Page 36 of Pour Decisions
“Fuck,” I said, pulling over onto the side of the road abruptly, the car behind me honking and swerving around me.
In a moment, I was parked and turned toward Ella, Brie and I both waiting her out as she composed herself, all of our hands linked together.
“It’s not even worth talking about,” Ella said at last. “He just doesn’t like anyone, you know? He hates all of you. He can’t stand Mom and Dad, and he’s so rude to Logan and Cal anytime we’re around them. I just…I’m so exhausted.”
“I don’t understand why you don’t just leavethen,” Brie said.
Ella sniffed, lifting her free hand to swipe at the tears rolling down her cheeks. Her eyes met mine, their vibrant green depths near glowing in the dashboard lights.
“I love him,” she said simply.
I squeezed her hand tighter. “You can love someone and recognize they aren’t meant to be part of your life.”
Clearly, that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She withdrew her hand from ours and faced forward, dropping the visor and flipping open the mirror to check her makeup. Conversation clearly over, I shared a weary look with Brie in the rearview before pulling back onto the highway and resuming our trek into the city.
I decided to act as our designated driver that night. For one, I wanted to get both of my sisters back up to Apple Blossom Bay in one piece, and two, it seemed like a bad idea to be drinking when I was also working for Owen, planning on giving his social media followers a “night in the life at Lawless” look at the club. It had been so long since I’d gone out that, despite the fact that I was here on Owen’s dime, I couldn’t help myself from slinking to the center of the dance floor and giving myself to the music for an hour.
Plenty of guys came up to me, grinding behind me, slipping their hands up and down my body. I entertained those bold enough to approach; their wonton touches didn’t bother me. That was what places like this were for—losing yourself to sensation. Indulging in a fantasy before returning to the real world. The club was a bubble, an alternate reality. With the lights low and the music loud, it was easy to forget all of my hang-ups.
Well, mostly all of them.
No handsome man swaying behind me to the music could distract me from the fact that they weren’t the hands I wanted on me.
Damn, that was a dangerous thought. Then again, it wasn’t like it would ever happen, right? So really, what was the harm in daydreaming?
Still, Owen was somewhere in the building, and my body knew it.
When I couldn’t stand it anymore, when I found myself spending more time scanning the crowd, searching for a particular backward ball cap and set of broad shoulders, I gave up, deciding to seek him out.
After all, we were partners. I was allowed to check in on him, wasn’t I?
Hugo stood sentinel at the end of the hall to Owen’s office, and he returned the broad smile I shot him as I breezed past. When I reached Owen’s door, hand poised to knock, to announce my presence, I paused instead. Taking a moment to study him. He was bent over his desk, one elbow braced against it, chin propped up in his hand as he wrote something with the other.
As it turned out, Owen was a lefty, and I was mesmerized by the angle of his hand as it swept across the paper on which he wrote. His biceps flexed slightly as it moved back and forth across the page, the skin between his brows creased, pinched in concentration.
God, he was a beautiful man. It was truly a shame I’d never have him.
“Working hard or hardly working?” I asked, finally announcingmyself.
Owen’s head shot up, mouth half open as though to shout for security. When his eyes landed on me, though, his gaze softened.
“Hi,” he said quietly.
“Hey.”
“What’re you doing up here?”
I briefly considered crafting some lame ass excuse, pulling an idea for the distillery or his socials from thin air, but really…I didn’t want to lie about wanting to be near him.
“Wanted to see you,” I said with a shrug, playing it off like it wasn’t a huge deal.
“Well, here I am.”
Well here I am?
God, what the fuck was I saying? What was wrong with me?
I didn’t know, because my brain had short circuited, and it was all thanks to that dress.
