1. Boston

CHAPTER 1

BOSTON

There were worse things in life than working for my brother, living in New York being one of them, but there was no convincing him of that so I'd stopped trying. There was a time, back when we were both teenagers, when I'd seen the appeal of the city. Back then, anything was better than central California farmland and two parents who were content to let the goats do the babysitting. Kale and I had good parents, if not a little too agriculturally focused for most people's tastes, and much like living in New York…there were also worse things than being babysat by goats.

I'd always appreciated that my mom came from money and had been given the choice to stay or go, so when Kale and I got old enough to choose, we were given the same opportunity.

As a teenager, there weren't many things that sounded more appealing than getting the fuck off the farm and into the city with our grandparents. They had money and an endless supply of hot water in the showers, and there were boarding schools and fancy restaurants and buildings that were taller than the clouds. It was a relief, at first, to get the dirt out from under my fingernails and the hay out of my hair, but I was pushing thirty now and I'd replaced dirt with papercuts and hay with smog and pomade.

Truly, I'd started to wonder if my life was going to be a series of the grass is greener over there scenarios, over and over and over again until I died. I'd been debating moving back to California long before Kale met his boyfriend, Christian, and their ridiculously saccharine love story only accelerated that train of thought. Kale was my brother, my twin, my very best friend, but even with the bond we shared, none of that could be a forever thing. We were pushing middle age and Kale had always been luckier in love than me.

The dating scene was another horrible thing about the city. Most of the women I'd dated were after the money they thought they could get out of me and not anything fundamental that I had to offer. They recognized the last name, the address, the designer labels, without caring about the personality of the person. It felt hypocritical for me to call it out because it was exactly those things that had called me and Kale to the city in the first place, but now…

I was exhausted of the whole thing.

My last relationship had made it eight months before things went south. There hadn't been anything inherently wrong with Colette, beyond the fact we just didn't click . She was pretty and she was smart, and she had her own money, which was a refreshing change of pace from the other women I'd dated in the past. Fresh out of a shower, she smelled like sugar and lemons, and she was absolutely everything I should have wanted.

My relationship with Colette had been nice , it had been fine , but I wanted more than that. I knew there had to be a woman out there who would kick up some inextinguishable spark in the middle of my chest that would burn us both to the ground one day. I wanted that incendiary kind of attraction, an obsessive kind of love. I wanted someone to dedicate my time and my heart and my life to, the same way Kale had done to the city. The same way he'd done to Christian.

And I knew that wanting those things while also craving a quiet life on the farm made my dreams unattainable, but I'd settle for bits and pieces of the whole if that was all I'd be allowed. Because the farm brought authenticity, and authenticity bred connection. At the end of the day, that was what I wanted more than anything else. That was what had been missing from my relationship with Colette. I didn't expect Kale to understand, especially not after he met Christian, and when he'd told me to take an extended trip home, I honestly worried if I went for a visit, I would never come back. And for as disillusioned as I was by the life I knew I'd never have, I wasn't ready to say goodbye to my brother yet.

With that thought in mind, I snapped the lid on my laptop shut and leaned back, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. Kale had gone home an hour ago, excited to take Christian out to the ballet after dinner, so I'd taken my time tying up some loose ends from the meetings he'd had earlier in the day. I knew Kale had only offered me the job as his assistant to keep me in the city longer, but we both knew my departure was inevitable. The only thing up for discussion was the when of it all.

I rolled the chair backward, the wheels crashing into the overstuffed box of squash and potatoes our parents had sent over. It was the most recent delivery in the CSA box that we'd never asked for, and if I were being honest, the food from home was one of the things that made it hardest to be away. Without opening my eyes, I swiveled the chair around and picked up one of the zucchini, taking the time to appreciate the rough grit of the dirt and the vegetable skin beneath my fingers.

"Did you want some privacy?"

The question startled me, and I threw the squash in the air, flailing around trying to catch it before it landed on the floor, or worse…my lap. The zucchini from the farm had always been monstrosities and the weight of one landing right on my junk would have been an absolute disaster, ending with me at home on the couch and a bag of frozen peas between my legs.

When all was said and done, I caught the vegetable by the curly vine left around the stem, the thick base landing against the floor with a thud. Defeated, I tossed it over my shoulder and back into the box, angling my face toward the visitor who'd almost startled me into a child-free life.

"Ford." I spun the chair around toward the front of my desk. "Kale's gone home for the day."

My brother's best friend glanced past my shoulder at the dark windows of Kale's office, then looked at me with a sly smile. Ford was, as my brother often said, a nightmare, but I think there was as much love between them as between Kale and me. Ford was just taller and bolder, with a mouth that hadn't known a filter a day in its life. The man said what he wanted, what he thought, what he needed, with little or no thought to anyone else in the room. Sometimes it was annoying, the way he dominated conversations, sucking the air out of every room he walked into, and sometimes it was admirable, stirring some kind of feeling in my stomach that four years of college had never given me a word for.

Ford also, apparently, had a penchant for sleeping with Kale's assistants. The last one, Stefan, hadn't made it long at all before Ford had gotten his hooks into him, and Kale refused to employ people who fraternized with his friends. I was an exception in that his friends were all almost my friends anyway, and since I was straight, there wasn't any worry about me falling into bed with his charismatic problem of a friend.

"Not you, though? I hope he's not working you too hard."

The inflection on the last word didn't go unnoticed, but I shrugged him off. Whether I was interested or not—which I wasn't—Ford never bothered to dial down the flirting. It felt harmless to me, just some well-intended lines meant to send my brother into an early grave, so I didn't ever bother telling Ford to stop.

"He's working me fine," I assured.

"Did you need to get worked harder, Boston?" That smile of Ford's grew into something that barely reached his eyes, the mischief sparkling in his irises with the ask.

"That's what the zucchini was for." I stood up from my chair and turned around to get the box of vegetables in question. Ford groaned when I bent over, and my cheeks burned with the embarrassment of being watched that way. The flirting was one thing, but sometimes I wondered if there was truth behind the things Ford playfully propositioned me with.

"He's got jokes." Ford laughed, coming around my desk and taking the box out of my hand. He smelled like sandalwood. "You're funnier than your brother."

"I got the humor. He got the attraction to men. "

"Well," Ford mused, eyes narrowed, "with both, you'd clearly be too powerful to contain. Taking the entire city onto their knees and then their backs."

I wondered what it would be like, sometimes, to be a man like Ford Carlisle. So unashamed of whom he was and what he wanted, saying the first thought that came to mind regardless of the audience or the impact.

"Seriously, though, Ford. What brings you by?"

I grabbed my pea coat off the hook on the wall and shrugged it up my shoulders while Ford followed me around with the dirty cardboard box of root vegetables in hand.

"I was looking for your brother," he said. "He's not answering his texts."

"He's at the ballet with Christian."

Ford scrunched his nose and huffed an annoyed breath out loud and hard enough to dislodge a chunk of dust and dirt from the box in his arms.

"I forgot about Christian," he said.

"That feels impossible." I checked my pockets for my things then reached for the box, but Ford took a step back.

"I've got it."

"You'll get your suit dirty."

Ford looked down like he'd forgotten he was even dressed, let alone in a suit that had most likely cost thousands of dollars.

"It'll clean or it'll get donated. What are you doing with these? Taking them home for some quiet one-on-one time?"

"I'm not quiet at all, Ford." I wrestled the box out of his arms. "Will you get the door?"

"You can't say things like that to a man, Boston." He pulled open the door and then closed it behind us. "You'll give me a heart attack."

I ignored the insinuation, heading toward the elevator with Ford hot on my heels. Pressing the down button with my elbow, I waited for him to say something else. When he didn't, I asked, "Is all the wishful thinking finally taking its toll?"

"I have more stamina than you give me credit for," he said softly, standing much closer to me than I'd realized.

Suddenly, his breath was hot against my neck, barely above the collar of my coat, and it was impossible to breathe with the smell of him in my nose. Whatever expensive, spicy cologne he wore wrapped around the both of us, and when the elevator doors slid open, I practically ran into the small space to escape him.

The box of vegetables bumped into the far wall of the elevator and I spun quickly, just as the doors were sliding closed. Ford was still in the elevator alcove, a smear of dirt across the otherwise stark black wool of his suit coat. He caught my stare, a curious look in his eye that was gone as fast as I'd noticed it.

"Are you coming?" I asked.

The corner of his mouth quirked up and he shook his head. "I'll see you on Monday, Boston."

The doors slid closed, and I realized I'd been holding my breath. Sucking in a desperately needed lungful of air, I dropped my head against the mirrored back wall of the elevator, trying to get myself together.

What the fuck was that?

What just happened?

The elevator landed in the lobby, the doors whooshing open so fast I lost my breath again. I shifted the box under one arm and pinched my nose with my free hand like I could somehow squeeze the scent of Ford's cologne out of my nose, but the insistent pressure of my fingers only served to drive the smell of him deeper. Behind me, another elevator arrived in the lobby, doors sliding open. Expensive-sounding footsteps came up behind me and stopped, and I shifted the box back into both of my hands.

"Do you need help with that, Boston?" Ford asked quietly.

"No, thank you." My voice cracked on the last word, and I cleared my throat, shuffling away from him and toward the wide open lobby space.

"Okay," he said, walking behind me. "Let me know if you change your mind."

With that, he brushed past me, entering the revolving door without even looking back at me. He was on the sidewalk without so much as a backward glance. I came to a stop to watch him go, waiting until he was far out of sight before heading out into the blustery fall night on my own.