“Nothing’s happened,” he said. “We haven’t –Ihaven’t – I mean,nothing.”
“I know.” Her manner gentled, and she reached to tidy his hair in the front, nails delicate and familiar. “You like her, and you wanted to come tell me before you did anything.”
Forget a few moments of chemistry, a couple of intense gazes: what existed between him and Leah still felt so fleeting. Could turn out to be nothing. But he said, “Yes,” because it was the truth, and because, like he always had when he was younger, when he threw himself out onto the field every day in the hope that it would amount to something, trying was worth it. Wanting to try was the most alive he’d felt in years. “Jazz, I’m sorry.”
She smiled again, and then rested her head on his shoulder, patted his chest – not seductively, but in a comforting way. “Don’t be, baby boy. If you like her, go get her.”
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me: I like the idea of doing things on my own a little while. Besides.” Her tone turned mischievous. “I have a date this weekend.”
“With who?”
“Todd.”
“Todd the contractor?” He made a face that must have manifested through the rest of his body, because though she couldn’t see his expression, she laughed.
“Come on, he’s nice!”
“His name’sTodd.”
“Doesn’t matter what his name is. Have you seen him in those Wranglers he wears?Damn.”
Carter laughed, and groaned, while she giggled against his side, and it felt, almost, like they were friends – it definitely didn’t feel like he’d just broken things off painfully with a lover.
The lightness returned to his chest, and he knew he’d done the right thing.
A lightness edged with nerves, because now there could be no more excuses. He hadn’t tried to court a woman properly in years, and the idea terrified him, more than a little bit.
Twenty-Four
“Really?” Ghost’s eyes lit up with immediate interest when Carter explained the Cooks’ situation to him the next morning. “I had no idea.” He took a meditative sip of his coffee and nodded, gaze shifting toward his VP.
Walsh was sitting on top of a table, legs dangling off the edge, cigarette dangling off his lip as he dug for his lighter in his cut pocket. “I don’t know,” he said, cig bobbing. He paused to light it, and then exhaled a plume of smoke, the notch between his brows the only outward sign of his doubt. “Things are very comfortable right now – we’ve got enough legit money to get us through until the Main Street shops are up and running and pulling in income. We could stretch it.” He didn’t sound like he thought that was the best idea, though. “You could buy it personally,” he told Ghost.
Ghost shook his head. “I don’t wanna take out another personal loan right now.”
Carter sipped his own coffee and tried to keep his frustration from mounting. He’d never had a look at the club’s financials, and expected he never would. The numbers were for Walsh and Ghost to know, and they were all given details on an as-needed basis. The club never bought anything as a club without the hearty consent of its members. But moments like these left Carter feeling like a kid asking his parents for an allowance.
Ghost made a face. “Marshall and Marie are good people. Club fans,” he added, to which Walsh nodded. “Owning that place would put that whole block in club hands.”
Belatedly, a dark thought occurred. “You would just charge them rent, right?” Carter asked. “They wouldn’t have to do anything else, would they?” That would be Marshall Cook’s decision to accept or refuse, but the club had a way of backing people into corners.
Ghost’s gaze shifted to him, and narrowed, like he could read his thoughts. “What kinda businessman do you think I am?”
Carter thought it best not to answer.
“But if that old shit Pearson is being difficult,” Ghost said, looking back toward Walsh, “I say we soften him up before we make an offer.Ifwe make an offer.”
Carter withheld a groan: intimidating landlords wasn’t exactly the sort of headline you wanted circulating on the business pages.
But Ghost grinned and said, “Maybe we don’t buy it outright. I think I’ve got a better idea.”
~*~
For years, the upstairs of Bell Bar had been nothing but storage, its dusty corners crammed with old, broken furniture, and decades’ worth of old receipts and files, some in cabinets, some in faded stacks tied together with string. In the process of cleaning it out, they’d found WWII newspaper clippings, and several antique mantels that had fetched a pretty penny at the auction house. Now, this many weeks into renovation, the space was totally cleared out, stripped down, and rewired. Ghost paced across the new plywood subfloor and surveyed the progress, already able to envision dark wall paneling, gleaming marble counters, and cozy tables lit with flickering tea lights.
The plan was to turn the second floor into a fancy little niche restaurant, full of Old World charm and soft music; the sort of place where the wait staff wore waistcoats and black ties.
