Homecoming (Speakeasy)

by Rebecca Norinne

  “My mom will be gone until eight,” I pointed out, my head dropping back with a breathy moan. “And my bedroom does resemble a cave—”

  Before I could invite him to take me upstairs and go all caveman on me, he growled low in the back of his throat, pushed to his feet, and hoisted me over his shoulder. I squealed loudly, and he swatted my ass with his open palm. “Be quiet, woman.”

  “Hey!” I cried, pinching his rear in retaliation.

  “Too much?” he asked with a nervous laugh.

  “Nope,” I chuckled, the blood rushing to my head as he carted me upstairs. “Do it again.”

  Snuggled up together in my small bed, I traced my fingers through the smattering of hair on Preston’s navel. Whoever had coined the term ‘happy trail’ had definitely hit the nail on its head. I wasn’t sure what I enjoyed more: his broad pecs, the dark hair that dipped below his waistband, or that delicious vee cut just below his tight abs.

  Who was I kidding? I loved it all. Everything about him was just so strong and masculine.

  “Does it make me a bad feminist to admit that I like it when you get all growly and possessive with me?”

  He chuckled, and I felt the rumble against my cheek. “Does it make me a bad feminist to get all growly and possessive with you?”

  I smiled against his skin. I loved that Preston considered himself a feminist. “No,” I told him, rolling onto my stomach and pushing up onto my forearms to stare down at his handsome face. “Or if it does, I don’t mind. We can be bad feminists together.”

  Quick as lightning, he banded his arms around me and pulled me down on top of him, his hands brushing softly over the globes of my ass. His eyes locked with mine. “I wasn’t too rough?”

  I rolled my bottom lip between my teeth and shook my head, feeling my face heat. Now both sets of cheeks were flushed. “I liked it, remember?”

  With Preston, I felt like I could finally let go of all my inhibitions and ask for the things I’d always been too embarrassed to vocalize. When he’d fisted his hand in my hair and tugged my head back, his callused palm cupping my neck, literal goosebumps had broken out all across my body. When he’d told me he was going to fuck me like I’d never been fucked before, I’d begged for it. Pleaded with him to give me more. And I’d loved every rough, debauched second of it.

  “If you didn’t, though, you’d tell me?”

  I dropped a soft, slow kiss to his lips. “Yes, I’d tell you.” When I pulled away, his eyes remained troubled. “Hey. Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

  His gaze darted away as he tucked me in against him, kissing my forehead. “I just get these urges, almost like I want to mark you as mine or something fucked up like that. It’s—”.

  “—Hot,” I finished for him. “I love how much you want me, Preston. The way you lose control when we’re together is the sexiest damn thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “That’s good then, because I can’t seem to control myself when I’m with you. I’d tie you to my bed and never let you go if I thought I could get away with it.”

  “Hmm,” I breathed, an idea forming.

  Before I could overthink it, I scrambled off the bed and over to my makeshift closet. Pulling out two silk scarves, I made my way back across the room, my hips swaying seductively. I climbed back onto the bed, dropping the scarves onto his ridged torso. Laying on my back next to where he was pushed up onto his elbows, I raised my hands over my head to grip the spindles of the headboard. “That sounds like the best idea I’ve heard all day.”

  “Fuck, woman,” he growled, flipping onto his knees and making quick work of the knots. “The things I want to do to you.”

  “Do them,” I said, my pulse spiking. “And don’t hold back. Don’t ever hold back.”

  I certainly wouldn’t.

  26

  Preston

  “You’re avoiding us,” Mackenna accused.

  “No I’m not,” I lied, tucking my phone between my ear and my shoulder as I poured my second cup of coffee of the morning.

  “Briana said she’s tried calling you four times, and every time it’s gone straight to voicemail.”

  “I’ve been busy.” That wasn’t entirely true, but I wasn’t about to tell her that.

  Honestly, I was avoiding them—even Briana, who I actually enjoyed spending time with. Thanksgiving was fast approaching, which meant my sisters had launched a joint campaign to try and convince me to come back to Boston for the long holiday weekend.

  “I thought you said work on the inn had stalled?” Mackenna sounded suspicious, and I very much got the impression she’d been hoping to catch me in a lie.

  “It has,” I said, gathering up my wallet and keys before shoving a beanie Gloria had knitted for me down over my hair. Winter had well and truly arrived in Colebury. The snarky weather app on my phone hadn’t even bothered giving a number for today’s temperature. Instead, it had simply read, “Cold as a witch’s tit. Stay the fuck home.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” she pressed.

  “Hold on a sec.” I jogged out to my truck and climbed inside, blowing into my hands to warm them up. “There’s no problem,” I said, setting my phone in its holster. “I’m just not coming back to Boston for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Nor will I be returning for New Year’s, President’s Day, or Arbor Day.”

  “Ugh. Why do you have to be this way?”

  “What way is that?” I asked, pulling out onto the highway.

  I was on my way to meet with Colton Vega, a celebrity chef who’d moved to Colebury after a public meltdown, and Tracy Thayer, whose family was famous in political circles. The couple had just moved into a large antique farmhouse that needed significant updates, including an expanded home office for her and a commercial-grade kitchen for him. Based on our initial discussions, I was confident I was the right person to take on their project.

  “You need to let go of this grudge,” my sister huffed. “It’s not healthy.”

  I tightened my hands around the steering wheel and fought the urge to hang up on her. “It’s not a grudge,” I answered, my teeth clenched around my words as my frustration mounted. “Colton slept with my fiancée, Mackenna. That may not mean much to you, but it was a big fucking deal to me.”

  “Look,” she said. “I’ve been Switzerland during this whole debacle, but I can’t keep quiet any longer. It was a mistake, Preston. Are you really going to break up this family for something they both regret?”

  “That’s just it, Mack. It wasn’t a mistake, and they certainly don’t regret it. They had a months-long affair. Our brother fucked the woman I was going to marry in my bed.”

  She blew out a long breath, and when she next spoke, her voice was sad and pitying. “Preston, I love you dearly, but you and I both know you were never going to actually marry Margaux.”

  “And thank god for that!” I barked, turning onto the street where I was meeting my potential new clients.

  “Please, just come home.”

  “Colebury is my home now,” I said, a feeling of rightness settling in my gut.

  “I don’t understand you,” she replied hotly, her Irish temper rising to the fore.

  “The fact that Briana is the only member of this family who actually does seem to understand how difficult it is for me to sit across from Colton and Margaux and pretend that what they did doesn’t make me fucking sick to my stomach is precisely why I won’t do it.” Mackenna wasn’t the only Kelly sibling who had a temper. I was just better at hiding it than she was. Most of the time, anyway.

  “Fine,” she spat. “I just hope your new girlfriend understands that you’re still hung up on your old one.”

  I laughed cynically. “And if you think that’s true, you really don’t know me at all. Colton is my brother, Mackenna. There are some things you just don’t do, and that’s one of them. Now, if there’s nothing else, I’m about to meet a client and need to go.” Before she could respond, I leaned forward and pressed the red button on my phone to end the
call.

  I’d actually beaten Colt and Tracy to their house, which was good since I needed time to decompress and regroup following my conversation with my sister. I couldn’t believe Mackenna had the gall to insinuate that I was still hung up on my ex. She and Margaux had been friends for years, running in the same social circles, but I’d never once expected my sister to side with her and Colton on this. Switzerland, my ass. Mackenna seemed cared more about playing nice with our brother and her friendship with his wife than she did having a relationship with me. I was the wronged party here, but I was the one who’d been made a pariah.

  And if that wasn’t some bullshit, I didn’t know what was.

  I closed my eyes and let my head drop back, counting to twenty in my head while pulling deep, calming breaths into my lungs. On my final exhale, I opened my eyes and resolved, once and for all, not to let my dysfunctional family dictate my happiness or well-being.

  My life is great, I reminded myself.

  I’d moved to a small town so quaint it should be in all the ads for Vermont tourism, and had fallen in love with a smart, strong, beautiful woman who absolutely rocked my world. As a bonus, her mom adored me, even if my own didn’t. My life-long best friend was my right-hand man at the company I’d worked my ass off building into a successful business. Between Colt and Tracy’s farmhouse and a few other projects I had in the works, things were looking up on that front, too. I could afford to keep my crew around indefinitely.

  I was, as the kids liked to say, hashtag winning.

  A couple of hours later, Rosalie pulled open the side door to her house and greeted me with a breathtaking smile that made me feel warm all over. “How’d it go?”

  I stepped inside, stomping my boots and wiping them on the mat to clear the treads of snow. While I’d been talking with Colt and Tracy, the weather had taken a turn for the worse. The forecast now called for six to ten inches of snow overnight. I shrugged out of my coat and hung it up on the shaker pegs lining the wall, taking a brief moment to note the three jackets all lined up next to one another. I took a deep breath, feeling that earlier warmth expand outward. I turned to pull her into my arms and kiss her hello.

  “It went well,” I said, letting myself luxuriate in the feel of her body pressed to mine.

  “Yeah?” she asked, pulling back to smile up at me.

  My heart tripped in my chest, and the thought hit me that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this woman. Screw the people I shared my DNA with. Rosalie was all the family that I needed.

  “The house is great,” I told her. “Nice old bones, and lots of original woodwork. It’s got a large footprint with plenty of room to accommodate their needs. There’s a small orchard and a plot of land that Colt’s already prepped for planting. I’m going to work up a proposal and send it to them at the beginning of next week. Budget is no problem.” That was always the biggest worry with projects of this magnitude, but between the two of them, they could more than afford to do everything they wanted.

  “That’s fantastic,” she said, pulling me into the kitchen where her mom was at the stove stirring a large pot.

  It smelled mouthwateringly delicious. Not that I was surprised. Gloria was a wonderful cook, even if she was doing much less of it these days. With most of the clubs and committees that she was a member of holding their meetings in the evenings, she’d been gone so frequently lately that this was the first time I was seeing her in a week.

  “Great news, Mom,” Rosalie said, letting go of my hand and stepping to the fridge to pull out two bottles of local beer. “Preston lined up another job here in Colebury.” She popped the top off one and passed it my way.

  “That’s fantastic,” Gloria remarked over her shoulder as she added a pinch of salt to the pot. “I was worried you might be going back to Boston.”

  “Why would you think that?” I asked, momentarily taken aback.

  She set her spoon down on a small ceramic plate, put the lid back on the pot, and turned to face me. “When you asked for a month-to-month lease when you first moved here, I figured you were here only as long as your job lasted. With work stopped on the big remodel indefinitely, I just I assumed you’d be moving on soon.”

  Rosalie shifted her weight from one foot to the other and dropped her gaze down to stare at the bottle, her thumbnail working the colorful label loose at its edges.

  “I—” I closed my mouth and blew out a breath. How had it not occurred to me to clarify that I had no intention of leaving Colebury—now or anytime in the future?

  I glanced Rosalie’s way, silently begging her to look at me. When she refused to meet my gaze, I let go of the chair back I’d been gripping and moved to her side. Gently, I tipped her chin up with my index finger. I didn’t care that we had an audience; I needed her to know that I was exactly where I was meant to be.

  “I never meant to fall in love with you, but I did, and I can’t imagine my life any other way. Every day, I look forward to coming home to you. We might live in separate houses, but in my mind, we’re building a life together. Here, in Colebury.”

  Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears—happy, I hoped—and she nodded. I turned to her mom next. “I obviously should have spoken with you about this before now, but I was hoping you’d let me update my lease to something more permanent.”

  She nodded once, and I dropped my gaze back down to the woman I loved. “I didn’t want to put any extra pressure on you while you’re still dealing with all this Blake shit. I was waiting to say something once you were officially divorced.”

  “But what if I’m never free?” she asked, serious, concerned eyes fixed on mine. “What if he drags this on for years?”

  I stared down into those moss green depths that I loved so much and knew with certainty that I would take this woman any way I could get her. Even if her divorce dragged on for years, it didn’t matter. I loved her and wanted her by my side—end of story.

  I kissed her softly, pouring all those feelings and more into the press of my lips against hers. “You’re mine. That’s all that matters.”

  27

  Rosalie

  The next several days were absolute bliss, including the small Thanksgiving dinner my mom hosted at our house. In addition to Preston, we’d been joined by Patricia, who it turned out was an avid football fan. She’d spent the afternoon alternately helping out in the kitchen and screaming at the TV. And in a surprise twist absolutely no one had expected, Preston’s sister Briana had shown up on our doorstep at noon with a chocolate chiffon cake I was still dreaming about. It had been the happiest Thanksgiving I’d spent in years, but now it was time to buckle down and find a job.

  I figured with Christmas just weeks away, someone would need an extra set of hands. At this point, even seasonal work sounded like a step in the right direction. Unlike my efforts with the recruiter and the temp agency, I’d decided to go about things the old-fashioned way: submit my resume anywhere I spied a help wanted sign in a window.

  I could finally say I understood where the term ‘pounding the pavement’ had come from. After hoofing it all over kingdom come, my feet hurt like hell.

  Alas, it was my night to cook dinner, which meant one last stop to pick up the ingredients for that feta and tomato pasta I kept hearing everyone talk about. On my way out of the store, I stopped in front of the community bulletin board to scan the advertisements for any opportunities I might have missed.

  To my surprise, there was one for a bartender position at Speakeasy. While my skills behind a bar were on the rusty side—and that was probably being generous—I had spent the last several years passing out flutes of champagne at the gallery. There was also that six-week-long cocktail course I’d signed Blake and me up for when I’d still thought our marriage stood a chance. Of course, he’d bowed out after the first lesson, but I’d kept with it. I could now make a mean gin rickey. Then again, I wasn’t sure that was all that impressive; it was just gin, lime, and carbonated water served over ice in a highball g
lass. Maybe I could bluff my way through the interview? Assuming, of course, I even got that far.

  I needed to at least try.

  The next morning, I woke up bright and early and rifled through my closet to find something appropriate to wear. I wanted to look professional but hip. The Speakeasy uniforms consisted of denim of some sort paired with a black vee-neck t-shirt with the gastropub’s logo on its chest. While unremarkable on its own, it was what the employees did with their hair, makeup, and accessories that made them so effortlessly stylish.

  Unfortunately, my professional attire veered more toward the Reese Witherspoon spectrum of the sartorial scale. Not that there was anything wrong with preppy and tailored, but my look didn’t exactly scream, “Hire me to pour your drinks.” Serve canapés and petit fours, maybe. But it was either that or the ratty leggings and raggedy flannel shirts I’d lived in since moving back home.

  Or … I thought, a figurative lightbulb going off over my head.

  I galloped down the stairs to my mom’s bedroom. While she was more Mrs. Roper than Gigi Hadid, we were roughly the same size. I figured she had a pair of Levis hiding somewhere in her closet.

  Two hours after falling down an Instagram fashion influencer rabbit hole, I was rocking a pair of vintage 501s and a plain white t-shirt under one of my beloved Chanel blazers. I’d styled my dirty blonde hair—my roots a little worse for wear since I hadn’t been to the salon in ages—into long beachy waves, pulling the sides back in a complicated twist of mini braids to complete the boho look that I was going for. Examining my reflection in the mirror one last time, I liked what I saw. Even if I felt like a fraud.

  But I didn’t have time to worry about that, so I grabbed my keys and scurried out to my car, pulling up in front of Speakeasy a short fifteen minutes later. I took a deep breath and tugged the door open, shivering as I stepped into the warm interior. It was freezing outside, but I hadn’t wanted to ruin any first impressions I might make by showing up in the old puffer jacket I’d worn stargazing a few weeks ago.