I waited, body anxiously thrumming at the opportunity within my grasp.
“You wanna work on any rig, you’ve gotta be able to read. You wanna work on my rig, you’ve gotta be able to fill out the application first. By yourself.” He gave me a knowing look, both challenging and encouraging. “You gotta let me teach you to read.”
Reading was fucking hard.
Dyslexia was frustrating.
Being a grown adult who didn’t know how to read was humiliating as hell.
AJ was a goddamn saint.
In the past year, I’d learned that and more.
Such as, my teachers should’ve noticed. Should’ve helped. Should’ve given me the opportunities AJ was. I should’ve been able to get through school without failing everything, without having to get by only because my dad didn’t want to suffer embarrassment.
My dad . . . pretty sure I hated him more than ever.
It was an unsettling, hollow feeling, hating someone who wasn’t alive anymore. But that bitterness only seemed to grow with each day, with each new thing I was shown.
My second week living with AJ, I’d knocked over his kitchen table out of frustration because the words and letters had only been getting more and more disorienting.
He’d looked at me from where he’d stood at the coffee maker and calmly told me to right the table and keep trying.
When I’d read my first sentence a month after that, I’d set my head on the same table and silently cried.
The day I turned in my application, he’d just pulled me in for a hug and told me he was proud.
And then he’d hung the damn thing in his office.
That was nearly five months ago. Things had slipped into an easy routine since.
Two weeks on the rig, two weeks off. When we were off, we worked on reading and writing throughout the day.
In the mornings, I read from his wife’s poetry books.
AJ told me that she’d preferred poems since there weren’t as many words on the pages. Saying if they decided to dance, it wasn’t as overwhelming.
In the afternoons, I alternated between copying words and writing down random things AJ said.
In the evenings, he taught me to cook while making me read the recipes.
Cooking . . . baking. AJ liked doing those things.
When I’d told him that only the women did the cooking in my family and extended family, he’d laughed and said his wife had been a terrible cook.
“Nearly burned our first apartment down,” he’d told me a few months after I’d moved in.
“No, uh . . . my dad.” I’d cleared my throat and then cleared it again when I still couldn’t get the shameful words out. “He always said it was something only women should do.”
AJ had already known nearly everything about Dad. I’d told him within the first month of moving in.
He clicked his tongue, head shaking as he stirred the ingredients. “Bettin’ his old man told him the same thing.”
“He had a very skewed view of what made a man,” I’d added, showing him a closed fist that was ready to strike when he looked at me questioningly. “I used to draw.” The admission was soft, almost as if I were afraid of what AJ would say . . . think.
This man who had already become more of a father than mine had ever been.
“It was all I could do, you know? Gave me a way to express myself on paper since I couldn’t figure out the words on them.” A deprecating laugh left me as I remembered the shredded papers and notebooks and busted lips I’d received over the years. “He said it was sissy shit. Thought I was gay because of it. Tore up any drawing he found and always demanded I never do it again.”
AJ had huffed, the sound irritated and sad at once.
Flipping off the stovetop burner, he’d started walking out of the kitchen, gesturing for me to follow.
He didn’t say anything, just pointed at paintings that hung on the walls of the hall and living room as he went.
Barns. Landscapes of farms. Cows. Flowers.
Once we were standing in the far corner of the living room next to a painting of a windmill, he faced me. “My old man was a real meat-and-potatoes kinda guy, you know?” When I nodded, he continued. “Hard worker. Stern when it came to discipline. And he loved my momma like no tomorrow. He also painted all those pictures you saw hanging.”
Surprise ripped through me as I turned to look at the windmill we were next to.
“And he wasn’t ashamed of it because there wasn’t a reason to be. Drawing doesn’t have shit to do with who you like.” He gripped my shoulder, shifting me a little so I could see him. “No reason you shoulda grown up thinking you were stupid, kid. No reason you shoulda been ashamed to draw or had to stop. Even if your old man had been right, even if you preferred males, punishing you for that is cowardly. Some folks just don’t understand how life and minds and hearts work, and it’s sad.”
A lifetime of lessons within a year . . .
How to be a real man—that was what AJ had shown me.
Only problem was, my family didn’t have a clue about him.
By family, I meant Sawyer.
Wasn’t sure a father figure I admired and felt indebted to would go down well when he was still grieving our dad.
Besides, a few weeks after the calls about how I’d caused Dad’s death had begun, I’d gotten one from Sawyer. He’d sounded lifeless as he rambled incoherently.
But in the ramble, I’d picked up what I needed: Leighton, his girlfriend, had passed from heart failure due to starvation.
Since then, I’d made it a point to call every week, even when I was offshore.
He was the only person in the family I’d spoken to since leaving Amber.
Only today, I was regretting it more than I ever could’ve imagined.
Because I could hear her.
For the first time in two and a half years, I could hear her.
Emberly.
I’d tried to forget about her. I’d forced myself to think of anything but her.
I’d even hooked up with a few girls during my trip through Texas and since arriving in Beaumont.
Still, she’d been there, dancing on the edges of my subconscious.
And now, she was real.
“Who’s that?” I asked, even though I knew.
“Em,” Sawyer said distractedly before speaking away from the phone to respond to her. After a few seconds, he came back. “Sorry, she’s fighting dirty.”
“Am not,” she snapped in the background.
“That was my food,” he called back.
I pulled the phone away and cleared my throat when she spoke again, unable to listen to her and not think about that last night in Amber. “Food, huh?” I asked when I was able to bring the phone to my ear again. “She’s there early.”
“Yeah, that tends to happen when she sleeps here,” he said casually.
But those words speared me.
Gutted me.
My eyelids shut as that pain became my world for a few agonizing moments, and then I pushed it down. Forced it away.
“Hey, actually, I gotta go.”
“Wait, what?” Sawyer said quickly. “You just—”
“Yeah, something just came up.” My head was moving in rough nods even though he couldn’t see. “Next week, man.”
I hung up before he could respond and curled my hand around the phone, gripping it so tight I was sure it would break.
I’d always known this day would come. Always.
The way they were always together. Practically attached at the hip.
Wanted to find one of them? Just look for the other.
Fucking shadows.
Little Duck.
I shook my head in tight, fast jerks as I walked back toward the house, throwing my phone against the side of it and listening as it shattered.
Yeah, I’d known this day was coming . . .
I just couldn’t have imagined the vicious pain that came with it.
By the
time Emberly was trudging out of Brewed at close to two that morning, I was waiting for her on the tailgate of my truck.
Her smile was all kinds of surprised and weak and adorable when she saw me there, struggling to get her keys out of the lock in her exhaustion. “It’s so late, what are you doing here?”
“Making sure you have a way home.”
The corners of her lips lifted briefly as she fell into my arms. “So late,” she repeated. “I have to be back in two-and-a-half hours.”
My hand stilled for a moment where I was softly rubbing her back, my words hesitant when I said, “Do you have to be here for open?”
“Delivery’s tomorrow,” she mumbled. “I should probably show someone how to do that.”
A grunt of agreement crept up my throat.
I’d swung by after leaving the ranch and found her rushing from the café to the bar. Balancing two alcoholic drinks in each hand with two more cradled beneath one arm and a chalkboard tucked beneath the other. Even still, she looked calm.
In her element.
“I’m gonna be here forever,” she’d said, an apology covering up the excitement that had splashed across her face when she’d noticed me. “Probably past closing. Have you seen my mom?”
And then she was gone. Hurrying away.
Dancing.
“You always work like this?” I asked carefully, hoping my line of questioning wouldn’t get her all defensive.
I understood hard work. I appreciated it.
I’d grown up on a ranch and in an orchard. I worked on an oil rig.
But she’d only slept a few hours before working almost twenty, and she planned to come back in a couple more.
There was a line, and she was pushing herself past it.
“Amber Fest,” she answered. “I usually go home and nap during the slow hours of the day.” She gave me a little grin as she pulled away enough to look into my eyes. “I did crash at my desk for about thirty minutes.”
“Wow,” I murmured dryly as I pushed up the tailgate and started leading her around the truck. “Let’s get you in bed.”
“I need a shower, I’m so gross.”
“Let’s get you in the shower,” I amended as I opened the passenger door and helped her in.
By the time I was seated and turning on the truck, her head was bobbing from trying to stay awake.
“Sleep, Em. I’ll get you in bed.”
“Shower,” she whispered.
I let out a sigh and pulled onto the street. “Shower.”
She was asleep before I made the first turn off Main Street and didn’t wake even when I lifted her out of the truck and walked her up to the door.
Only cracking her eyes open and shifting in my arms when I started searching for her purse . . . that wasn’t with her.
“Where’d the keys go?” I asked softly, trying to feel for them in one of her pockets. But as soon as I found them, she fully woke and began desperately wiggling until I set her down.
“Wrong keys,” she said groggily as she searched her shoulders. “Shit, I left my purse at Brewed.” She reached for the handle anyway, giggling when it opened. “Hey!”
“Jesus, Emberly.”
“You’re welcome.” She gave me a look like she was all kinds of proud of herself for forgetting to lock the door before her eyes narrowed. “I can feel you judging me.”
“Just adding it on to the things I need to make sure are taken care of,” I said as I led her into the house and locked the door behind us. “Locks. Your phone. Gas. You.”
“Oh, my phone!” Her face pinched adorably. “It might also, possibly, most definitely, be at Brewed too.”
I tucked her closer against me as we walked down the hall so I could brush my mouth against her temple. “I figured.”
Once we were in the bathroom, I started the shower to let the water heat up and turned back to where she was watching me—eyes heavy with equal parts exhaustion and desire. Worrying that bottom lip as she studied me, waiting to see what I would do next.
The air in the room shifted in an instant, thickening with wants and cravings I knew I should put a stop to considering she needed to sleep.
But then she was reaching for me and gently tugging at my clothes. Her breaths hitching when I grabbed the bottom of her shirt and began lifting, her stare never leaving mine as we undressed each other and I led her into the shower.
I pulled her close, pressing her back to my chest and going out of my damn mind with the way she arched against me. The little contended sighs that tumbled from her lips as I gently washed her. The way she put one of her hands on mine, using our interlaced fingers to grip her skin when my erection pressed firmly against her ass. The way she trembled as she moved my hands lower.
When she whispered, “Need you,” I nearly lost it.
“You fell asleep in my truck. Emberly,” I groaned when she reached behind her back to grip my length. Her name was a warning and a plea and need as she worked me. Long, unhurried strokes that had me fucking shaking and struggling not to come.
“Need you,” she repeated breathlessly.
Only a second passed before I was pushing her against the wall of the shower and forcing her hands there as my mouth fell to her ear. “Starting after.”
Her hushed giggle turned into a whimper when I filled her. Slow, easy. Taking my time and reveling in her little gasps and pleas. The way she gripped me so damn tight.
Reveling in Emberly.
I let my hands trail across her water-soaked body, over the slight dips and curves and down her spine until I was gripping her hips. Holding her tightly as I started moving.
Slow enough at first to pull soft moans from her, then harder and faster until she was crying out and pushing against the wall, meeting me thrust for thrust.
Breathing my name like a prayer.
Bringing me to my fucking knees.
Until she was tightening around me. Trembling. Falling apart.
Her back arching and her hands clawing at the tiled wall, trying to find purchase as I continued to move inside her. Rough and demanding until I found my own release.
One of my hands shot out toward the wall while the other wrapped around her, keeping us both upright as our ragged breaths mixed with the punishing shower spray.
I let my forehead fall to her back as tremors rocked through me, my eyelids slipping shut as I allowed us to stay in that moment for a little longer.
I wanted to take her to bed. Go slow.
Worship her.
Show her everything she meant—had always meant.
But all the glaring reasons why I’d been trying and failing to get us to hold off were mixing with the utter exhaustion that had been dripping from her, bringing me crashing back to the reality of our situation and the night.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I passed my lips across her spine and asked, “Starting now?” Earning a soft laugh from her.
“Starting now.”
I hurried us through the rest of the shower and drying off, pulling on clothes and getting her into bed—long after I should’ve.
Should’ve felt like an asshole for taking away time when she should’ve been sleeping, but all I could focus on was the way she shifted toward me, reaching for me and nestling closer. How the whole act of getting ready for bed and slipping into it with her felt right. How tucking her against me felt like second nature, as if I’d been doing it for years.
But then that sickening feeling started crawling along my skin, reminding me we hadn’t.
Reminding me we had so many problems.
Fucking disease.
I pressed a kiss to her temple and whispered, “I’m here.”
Within seconds, her body relaxed as sleep claimed her.
But that fear and worry weighed so damn heavy on me that I laid awake long after. That hesitation eating at me and twisting me up no matter how hard I tried to push it away.
As I wondere
d how we were going to get past it. Wondered what the hell I’d actually done in the first place to get us there.
Thinking back to that day all those years ago when she’d looked at me as if I’d wrecked her for putting rubber ducks in her locker on her birthday. Only for her and my brother to tell me now, a dozen years later, that I’d tormented her. Made her miserable.
Saying it all in a way that seemed to go so far past anything I’d ever done.
I knew how I’d been with Emberly before leaving Amber. I knew the things I’d done and said—some of them anyway. The longer I was back, the more it all surfaced.
The more confusing it became.
Because Emberly seemed to radiate this sexy, unrestrained confidence. But there were moments when it was only us that it was replaced by this paralyzing fear that bled from her and poisoned the air around us.
And it didn’t make sense . . .
I needed it to make sense if we were going to have any hope of moving forward.
I let the tips of my fingers trail across her arm as I battled with whatever it was she remembered when she looked at me. Battled with my younger self and hated him for whatever I’d done to her.
Starting now.
Period.
We had to talk. We had to get everything out there and figure a way through it all, or that fear was only going to grow. Choking us a little more each day, destroying us before we could begin.
I finished the flower in the latte’s foam and handed off the large mug to Mrs. Black. The warmth and joy that swirled through me as she fawned over the art had a smile pulling at my face.
That was why Mom and I had dedicated so much time to learning the coffee industry. Why I’d been adamant that the café side of Brewed be an experience and not just somewhere to grab a great cup of coffee.
Because of Mrs. Black’s reaction, even though she was in here a few times a week and was very familiar with the latte art.
Because people wanted to stay and drink their coffee here . . . not rush off.
People came just to be here . . . in the place I’d put my heart and soul into.
Whiskey (Brewed Book 2) Page 26