Page 24 of Take Me Slowly: part 2
"Of course not, you're terrifying." I ate my last fry and wiped my hands on a napkin. "I'm surprised they don't run away every time you step into the room."
"Right?" She laughed again. "Me too. They must be tougher than I thought they were."
"It just goes to show you, you can know someone for a long time and still be surprised," I teased.
She smiled at that, but it faded. "You know what? I'm going to be sad, in a way, if it turns out to be true." She was also careful not to mention Coral Clarke. "We will have missed out on so many years of hanging out together. Giggling over stupidshit and doing each other's make-up. Think about all that shit disturbing we could have done, with Riley and Connor."
I had a feeling she'd done enough of that for both of us. Her expression and line of thought were contagious. My mood was a little heavier as I contemplated.
What would growing up with them have been like? Would I think of them as brothers, the way she did? That would certainly change things. I might have the same relationship with them that Fiona, Whitney and Holly did. Nothing more than friends. And Josiah? He might have just been another one of the guys in town. Not treated like trash. I never would have met Brooks.
"We can still hang out, do make-up and give them shit," I said. "If it is true… I'm here now."
"Yes, you are." She put a hand on my bicep and squeezed gently. "We can make up for all that lost time."
"If the time was lost," I reminded her. "And if it wasn't, then we can still do all those things. Regardless of where I came from, I'm still me. Still Leah Kent."
"The one and only." She wiped her fingers on her napkin and tossed it onto her plate. "Unfortunately, I have to get back to work."
"So do I," I said. I was going to try to rebuild the adventure tours website, to make it a little more user-friendly. Riley did a good job building it, but it could be tweaked here and there to improve it.
"I'll see you in the morning then." We both stood and she gave me a hug. "Tell Connor I said thanks for lunch. I'll eat here more often if he's going to feed us like that."
"If I ate like that too many times, you'd have to roll me out the door." I patted my stomach. It was nice, once in a while, but if I kept going like this, I was going to have to find the hot springs or an indoor, heated pool to work it all off. I used to run and ridemy bike, but these days it was all about water. Good exercise and gentle on my limbs.
"Me too." Fiona snagged her coat and shoved her arms into it. While I returned the plates to the bar, she hurried out the door.
11
RILEY
"Looks like we got off light."I inspected the last of our snowboards and leaned it up with the rest. "We were lucky. Only a couple need repair."
"It's not luck. We take care of our stuff." Connor glanced at me as if I shouldn't forget that. Like he'd let me. "Saves us a ton of money in the long run. And hassle."
"Are we still talking about snowboards?" I asked. I picked up a snow boot and started to look it over carefully, before putting it aside with the snowboards. "Or are we talking about Leah?"
"All of the above," Connor said. "I want to have a conversation with that Brooks asshole. He seems to have a chip on his shoulder bigger than mine."
That was saying something. Chip was Connor's middle name. Literally, his middle name was Charles. Which, when you thought about it, was pretty funny.
"I noticed that about him." I inspected another boot and put it beside the first. "He seems high maintenance." Smoking hot, but a lot of work. Like Leah, but she didn't walk around like she thought the world owed her anything. Brooks seemed to think the world owed himeverything. Yeah, apparently I had a type.
Connor snorted. "That's one word for it. I'm half tempted to put him on a toboggan and drop him off at the top of a slope. The kind that ends in a cliff." His eyes glazed for a moment, like he was picturing Brooks' rapid descent, flying off the end into the abyss and disappearing.
"I thought that's what you meant," I said. My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I pulled it out and glanced at the screen. "Speak of the devil. Holly said he's staying at the Snowbank Hotel. Room twenty-one."
"Do I want to know how Holly knows that?" Connor handed me another pair of boots to put in the pile that didn't need repairs.
"Probably not." I sent off a thanks to her and put my phone back. "For what it's worth, I don't think she's fucking Brooks."
Connor shrugged. "It'd make life easier if she was. Then he wouldn't want to get his dick wet in Leah."
"Yeah, he definitely wants to do that." The way he looked at her, like he wanted to tear off her clothes and bury himself deep inside her. Who could blame him? She had the most perfect pussy. And mouth. And…everything else. I had no problem admitting I was head over heels for the woman. I was gone from the moment I saw her sitting in front of her easel. Absently, I rubbed my nose where I'd gotten paint on it from 'accidentally' getting too close. I'd wanted to see her reaction and she hadn't disappointed me.
I also hadn't missed the fact neither she nor Connor said they loved me when I told them, but that was okay. I knew how they felt. They'd say it soon enough.
"I think we're done here for the day." He straightened up, his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. "Let's go and talk to this dickhead."
