Page 170 of Unforgettable

Once I fully comprehended what was happening, the first thing I felt was betrayal and confusion.

“Okay, well, I’m going to get the hell out of here. Josh, hon, I’ll come see ya before I head out of town,” Rhonda said as she patted my arm and hurried out the front door.

“You…” I started but couldn’t say anything else before I cleared my throat. “You bought… the bar?”

Reed sighed and set the manila folder and keys on the bar. He turned to me and, in a resolute tone, said, “Yes.”

I scoffed. “What the fuck, Reed? When? Why?”

“I approached Rhonda about it right after you told us…” He motioned between himself and Amanda. “I called her while we were at the lake. She said that since you couldn’t buy it, it was mine.”

I’d begun pacing again. My entire body was filled with unexpended frustration and energy. It felt like the only way to expel it was by walking a hole into the laminate floor.

“What the fuck? Didn’t I tell you that I didn’t want this—that I didn’t want you to buy it?”

“I mean…” he began, preparing to argue before finally he sighed and agreed. “Yes.”

Whether I’d said it explicitly or not, he knew what I meant. He knew I didn’t want this.

“But you did it anyway?”

Calmly he ran a hand through his hair. “I did, but—”

“No. Don’t try to give me some bullshit to try to get out of this. This is the last thing I wanted. Now you’re what, my boss? I understand you have money, Reed. We all know that you’ve got a bunch of fucking money, so it’s not necessary to go around flaunting it and buying random shit. I can’t believe you bought this place!”

By the time I was done, I was yelling, and Amanda was at my side.

“Josh,” she pleaded.

“Did you know?” I looked down at her. My jaw was sore from grinding my teeth together, but all attempts to relax were futile. She’d appeared just as shocked as I was when Rhonda handed over the keys to my home to Reed, but I wasn’t so sure anymore. I didn’t know what to believe.

“No,” she implored me. “I didn’t know.”

There wasn’t an ounce of deceit on her face or in her voice, but it was little help since our other partner had deceived us both.

“Do you really think I did this to flaunt my money?”

I knew he hadn’t. Reed had never been one to show off, but the hurt I felt won out, and I found myself saying, “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

The hurt I felt was reflected in his eyes, and if I had been in a better headspace, I would’ve taken my words back.

“That’s bullshit. You know me better than that. Is it so hard to believe that I was trying to do a nice thing?”

I stopped pacing for a moment and laughed. “How was this nice? You bought it so someone else wouldn’t? Sure, that’s great, but now you’re my boss. We already have so much stacked against us and our relationship, Reed. Do we really want to add that to it? An employee-boss relationship that is sure to blow up in our fucking faces?”

He turned to the bar and braced his hands against the dark wood surface. He let his head hang down between his shoulders, and there was a small pang in my chest. I wasn’t trying to hurt him, but I couldn’t understand his motives. I felt like he’d been plotting behind my back for months with the intention of pulling the rug out from under me. We’d already been through so much, I didn’t understand how he could do this to us.

“We’re a company.”

Amanda and I looked at each other, both of us confused about what he’d just said.

“What do you mean?” Amanda asked.

Reed straightened and gave us both his full attention as he stepped forward. “I started a company. You’ll both need to sign a few things, but all three of us are equal owners. I purchased the bar with the intention of transferring the ownership to our company if you both agree to it. My dad—” His voice broke over the word, and Amanda closed the distance between them. I was frozen to my spot.

Amanda linked their hands together and then stood between us. Reed gave her a soft smile before he continued, “After I talked to my dad about us, he suggested it. It’s the only way to make sure it’s all equal. Anything owned by the company will belong to the three of us. If we one day decided to buy a house, we would use the company for that as well.”

“But you didn’t buy it under the company,” I clarified. “Youbought it.”

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