Page 35 of Pour Decisions
But I couldn’t wish for Owen to be anything but my partner and now, I supposed, my boss. That had turned out horribly for Amara and Calvin. Still, I could admit, if only in my own mind…the man was a smoke. Sex on a stick in scuffed Ariat boots and denim that hugged his perfect ass. Owen was exactly the kind of man I was drawn to—a little rugged on the outside with a heart of gold. I practically drooled every time I looked at him, my core clenching around some appendage of his I’d never feel inside me. Privately, I mourned the loss of all the things those big hands would never do to me.
When dinner disbanded at last, I was close to coming out of my skin from his nearness.
Owen disappeared to the back of the Birdie’s, and the rest of my family headed in their separate directions. After exchanging tense words with Ella, Alfie stormed off.
In the end, only Ella, Brie, and I remained, gathered on the sidewalk in the rapidly descending nighttime.
“Can we go out tonight?” Ella said without preamble.
“You don’t have to ask me twice,” I assured her with a smile, then turned to Brie. “You in?”
Brie shrugged. “I don’t have anything better to do.”
I shared a look with Ella, and both of us broke into giggles. “We appreciate the enthusiasm,” Ella said.
“You guys want to come over and get ready at my place?” I asked. “I need to upload the content from tonight to my computer and change. Where do you want to go?”
“Lawless?” Ella asked quietly. “I haven’t been in forever, and it’s…”
She trailed off, so I prompted, “It’s what, El?”
“Alfie won’t go there,” she said, refusing to meet my eyes. “Not before, but definitely not now that he feels like Owen slighted him.”
I scoffed. “Owen can’t slight someone in his own damn restaurant.”
“Iknow that,” Ella said defensively, crossing her arms and giving me a stare down she’d perfected years ago. “But you know how Alfie is.”
“Don’t I ever.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ella asked coldly.
“How about we don’t do this?” Brie said, stepping between us. “Let’s head back up to ABB and rendezvous at Delia’s to pregame. Deal?”
“Deal,” Ella grumbled, and I only nodded.
On the drive back down the peninsula to Traverse City later that night, I finally cracked. I’d played nice with Ella while we got ready at my place, schooling my temper to something far more manageable by the time she’d arrived at my place, Brie following shortly behind. But the silence in the car was eating me alive, the tension between us suffocating.
“What’s going on with you, El?” I asked softly.
In my periphery, I saw my sister stiffen in the passenger seat. She was silent long enough that I thought she’d blow me off, brush whatever was going on under the rug like she’d been doing often these days—for years, actually.
Instead, she said, “Alfie and I got in a fight as we were leaving Birdie’s. Actually, we’ve been fighting a lot lately.”
“About what?” Brie asked from the back.
“The list of things we don’t fight about would actually be shorter,” Ella said with a soft, bitter chuckle.
Neither Brie nor I laughed with her.
“So what was today’s about?”
“Owen,” she said. “And Dad. And the way the men we surround ourselves with treat him.”
“Maybe if he wasn’t such an asshat…” Brie said quietly.
I expected Ella to protest, to whirl on our youngest sister and dig into her.
So I was surprised when, in place of harsh words, Ella’s sniffles and choked back sobs filled the otherwise silent car.
