by Stella Rhys
But I didn’t.
In fact, I was thoroughly enjoying how pissed off Iain was right now with his broad shoulders rigid, and his jaw clenched tight. It was more emotion than I’d seen from him all night, and I liked to believe it was because he wanted to cave.
To look at his best friend’s little sister, and feast his eyes on her very grown-up body.
The thought alone gave me a rush, even as he finally said, “Yeah, Holland. I can.”
His tone was deliberately flat, detached in a way that was meant to shut down whatever inappropriate fun I was having with him just now, but it was too late. I’d already gotten my satisfaction, and I knew it showed on my face as I propped my tray back up high and put my hand on my hip.
“Great,” I said brightly, batting my lashes. “Then you know I’m free to live my life however I want, which includes working wherever I want for as long as I want, and if that bothers you then I guess you’ll just have to get over it or stop coming here. Right?”
I tilted my head just so, enjoying exactly two seconds of Iain’s thinly-veiled irritation before Jasmine the hostess approached the table, with a little wave at him and a sheepish smile for me.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt, Mr. Thorn. Um, Holland? Your tables are asking for you?”
I nodded politely and said thank you, knowing well that I’d been in Lana’s section for way too long now. But before I went off with Jasmine, I made sure to face Iain one more time with a big, professional smile.
“Well, it looks like I have to go, but have a good night, Mr. Thorn. And if you ever decide to come back, I’ll be sure to see you next time,” I said in my peppy, overly pleasant waitress voice that made Iain actually smirk, and give a short but sexy-as-hell chuckle that would’ve brought me to my knees if it weren’t for what followed.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” he said.
And with those spectacularly prickish words ringing in my head, I walked away.
4
HOLLAND
I left for work an hour early the next afternoon, for multiple reasons starting with the fact that I wanted—no, needed—to escape Mia’s ruthless interrogation.
It started last night as soon as I got back to service bar, and it continued through cash out, the ride home, and even into this morning when I woke up. Pretty much the second I opened my door, Mia was there, presenting me with a fresh cup of coffee, a croissant from my favorite bakery around the corner, and her narrowed eyes as she said, “Good morning, I’m bribing you for details.”
Which was aggressive.
But fair considering last night was crazy.
Madness, really. The kind of mind-blowing, head-boggling, did-that-really-just-happen type of madness that stayed stuck in my head for the rest of my shift, and robbed me of my sleep by forcing me to spend the night tossing and turning, getting lost in about a million memories of being a teenager who was awkward, lonely and head over heels in love with her brother’s very off-limits, very unattainable best friend.
Which was reason number two for why I had to just get to work already.
The sooner I could get there and get through a shift, the sooner I could get my life back to normal and erase what happened last night, because for the love of God, I was not doing this again.
I really wasn’t.
My adolescence, in a movie title nutshell, could be summed up as My Crazy Debilitating Crush On Iain Thorn, and for the sake of my pride and my sanity, I was not making a sequel.
Was last night wild? Yes. Did I see Iain Thorn for the first time since I was seventeen? Yes. Did he somehow get even hotter and look brutally fucking good in that suit? Oh yes. He looked so good yesterday that it had triggered a few of my oldest fantasies, like what his long, chiseled Superman body looked like all sweaty and naked while fucking some lucky girl against a wall—because for the record, I’d heard him do that before.
When I was fifteen.
And the memory was forever seared into my soul.
But still. None of that changed the fact that he had been an outrageous asshole to me last night. That he’d clearly become the exact kind of arrogant, self-important prick I suspected he would when he up and disappeared from my life, and it didn’t matter what naughty little thrill I’d gotten out of toying with him for a second, or what point I may or may not have succeeded in making about how I was totally an adult now, because according to Iain, I’d seen the last of him. He had said himself that he was never coming back, and besides all that, my adultness didn’t make him any less off-limits since he was still with that girl Keira.
Adam wasn’t a fan—probably because he saw her as the woman behind Iain’s drastic transformation from his reckless, bar-brawling partner in crime to the responsible, cleaned-up suit he was now—but that didn’t seem to affect the happy couple at all. They’d found each other pretty much the week Iain moved to Manhattan to take over his dad’s agency, and considering their relationship was running on five years, they were probably getting engaged any day now.
So why should I waste another second thinking about Iain?
Well.
Because he is unforgettably gorgeous and your standard for men since day one. Because all you’ve ever wanted was for him to look at you like a woman. Because you deserve closure for last night, and the way he treated you like a complete—
Ah, ah.
Enough.
I blinked hard, shaking my head as I got off the train.
Seriously, no more. Just stop now, I scolded myself as I stepped onto the bustling platform, angling my way through the crowd and reminding myself that I’d already made up my mind about this.
Unlike teenaged me, I no longer had all the time in the world to waste on this painfully pointless crush. I had an actual life now—one I’d busted my ass for, so dammit, I was going to live it.
I was going to show up to work, throw on the uniform I secretly loved, then get lost in about a million drink orders till last call at 1AM, at which point I’d text Mia to see what she was up to for the night. Or I could go post-shift bar-hopping with the other girls like I always said I would. Or I could finally take up Tyler the barback’s offer to “chill” since he was pretty cute.
I could do anything.
The possibilities were legitimately endless, and suddenly, I was more eager than ever to explore them. All I had to do first was clear my mind and start this damned shift.
In three... two...
I amped myself up as I approached the door of the bar, and as I swung it open, I had a bright smile all ready for Jasmine, who I knew I’d see planted behind the hostess stand as usual.
But when I got in, I saw her standing there with my manager, Morgan, the two of them talking quietly as Jasmine wore a confused frown on her normally chipper face.
I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined the awkward shift when they turned to look at me.
“Oh. Speak of the devil,” Morgan said with a tinge of surprise in her usual monotone. But after blinking once, then twice, she returned swiftly to the clipped robot voice she normally spoke in. “Holland, I was just telling Jasmine to send you down to the office once you got in,” she said.
“Oh.” My eyes shifted between the two of them as I slowly let my purse down from my shoulders. “Is everything okay?”
Morgan ignored my question, delegating a few more pre-shift tasks to Jasmine and then patting her shoulder before finally turning back to me. “Holland. Come downstairs. Let’s chat,” she said.
I exchanged a look with Jasmine before following Morgan downstairs to the office, chewing my thumbnail as I tried to figure out what this could be about. But I was entirely too new to the job to be able to guess. For all I knew, HR needed me to complete another safety training. Or maybe someone had finally ratted on Lana for shorting the bussers on their tips, and Morgan needed to ask me what I knew. I’d convinced myself it was the latter by the time we got to the office, which eased my nerves.
But my relief was short-lived because I’d bar
ely touched my butt to the chair before Morgan dropped the bomb on me.
“Holland, I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to let you go.”
I was still half-seated as I froze in place and blinked at her.
“You… what?” I breathed. My instinct was to let out an awkward laugh, because I was certain I’d somehow heard her wrong. Or perhaps misunderstood.
But I hadn’t.
“Unfortunately, we are terminating your employment here,” Morgan said with the signature bluntness that had earned her the nickname Robo-Mo among the staff. She was famously direct and to-the-point, which I found refreshing and had always appreciated.
Until now.
“Wait. I don’t understand.” My eyes fluttered and my mouth opened and closed as I weeded through what felt like thousands of questions before I landed on, “Why?” I blinked hard. “Did I… do something wrong?”
“No, Holland. Not at all,” Morgan said with as much warmth as she could muster. “You’ve been a valuable addition to our team. I know I speak for both the bar and the kitchen when I say that we appreciate the hustle and work ethic you’ve brought to every shift. The night certainly goes by smoothest when you’re on the floor.”
“Then why am I being fired?” I questioned.
Morgan paused, blinking a couple times at me then looking briefly at the wall behind the computer, like maybe the answer was scrawled over there. But then she frowned, as if she hadn’t at all found what she was looking for, and turned back to me looking suddenly tired.
“It’s just… it’s just that unfortunately, now is not the right time for you to be on our staff,” she finally said, in what sounded like such a blatantly half-assed lie that a switch instantly flipped inside me.
And suddenly, I wasn’t so much confused as I was pissed.
“But you said the opposite three weeks ago,” I argued, trying to keep my focus through my instant heart-pounding fury, as well as the grating sound of my phone suddenly ringing off the hook in my purse. Locking myself in, I waded through the noise and the jumble of a million thoughts in my head as I tried to remember exactly what Morgan had told me at my interview just a few weeks ago. “You specifically said you hired me because you needed staff,” I pointed out, my pulse picking up. “Because two girls quit last month and because Lana’s going on vacation in August, so how is now a bad time for me to be on your staff?”
I was suddenly fired up now, unblinking as I watched Morgan wiggle her pursed lips and struggle to come up with an answer. Considering how logical and informed she normally was, it only fanned the fire in my veins, further convincing me that this had to be bullshit.
“Morgan—” I started in protest, but she held up her hand.
“Holland,” she countered firmly, with a bit of a wince. “Truly, I regret this. However our backs are against the wall. The decision had to be made, and we’re letting you go. So please clear out your locker. Lana will be here shortly to take over your shift.”
Lana—?
What the fuck?
I stared at Morgan, eyes wild and mind racing. The decision had to be made? Backs against the wall? The odd phrases played in my head on repeat till I felt the heat in my veins suddenly turn into ice.
“Did someone tell you to fire me?” I blurted.
The question left my lips before it had even fully formed as a thought in my brain, and I would’ve figured I was being crazy if Morgan didn’t suddenly freeze and stare at me like a deer in highlights.
Ho-ly.
Shit.
My mouth fell open as I realized what—or who was really behind this decision, and suddenly, I was so livid that I legitimately broke into a sweat. My heart slammed in my chest like it was trying to shatter my ribs, and my mind raced with the burning need to get answers—to grill every last detail out of Morgan, who was now jumping to answer the phone so she wouldn’t have to talk to or even look at me.
Un. Fucking. Real.
I was getting madder by the second, my teeth clenched tight as I hawked Morgan, ready to launch into the interrogation I was mentally preparing in my frantic mind. I knew I was going for it as soon as she hung up, but instead of hanging up, Morgan frowned, glancing my way and saying “sure” before handing the phone over to me.
Reluctantly, I took it. And I barely got out a “hello” before Mia’s stiff voice interrupted.
“Holland. You need to get home right now.”
I got up to the third floor of my walk-up to see the door of my apartment propped open and two men walking out with a mattress. Wait, no.
My mattress.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! What the hell?
In my mind, I sputtered in furious protest. Ran over, arms flailing while yelling, “Hey, hey! What’s the big idea?”
But I didn’t actually do that.
What I did was suddenly process what I’d seen outside my building right before I came in.
A truck. But not just any truck.
A furniture truck.
And with that image in mind, I felt a sudden pit in my stomach. A fog of disbelief dizzied me as I shook my head weakly, letting my feet float me up the rest of the steps and carry me me past the movers into my apartment, where I saw empty cardboard boxes stacked against the wall, plastic packaging strewn about the floor, and a stunned Mia standing just outside my bedroom, looking in with both hands pressed to her cheeks.
When she saw me coming, she threw her arms out.
“Holland! I’m so sorry. I was so confused! I probably I should’ve stopped them but I…”
Then she trailed off.
Either that or I stopped listening because I could no longer process anything else. I could no longer think anywhere close to straight now that I was standing right next to her, my pulse slamming in my ears and my blood boiling in my veins as I stared into my room at exactly what I knew I would see.
The bed of my dreams from Stone Pine.
Brand new and fully assembled.
Gifted to me from none other than Iain Fucking Thorn.
5
IAIN
The afternoon started with my two favorite words: Client emergency.
Prior to that, it had been a punishingly slow morning. Staff meetings and video calls that I conducted on auto-pilot because they were gratingly routine. They presented few problems that required more than a minute of thinking to resolve, which was less than ideal for me today, because today, more than any day, I needed a challenge.
A distraction.
I needed something to occupy the space in my head for more than sixty fucking seconds so I could think of something other than the images that had jolted me up early this morning.
Despite an alarm set for 5AM, I’d found myself flinching awake at a quarter to four. And barely a second into consciousness, I’d found myself glaring at the ceiling, silently cursing my brain for the images it had forced on me in my sleep.
Images of her.
Some innocent. Some less so.
Either way, they had no fucking business in my subconscious let alone the active thoughts I had while going about my day, so when my assistant interrupted a staff meeting to inform me that Drew Maddox had “an urgent issue to discuss,” I gladly cleared the next two hours of my schedule and hopped in a car to Empire Stadium in Brooklyn.
ME: Care to tell me what this is about?
I sent the text to Drew just as my car turned onto the Queensboro Bridge, and within seconds, got his characteristically prickish reply.
DREW: Nah I’m in the training room deal with me when you get here
Asshole, I thought, though I couldn’t help but smirk as I put my phone away, because I wouldn’t expect anything less from him.
Of all my clients, there was no one person with more cocky asshole tendencies than Drew Maddox.
Before we met, he had been a hotheaded trainwreck who brawled with teammates, partied till 6AM on game days and got himself blacklisted from the league after a major run-in with the law. It wasn’t till after I
signed him that he transitioned into the role of reborn superstar—a fan favorite whose new team and agent helped him hide the fact that he was still a walking disaster whose career remained at the mercy of his violent temper.
Beyond the surface, there was no real change in Drew until I put Evie in his life a few years ago—until she worked whatever miracle she did and turned him into the man he was now: the most sought-after pitcher in the league, the reigning World Series MVP, and a thoroughly rehabilitated man who still managed to require the most of my time, energy and patience.
Because wifed or not, Drew was the truest asshole I knew.
That said he was also the one client I considered a close personal friend, and today I was grateful for his never-ending ability to derail my day—even when that meant, in today’s particular episode of Complete Bullshit with Drew Maddox, that he intended to break a million-dollar contractual obligation on Tuesday.
“Maddox, you have got to be shitting me,” I said, standing beside him at the pull-up bar in the New York Empires gleaming new weight room. At 1PM, there was a small handful of players locked into game day training, lifting and squatting and forcing me to tune out the deafening sounds of their slamming weights and throaty grunts.
Drew laughed as he added another forty-five pound plate to his belt.
“I’m not shitting anyone. I’ll go to the All-Star game since I’m starting, but all the bullshit festivities after that, count me out. I get one off day a month. If I have a break, I’m spending it with my family,” he said, giving me his tough shit shrug that was once reserved for telling me that he wouldn’t quit the post-game raging till dawn if it didn’t affect his performance on the mound.
I watched as he jumped up to grab the bar, allowing him do a few pull-ups before I gave him shit.
“Look, I find it ironic and… pretty fucking adorable that you’re now begging me to let you not go to a party,” I said, pausing to smirk at the kiss my ass look he shot me through the mirror. “But you agreed in ink to show up at this one, so the best I can do is arrange your appearance down to just the meet-and-greet.”
