Page 1 of What You Own
Chapter 1
Ryan
“I’MGONNAbe sick.”
“You are not going to be sick, Ryan,” Ellie Wright said, with a fire in her voice that only a best friend could produce and that usually made me listen. “You are forbidden from being sick. You probably won’t even see him while we’re here.”
“His daddy owns the place. Adam’s getting a business degree. Where the hell else would he be doing a summer internship?” It all made perfect sense in my head, even though Ellie was right—I had no idea if Adam Langley was actually working at Langley-Quartermaine Financial this summer. And it mattered a helluva lot more to me than it had any right.
The lobby at LQF was busy enough, with folks coming and going all the time. The nice lady in the blue suit at the sign-in desk had been sweet and polite when me and Ellie arrived fifteen minutes ago, early for our appointment with the Quartermaine half of the hyphenated financial group. She took our names, told us to wait, and then cast us occasional nods to let us know we hadn’t been forgotten, even as other folks waiting were escorted to the elevator bank at the opposite side of the pristine red, white, and black decorated lobby.
I kept eyeballing the unisex bathroom about ten feet from the black leather couch we were keeping warm. My stomach was twisted up into honda knots, and I couldn’t relax—like I expected the horse I was riding to turn and bolt at any second. Only I wasn’t on a horse, and the chance of running into Adam or his weasel of a father (the Langley side of the hyphen) was more anxiety inducing than an unexpected gallop through the brush.
And with a lot more potential for lasting damage.
Maybe a little background, yeah? Ellie and I, best friends since our senior year of high school, had spent the three years since working crap jobs, taking classes at the community college, and volunteering at the Emmett Paige Community Center. Helping the kids at the center certainly saved my life and my sanity these last few years, and we were on our third appointment of the day with some of the city’s most prominent businesses looking for help to keep the center alive. We weren’t the only volunteers chatting up businesses today, and the list had been randomly divided.
The fact that LQF was on our list proved to me, once again, that the Lord’s got a dirty sense of humor.
He already proved it in high school, when He put Adam in my life, only to yank him back out again. Needless to say, the Lord and I ain’t on speaking terms.
“You’re doing that thing, stop it,” Ellie whispered.
I jammed my right wrist into my lap, not caring if it wrinkled my fancy slacks. My personal nervous tic came out in the form of rotating my right wrist in wide circles, which crackled the joints. I liked the sound—reminded me the damned thing had healed well after being broken—and I didn’t always realize I was doing it.
Mr. Quartermaine was ten minutes late for our appointment, which dinged my irritation bell good. I may have grown up in Texas and spoke a little slow sometimes, but being on time was something I prided myself on. My daddy always said showing up at the agreed upon time was a sign of respect. Starting this meeting feeling dissed up front was not good.
Sweat dappled my forehead and neck, as much from annoyance as anxiety, and I felt the red starting to heat my cheeks. Damn it all if I’d go into this meeting a sweaty mess, even if I was jumpier than a rattlesnake in a water barrel.
“I need a minute, Ellie, I’m sorry,” I said. I jacked my thumb in the direction of the bathroom door.
Ellie rolled her black-lined brown eyes. “Be fast.”
“Right.”
I hightailed it into the single-person bathroom and flipped the lock. Even the damned bathroom was fancy, with chrome fixtures, red tiled floors, and a little basket of those pretty paper towels you can’t buy at Family Dollar. I dunked one under the cold water and dabbed at my face and throat, cooling down the hot skin.
Looking at me, you’d think I was on my way to a prison sentencing. I held my own gaze in the fancy mirror and breathed deep. Long, slow inhales through the nose and deep exhales through the mouth, just like my therapist taught me. “You can do this, Sanders. One meetin’ in a building of at least five hundred people. Your chances of seeing him are next to nothin’. You’re fine.”
I hadn’t seen Adam in three and a half years, not since the December wrap party for our high school’s performance ofRent. We’d both been seniors. That night changed our lives. Mine most definitely for the worse. Adam’s life… well, he went back to school afterward. He walked with our class at graduation. He went off to a nice school for his business degree. His father owned half the town I still lived in, including a share of the restaurant my father managed. Adam had moved on from that night.
My anxiety—and the fact that, no matter what, I couldn’t stop loving him—kept me fucking stuck in that dark parking lot.
With a new towel, I patted my skin dry. The red was going away, and I didn’t look quite so bull-snorting crazy as when I walked in. I straightened my green button-down and made sure I hadn’t splashed water on my slacks. Hair wasn’t sticking up, either, and I tilted my head to check for the cowlick that had haunted me since boyhood, but I’d done it in a few years ago with a short, Marine-style high and tight. Old habits die hard, and all that, right?
Deciding I was respectable enough, I left the safety of the small bathroom for the bright bustle of the lobby. Ellie was standing next to the sofa talking to someone in a gray suit. She spotted me over the suit’s shoulder, and her eyes widened a fraction. My stomach hit the floor with a nauseating splat.
The suit glanced over his shoulder, giving me a three-quarters profile, but it was enough because he saw me too. Blue eyes I’d known for years went bright, then dulled to a cold disinterest. His jaw set. I knew Adam Langley well enough to know that face—the “I’m pissed off but trying hard to not show it” face.
Balls.
He angled around so he didn’t have to crane his neck, and I forced my heavy feet to close the distance between us, each step falling like an anvil against my heart. He looked the same. Blue eyes, black hair cut short around the neck but longer on top, a little bit of scruff on his chin that never went away, even if he’d just shaved. He was still a good six inches shorter than me, slim beneath the suit. The only unfamiliar thing about his body was the scar on his chin—a wrinkle of flesh no bigger than a firefly hid beneath the scruff just left of center.
I remembered the punch that left that scar. Ice water skittered down my spine. My heart gave a stupid pitter-pat at the sight of him because no matter the horrible way things had ended up, I’d never stopped loving Adam.
Judging by the cold glare coming my way, he didn’t feel the same.
“Ryan,” he said. My name off his lips stirred warmth deep in my guts—warmth I hadn’t felt in too damned long.
