Page 26 of Forever Endeavor

CHAPTER 9

Sonny

Ungumming the carburetor of a quad bike kept Gurdeep busy while Sonny totalled weekly receipts in his office. Returning to the scene of the crime gave him a chance to be alone with his hot flashbacks of last night’s passionate tryst. In the light of day, he could still see her, feel her and good God, even smell her honeyed scent, the pleasurable sensory memory causing a powerful visceral reaction. Hell, even without being there, Billie managed to give him a rise.

“Sonny!” Gurdeep called out from the shop floor. “Someone’s here to see you.”

He cleared his throat and pushed aside the sexy scenes to give himself a moment to cool down and refocus. Work. Yeah right, work.

“Can I help—?” He stopped short at the sight of the traitor whose betrayal of their lifelong friendship ranked him up there with Judas, Benedict Arnold, and even Julius Caesar’s ally turned assassin. Et tu, Chad? “What the hell do you want?”

“Nice to see you too, pal,” replied the backstabber with the pretty-boy face that was just begging to be rearranged.

“I’m not your pal,” Sonny barked.

“Right.” Chad shuffled his feet, looking down. It took a few seconds before he mustered the guts to look Sonny in the eye again. “I was hoping we could talk.”

Sonny shook his head. “Don’t have anything to say to you.”

Chad glanced over at Gurdeep, frozen like a deer in headlights before snapping out of it and turning his attention back to the carburetor. “Can we talk somewhere private please? Your office maybe?”

Sonny folded his arms and leaned against the door frame, blocking out that possibility. “I’m busy. Whatever it is you came to say, just say it and get the hell out.”

“Me and Melissa are getting married,” Chad blurted. “Figured it’s time I make an honest woman out of her.”

Sonny howled. “Melissa? Honest? It takes a hell of a lot more than a gold band to make that happen.”

“I get it man, we hurt you. I’m real sorry for the way things went down, but that was a long time ago. It’s time we all moved on.”

“Rest assured, you two no longer live rent-free in my head.”

“Funny you should mention rent,” Chad said. “Because we have a little problem. Melissa, you see, well…she wants the house back before we get married.”

“The fuck she does. We had a deal. She left the marriage; I kept the house.”

Chad shoved his hands in his pockets. “You know that was never the deal, Sonny. The house belongs in her family. She let you live there after the divorce because she felt bad.”

“Ah, but now she has zero problem kicking me to the curb,” Sonny snarled. “Why is she breaking her promise this time? She hasn’t tried to lay claim to the house in almost three years.”

“Because the way market prices are these days, it doesn’t make sense to buy something new when she already has that big old house.”

“What’s wrong with your place?”

“We need something with an extra bedroom.” Chad averted his eyes. “Preferably within the next eight and a half weeks.”

“Eight and a half weeks? Geez, that’s pretty specif—” Sonny’s mind caught up to his mouth. “Nah, you’ve got to be shitting me.”

Chad smiled awkwardly as his shoulders shrugged. “Yeah, we’re having a kid.”

A pang stabbed Sonny’s chest as his heart shriveled. A kid? Like the one he’d wanted but Melissa had denied? Now she was giving fucking Chad a kid? “Uh…congratulations, I guess.”

“Now you understand the urgency. We wanted to give fair notice so you can find a new place and we can have enough time to do a few renovations before the baby.”

“So, what you’re actually saying is that I need to be out…?”

“By the end of the month,” Chad said. “But if there’s anything I can do, really, just—”

Sonny abruptly ended the conversation with a slam of his office door. Better that than accidentally losing control of his fist and messing up Chad’s too-pretty-for-his-own-good face.

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