by Mika Lane
To be honest, I thought he was a creepy perv who, by the way, never tipped. Not that I wanted to think ill of the dead.
“Wow. Okay, I know exactly who you are talking about. How’d he die?”
And more importantly, why did a lawyer come to tell me this?
But first things first.
He flipped through some papers and looked back up at me. “Looks like he died in his sleep. Old age, that sort of thing.” He shrugged. “Guess that’s how we’d all like to go.”
I didn’t spend much time thinking about how I wanted to go. I was only twenty-five years old. But I still wasn’t sure how any of this concerned me.
“Thanks for letting me know. I’ll be sure to share it with the rest of the staff as well as some of the other regulars.” I glanced at the wall clock as the happy hour crowd started to trickle in. Heaven forbid they miss out on their dollar beers. I started to get up from the booth.
“Garnet, that’s not all I came to talk about,” he said with his hand up in the wait a minute position.
I lowered myself back into the booth. I wish he’d get on with whatever he needed. I was sorry Grandpa was gone, but I didn’t really even know the guy.
“Bill Cordy, the man you called Grandpa, left you his estate.”
Now that made me laugh. Loudly
“I guess that comes as a surprise to you?” the lawyer asked.
Um, yeah.
“Grandpa—I mean Bill Cordy—had an estate? And he left it to me? Don’t tell me. I get to get to take his cats or something?” Good grief, not only did the guy never tip me, now I have to take care of his damn cats? Just what I needed.
He laughed. “Sounds like you don’t like cats. And lucky for you, he didn’t have any. But what he did leave you, Garnet, was an estate worth five million dollars.”
I’d been looking over his shoulder at my co-bartender who was hustling drinks for the happy hour cheapies and giving me dirty looks from across the room.
“Be right there!” I called to him.
Wait. What?
“Did you just say something about five million dollars?”
“He had an estate worth five million dollars, and it’s been left to you. All of it.” He looked like he delivered news like this all the time. Maybe he did. But not to people like me.
I placed my hands on the scruffy booth table. I didn’t usually like to touch them, coated as they were with years of carvings, burn marks, and water stains, but I needed to keep my balance.
I opened my mouth to speak. “Wha…how…why…?” The blood had rushed to my head even though I was seated. I didn’t know that could even happen.
“Um, are you okay Garnet?” the lawyer asked.
He clearly didn’t often see a reaction like mine. And I didn’t know if I was okay.
“Excuse me for a moment. I’ll be right back,” I said and ran for the ladies’ room, where I got sick in the toilet. When I felt better, I put a cool paper towel on the back of my neck and returned to the booth where the lawyer waited. Just another day at the office.
I slipped into the booth. “I’m a bit speechless. In case you couldn’t tell.”
He nodded kindly. “I understand. But I can also see you’re needing to get to work, so I want to make this fast. There is one stipulation to your receiving the estate.” His eyebrows rose like he was waiting for me to hang on his every word.
I didn’t know how to tell him that I’d woken up that morning with nothing, and if I went to bed that night with nothing, I’d be no better or worse off.
“Okay,” I said, feeling ballsy. “Do me your worst.” That got a smile out of him.
“The stipulation, and I’m not sure why it exists—but Mr. Cordy seemed to feel very strongly about this—is that you have thirty days to get married.”
Oh. That’s all? Just a little thing like getting married.
He didn’t wait for me to respond. “Do you have a boyfriend? Someone you were already planning to marry, anyway?”
I shook my head slowly. I wished he had never come into the bar and bothered me with this nonsense. My life would have been far better off without it.
Instead, my simple existence had just flown out the window. Buh bye…
* * *
Nat returned to the table to find me deep in thought. So deep in fact, that he had to tap my shoulder.
“Garnet? You okay?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Oh. Yeah. Just thinking.” The lawyer had connected me with this bean counter in case I got the goods. Which was funny because my chances of that, given Grandpa’s stipulation, were slim to none.
“I’m fine, Nat. Thank you for asking.” I stood and extended my hand.
He looked around, as if hoping for privacy, and lowered his voice. “I don’t usually do this…I mean ask clients out…but since you’re not a client and may never will be, would you like to go out? Get coffee, a drink, even dinner?”
Shit. Maybe meeting Grandpa’s demand was not going to be as impossible as I’d thought.
Chapter 4
Lincoln “Linc”
Jack, my brother, sauntered into the office we shared wearing a shit-eating grin, as if he were the luckiest guy in the world. I suppose that, at that very moment in time, he probably was.
“What?” I asked him, all accusation and suspicion.
“Whaddya mean, what?” he asked, shrugging dramatically. He leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, kicking his Nikes up on the desk. What a dick.
“Dude. I know you’re fucking around with Monica,” I said.
He whipped around to face me. “So? So what, Linc? We don’t all want to live like monks, you know. Some of us like to express our sexual selves.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sexual self? Where did you get that? Have you been watching Oprah again?” He often watched daytime TV with the female gym employees when they were on break. Said it made him look like a “sensitive guy.”
He rolled his eyes and turned back to his computer. “Whatever, dude.”
That about summed it up. Jack had always been the popular one with the never-ending stream of women and girlfriends, and I was the shy, quiet one who could barely look at a female, never mind speak to one. High school might have been many years behind us, but things weren’t really all that different.
“Jack, I know I’ve said this before, but messing around with employees will not end well. It might be fun in the moment, but please, just date the members or something.” I waved my hand at the office window that overlooked the main exercise room. “There are tons of beautiful women out there. Lay off the employees.”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah. I know you’re right, Linc. It’s just that when they throw themselves at me, it’s so hard to say no. Especially that one with the huge…”
“Okay, Jack! I’m done here. I’m heading next door for a beer before going home. I’ve had a long day.”
He smiled. I knew what he was going to throw at me. “Right, little bro. You started the day with your touchy-feely yoga class.” Suddenly, his eyes widened like a light bulb went off in his head. “Hey…how come I never thought of that? Yoga…fit women in tight clothing. Shit. Why you been holding out on me? Can I join you tomorrow?”
“Later, Jack,” I said, letting the office door slam behind me for emphasis. I had had a long-ass day starting with a yoga class. If he wanted to make fun of that, well, fuck him.
“Save me a seat at the bar,” he called after me.
I pushed open the door to the dive bar around the corner, where I’d been only a couple times before. Jack and I worked such long hours, we rarely had downtime to just sit and have a beer. The Drive By was kind of a smelly dump, but the beer was cold and cheap, and most times, that was all I needed. I settled onto a barstool and ordered myself a Michelob Ultra. Tasted like crap, but at least it was low in carbs.
The bar was fairly crowded, with old dudes who looked like regulars clustered down at one end and yuppies slumming it at the other. I kept
to myself, as usual, while I waited on my brother.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get to use that pretty mouth on me later.”
WHAT? I whipped around to find the dude who was talking to me like that. But I was alone. No one was even next to me. I turned back to my beer.
“Baby, I can’t wait to see you gag on me,” the voice said.
Shit. Okay, I was pretty sure that wasn’t intended for me. But who was it intended for?
I looked around again, wondering who was putting on the show. It seemed I was the only one who heard it, until I caught sight of a pretty young woman whose face was covered in fear. She was a couple barstools over, sitting with the dirty-mouthed asshole. Her upper arm was wrapped in his tight grip, indented by the pressure from his fingers. He looked pleased with his clueless seduction skills and oblivious to her clear desire to escape. Any idiot could see she was not enjoying herself. Except him, apparently.
“C’mon now,” the guy continued smoothly. “I know where you live. So don’t act like you’re too good for me.” His cheesy smile told me he did that sort of thing all the time.
The woman tried to pull away, her dark curls getting caught in his grip.
“Could you please let go of me?” she asked, looking around nervously.
He released her. “Yeah. No problem. Let’s get going.” He stood and threw some money on the bar. He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. She nearly fell when she caught my eye.
That was all I needed.
“Excuse me,” I said to the two of them.
The guy looked me up and down. I might be an introvert, but I was a fucking fit one.
He was not deterred. “Bro, get out of our way.” He attempted to push past me, dragging the stumbling woman.
I placed a hand on his shoulder. “It doesn’t look to me like the lady here is either having a good time, or wanting to go anywhere with you.” I turned to her for a reaction.
She quickly shook her head and looked from him to me and back. “I…I don’t want to go anywhere with you. Please leave me alone.” The poor thing was shaking.
I turned to the guy. “Did you hear what she said? You need to leave her alone. Or do you need me to help you leave her alone?” I pulled myself up to full height, a good head taller than the asshole.
When he got a load of the disparity in our sizes, his face blanched and he dropped the woman’s hand. She stepped back and partly behind me. But the guy’s mouth wasn’t backing down. “Fuck you, dude. Why don’t you mind your fucking business?” he spat in my face.
He was even dumber than I thought. “If it’s not clear to you that it’s time for you to leave, I will be happy to help you out the door,” I said calmly.
“Fuck off,” he said to me, turning to the woman. “And you, you little c—,” but he didn’t get to finish. I grabbed him by the collar, dragged him through the bar, and tossed him out the door just as my brother was coming in. I pulled the door closed once Jack was inside, leaving the creep out on the sidewalk on his ass.
“Hey, I got us a couple seats,” I said, nodding toward the bar.
“All right then,” Jack said, following me with a big smile.
Chapter 5
Garnet
That had gone well—not. I’d weeded through all those damn Craigslist emails, looked at an untold number of penis photographs, and chose the one guy I thought was not a complete psycho. There had to be one good one in there, right? Wrong. He might have been the best of the worst, but I quickly learned that wasn’t saying a hell of a lot.
And now I was face to face with the Adonis of a guy who’d thrown my creepy Craigslist date out the door and onto his ass. And if that weren’t embarrassing enough, another fellow joined him who could have been his twin. Good grief, there were two of them?
“Hey, are you okay? That guy was a real asshole,” Adonis said. God, he was gorgeous with his scruff of facial hair and slightly unkempt ponytail.
But even though the creep was gone, I was still shaken. I could play it cool, though. I flipped my hair back in my best no big deal fashion. Adonis didn’t look fooled.
“Um, yeah, I’m fine.” I forced a small smile. “Thank you. I really appreciate it. Are you sitting here?” I gestured to an empty seat at the bar. His twin, or whatever he was, had already made himself at home on his other side.
“Yes. But I want to make sure you’re okay.” There was a sensitivity in his eyes that contradicted his muscular bulk. I hadn’t known a man like that really existed. It was like seeing a unicorn.
“I am okay, thanks to you. Let me get you a beer.” I waved over my coworker, who was chatting it up with the regulars at the end of the bar. God, I hoped none of them had witnessed my humiliation. No more meeting potential dates at my place of employment. I thought it would be safe, and look where it got me.
“Really, you don’t need to.”
“Well, I’d like to, and don’t worry. I work here so I get them for free.” He laughed with me, which lightened the moment, thank goodness. I grabbed the stool next to him. Maybe the night wouldn’t be a complete bust, after all.
He studied me and nodded. “I knew you looked familiar. You work here. Okay.” He sipped his Mic Ultra. I never could believe anyone drank that tasteless low carb crap.
Funny he recognized me, yet I didn’t remember seeing him. It was doubtful I could forget a man like that, but maybe he’d come in when we were busy.
“Do you come here regularly? I’m surprised we haven’t met.” I extended my hand. “I’m Garnet.”
“Garnet, nice to meet you. I’m Linc.” He turned to his twin. “And this is my brother, Jack.” The universe must have been in a good mood when it made these two guys.
“Ha! I thought you guys were related! Twins?”
“No. But a lot of people ask us that. My brother here is the older one.” He slapped Jack on the shoulder. “I still have my youth,” Linc said with a crooked grin.
Jack pushed his brother’s hand off his shoulder like it was an annoying fly. “Yeah, but I got the good looks.” They both laughed. Must have been a joke they’d told before.
“So Garnet,” Linc said when his brother returned to his beer. “What was that creep doing in here anyway? And what were you doing with him?”
Ugh. He had to ask that. Of course. With my luck, it was inevitable. So I could make up a story. Like he was an abusive ex-husband, or an actor practicing lines for an upcoming play.
“He was an online date.” I couldn’t lie to save my life.
“Ouch. Damn. Talk about the dark side of internet dating,” he said, nodding slowly.
“Yup. Live and learn. I’ll never do that again.” I’ll probably also never have five million dollars, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.
Linc furrowed his brow. “You seem like a very nice woman. You need to be careful.” He took a sip of his beer. “I don’t understand why you did online dating to begin with.”
“Why?” I asked. If he was going to be all judgey, he could go to hell.
“Well, because look at you. I mean, you must have guys pounding your door down.” He was completely serious. Now that was funny.
“Yeah, well. The same could be said of you,” I told him.
“What? Me?” he asked.
“Yeah. Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”
Ooh. Did I just say that? Rude! But I was already humiliated, so why not completely ruin the evening?
He turned pink, then bright red, looking into his beer like he wanted to crawl inside it and die.
He shook his head slowly, still not looking up. “Yeah, no, I don’t have a girlfriend.” He glanced over at his brother, who was chatting up the cute girl sitting on his other side. Then he turned to me.
“Why’d you put yourself in a situation like that, where you ended up with someone who really could have hurt you?”
Well, shit. I could tell him the whole Grandpa story, but that was so un-freaking-believable even I doubted its authenticity.
/> “Um, you know. Just thought it might be nice to meet someone. So I put an ad on Craigslist.”
“Craigslist? Why not a real dating site, like Match.com or something?”
“I have my reasons. Anyway, you live around here?” Time to change the subject from my love life.
“Not far. My brother and I own the gym around the corner,” he said, gesturing toward his brother.
“No way! I know that place. So it’s yours? Yours and Jack’s? It’s sort of new, right?”
He smiled with satisfaction. “Yeah, coming up on a year. And what a year it’s been.”
“Really?” I asked.
He ordered us another couple beers, which my coworker Tom set in front of us. “It’s been pretty up and down. We’ll be busy, signing up members, and then things will slow down. You know, every business has its ups and downs. Hey, you should join my bootcamp exercise class. Not that you need it. It’s just a lot of fun.”
“Oh, really? Well, I wouldn’t mind some more exercise. Not sure I have time, though.” Though I should probably find a way to make time, if for no other reason than to watch him flex what looked like some very nice muscles under the jeans and pullover he was wearing.
“Seriously. I’ll give you a discount.”
I’d have to be an idiot to say no to that.
“Thank you. I’ll let you know. That’s so cool you have a business with your brother.”
Jack was still engrossed with his new friend. That’s probably how it always was with guys like them.
“It is nice. We’re tight. Really stick together.”
Jack appeared, tapping Linc on the shoulder.
“We got an early morning, bro,” Jack said.
Linc glanced at his watch. “Ugh. No rest for the weary. The gym opens at six a.m. So guess who gets to open it?”
That was rough. I was not a fan of early mornings. “Well, it was nice meeting you both,” I said. “And thank you again for your help.” On impulse, I threw my arms around him to emphasize my appreciation. I had to force myself to let go. He was so huge and strong, he could have crushed me. And he smelled damn good.