Chapter 12

Twelve

Kyleigh

When I arrive at The Nest, there're a bunch of old receipts posted on the gate with chewed up gum. Names with phone numbers are written in girly scripts, all promising a good time.

My gut twists with the thought of all the competition for Rowan's attention, but it's not because I'm invested in this relationship. The sex is just too good to pass up, obviously.

"Who are you?"

I turn at the sound of a woman's gravelly voice. She's a smaller woman with red hair that looks as though it's probably dyed that color. Her gaze flits over me, and she doesn't look impressed by what she sees.

"I'm just waiting for someone." I thumb in the direction of the gate into the building.

She sighs. "You're kind of early, aren't you? Season hasn't even started." She crosses her arms. Although she's four inches shorter than me and a few decades older, I'm intimidated.

"Oh no…I mean, I'm not…"

She walks closer, her eyes narrowing on me. "Oh…"

"What?"

"Did one of them hurt you? I'm sorry, sweetie, but I've owned this bar a long time, and you're just one broken heart in a long line of them. The last few years, I had hoped that these professional athletes weren't the classic ‘one girl one night and another the next.' But this new group." She stares at the gate and sighs. "Even that single dad on the bottom isn't looking for a good woman."

"Yeah, it's not like that."

She takes me in again. "Your eyes are red like you've been crying. It was Landry, right?"

Jesus, she's good. I could very well be here for Henry or Tweetie. How did she figure out I'm here for Rowan? "That's not why I was crying."

She nods but clearly doesn't believe me. "Unfortunately, he's the heartbreaker. No surprise. He's too good-looking, and when they're too good-looking you can't trust 'em."

"Honestly, I'm not upset over Rowan."

"Rowan, is it?" She takes me in again, then waves me toward the bar with a dated sign above it that says Peeper's Alley. "Come in. I own the place, and I'm not open, but I have some coffee brewing."

I look at my phone and see that there's nothing from Rowan yet, and it's already been a half hour. I should leave and go home, face my mother, but I'm not ready yet.

So I follow her in.

She turns around right when we get to the door. "Ruby, by the way."

"Hi, Ruby…Leigh." I continue the lie of my name since she seems to know the guys who live here. I see a for sale sign on the window right before we walk in. "You're selling the business?"

The bar is, for lack of a nicer word, old. It's a classic bar with seating around the bar and a few small tables sprinkled through the room.

Ruby rounds the bar and grabs the old-school coffeepot, pulling out a mug. "Cream or sugar?"

"Actually, do you have some ice?"

Her lips tip down, and she sighs dramatically, grumbling about how young people ruin everything sacred and holy, even coffee.

I'm ready to say never mind, but she grabs a beer mug and fills it with ice, dumping the coffee over the ice. Not exactly like my favorite cold brew, but I'm not going to complain since she's nice enough to get me off the sidewalk where I look like one of the Falcons' puck bunnies.

"Are you in the market?" she asks, and I look behind me, unsure if I missed something in our conversation.

"For?"

"A bar." Her tone is filled with annoyance. I'm pretty sure it doesn't take much to earn her ire.

"Oh, no, I'm a fashion designer," I say, but as the words leave my mouth, I wish I could take them back. I don't want to design shit right now. Sure as hell not a wedding dress, which is the craft I've been perfecting under my mom's guidance for the past five years. I'm not even sure I believe in the sanctity of marriage right now. How can I work with brides and look them in the eyes, feeling as though I'm setting them up for disappointment?

She hems again, which I realize is something she does when she's trying not to outright judge.

"Why are you selling?" I ask.

She pours herself a cup of coffee and rests it in front of her. Her movements are smooth as though she's spent the majority of her life behind the bar.

"I don't like change." She shrugs. "And everything around here is changing. Becoming something I don't want. I have no interest in slinging fancy cocktails and catering to an uppity crowd, but that's what you have to do these days to survive."

I nod, understanding how much things have changed over the years.

My phone vibrates in my purse, and I pull it out to see that my brother is calling me. I send him to voicemail. My mom has probably called him and involved him in this. As if he's going to calm me down or try to convince me I didn't see what I did. She just needs to tell my dad. Until she does that, I don't want anything to do with her.

"Dodging someone?" Ruby asks before sipping her coffee.

I shake my head. "Just my brother."

She nods. "He's probably ready to kick Landry's ass, huh?"

"No. I told you, it's not like that."

She grabs a stool from under the cash register and pulls it closer to sit across the bar from me. "You look like a good girl. Don't get involved with those egos up there." She nods toward the ceiling. "More than half the women are looking for Landry when they come in here."

"Can I tell you a secret, Ruby?" I figure I'll just tell her because I need her to get off this whole Rowan-is-breaking-my-heart thing.

"Sweetie, I was born to hold people's secrets. Bartender oath number one."

I sip my iced coffee. "We're not romantically involved."

"You and Landry?"

I nod. My phone buzzes again, and I'm ready to send Conor back to voicemail but see it's a text from Rowan, telling me he's going to be late. I text him back.

While I wait for his reply, I set the record straight with Ruby. "I just met him a few days ago, and we're really just…"

Her head rocks back, but she still doesn't look pleased when she looks at me again. "You know his nickname, right?"

I giggle. More at Rowan's texts than Ruby asking me if I know his nickname. Of course I do. "Magic."

" And Mr. Heartbreaker."

I cover my heart. "No breaking this heart because it's not involved in our arrangement."

She hems again. I'm starting to hate that sound coming out of her.

I go back to my phone and continue to text Rowan, laughing at what he's saying. I have to say I love flirting with him. I'm kind of impressed I haven't second-guessed every word I write, worried about what he might think of me.

"That him?" Ruby asks.

"Yeah." I snap a picture of the coffee Ruby made for me and feel myself smiling like a goon.

She hems.

"What?" I ask with exasperation, putting down my phone.

"Nothing."

"Ruby, just say what you want to say." I have a feeling if I don't let her, we'll keep going around in circles.

"You don't look like a girl whose heart isn't involved."

She's so wrong, but my parents brought me up to respect my elders, and I don't have to prove anything to Ruby anyway. She'll know I was right when this ends with Rowan, and I'm still very much intact. Maybe he'll be the one who's a little broken up.

"Why don't we set that topic aside and talk more about you selling this establishment?"

"You interested?" she asks me again.

"I wouldn't know the first thing about running a bar."

"It's easy. A pretty face like yours would sell the drinks, no problem."

I laugh. "I feel like you're sweetening me up."

"You have this look about you like you're about to go through a change."

"Are we back to the heartbreaker stuff?" I sip my coffee, checking the time on my phone, wondering where Rowan is.

"No. It's something else. A booty call doesn't show up at ten on a Monday morning. And your eyes are red and swollen from crying. I've been giving you hell about Landry, and you haven't cracked and told me what really has you so upset."

I suck back the tears threatening to fall. "I…"

"Bartender oath," she says.

"I found out that my mom is cheating on my dad."

Whoosh, a huge boulder on my shoulders loosens, along with a flood of tears.

Ruby pushes a bar napkin over to me. "You're not the first with that story. Although it's usually a wife or husband complaining or confessing about the cheating, not a daughter."

I blot my eyes, swallowing past the dryness in my throat and trying not to appear in distress. "I just confronted my mom."

"Before you came here?" Ruby asks.

I nod.

The door opens and a filter of light streams into the dark bar. I quickly wipe my eyes.

"Landry," Ruby says, "I kidnapped your girl, and she's going to buy my bar."

I don't turn around to look, but I hear him walk across the room.

"Buy the bar, huh?" He doesn't take the stool next to me but stands beside me.

"Ruby is trying to persuade me."

"It takes a tough woman to kick out all these girls fluttering their eyelashes at the guys who live here." Ruby finishes her coffee and takes her cup back to the coffeepot. "Coffee?" she asks Rowan.

"Nah. Sorry, Ruby, we have somewhere to be." He holds out his hand for me, and I swivel on my stool to face him. Rowan is dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, hair still a bit sweaty. "Unless you want to stay here while I shower."

His tongue runs across his bottom lip, and I squirm.

"Just go get it on. I don't need to hear your weird foreplay." Ruby shoos us with her hand, never turning around.

"Thank you, Ruby. How?—"

"Go. It was nice meeting you. Let me know when you want to buy the bar."

Rowan shakes his head as I climb down from the stool.

"You'll be the first one to know," I say with humor.

We say our goodbye and walk out of Peeper's Alley to the street as a car pulls up curbside. A man gets out with a drink carrier holding two iced drinks. Rowan walks over and thanks the man before walking back over to the gate and typing in the security code.

"What are those?" I ask once we're secure behind the gate.

"These?" He holds them up.

"Yeah."

"Iced coffees."

"Two of them?"

"They're my favorite." He smirks, and we climb the stairs.

"Is one of them mine?"

We reach his door, and he presses in his other security code. "I'm undecided because I was told not to do anything nice for you."

"Did Rowan Landry order me an iced coffee?"

He pushes the door open with his foot and holds it open for me to walk through first.

"No." He takes an iced coffee out of the holder. "Rowan bought you an iced coffee."

My stomach does a somersault. I should probably stop using his first and last name like he's some icon I'm sleeping with. I wish I was confident enough not to wonder out of all the women he's had, why does he seem to keep wanting me?

"Thank you, Rowan," I say, accepting the straw he's offering. "I'll let the gesture slide this one time."

"You will, will you?" He puts his coffee on the counter and stalks toward me, backing me into the corner between his kitchen and family room. His foot lands between my legs, and I part my legs to make room for his thick thigh. "I'm glad you called."

"Want to go to the bedroom?"

He shakes his head. "I'm taking a shower, and you're coming with me."

He picks me up, and I yelp, almost dropping my iced coffee. I'm beginning to like being in his arms too much. He carries me and my iced coffee into his bathroom.

Yeah, I'm glad I called too. He's just what I need to forget about my problems for the day.