Page 8 of One Night Collision

My phone dings from the countertop and I feel a weird little thrill at that. He’s not playing games—not yet anyway. He’s not leaving me on read or waiting X number of hours to reply. Grabbing the phone, I open my texts and my smile fades. It’s not Damien. It’s Hannah, the kid who works for me. And yes, she’s twenty-three, but she’s still a freaking kid.

H:I locked the keys in the van and I can’t get into it or the store.

I take a deep breath. I give myself one day off. Each week, Just one where I get to be relax and recharge. And this was it. But those deliveries have to get made. People are counting on them.

M: Be there in twenty.

No leisurely coffee and bagel for me. I leave all of it and grab a quick five-minute shower. With no makeup, my hair in a ponytail, and wearing an ancient T-shirt from a spring break a decade and a half ago that says “kiss my sass,” I head out the door. And smack right into a solid wall of familiar muscle.

Damien. He’d dropped me off at home last night after our date, but I hadn’t excepted him to be back her so soon.

“What are you doing here?”

He shrugs. “I thought, if you’re up for it, I could take you to my favorite spot for brunch.”

“I wish I could. Hannah just texted me, and she’s locked the keys in the van, and the store, where the spare key is located, is also locked… Now, by the time I get there and we get everything loaded, she’s going to be running behind. We’ve got services at four different funeral homes today.”

“I’ll drive. Three people can get it loaded more quickly and then we can still eat.”

I look a mess. An absolute wreck. And while he claims to be dragging ass, he looks incredible. “Where on earth could you take me for breakfast like this? They’d think you were buying meals for some rando homeless person!”

“You’ll be fine, I promise.”

—

Just over an hour later, all the day's orders are loaded into the van. Hannah is off, only fifteen minutes later than she was supposed to be, but some of the funerals are happening in the evening where the delivery can be later. We just shuffled the delivery order to accommodate it, and now I’m back in the front seat of Damien’s truck and we are pulling onto a residential street.

“Where are you taking me?” I ask suspiciously.

He grins. “I promise you’ll get the best breakfast in town.”

“What else will I be getting?” I ask him, my suspicion about his motives on full display.

He looks over at me with that same grin and that perfect dimple. “Only what you ask me for, Miss Sloan… What do you like in your omelets?”

He parks and I’m just shaking my head. Cocky. Unflappable. So fucking self-assured that I kind of hate him for it. “Do you ever doubt yourself?”

“All the time,” he says. “I just don’t let it stop me. Doubts mean I’m scared, and I’ve made it a point in my life never to back away from anything that scares me.”

God, that hits home. I spent five years terrified. Not of being beaten, not of anyone doing anything to me. It was five hellish years of knowing—every single day—that I was a disappointment. That no matter how hard I tried, I just wouldn’t ever be enough. It took me a long time to break free from that, to find my courage again. And maybe it’s not one hundred percent yet, but I’m running a solid eighty-five on any given day. And I’ll take that.

“This is a really nice house,” I say as he shows me inside. And it is nice. But it’s not fussy and overdone. It’s not so minimalist that you feel like you’re standing in an art gallery. It’s an eclectic mix of old and new, rustic and classical. In short, it’s a lot like him. I think about the monstrosity of a McMansion I lived in with Calvin with all its gaudy finishes and “high-end” upgrades. It would have been one thing if that house had ever been a home. It had been a bedazzled fucking cage.

“Thanks. I bought this place after moving back to Bellehaven. I had this windfall case that paid off my student loans… then I had another windfall case that let me leave all that behind and come back here,” he says. “It’s not quite as lucrative as the other firm was, but I can sleep at night this way.”

“Criminal law? Civil?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing civil about it… It was a lot of high-profile divorces, and people who didn’t want to pay when they should have and people wanting to get a payout when they didn’t deserve one.”

I shudder at that. “Yeah, I had one of those… didn’t want to pay when he should have.”

He leads me back to the kitchen and I take a seat at the island while he rolls up his sleeves and washes his hands. Why the fuck is it so hot when a guy in a dress shirt rolls back his cuffs?

“How long were you married?”

“Five years too many,” I reply.

“How many in total?” he asks with a pointed look.

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