Chapter Four

Bells and Bliss

Mandee

“I would be honored!” I all but hug the phone when Phoenix and Juliana Facetime me, asking to not only help plan Juliana and Garrett’s wedding, but participate in the wedding itself.

“Could you possibly be a bridesmaid, as well?” Phoenix asks, thumbing over to Juliana.

“Are you serious?” I gasp.

“She doesn’t have a lot of friends.” Both Phoenix and Juliana laugh at this.

Me, it makes me incredibly uncomfortable. The two of them were mortal enemies just a few weeks ago.

Apparently, they notice.

“We’re gonna be family soon,” Phoenix says with a wink. “And don’t tell her, but I kind of like her.”

Juliana smiles and looks down. “I’m kind of glad she does.”

Aw, the feels! The feels, the love, the happy ever afters.

I nod vigorously as I feel my eyes mist. “Yes, yes, yes!”

“We would love to get together sometime soon. I know you’re busy, but neither of us have a clue about—”

“No worries,” I cut Juliana off. “I’ve been planning my wedding since I was five. Leave it to me. I’m your girl.”

I look up when the door to the bar swings open, and I can’t help smiling when I see Grayson Falcon walk in.

He lifts his chin at me, winks, and then walks to a nearby stool.

Shit, shit, shit. Secrets.

“Hey, I need to go. A customer just walked in. I’ll have it all planned in two days.”

“Wait, what?” Phoenix laughs.

“Don’t pick on me. I got this.”

“Gage and Garrett will be down in a couple hours to look at the back where the old dining room used to be. If it’s okay with your father, they may want to help spruce it up so we can use it and—”

“It’s fine with him,” I say as I make sure the camera doesn’t show Grayson while I move down the bar toward him.

“You really should ask—”

“Gotta go.” I cut Phoenix off.

Shoving the phone in my pocket, I walk over to Grayson. “What can I get you?”

“You,” he says, leaning back in the stool and crossing his arms over his chest, causing the tee-shirt to stretch over his broad pecs as he looks at me sternly.

“Me?” I ask, secretly praying my face doesn’t turn fire engine red.

“You to answer your text messages.” He smiles now.

“My what?” I grab my phone from my pocket as he grabs his.

That phantom ringtone plays “See You Around,” and the message says: This is a text message.

“Wait, that’s you?” I ask, feeling relieved.

“Who did you think it was?” he asks leaning forward. “Oh, let me guess; you have a fan club. A ton of random men sending messages to you.”

I shake my head and grab a glass.

“Mandee, you don’t have to tell me, but since we’re friends and all, why not? I can keep a secret.” He wags his eyebrows at me.

I will not tell him why I ignored the messages. I won’t because, like everyone else who knows, he will feel sorry for me, or the total opposite—he will judge me.

“Lots of secret admirers,” I lie.

“Does little boy Blue know about these admirers?” he whispers.

I shake my head again. “Let’s keep that a secret, shall we?”

He looks me up and down slowly, and I immediately feel body parts tighten that should not be tightening in response to my friend, Grayson Falcon’s, intense stare.

“It’ll cost you,” he says then licks his lips.

Oh hell, I think to myself.

“What will it cost me?”

As soon as I say it, I know I shouldn’t have. I don’t need to flirt. That’s the old me. The one who learned a hard lesson when it came to dealing with men in that sort of way.

He gestures me forward with his finger, and old Mandee leans in.

“I’d love something wet and hot,” he whispers, his breath hitting my bare skin and making me shiver slightly.

I lean in more, but look away and try not to allow the next words to leave my mouth, yet they do.

“I’m listening.”

“Coffee,” he says as he leans back and smiles. “I’m exhausted. My brothers and nephew are running me ragged. I’d like to hang out, have a few beers, and unwind. But, I’m afraid without coffee, my head will be on the bar in minutes.”

I swallow back my inner shame, embarrassment, and smile because, if he can see it, he would have to be one heck of an actor to act like I hadn’t just made an ass out of myself. From what I surmise of him, he’s no actor. He likes to keep his personal life private. Otherwise, he’s pretty darn straight forward.

“Black?” I ask, turning around and putting my back to him.

“Unless you have some special creamer that you’d like to add.”

I swear his voice just dropped an octave, and I am even more sure that his words were very sexual. They make me straighten immediately.

Dammit.

After pouring the cup of coffee and bringing it to him, he reaches in his pocket, but I hold up my hand, stopping him.

“On the house.”

He smirks, nods, and then lays a pile of bills on the bar. Then I remember the call.

“In interest of secret keeping and friendships, your future sister-in-laws said your brothers will be here in a couple hours.”

“Thought I was safe here, Mandee,” he says before taking a sip of the coffee. Then he licks his lips, those beautiful, blood red lips. “I’m not sure this friendship thing’s gonna work out.”

“No?” I ask, playing along.

He shakes his head from side to side. “Nope.”

“Well, you can run and hide, but you’ll be back.” I grab the bar rag and throw it over my shoulder.

He smiles. “Confident. That’s kind of sexy, you know.”

It’s fake. I want to tell him that, but I don’t.

“Maybe not confident. Maybe I just know something you don’t about your family.” I shrug.

“Highly unlikely.” He rolls his eyes slightly.

“I think you’re wrong,” I tell him, wiping up the already clean spot on the bar just to stay near him.

“Let’s place a bet,” he says, setting his cup down then leaning in slightly.

Knowing I have won this already, since he didn’t hear the conversation, I nod. “You’re on.”

“You sure? You don’t even know what we’re wagering,” he says, strumming his fingers on the bar.

“Confident,” I remind him.

“I win, you cook for me.”

I laugh. “I can cook.”

“Not just cook, Mandee. I’m craving something sinfully delicious, and I want you”—he points that long, thick finger at me—“to satisfy that craving.”

I swallow down the lump in my throat.

“Nervous?” He chuckles.

“Not one bit,” I say, giving off all the confidence in the world, partially because I know I will win, but also because he thinks it’s sexy.

“All right. Now, what would you like me to do to you?” He winks. “I mean, for you, in the highly unlikely event that I lose.”

“I want you to dance with Pearl next time there’s a band here.”

“Pearl?”

I nod. “Pearl.”

“Okay.” He shrugs. “What’s wrong with this Pearl that you think she can’t get a man to dance with her? One-legged so she’ll fall over? I can hold her up. I’m pretty strong.”

I laugh. “She has two.”

“Both feet a left? Doesn’t matter. I lead every dance.” He winks again.

“Nope, she has a left and a right.”

As he scratches his head in thought, I see ink on the inside of his bicep. It’s the shadow of a lake and a female figure standing in the water. And quickly, it’s gone.

“Smell funky?”

“Nothing’s wrong with her. I just find it highly unlikely that even a man like you could get her to take a turn on the dance floor,” I answer.

“A man like me?”

“Yeah.” I nod.

“What’s a man like me?” he asks before taking another sip of his coffee.

I regret my words immediately, but have to tell him something.

“You Falcons are just different.”

He grins. “Tall, dark, and handsome?”

I nod.

“Phoenix must have told you our other family secret.”

“Other family secret?”

He nods. “It’s true.” With that, he sits back and chuckles to himself.

I grab my mug and take a sip of my coffee, trying to hide the stupid grin caused by one Grayson Falcon.

“Hot and hung.”

As soon as his words come out, I nearly choke on my coffee. But instead, it spews out of my mouth...at him.

“Oh, my God,” I cough out. “I’m so—”

He laughs loudly from his belly as he wipes the coffee off his face and shirt.

I grab a dry bar rag and rush around the bar to clean up my...embarrassing mess.

He’s still laughing, and it’s contagious. I wipe at his face as he continues.

“It’s not all that funny,” I reprimand him, trying to stop my own laughter.

As he sits back and becomes a little quieter, I continue to wipe his shirt.

“Stop laughing,” I say, yet start laughing again.

“It’s a funny thing, this thing we have going.” He chuckles. “First ever female friend, who is confident, sexy, and kind of sweet, and you got me wet, twice. I feel like I should return the favor.”

I look up at him and freeze.

His eyes become more intense, causing heat to resonate in places heat should not resonate.

With the bar windows open and no music playing, I hear gravel crunching as someone pulls in. I know I should step back, but I can’t bring myself to do it.

“Sweetheart,” he says, his voice huskier. “Our secrets are going to be revealed if that’s my brothers.”

I step back, turn around, and force a laugh. However, he grabs my hand, stopping me, and I look back.

“They don’t scare me. But Phoenix...” He pauses, shivers, and then releases me. “I don’t think she’d like it much.”

“Like what?” I ask, and then clear the thickness of desire from my throat. “We’re friends. If I spit coffee on her, I’d—”

“Could also be your boyfriend,” he says.

The screen door opens, and I look toward it, seeing Blue’s smile fade a little bit, and then appear again.

“Hey, babe. Lunch being served yet?”

I nod and start to walk around the bar. He’s late every day for lunch.

“Hold up.” Blue chuckles, and I stop and turn around.

He walks up and gives me a hug, which is normal.

I look at Grayson and watch him sit back, crossing his arms then looking away as his eyes narrow.

Then Blue kisses me. On the mouth. In the bar.

I step back and look at him. I’m sure I looked shocked, because I am.

“Sorry, babe. It’s been a few days since I had a chance to kiss you. Bars empty, your dad’s not around”—he smiles—“so gotta sneak ’em in while I can.”

I nod and turn around because I can see Grayson out of the corner of my eyes, looking at me in a way that leads me to believe he disapproves. And as wrong as it is, I like it.

“Grayson Falcon, what brings you in again?” Blue asks, sitting next to him.

Grayson holds up his cup of coffee.

“You think the coffee here is good, you should check out Higgins diner in town,” he says.

“Trying to send paying customers out the door? Thought you liked Mandee here.” He nods toward me.

Blue laughs, and Grayson smiles, but it doesn’t hit his eyes. Then, uncomfortable silence sets in.

“Blue, you want the special?” I ask.

He nods. “Pearl’s meatloaf?”

“Yep,” I tell him.

“Pearl? This the same Pearl in our little bet?” Grayson asks.

“Bet?” Blue asks quickly.

Grayson smirks at me, and I smile and nod.

“So, you two have a bet?” Blue asks again.

I look away from Grayson and at Blue. “He thinks I don’t know something he does about his family.”

“Oh hell, not this again,” Blue jokes.

“No, not fucking that again,” Grayson says immediately.

To stop what would surely be an uncomfortable discussion, again, and may possibly turn into a fight, I jump in.

“Grayson, when’s Garrett and Juliana’s wedding?”

“Like, the actual date?” he asks, and I smile and nod. “Unfair, Mandee, unfair. Guys don’t remember that kind of thing.”

“Fine, where is it?” I ask.

He gives me a half-smile. “Their place, of course.”

“And?”

He looks down as if he’s deep in thought, and then his smile returns. “Here.”

“What?” I ask, stunned that he knows.

“Here at Carlin’s.” He taps on the bar, now grinning.

“How did you know?” I laugh.

“I know everything.”

“Fine, who’s in the wedding?”

He shrugs. “Already won the bet.”

“He’s right, babe,” Blue interjects, reminding me he’s here.

“So, what is it I have to cook for you?” I ask, almost forgetting Blue is here for a late lunch, but it’s a harmless bet.

He smiles. “I want bacon.”

I laugh. “Bacon’s easy.”

“Chocolate covered bacon.”

“That sounds really disgusting.” I shrug. “But a bet’s a bet.”

I look back at Blue. “Meatloaf?”

He smiles and nods. I nod back at him then look at Grayson.

“Did you want lunch, as well?”

“Sure,” he says. “I’d love the same thing Blue’s having.”

The way he says it makes me smile, but only on the inside.

I’m allowing myself to get carried away, wrapped up in my thoughts of Grayson Falcon and all the raw sexiness he exudes. Mix that with the pent-up frustration of being handled with kid gloves for years and the fear that what happened could happen again, add a dash of feeling comfortable with him almost immediately, and you have an emotional equivalent to the effects of a Long Island Ice Tea. Too many of those and you get wasted, like black-out, remembering nothing wasted, like wake up to videos of yourself online being slut-shamed wasted.

“I’ll be right back with your lunches.”

While I dish out the meatloaf and plate the food to warm up, since Pearl leaves at two, I think about all the reasons I should force myself not to allow myself to imagine that Grayson Falcon is interested in me.

Growing up, my mom was sick a lot during my “formative years,” and many of my issues derive from that. That’s what the school psychologist told me several times when my father asked that he see me during my senior year.

After Mom passed, I found out my then boyfriend, Jeff, who had been amazing for the two years we dated, was sleeping with a girl in the next town over, and had been for a year. I was crushed.

When I broke it off with him, he acted like I had crushed him, throwing things at me like, he wouldn’t have been with her if I had slept with him. It made me sick, and I had a momentary lapse of judgment where I felt he might be right. That maybe during my “formative years,” I was so incredibly broken that him sleeping with that girl was forgivable. Therefore, I gave him my V-card. Then, well, then I caught him doing her.

I thought Jeff loved me. He never pressured me, was always there to comfort me, and never in a million years would I have thought he would do that to me. He and I were perfect. Homecoming king and queen, class couple, everyone said we were perfect together.

In college, I was able to be someone else. No one knew about the years I laid with my mother for hours, wanting to be close to her, afraid she would die without me being there. No one knew anything about my pain, my hurt, my past.

When one of my roommates found my homecoming pictures, word spread. Somehow, the popularity that comes with being the Queen Bee in high school meant something in colleges, as well. Except, my homecoming win was probably more of a pity win than a popularity one. Nonetheless, at college, more and more boys wanted to date me. So, I dated...lots of them.

I won’t say I was easy or sexually free, but I will say that I wasn’t letting the delayed growth, hindered by my “formative years,” compromise my future growth personally. I will say that my college years were to be experienced in the fullest. I will say that this small-town girl, once wrapped so tightly in love, hope, grief, and loss, wasn’t the same as the college girl who loved parties, and even liked being the butt of a joke from time to time. It was liberating until...it wasn’t.