by Lesley Jones
“That’d be good. I’d like that.”
Three mobile phones are sitting on the table, two iPhones and Koa’s antique flip phone. It’s the flip phone that starts to vibrate, causing all heads to turn. Mason, who is Dean’s younger brother, grabs it from the table.
“Lexi,” he announces. “You still banging that chick?”
“Fuck off,” he tells Mason.
Koa snatches the phone but doesn’t answer the call, shoving it into the front pocket of his jeans just as the game ends.
“You ready to get out of here?” he turns and snaps at me.
Wanker.
“Don’t give me shit just because you missed a call from your bird.” The bubbles have apparently gone to my brain, causing me to up my attitude levels.
Koa glares.
“So, what time Wednesday?” Lee asks.
Until a few moments ago, I hadn’t been sure if it would be appropriate to go out to dinner with Lee, now, fuck that.
Koa and his arsehole-ness have returned, so yeah, fuck that.
“You tell me?” I smile sweetly at Lee as Koa appears to be knocked backwards a little by our interaction. He looks from me to Lee and then back to me.
“Seven sound good?”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Why you picking her up Wednesday at seven?” Koa asks Lee, his lips barely moving as he grits his teeth. His eyes haven’t moved from mine, and the look he’s giving me is far from friendly.
“Taking her to Fathers for ribs.”
“Ruh Roh,” Shannon says quietly from beside me. I think I manage to hide my lip twitch. Koa’s eyes slide to her and back to me, so maybe not.
I stand and start to pull on my jacket, and Lee steps forward and helps me into it. I pull on my beanie and wrap my scarf around my neck.
Shannon stands and pulls me in for a cuddle. “I’ll get your number from Koa, and we’ll do lunch.”
“Sounds good.”
“And I’ll tell you all about Lexi,” she adds quietly straight into my ear.
“Even better.” I turn to face Lee. “I’ll get your number from Koa and text you mine, just in case there’s any change of plans.”
“Sounds good, Gracie, look forward to hearing from you.” He leans in and kisses my cheek. Koa hasn’t moved, he’s just standing and staring at us, well, me actually.
Dean is standing off to the side.
Grinning.
“See ya, Dean, good meeting you.”
“Oh, Gracie.” I get pulled in for another cuddle, him and Shannon are obviously a very tactile couple. “You have no idea,” he adds.
I’m not sure what that means, so I just smile and give a small nod.
“Ready,” I tell Koa. Without a word, he turns and heads towards the door.
He helps me into the truck, and we drive home—to the cabin—not home, in total silence.
I stand behind him, bouncing on my toes as he unlocks the front door. It’s been a long day, and I can’t wait to get into my pyjamas and into bed.
Koa steps aside and lets me pass. I move straight towards the stairs.
“Good night,” I call out as I hit the first step.
“Gracie.”
I pause and look over my shoulder at him.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for coming with me today. I wouldn’t have had any idea what to choose without your help.”
I feel awful. I know that he’s behaved like a dick tonight, but that’s no excuse for me to be such a bitch. I give him a smile, “anytime, Koa. Can’t wait to see how it looks once we pull it all together.”
He nods.
“Night then.”
“Night.” I make my way up to my room, wash my face, clean my teeth, and crawl into bed. Then, for some reason, I cry myself to sleep.
KOA
F UCKING LEE.
Fucking Mason.
Fucking Mo’s.
Fucking women. Well, one woman. No, make that three. Not that I’m painting Gracie with the same brush as Danielle and Lucy. No. Gracie is in a class all of her own when it comes to fucking me over.
The snow hasn’t let up the last few days, so I’ve spent my time clearing out the old furniture and stripping the wallpaper from the walls of the bedrooms I want to use for the kids. There’s a shared bathroom between the two, and I’ve ripped all of that out, too. I’ve had two of the young guys from my company come out and help me for the past few days, and now each room is a blank canvas.
I’ve barely seen Gracie, which probably isn’t a bad thing. She’s been spending her days with her sketch pad or on her laptop. Not sure what she’s doing and haven’t cared enough to ask.
That’s a lie.
Total bullshit in fact.
I do care.
I’m just too pissed to hold any kind of conversation with her, and I’m pissed at myself for being pissed.
Hard physical labour has been a great way to offload some of my anger, but not all of it. Bourbon has helped with the rest.
Fucking Lee.
I can’t believe he’s taking her to dinner tonight. I seriously considered either driving out to Fathers last night and burning the place to the ground or sending Lee to price up a non-existent job for me. In Nevada. Or Alaska. Scotland maybe.
I stood staring at the water as it filled the hot tub from the hose I had hanging over the side. Gracie had requested I get it up and running and the fact I’d complied had nothing to do with making her happy or maybe seeing her in a bikini when she climbed in, or out.
One week ago, I didn’t even know of this woman’s existence, now I’m adjusting my jeans while thinking about a half-naked Gracie and getting pissed at one of my very best friends for taking her out tonight.
Lee’s single. He was married a very long time ago and has a fifteen-year-old daughter. He’s remained single ever since his divorce. With a constant stream of women warming his bed most weekends, he hasn’t felt the need to settle down again, and I wonder if Gracie would have him changing his mind about that.
I take a deep breath and look out across the backyard, nothing but white to see all the way down to the dock and boathouse. With the way the weather’s been, the lake will be frozen over by now, and I wonder if Gracie knows how to ice skate.
I don’t know why I wonder that, or half the shit that goes on in my head regarding her, but there it is.
I turn off the outside taps, add the chlorine solution to the hot tub, and turn on the jets to help them dissolve. The water still isn’t hot, but I’m going to leave it to heat with the cover on, so it shouldn’t take long. Not that she was gonna be here to use it.
Fucking Lee.
Hope he chokes on a fat ass fucking rib bone.
GRACIE
I WASN’T COMFORTABLE ASKING KOA for Lee’s number, so I had gotten it from Shannon. Despite the weather, we were still on for tonight, and I was planning to ask him if he could take me to collect a car either Thursday or Friday.
Things between Koa and me had been a little awkward all week, and I’d done my best to avoid him. I’d heard him shouting, more than once, at the two young labourers that had been helping him with the renovations. Since I didn’t want the wrath of arsehole Koa aimed in my direction, I just stayed in my room, drawing up some designs and working on a couple of articles for my blog.
It’s weird, the tension between Koa and me, felt a lot like it did between Reggie and me before I left England. The only difference being that I wanted to make things right with Koa a lot more than I did with Reggie. He and I are done, whereas Koa and I still have unfinished business.
I change my outfit more than once before deciding on a pair of cream-coloured, ripped jeans, a pink off-the-shoulder sweatshirt, and my pink Doc Martens. The restaurant is casual dining, which works for me because I don’t want to be getting all frocked up and giving Lee the wrong idea. This isn’t a date of the romantic kind, which is something I explained to him Sunday when he first asked me out. I told him that in no way was
I looking for any kind of relationship other than friendship. He said that he was all right with that, and I hoped he meant it and didn’t try anything on. The last thing I need is any more drama in my life.
I’m nervous, not about my dinner date, but about going downstairs and waiting for Lee to arrive. I skipped lunch today, so I didn’t have to face Koa, but I can hear him now moving around in the kitchen, so there’s no way I’m getting out of the front door without him seeing me.
Plus, leaving without saying goodbye would just be rude, and my mum hadn’t raised me that way.
I make my way down the stairs and peer from the hallway into the kitchen. Koa has his back to me, he’s stirring something in a pan on the hob. There’s an almost empty bottle of bourbon on the worktop, his glass beside him as he cooks.
“I’ve got my key, so there’s no need to wait up for me,” I call out. Koa stops what he’s doing, his back straightens, and he turns to look at me.
“Wasn’t planning to. Now that I’ve finally got the place to myself, I arranged for a friend to come over, even filled the hot tub.”
I flinch. I physically flinch at his words. Just like when he told for the first time that he’d never get close to a woman again while we were standing on Main Street, his words cause a pain in my chest.
“So, I’d appreciate it, if when you do get back, you’d head straight to your room and make yourself scarce.”
His eyes are glassy, and even if they weren’t, the way that he sways slightly and the slow way he’s talking are enough to give away the fact that he’s drunk.
“Perhaps I should just stay out all night then, give you some privacy?”
His chin jerks up at my words. His hands go to his hips, his eyes to the floor before coming back to me.
“That. . .” He pauses, performs his now familiar routine of a hair rake followed by a beard stroke, reaches for his glass and sips his drink, and then continues, “won’t be necessary, Essex.”
I hear a car approach, just as headlights appear through the glass of the front door. I start to put my jacket—that I’d been clutching against my chest—on, but before I’ve even got one arm in, Koa is there helping me.
Once both arms are in, I turn and face him. He’s standing so close that I can feel and smell his warm bourbon-scented breath on my nose and cheeks as he looks down at me. He reaches out with both his hands and untucks my hair from where it’s caught in my coat. Then he tucks it behind each of my ears before his right-hand cups the back of my neck, he closes his eyes and leans to rest his forehead on mine.
“Nice boots,” he says quietly.
“Thank you.”
“They match my ears perfectly.”
“Koa!” I try to sound like I’m giving him a warning, I probably sound more like I’m groaning, though, and once again, the flirty banter—flanter—between us seems like the natural progression.
“So your ears are fluorescent pink and made of leather?”
“Yep. Maybe you should wrap your legs around my neck in front of the mirror in my bedroom so that we can check and make sure, though?”
He’s not making this easy. We’ve barely spoken a word to each other for three days, and now he wants to start up again with the flanter?
“You didn’t have to say yes when he asked. If I’d known you were jonesing for ribs, there’s a better place in Aspen I would’ve taken you to.”
“But you didn’t ask.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You could ask me to stay now. Ask me not to go.”
“I could.”
I laugh. It escapes amongst a puff of air and is filled with sardonicism, not humour.
“But you’re not going to.”
“I think it’s best if I don’t.”
“Best for who?”
“You in the long term. I’m not what you want, you’re not what I need.” Another little painful squeeze of my heart. At least this time, I only flinch on the inside. Still fucking hurts, though.
“Well then, like the song says, 'what hurts the most is that we’ll never know what could’ve been.” I loosely quote the song by Rascal Flatts that we danced to Sunday as he sang into my ear.
A loud knock at the front door has us stepping apart. Koa swings the door open to reveal Lee, who has his arms braced on either side of the frame. He and Koa stare at each other without saying a word. I smile and make my way towards them.
“Look after her,” Koa orders.
“Goes without saying,” Lee replies. His eyes now on me, a smile lighting up his face.
He’s wearing a grey hoodie, the hood is up and covering his head, probably because it’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey outside. Jeans cover his legs, and the customary biker boots are on his feet. A jean jacket finishes his outfit. He looks cool, in a laidback surfie kind of way. Lee is as fair as Koa is dark. His hair a dirty blond and long. He’s good-looking to the point of being pretty, and although I know he went to school with Koa, if I’d have had to guess his age, I’d have put him at five years younger.
“Watch your step, Gracie, it’s slippery out here.”
He takes my hand and leads me out to a silver truck. Like Koa’s, it’s huge. Like Koa, he helps me into the passenger seat, his grey-green eyes on me. He shuts the door behind me, he walks around the front of the truck, and climbs into the driver’s side.
We belt up and pull away in silence.
The radio is playing quietly in the background, but I can’t make out the song.
Once we’re on the road, he asks, “Did I interrupt something back there?”
“What? When?” I know full well what he’s talking about and am acutely aware of when. I’m just stalling.
“Gracie, come on. Don’t fuck with me. You know when. I stood and watched the pair of you before I knocked on the door. Thought about walking away if the truth be told.”
I turn and look at him; his eyes are fixed firmly on the road.
“He told me he’s not what I want and that I’m not what he needs.”
“Carmichael has no fuckin’ clue what he needs, or what he wants for that matter.”
“Oh, he does. Lexi is both, and she’s going over to see him tonight.”
“What?” He tilts his jaw down towards his chest and frowns. “How’d you know that?”
“He just told me.”
“Motherfucker. Sorry, Grace, but yeah.”
We continue driving in silence. The snow has stopped falling, but the roads are quiet.
My phone vibrates. Because time zones suck and my notifications tend to go off twenty-four seven, my phone is almost always on silent, but usually in my hand.
I look at the screen.
Koa: I lied.
Me: About what?
Koa: There’s no one coming over. I filled and heated the hot tub for you.
I let out a deep sigh. I actually feel a little dizzy at his confession.
“You okay there, Grace?”
“Koa just text and told me that he lied, he has no one coming over tonight.”
“And why would he do that I wonder?”
“He ain’t said. Should I ask?”
“Depends. Do you wanna know?”
“Much like Koa, Lee, I have no fucking clue what I want or need.”
“Jesus, you two are messed up.”
“Tell me about it.”
I watch as he scratches at his jaw.
“Let’s eat some ribs and have a think about how best to approach this.”
FATHERS IS SET IN AMONGST snow-covered hills and mountains. Inside, there are timber floors, long wooden tables with benches running along each side. There is a bar and a set of swinging doors to the left and a massive open fireplace on the right. There are the same kind of antler chandeliers that Koa has at the cabin hanging from the ceiling, and the noise is so loud, I can hardly hear myself think.
We wait at the podium to be seated, and after just a few minutes, we are shown a couple of spaces on a be
nch directly in front of the fire. Lee helps me take my coat off and hangs it on one of the many hooks running along the walls either side of the room.
We order a beer each—my taste buds seem to be evolving, and I’m growing to like, not love, the taste when I’m eating certain foods. The menus double up as placemats, and there is only one choice: ribs. All I need to do is decide if I want just ribs or if I would like to order sides to go with the ribs, seeing as how I’m likely to get messy eating the ribs anyway, I decide on a corn cob and coleslaw.
“So, talk to me, Gracie, tell me where you think this thing with Koa might go, what is it you are looking for?”
“I feel like I should be lying on a leather chaise in your dark and slightly masculine office.”
His pretty eyes sparkle, and his pouty lips pull up into a smile. “There’s nothing I’d like better than to lay you out on a leather chaise, but I think you are a little too much for me to handle. If you’ve got Carmichael all twisted, then I have a feeling you’d ruin me.”
His words have me smiling and my insides doing a happy dance.
“You think I’ve got him all twisted?”
“He sent that text twenty minutes ago. You’ve yet to reply. My guess is that he’s drinking bourbon straight from the bottle while pacing the floor and alternately dragging his fingers through his hair and tugging on his beard. When he’s done with that routine, he’ll be checking that geriatric flip phone of his.”
My smile turns into a small laugh. The waitress arrives with our drinks, and we order our food.
“So? How do I respond?”
“To my question or Carmichael’s text?”
“Well, in answer to your question, I don’t think I’m the kind of woman that can cope with a one-night stand and then just walk away. I like him, and I respect myself too much for that to happen. I also have to consider the fact that we’ll both still be living in the same house for the foreseeable future.”
“Are you doubting that he likes you? That he’d want more than just to fuck and run?”
“He told me he’s not interested in a relationship.”