Page 127 of When Wrecked Meets Ruined
Shiloh put her hand on my arm. “I’m not laying a guilt trip on you.”
“I know. I’m just… I’m sorry I left like that.” I caught Lila’s eye, and she smiled at me before returning to her conversation with Quinn.
“I heard what happened,” Shiloh said. “We all did. Nobody blamed you for leaving. All we cared about was that you and Wren were safe.”
I wasn’t sure what all she had heard or if it had come from Quinn or Ridge. “Our life is better now.” I took a deep breath and let it out. “Things are better.”
“Good.”
We talked about medical school, Wren, and Shiloh’s music. And she told me about the little boy that she and Brody had adopted from foster care. His name was Zane, and she showed me all his photos on her phone, smiling with pride when she talked about him.
“He’s a lucky little boy to have such amazing parents,” I said.
“Brody and I are the lucky ones.” A message popped up on her phone, and before I could look away, a photo of the McCallister men appeared on her screen.
They were standing on a dusty trail with the Hollywood Hills behind them and the city below them. There were four men in the photo, but I only saw one.
Ridge was smiling for the camera, his teeth so white against his suntanned face. His hair was still longish, touching the collar of his T-shirt, but it looked more styled. Like he’d gotten an expensive haircut.
He was still beautiful. Heartbreakingly so. But now, it hurt to look at him.
I dragged my eyes away from Shiloh’s phone screen and took another fortifying sip of my wine.
“Are you okay?” Shiloh asked, her voice soft.
I nodded and forced a smile.
I cried when I heard that Ridge had been chosen as a second-round draft pick. He signed with New York right around the time I got accepted into medical school. Ridge had done everything he’d set out to do.
And I was so happy for him. Really, truly. And so proud. So, so proud.
CHAPTERFORTY-SIX
Ridge
Jude tookhis best man role seriously. Our day out required two outfit changes, a refueling station, and military precision.
Jesse’s ‘family bachelor party,’ not to be confused with the one his friends threw him last week, started bright and early with a three-mile hike at Runyon Canyon followed by a taco cycling tour of LA. That’s right. We cycled through the city, hunting down taco trucks. After which, we took a twilight helicopter ride over the Playboy Bunny mansion and Dodger stadium.
Our last stop on the guys’ day-out tour was a whiskey bar with a secret door.
“What the hell kind of place did you bring us to?” Brody groused. He was wearing a T-shirt, faded denim, and boots that brought the Texas dust to LA. He looked like he belonged at a classy bar as much as I did.
Jude pressed the button next to the carved wood doorframe and scowled at Brody. “You love whiskey. Stop your bitching and moaning.”
“Gideon recommended this place, didn’t he?” Jesse guessed.
“Yeah,” Jude admitted as a man in suspenders and a flat cap opened the door and ushered us inside a whiskey wonderland. The bar had tartan wallpaper, candle-lit leather booths, and jazz music piping from the speakers. It looked more like New York than LA which was probably why Gideon liked it.
He claimed that LA was soulless. “I hate that fucking city,” he’d said.
Which didn’t surprise me. Gideon hated everything.
“This place is cool. I like it,” Holden added as we congregated in front of the dark wood bar with backlit glass shelves of whiskey. “They have a good whiskey selection.”
That was Holden’s new venture. Making whiskey.
Before we got too comfortable, Jude herded us outside, and we snagged two four-tops on the private patio and pushed them together. Once we were seated, the whiskey was served to our party of seven—four McCallisters and three Cavanaugh brothers—and Jude passed out cigars.
