Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Logan

“So you’re telling me that I’m going to be down two bartenders?” Owen looks up from the plate of leftovers he brought home from Mom and Dad’s.

I stare at him for a good few seconds. “That’s all you’re taking away from this?”

He shrugs. “Yeah. Now I have to work.”

“Wow. What a crazy concept to work when you’re at work.” I take a seat at the kitchen table and pull a roll off Owen’s plate. The fucker ate the rest while I was at work. “You did hear me, right?”

“Of course I heard you.” Owen sits back, looking right at me. “You know I love you,” he starts. “And I know you’re in love with Danielle, even if you’re not willing to admit it to anyone.”

“I’m not—”

“Lie to yourself all you want.” Owen picks up his fork. “But it’s useless lying to me. I’m the better version of you, remember? I know everything.”

I let out a slow breath and go to the fridge to get the second plate Mom sent over. Well, that’s if Owen didn’t eat it too. This is one of the rare occurrences where Owen is one hundred percent right. I like Danielle. I want to be more than friends with her, and I’m sure it is obvious.

“How long are you going to be gone?” Owen asks.

“We’re leaving Thursday morning and will catch a late plane Sunday Hawaii time. I’m not sure when we’ll get back here.”

He sighs dramatically. “That’s a whole weekend fucking gone.”

I peel the foil off my plate and stick it in the microwave. “Working four days in a row won’t kill you. Then again, I don’t think you’ve ever worked four days in a row before. Now I’m questioning if you’ll survive.”

“Fucker.”

I laugh and go to the pantry, grabbing treats for Dexter, who’s been silently begging under the table this whole time.

“But the serious question is, can I trust you to take care of Dex, or do I need to drop him off with Mom?”

“Drop him off with Mom and you might not get him back.”

“True,” I say, holding out the treats. Dex plods over, tail wagging like crazy. “And you’re too energetic for old Rufus.”

“I can handle the dog. You know chicks love guys with a puppy anyway. He’ll be my wingman since you’re deserting me.”

Owen and I have spent time apart, of course, but for most of our lives, we’ve done things together. Having a twin is like having a built-in best friend, and we get each other without even trying. Which isn’t always a good thing. There are many things about Owen I’d rather not get.

“I’ll call in and check on you every day,” I tease. “Should I prepare meals for you too? Label them in the fridge with which day of the week you can eat them on?”

“You might have to. I’ll run out of food on day one.”

We both laugh, and I grab my food from the microwave and then join Owen at the table.

“But really,” he goes on, tone changing. “This has to be it. You either make your move in Hawaii, finally tell her how you feel and do something about it…or you need to move on. I can’t watch you spend the rest of your life on the sideline, just waiting for the ref to call you in. You need to put yourself in the game.”

I push my food around on my plate, mind drifting to Danielle. Letting out a breath, I look up at Owen. He’s right again, dammit.

“Regretting something you did sucks ass, trust me, I know,” he goes on. “But regretting what you didn’t do sucks even worse. Then you get stuck in the what if game and even I can lose sleep over that.”

Shoveling a forkful of food into my mouth, I just nod. He’s referencing his own personal regrets when it comes to love. His ex-girlfriend Charlotte still has his heart, and we found out last year she moved to New York and got engaged to some big shot lawyer. Owen took the news harder than anyone—including me—expected. He’s still in love with her, even after all this time.

It kills me to see him hurting over her. They broke up because Owen was, well, Owen. Charlie wanted something more serious after college and Owen wasn’t ready to settle down. Really, he was scared. We were young, just graduated, and didn’t know what the hell we were supposed to do with our lives. Charlie was in law school, set on getting a job at her dad’s firm here in Eastwood.

The thought of settling down, of being the second one out of all of us to get married and pop out babies…it freaked Owen out. I don’t think he’s even admitted it to himself, but I think he was more afraid of letting Charlie down than anything else.

So they broke up and she moved on, getting a fancy job in the city. That was years ago, and it still haunts him. I don’t want to end up in the same situation with Danielle. I can’t imagine watching her date anyone else. Fall in love with anyone else.

Marry anyone else.

I swallow my food and reach for my water. Owen is right: this has to be it. Because if this isn’t…then it won’t happen at all.

*

“I fucking hate all of you.” I set the weights down and glare at Owen, Dean, and Archer. It doesn’t always happen that we end up at the gym at the same time, but when we do, we spend more time heckling each other than working out.

And right now, they won’t shut the fuck up about Hawaii and what I should do to Danielle when we get there.

“If you need some pointers, I’m willing to share a few tips.” Dean adds weights to the leg press.

“Don’t take advice from him,” Owen says. “He’s married. And we all know what happens to your sex life when you get married. It disappears.”

“I disagree,” Archer starts, and we all round on him. Dean acts like he’s going to puke, and Archer rolls his eyes. Archer is married to our baby sister. It’s an unspoken rule he’s not allowed to bring anything up that makes us think their relationship is more than PG. Even though they have one kid and are trying for another.

“Notice Dean didn’t object,” Owen laughs. “Proof that most married couples become boring.”

“So what then?” Archer asks. “You’d just date forever and not get married and settle down?”

“That’s the plan.” Owen shrugs, turning away and picking up another weight. “It’s worked well for me so far. And settling for just one pussy for the rest of your life? No thank you.”

I don’t bring up what he told me just last night and how I know he’d give anything for another chance with Charlie. For the next five minutes or so, we all lift and stop talking to each other. And then things pick right back up as we rest between reps.

“You really think you can pull this off?” Dean asks, stretching out his hamstrings.

“I don’t see why it won’t,” I tell him, pulling one arm across my chest. “Her sister already bought it, and that ring I borrowed from Quinn looks legitimate.”

“But then what?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. We go back to how things were.”

“No, dude,” Owen says firmly as he checks himself out in the large mirror. “You’re going to fuck her so good she’ll be begging for more.”

I roll my eyes. “And I wonder why you’re single.”

“Whatever happens,” Dean goes on, “enjoy the time off in paradise.”

“I plan on it.” Going anywhere with Danielle would feel like paradise. We go back to lifting and then finish our workout. Archer and Dean go their separate ways, and Owen and I stop into town to grocery shop and run a few other errands before we head home as well.

Ever since we opened Getaway, we knew we’d be working our asses off until it took off enough to hire more employees so we could take more days off ourselves. We’re definitely to that point but still work like we did when we were new. Well, I do at least. Owen shows up, complains about having to work, but doesn’t mind as much as he makes you believe. He’s working tonight, and I have the night off before going back tomorrow. Maybe we should hire another bartender or two as well as a few weekend waitresses.

I plan on spending the rest of the day finishing the thriller I started—I’m only five chapters away from the end and shit’s about to go down—and then take Dex for a walk. I’m on my last chapter when Danielle texts me.

It’s info on the hotel we’re staying at, along with the flight numbers. We have two layovers, but we’re lucky enough that we were able to get any tickets this close to the wedding. I click on the hotel link.

“Shit,” I mutter. This place is fancy, and the beaches are endless. It really does look like a paradise.

Just a minute later, my phone rings, and it’s Danielle.

“Miss me?” I answer.

“You know it, Dawson,” she says right back. “I assume you got the hotel info.”

“I was looking at it and then someone had the nerve to call and interrupt me.”

“Geez, that person sounds like a jerk.”

“The biggest.”

“Other than being rudely interrupted, what are you doing?” she asks.

“Trying to finish a book.”

“How close to the end are you?”

I flip through it. “Twenty pages.”

“That’ll take you like ten minutes,” she laughs. “Want to finish it and then come over? I made a bunch of pies and need someone to help me eat them.”

“Pies?”

“I got suckered into a charity bake sale for the 4H group. I’ve never made a pie before, but my grandma was the best pie baker in the county. Or at least Grandpa says so. Now I have to live up to the expectation she set.”

“Eating dessert in the name of charity? That’s basically torture.”

“I know, right? And I’m about to make a fresh pot of coffee to go along with it.”

“Damn, you’re evil. I’ll be right over,” I chuckle. “But I’m finishing the book first.”

“Thanks. And that’ll be perfect timing. I have two more pies in the oven.”

“How many pies did you make?”

She pauses as she counts. “Eight.”

“Who the fuck has eight pie-pans?”

A giggle comes over the phone, and it’s one of the best sounds in the whole damn world. “I love how that’s your main concern. We have five pie-pans, and then I went out and got those cheap ones. I was going to make every pie in my grandma’s recipe book, but I’m eight in and there’s still two more pages of recipes. I didn’t know this until this morning, but she always wanted to open a bakery. Grandpa told me she spent years saving up the money and found the perfect location and everything. Then she got sick,” Danielle says, voice thinning. Danielle’s grandma died before she got the chance to meet her.

“What was the perfect location?”

“Downtown, where that overpriced boutique is now.”

“Pies would sell better than expensive clothes. This is Eastwood, not Newport. We’re not sophisticated enough to follow trends. I mean, if it’s plaid and pairs well with John Deer green, you’ve hit most of your market in this town.”

Danielle laughs again, and it hits me then how far I’d go to make her smile and hear her laugh. It hurts me to know she’s hurting.

Motherfucker. I’m so screwed. Because no matter how I go about this, there is no possible way I can deny that I am crazy in love with this woman.