by Aly Martinez
Or so I told myself as I came face-to-leaf with the most beautiful Monstera Albo Half Moon to ever wear a clearance tag. She was my dream plant, my unicorn, with full tropical white-and-green split leaves. While customers swirled around the shop snatching up the Pothos, African Violets, and Peperomia, she stood alone next to the cash register. This was probably because her red tag had two thousand dollars written on the back and not a buck seventy-five like everything else. But the price of variegated perfection was not for the weak of heart—or wallet.
My debit card cried a little as it was swiped, and my stomach growled with the realization that eating out would be a thing of the past for a few months, but the smile on my face never faltered. Okay, that wasn’t totally true. There were quite a few cuss words uttered as I lugged the potted prize toward my car. Her leaves smacked me in the face with every step, but as I passed a small Irish pub, my obstructed gaze drifted through the windows and I came to an abrupt halt.
No way. No freaking way.
I gently slanted the ceramic pot to one side to clear my view.
Bowen—Mr. Tall, Dark, and Nice Ass himself—was sitting alone at the bar, sipping from a highball glass.
A smile immediately split my lips.
It had only been a few days since our run-in—okay, collision—at the courthouse, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I’d thought about him in that time. I—along with the majority of the female population—was a sucker for the broody, mysterious type. Really, it was something biological and completely out of my control.
But it wasn’t like we’d exchanged phone numbers or anything. What could I have done? Call Katherine, get his contact information, and show up at his front door like a crazy stalker?
Um, no, thank you. I was not that desperate. Also, Katherine didn’t have his address.
I should have kept walking.
I should have left the man alone to have his drink in private.
I should have forgotten about him altogether.
Unfortunately, I’d never been good at doing what I should.
Come on. It was rather fortuitous for our paths to cross again. Twice in the same week. I could have gone to any plant shop that day. I could have parked on the other end of the street or been too hypnotized by Margret Monstera to have noticed him at all.
Who was I to deny Lady Luck?
At the very least, I could pop my head in and say hello, maybe buy him a drink as an apology for accidentally assaulting him the last time we’d seen each other. It was, after all, happy hour—he couldn’t very well tell me to fuck off during such a joyous, half-price time of day.
Hitching Margret up to sit on my hip, I made my way inside with a surprisingly small number of side-eyes for a woman who was holding a three-foot-tall house plant.
“Bowen?” I said as I approached.
I couldn’t see his face, but his muscular back went taut beneath his pale-blue button-down. His drink hung frozen in midair, but he made no move to look at me.
Shuffling to his side, I set Margret on the bar and then slid onto the stool beside him. “Hey, I thought that was you.”
Slow and steady, he turned his head, his honey-brown gaze finding mine with an eerie calm. He said nothing as he stared at me for several beats. Clearly, the talking portion of this chance encounter was going to be left up to me—much like the last.
“I’m Remi Grey. The woman who accidentally attempted to give you a nose job outside the courthouse on Monday.” I made a show of inspecting his face. “Some of my finer work, I’d say.”
One blink. That was all he gave me before he became unstuck and tipped the glass to his lips. I couldn’t quite tell if he recognized me and wished he didn’t or if he didn’t and hoped to keep it that way. But I’d already made it that far; no use in tucking tail now.
“It’s so crazy running into you again. Are you waiting for someone? Girlfriend, boyfriend, worst enemy?” I internally groaned. I was terrible at this stuff. “Well, luckily, I didn’t actually run into you this time, but you know what I mean.”
His jaw ticked as he set his glass down, never removing his long, slender fingers from around the drink. Also never looking at me again, and short of a ragged breath which I pretended wasn’t completely rude, he didn’t reply, either.
Ah. The strong, silent type.
Clearly, my only course of action was to continue babbling. “What a small world, huh? I’m almost never on this side of town, but there was a plant shop having a colossal going-out-of-business sale, everything fifty to sixty percent off. Can you believe it? Who can resist a good bargain? Not this girl.” I paused and swayed my head from side to side. “I guess I technically still spent more than my rent, but I got this rare beauty—and to see you again. So I’d say time and money well spent.”
Much to my surprise, Bowen let out a loud cough. “More than your rent?” He peered around me. “On a weed that’s half dead?”
I gasped playfully and used my hands to cover either side of a white-and-green leaf. “Shhhh, she’ll hear you.”
His thick, dark brow shot up his forehead. “She?”
I nodded. “Margret. But all her friends call her Margie.”
Shaking his head, he took another sip. “A shrub that cost as much as your rent. Jesus. Good to see the real estate business is doing well.”
I was already smiling. A big, goofy, toothy, not-at-all-sexy grin. But that one statement made my mouth stretch so wide it was almost painful. Had Bowen been doing his research on me?
“And how exactly do you know I work in real estate?”
He looked away, lifting a finger for the bartender at the far end of the bar. “Grey Realty, right? Katherine might as well advertise for you in her monthly email. I’ve wondered if you pay her.”
Two things struck me. One, Bowen reads Katherine’s emails—something she would no doubt be giddy over. And two, he had not been doing any kind of research the way my obviously overinflated ego had assumed.
“Well, I don’t.” This wasn’t going at all the way I’d hoped.
“And you certainly won’t be able to now. What with all your rent thwarted for Margo’s adoption.”
“Mar-gret,” I corrected.
He swiped his hands over his face and beard, blowing out an annoyed stream of air.
“Anyway,” I replied, rolling my eyes at myself and buying time to come up with something that might turn the interaction around. “So, do you live around—” I began, but I was interrupted when the bartender stopped in front of us, his gaze flicking between me and Margie.
“What can I…uh, get you?”
Twisting my lips, I debated between a glass of wine or a beer, but Bowen got there first.
“Just my total.”
My head swung his way. “What? Why? You haven’t even finished your drink yet.”
Rising from his stool, he retrieved his wallet with one hand and threw the rest of his drink back with the other.
I had to give him credit. Whatever the room-temperature amber liquid was it could not have been tasty as a shot, but he didn’t make a face as it no doubt scorched his throat.
“Okay, then,” I whispered to myself, the quasi-rejection scorching my throat as well.
His only reply was the sound of the empty glass landing on the bar top.
As he opened his wallet and used his thumb to slide out a credit card, a small worn imprint in the front pocket caught my attention. It didn’t take but a moment for me to recognize the shape. Most men carried condoms or pictures of their families in that little pocket, yet Bowen Michaels, Man of Mystery, carried a safety pin—the very same safety pin he’d given me at the courthouse. What I found the most intriguing was that the pocket was flat. If he cared enough to carry one around with him twenty-four-seven, why hadn’t he replaced it?
I didn’t get the chance to ask before his wallet snapped shut. My head popped up, and I hoped he hadn’t caught me staring.
Finally, luck was on my side. He was looking at
the bartender. “I’ll meet you down at the register.”
“Sounds good.” The bartender dried his hands and moseyed to the other end of the bar.
Like a gentleman, Bowen slid his stool up to the bar.
“Well, um, it was nice seeing you again,” I said. “Maybe we’ll run into each other again. It’d be a shame if this became a habit. Maybe next time you won’t be in a hurry.” Disappointed, I slouched and added, “I’ll leave Margret at home. Three’s a crowd.”
“Have a good night, Remi,” he murmured.
“You too,” I told his back as he walked away without another glance.
Well, at least not another glance from him. I watched as he stood at the end of the bar, chatting as he paid. If I wasn’t mistaken, he even smiled once at something the bartender had said. As to be expected, it was just as attractive as he was.
As his long legs carried him out the door, I succumbed to the notion that this wasn’t baseball. Two strikes were more than enough for me. No wonder I liked him. Bowen Michaels, although an interesting character, wasn’t interested in me.
Or so I’d thought.
A glass of white wine landed on the bar in front of me and a bottle of water slid in front of Margret.
“From the gentleman who just left,” the bartender said.
I bit my bottom lip and looked over my shoulder, but Bowen was long gone.
Okay, maybe that hadn’t been a strike after all. Maybe the game hadn’t even started yet.
Bowen
I drove home like a man on the run. White-knuckled, my eyes on the rearview mirror, waiting—and almost wishing—she’d suddenly appear again.
Fucking fuck me. That woman was beautiful.
If she had aimed that smile at me one more time, like a ray of Goddamn sunshine for a man sentenced to the shadows of the moon, I would have lost my mind.
Okay, not true. My mind was long gone.
“Bowen?” I could still hear her voice echoing in my head. How the fuck did she even know my name? Oh, right. Katherine, the official meddler of flight 672.
What had I done to deserve this?
Was I some kind of psychopath in a past life, reaping the punishments for my sins in the form of an intoxicating blonde with blue eyes that I swear could deliver sight to the blind?
I was not emotionally equipped to deal with Remi Grey. Christ, I was barely emotionally equipped enough to wake up each morning.
It didn’t matter. It was over. Done. She was gone.
And now, I just needed to take seven thousand cold showers and then avoid McMurphy’s for the rest of eternity to keep it that way.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
The house was dark when I arrived, just as it had been for the last six months, but somehow, I was still surprised by the suffocating weight of the loneliness inside. The dogs barked, the sounds of their feet on the wood floor preluding my daily welcome-home celebration. Sugar danced against my legs while Clyde took a slightly more goatly approach, head-butting me in the kneecaps.
“Okay, okay, I see you,” I clipped, giving them both a placating pet before flipping the light on—and then promptly having a heart attack. “Fuck!” I boomed as my brain scrambled to make sense of why there was a man stretched out on my couch.
“It’s about time you got home,” my brother said, slowly sitting up.
Right. Because my day hadn’t been challenging enough. “Jesus, Tyson.”
He stood up, stretching his arms over his head, and yawned. “I’ve been waiting for over an hour. Where the hell have you been?”
Nowhere near ready to dive into that shitstorm, I avoided his question with another question. “How did you get in here?” I’d taken his key away months ago for this exact reason. If he wasn’t attempting to scare the shit out of me, he wasn’t truly living.
“Cassidy gave me hers when she assigned me babysitting duty tonight. Hope you’re up for sushi and sake. Jared’s coming to pick us up at seven.”
Perfect. Just fucking perfect. Another overbearing ambush from the Michaels siblings.
“I’m going to take a hard pass on that.” I walked to the kitchen, hoping and praying he hadn’t eaten my leftover pizza, but if I knew him at all, the fridge had been his very first stop. “Does this mean you and Jared are officially back together?” I asked robotically, capping it off with a knowing smirk.
“Don’t give me that shit. We all know Mom can’t keep a secret. Telling her is cheaper than announcing it on a billboard but has the same community reach.”
I laughed because he wasn’t wrong. “You still should have told me.” Lifting the empty pizza box off the counter, I shot him a scowl over the bar. “I hope you get food poisoning.”
He grimaced. “Trust me, it felt like food poisoning going down. Who the hell puts spinach and artichoke on pizza?”
After folding the box in half, I stuffed it into the recycling bin. “Someone with tastebuds and a heathy desire to skip the gym on Sundays.”
“Makes sense.” He curled his biceps into a flex and kissed the molehill hiding beneath his emerald-green V-neck. “I did monopolize all the good genes in the family.”
“Bullshit. Cassidy got the good genes. You got Dad’s webbed toes.”
“Jackass,” he muttered, strolling into the small open kitchen, Sugar and Clyde hot on his heels. He propped his hip against the counter and flashed me a shit-eating grin. “Quit deflecting. I’m smarter than that. Where ya been, Bo?”
Like a truly mature adult and not at all like a ten-year-old fighting with his little brother, I curled my lip and mocked, “None of your fucking business, Ty.”
He barked a laugh and shook his head. “You having a life isn’t a crime. You know this, right?”
Retrieving a beer from the fridge, I avoided his scrutiny. “Yes. But you know what is a crime? Breaking and entering.”
He snapped twice—Tyson Michaels sign language for pass me a beer. “Was there a woman involved in this secret after-work detour?”
I ducked back into the fridge to grab another beer, Remi and her ridiculous house plant flashing on the back of my lids.
It made no sense, her showing up at McMurphy’s like that. Atlanta was a big city. Numbers were my forte, but I didn’t need to break out my calculator to know the likelihood of our paths crossing was almost nonexistent.
Coincidences weren’t out of the realm of possibility though.
That didn’t explain why, at the courthouse, she’d stared at me like she was starving and I was her only chance at sustenance. As soon as the gavel had banged, I’d ducked out, hoping to avoid any further interactions with her. Only for an outrageously overpriced Half Moon whatever-the-fuck-she’d-called-it to hand deliver her to the barstool beside me.
There was no way I was telling Tyson—and thus my entire family—any of that.
Instead, I sliced him with a glare.
He lifted his hands in surrender. “Okay. Too soon. Too soon.”
I slapped a beer into his hand violently enough to make my point but not enough to potentially damage his moneymakers. With a quick flick of my wrist, I twisted the cap off and then clicked the neck of my bottle with his. “Look, I’m not up for dinner tonight. I officially dismiss you from babysitting duties. Go on a date with your boyfriend and call it a night.”
He opened his beer and haphazardly tossed his cap onto the counter, earning himself another glower. “Sorry. Cass would have my balls.”
“You really think she’d take them from Jared like that?”
“Hilarious,” he deadpanned. “Insult me all you want, but you are stuck with me tonight. Full disclaimer, this is my first night off in two weeks, so if we are staying in, I’m making no promise about staying awake.”
“You asleep and not talking to me? Don’t threaten me with a good time.” I took a long pull of beer.
There was no use in fighting with him. My family might as well have been surgically implanted into my ass after the plane crash. It was a wonder they hadn’t
started a carpool rotation to drive me to and from work every day.
“Cut me some slack. We’re worried about you. First, with the settlement on Monday and now, the anniversary of…” he trailed off, shaking his head.
And just like that, it felt like a bucket of arctic water had hit me in the face. A lump formed in my throat as I looked down at my watch to check the date. With the distraction of seeing Remi again, I hadn’t really considered why I’d felt the urge to go to McMurphy’s that day.
I supposed, deep down, that was the answer.
Six months before the plane crash…
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I whispered, looking around the bar to see if anyone was watching us. I didn’t care, but Sally would cower if anyone so much as glanced in her direction.
Thankfully, happy hour at McMurphy’s was always slow. Their regulars didn’t start pouring in until eleven, so short of a few people in the dining area, we had the place to ourselves. It was one of the selling points I’d used when convincing her to finally get out of the house for a night—something I was starting to seriously regret.
Things had been going surprisingly well for the last week. I couldn’t pinpoint the why, but she seemed…happier. More at peace. The constant anxiety had ebbed into something almost resembling contentment. It was damn near euphoric watching her smile again. That was not even to mention all the times she’d kissed me or crawled into my lap, not bothering with much more than unzipping my pants before claiming what was hers.
For a whole week, we’d felt real again.
But maybe that was my biggest mistake. The tears already streaming down her cheeks were our reality now.
She leaned away from me, turning on her stool so my hand fell off her thigh. “I’m going to ask you one last time, Bowen. And don’t you dare lie to me. Not now. Not about this.”