Page 7 of Finding Home

“Can we go?” she asked in her haughtiest voice.

Ivy shrugged. “Hey, don’t get mad at me. You’re the one clutching the man’s jacket like a life preserver.” And with that, Ivy strutted along the hall to the back staircase, leading Hope down to their irritatingly alluring landlord’s bar.

CHAPTERTHREE

Gabe scanned Bowie’s, the bar he’d owned for over seven years now, with bittersweet satisfaction. It had taken hard work and brutal hours to transform the place into a reliably popular hangout for Portland’s local hipsters and millennials, who craved the modern-downtown-bar-meets-neighborhood-dive vibe, but he could now admit, as he observed the crowd, that he’d been successful. Given what it had cost him, he wouldn’t accept less.

Sundays to Thursdays had a more relaxed vibe, with people milling in for after-work drinks, food and good music. Friday and Saturday heated up with crowds that wanted to let loose and drink off a long week at work.

Tonight was a typical Friday night. A local band played indie rock in the corner while people gyrated on the dance floor and others lounged at cozy tables.

Gabe stood behind the bar getting drinks for thirsty customers. Beside him his best bartender, Carter, mixed Moscow Mules for two women who leaned so far over the bar they were in danger of spilling their goodies out of their shirts. Carter, professional as always, kept his gaze locked on their faces, while he smiled and flirted his way through their order.

Huffing a laugh, Gabe went back to pulling a craft beer for the guy in front of him. Out of all his bartenders, Carter was the most popular. He was charming, witty, and had enough confidence to indulge in the attentions of women and men alike. He was basically a fresh-faced Casanova who knew how to work a room with his pretty-boy face alone.

The opposite of Gabe, whose pretty-boy days were long over, if they’d ever existed. He might only be thirty-two, but he sometimes felt ninety. A weathered old man who’d seen too much of life’s rough side.

“Look alive, dude,” said the guy sitting on the barstool in front of him. His best friend, Sean, took a long sip from the beer Gabe had handed him and rolled his eyes. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to smile. It’d probably get your tips looking a lot more like Carter’s.” Sean jerked his head in the direction of the mason jar that sat on the bar next to Carter's station, which was overflowing at only nine in the evening. Early hours in the bar life.

Gabe flipped him the bird then wiped down the counter and nodded at the next guy in line, who ordered an old fashioned. He grabbed the bourbon and set to work.

Sean chuckled. “You should come to my kickboxing class tomorrow. Let off some steam. 6 a.m. on the back mats.”

Sean owned Thompson Kickboxing. Initially focused on the martial arts, his business had grown over the years to attract all kinds of fitness enthusiasts. Sean was a certified trainer and taught most of the martial arts classes, in addition to the personal training he did.

And he was right—Gabe did need to decompress. A certain blonde had gotten under his skin, and he couldn’t seem to shake her. Gabe kept recalling his encounter with Hope in the hall this afternoon. Her wide dark eyes, red and wet from tears, were burned into his memory. She’d looked so vulnerable and sad that it had taken all his willpower not to go back to check on her. He wanted to know what had caused her misery, and more than that, he wanted to fix whatever it was. The intensity of his concern had thrown him.

Distantly, he heard Sean going on about his latest idea for an MMA class geared toward women, when his chest tightened and his neck muscles tensed. Like his thoughts alone had conjured her, he caught sight of Hope following Ivy into his bar.

She was dressed like a man’s hottest wet dream in tight-ass pants that clung to her like a second skin and a loose top that exposed her belly button when she moved. Her shoes raised her willowy frame a few inches, and the way she walked in them made the blood rush to the wrong parts of his body. But the fact that she was covering some of her sexy ensemble with his jacket had his whole body tightening with desire. She looked good enough to eat. Like a candy bar he wanted to unwrap and devour. He wanted to taste her. Everywhere. Preferably right here on his bar top. The feeling was unfamiliar and primitive, but God help him, he couldn’t shake it.

He probably needed to get laid. It had been a while. A long fucking while.

“Huh.” Sean’s single judgment-laden word yanked Gabe out of his sex-hazed trance.

“What?” he demanded, a little too defensively, his gaze snapping back to find his friend’s eyes lit with amusement.

Sean glanced at Hope, then back at Gabe. “You got a thing for Ivy’s roommate.” Not a question.

“What?” Gabe snorted, trying to sound appalled. “Not my type, man. Not even close.”

“Yeah?” said his soon-to-be-former best friend who was now grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Then why is she wearing your jacket?”

He knew it was primitive, illogically possessive, but seeing her in his jacket, knowing that other people were seeing her in it too, knowing she now smelled like him, filled him with satisfaction… and hunger.

And just like that, his traitorous brain imagined hoisting Hop-e up onto the bar wearing nothing but his jacket and those fuck-me shoes, spreading her thighs wide so he could make room for himself between them.

Christ, when had he turned into a sex-crazed macho-assed caveman?

Before he could come up with any kind of retort to his friend, Ivy and Hope had arrived at the bar. Ivy hopped up on the bar stool next to Sean, while Hope leaned against the bar top, eyeing him strangely.

“Sup, hotties,” Ivy said by way of greeting. She eyed Gabe deliberately as she gestured to his jacket on Hope’s body. “I’ve been informed that you met my new roomie this afternoon so I won’t bother with introductions.”

“I did.” He replied and turned to Hope with a nod of acknowledgement. “Hope.” She offered him a polite smile in return.

Ivy, meanwhile, grinned like she knew something he didn’t before she proceeded to take Sean’s beer out of his hands for a long swallow.

Sean let her. He always let her. He was such a sucker for Ivy it almost made Gabe feel sorry for him. It was so obvious to everyone except Sean. And maybe Ivy herself.

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