Page 1 of Bad & Bossy

Chapter 1

Cole

Returning to Boulder so soon was a bad idea.

Seeing it from above the breaking clouds had never before caused so much anxiety. The fields my friends and I used to explore, the restaurants I used to frequent, the cars, the people, they all looked like ants from the jet’s window. I wondered how much of a difference my disappearance would cause, how many people I’d inevitably hurt.

White fluff shielded my view as the plane split a cloud in two. We had reached our main altitude and I sat back in my seat, looking away from the window, staring instead at the rattling cup of water on the table in front of me. Turbulence never bothered me before, but this time it was making my nerves fray.

The movie that had been playing on the widescreen television ended and another had started, one I didn’t recognize. I stared at the screen as a distraction, hoping the unfamiliar faces would be enough to keep my mind off of the upcoming rocky descent.

————

“Ah, man, you look so good.”

Grayson’s hand clapped hard against my shoulder as he pulled me in for a hug on the tarmac. Six months was long enough for me to almost forget the way his voice sounded—deep and gruff ever since it dropped when we were about fifteen. “I do?” I chuckled, surprised. A few hours on a plane usually only made me look worse.

How bad did I look when I’d left, then?

“Yeah, Cole. You look… healthier.”

I watched the back of Grayson’s black mop of hair as he led me toward the car. He’d upgraded since I last saw him; the entirety of the hood of his new Porsche was covered in a black buffalo outlined in gold, the letters CU overlapped in the center. I guess he was taking his mentorship of Boulder’s football team at the University of Colorado more seriously now.

“Dinner?” Gray asked as I slid into the passenger seat beside him, the sun hanging low just above the peaks that skirted the edge of Boulder. I’d missed sunsets like that. “A great new grill just opened up. We could get some ribs, watch the football?—”

The car roared to life. “I’d rather head to the brewery, if that’s okay,” I politely cut him off.

Cole turned to me as he shifted into drive, his foot on the brake. “You want to go to the brewery?” he asked, speaking each word with a heavy pause.

“I can’t avoid it forever, Gray.”

“You just got back. Surely throwing yourself into that environment isn’t?—”

“It’s my business. I need to see how it’s doing.” I sighed, and slowly, gently, he let off the brake. “I haven’t heard a single thing about it since I left. I need to make sure the place is still standing and hasn’t burned down in my absence.”

He watched me for a few seconds more before the car slowly started to drift forward, a heavy silence falling between us. I knew he was worried about me—knew he had been for a while—but I couldn’t avoid my business any longer. I already had for six months. The time I’d been gone only caused the worry to grow that much more with every second I wasn’t there.

“You’ve missed a lot while you were gone,” he said, his voice low. If he thought I wouldn’t catch the subliminal meaning behind those words, he was wrong.

“With you or with everything?”

Grayson chuckled. We turned onto Valmont Road, leaving the municipal airport behind us. “Both. But mostly me.”

Either the newly-opened grill he spoke about was in the same direction as my brewery or he was giving me what I wanted. He’s always been a better friend than me.

“I ditched Amy about a week after you left,” he said, the engine revving with power as his speed picked up. “Weird girl but damn do I miss fucking her sometimes.”

I snorted. “She seemed nice, though.”

“She kept insisting I help her meet famous people at the matches, as if I would do that for her even if I could,” Gray laughed. “But at least Penny’s happy about it. She hated Amy.”

Penelope, his daughter, was almost nine and somewhat able to understand her father’s actions. I wasn’t surprised she was becoming vocal about the women he brought around. “You’re lucky Halsey hasn’t chewed you out for having your flings around her.”

Grayson shrugged. “Halsey’s going through her own quarter-life crisis or whatever you want to call it.”

“Don’t think you can call it a quarter-life crisis when she’s the same age as us.”

“Yeah, well, thirty-four isn’t exactly in mid-life-crisis territory.” Every turn Gray took drove us closer and closer to the brewery. The tips of my fingers began to buzz, anxiety creeping its way through my bones. “If my ex-wife has an opinion about who I date, she can keep it to herself.”

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