Page 34 of Absinthe Dreams
I slide from the bed, dragging a pair of sweats up my legs. Thanos lifts his head from his bed in the corner, one eye cracked open. Like Chloe, he isn't interested in mornings. He'd rather sleep in, but he huffs and then stretches slowly before climbing to his feet. He stumbles more than walks into the hall, his eyes still half closed.
I chuckle softly as I slip out of the room behind him, pulling the door closed. We stop in the kitchen long enough to start a pot of coffee, grab my phone, and then step out into the yard.
The sun hasn't quite crested the horizon, turning the sky that inky, ombre blue-orange color. Despite the hour, Tom is already in position at his window, ready to raise hell. I swear to Christ, he probably sleeps there, just waiting for something—me, probably—to come by his window so he can fuck it up.
"Back yard, Thanos," I mutter, heading that way before the Chihuahua gets up to his usual bullshit and wakes Chloe. I want her in a good mood today, not cranky because she was up with the chickens, as she likes to say.
Thanos just lopes along behind me like he doesn't give a flying fuck where we go as long as he gets to piss.
Wyatt's backyard is nice as hell. A massive deck stretches off the back of the house, with Adirondack chairs scattered around a sunken firepit. The back fence is obscured by massive flowering bushes that give the space a lush, green look, drawing attention away from the parched Southern California grass. The same flowering plants march in neatly planted lines all around the back of the house.
I drop into a chair and dial Colton while Thanos sniffs around, looking for the perfect spot to drop a deuce. I'm not worried about waking the man up at the ass crack of dawn. I doubt he's slept much since Chloe skipped town anyway.
"Trystan, how are you, son?" he answers on the third ring, wide awake.
"Hey. Doing good." I clear my throat, not entirely sure how to even have this conversation with him. He's going to be pissed. So is Chloe, for that matter. "I'm calling about Chloe."
A tense silence hangs on the line for a moment before he sighs. "What about her, son?"
I'm marrying your daughter whether you like it or not.I don't say that, though. Not yet. As much as I want to blurt it out, I fucking can't. That's a conversation we need to have after Chloe and I have a conversation about what she wants.
If she isn't on the same page, I'll lose my mind, but she's been telling me for years that I'm too goddamn bossy. She isn't wrong. I've spent years telling her what to do without even meaning to do it. I won't fuck up the most important thing in my life by demanding that she give me what I want again now.
I'm trying like hell to play by her rules. The problem? I have no fucking clue what they are yet. I don't think I've ever known, but goddamn, I want to get them right. I want her to keep looking at me like she has since we kissed for the first time.
"I know why she quit her job."
"Why?" her dad growls.
"Her ex-prick-of-a-boss sent her wildly fucking inappropriate messages."
"Son of a bitch," Colton mutters into the phone. "How bad are they?"
"Bad enough to destroy her trust in him, and probably his marriage, too." She finally let me see them last night. I wanted to drive to San Francisco and rip the prick's throat out again. She begged me not to do it, but I'm still considering the option. No one should have to read that kind of shit from their married boss, especially one in his fucking sixties.
"Motherfucker."
"She was afraid to tell you."
Colton sighs like he isn't surprised to hear that. "She worries too goddamn much about everyone else."
"Yeah, she does." I pause, watching Thanos for a moment. "You should know that she sent the messages to his wife before she quit. She's already blocked his number, but he reached out to her again yesterday."
"You are not making me want to kill him any less, Trystan," Colton says, his tone flat.
"Believe me, I'm right there with you," I mutter.
"What'd he want?" her dad asks and then immediately snorts. "Actually, let me guess. He wants her to fix the problem for him, right?"
"Yeah, something like that. His wife is leaving him. He asked her to tell his wife that she made it all up. Offered her job back if she played along."
"I will burn his company to the fucking ground before she ever steps foot through the doors again," he swears, his tone lethal.
I smile in response. There's a reason I respect this man as much as I do. He'd kill for her, without question or hesitation. That's the kind of loyalty she deserves from the people in her life. It's the kind I want to give her every fucking day for the rest of her life.
"She threatened to go to the cops if he didn't stop harassing her," I say, leaning back in the chair as Thanos lopes over to me, butting his head against my thigh. I scratch his ears.
"That won't be necessary," Colton growls. "I'm already getting dressed to go handle this shit."
