today triggered like…an early life crisis. Intense.” I pulled open the front door of
the bar and gestured for her to go first.
“Such a gentleman,” she snarked.
“Shut up.”
I hadn’t been in Rafferty’s in a while, but it hadn’t changed at all. It was still a little dark, giving it a slightly dingy appearance, but the bar was almost full, and there were also people congregating around the pool tables and dart boards.
The conversations were loud and boisterous, but a joviality carried across the din that gave it an upbeat atmosphere. In short, Rafferty’s was a typical neighborhood hole-in-the-wall, but the drunks were happy ones.
It was my kind of crowd.
Taylor and I found two open barstools and slid onto the red-leather cushioned seats.
A guy approached, wiping his hands with a towel, and smiled at us. “Can I see some IDs, ladies?”
We both fished them out of our wallets and handed them over. The bartender inspected them with diligence before handing them back.
“What can I get ya?”
“Lots of vodka,” Taylor replied quickly.
The bartender leaned forward and propped his hands on the bar. “Tough day?”
“Yes. Drunk is the only way to survive.”
“You’re in the right place, then,” he said with a grin. “My name’s Wyatt.” He extended a hand to each of us in turn, and we introduced ourselves.
Wyatt seemed particularly interested in getting to know Taylor, which was great. I looked him over as he listed drink options with “lots of vodka” to Taylor. He was attractive: tall and broad with dark hair and stubble on his jaw. He looked a little too mature to be college-age, but not too old. Definitely under thirty.
Totally acceptable for Taylor.
“And for you?” he asked me, interrupting my plans for matchmaking.
“Oh, um, cosmo, please.”
“Coming right up,” he said and started to turn away, but I called him back.
“Do you know if Drew’s here?”
I could’ve texted him, but I’d been hoping to surprise him. I’d expected him to be behind the bar and hoped he hadn’t gone home already.
“Yeah, he’s around somewhere. You a friend of his?”
“She’s his girlfriend,” Taylor said in a singsong voice that likely annihilated her sex appeal.
Dummy.
Wyatt smiled. “He’s out back on the new deck. I can slip back there and tell him you’re here.”
“Can we go out there?” I asked.
Wyatt shrugged. “I don’t see why not. I’ll put your drinks in plastic cups so you can take them outside.”
“Thanks.”
Wyatt nodded and went about making our drinks.
“He’s got great forearms,” I whispered in an attempt to get Taylor interested.
She looked over at me, her face scrunched up. “Forearms?”
“Yeah, didn’t you see them when he was leaning on the bar? They’re all veiny and thick. Sexy.”
“That is literally the least sexy description of arms I’ve ever heard.”
“How many descriptions of arms have you heard before?”
She thought for a second. “I’m coming up empty.”
“So it’s also the most sexy description you’ve ever heard.”
“Touché. But you’ve set the bar very low.”
“Low standards are kind of my specialty,” I said with a wink.
She laughed loudly.
God, it was so good to have her with me for the summer.
“Here ya go,” Wyatt said as he set our drinks in front of us.
“Great. Can you start us a tab?” Taylor asked.
“Sure, but first round’s on me.”
Taylor gave Wyatt a smile that lacked her usual sultriness. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.”
“Do we go out that way?” I asked, pointing at a door at the back of the place.
“Yup.”
I smiled my thanks and stood with my drink. Taylor followed, though I could sense her sashaying more than walking behind me. I threw open the door and stepped out into the sunshine.
The door opened onto a small landing, and there were about four steps leading up to the deck. When I got to the top, I stopped abruptly, causing Taylor to walk into my back.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
I slid to the side so she could stand beside me.
“Dear Lord,” she muttered. “What are they doing?”
“I wish I knew.”
Across the deck from us stood an alarmed Drew watching Brody, who was using both his feet and hands to balance on the railing.
“Dude, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Drew said.
“You have a better one?”
“We can just tiptoe back across and touch up the parts that we mess up.”
That’s right. The morons had stained themselves into a corner. Laurel and Hardy couldn’t have written better material.
Brody scoffed. “Fuck that. If I never see a bucket of stain again, it’ll be too soon.”
“We’re going to have to do two coats anyway.”
“What?” Brody yelled the word so loudly he almost lost his balance.
“Jesus Christ, just get down.” As Drew said the words, he reached up and wrapped his arms around Brody’s waist.
“No, this is the only way,” Brody gritted out as he let go of the railing with one hand so he could try to pry Drew’s arms off.
“Death is not the only way.”
“You’re so dramatic. It’s not that far of a drop. A broken leg tops.”
“Are you forgetting how much experience I have with a broken leg? I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”
Brody stopped wrestling with Drew and took a deep breath.
“Drew,” he said calmly and sincerely. “You’ve gotta let me go.”
“Never.”
Drew’s reply was just as heartfelt, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. Taylor seemed to be on the same wavelength, because we both doubled over in peals of laughter. It was the kind of bone-deep laughter that made my ribs hurt. After the day I’d had, I’d never felt anything better.
Both of the guys froze, their heads whipping in our direction.
“How long have you been standing there?” Brody asked.
“So. Long,” I choked out between breaths that were more like harsh pants. Tears were leaking from the corners of my eyes.
“It’s like watching Rose and Jack say their final words to each other,” Taylor added, which made us both laugh harder.
“Fuck it, we’ll both jump,” Drew said as he hiked a foot up on the railing.
“Drew Nolan, don’t you dare,” I admonished, my good humor disappearing quicker than Aamee’s clothes on prom night.
He put his foot down and slowly faced me.
“How did you guys even manage to do this?” Taylor asked.
“This numbnut,” Drew said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at Brody—who was still balanced on the railing like a frightened lemur—“was in such a hurry to get done, he wouldn’t plan things out with me. He just kept saying, ‘We got it, we got it.’ And now look at us.”
“You can’t blame this on me. You know how reckless and impulsive I am. It’s your fault for not keeping me in check. You’re supposed to be the responsible one.”
Drew rolled his eyes as he muttered something under his breath I couldn’t make out.
“Real mature,” said Brody. “I’ll have you know that’s murder, and I don’t think you’d fare too well in a prison yard.”
Oh, so Drew had said something about killing Brody. That was understandable.
“Not a court in the land would convict me,” Drew shot back.
“You’re a really mean boss, you know that?”
“Hey, guys?” I called, causing them both to look at me, their expressions thunderous. I put my hands up to ward off their glares. “Maybe you can stop fighting and get out from there now?”
Drew threw his arms up in clear frustration.
“How? We’re trapped.”
“Just shimmy along the railing. Brody’s already up there. Just sit on it and use your hands to push you around until you get to the stairs,” Taylor instructed like it was the most common-sense thing in the world.
And she said it like that because it was the most common-sense thing in the world. They were ten feet tops from the stairs that led to the back of Rafferty’s. These two were certainly not smarter together.
Drew and Brody looked at each other for a second.
“Dude, they’re really smart,” Brody whispered.
“Yeah, but don’t tell them that,” Drew muttered back. “We’ll never live it down.”
Do they think we can’t hear them?
“We’re already never living this down,” Brody said as he started to shuffle himself to the stairs.
Drew hoisted himself up next and carefully moved to the stairs, and both guys hurried over. When they arrived, Drew leaned toward me and pressed a kiss to my temple.
“You guys stopping by is a nice surprise,” he said.
I smirked. “I bet.”
Drew ignored my comment and gestured to the deck. “How’s it look?”
“Like it needs a second coat of stain,” Taylor replied, her voice breaking on the last word as a laugh sneaked out.
I snorted in an attempt to keep my guffaws in, but it was no use.
The two of them just made it too damn easy.
Chapter Ten
D R E W
“I never thought I’d say this, but Aamee is actually starting to grow on me.”
I’d been lying on my side on the lounge chair facing Sophia, mainly so I could see her in her bikini. Even though I’d seen her naked countless times, there was something so sexy about looking at her while she was covered in the areas only I had access to.
Sophia rolled her head to the side, and she pulled her sunglasses up to get a better look at me. “What does that mean?”
I couldn’t tell what she was thinking because her expression seemed to catch somewhere between confusion and anger. I realized quickly that the “in between” was a dangerous place to be.
Two Truths & a Lime (The Love Game Book 3) Page 6
