“Come on,” Cash says, clapping me on the shoulder. “Let me show you the upstairs seating area. You’re gonna love it.”
I follow him up the newly installed wooden staircase, the craftsmanship impeccable, just like everything else in this place. Cash has always been the builder in our family, good with the animals and our properties. Regan and I come up with the wild-ass, creative ideas, and Cash executes, Lawson markets them, and Troy makes sure everything we’re doing is legal. That’s how the Marshall five have always worked. The dreamer twins and the doer older siblings.
The upstairs balcony overlooks the entire brewery—a private area designed for VIPs and special events, a space I sketched in my mind countless times when I couldn’t sleep. Now, standing here, it’s real. It’s everything I dreamed about when I was just trying to survive another day.
There’s a private bar up here too, more intimate. Plush seating lines the wall-to-wall windows that open up to the skyline beyond. Someone installed a record player and stocked it withvinyl’s that I used to play as a teenager—Johnny Cash, Otis Redding, Willie Nelson. I don’t know who did that, but the sight of it has me choking back something that feels a lot like emotion.
The ache in my chest is sharp, but it doesn’t pull me under. Instead, it fuels a fierce sense of pride. Against all odds, my family made this happen. I made this happen. We’re really doing it.
I glance down at my phone, the court-appointed timeline for how long I can be out ticking away. As much as I want to stay here, to soak in every detail of this dream turned reality, I know I’ll have to leave soon but I’ll be back. The judge has granted me approval to travel for the grand opening which falls during the last week of my parole, so this won’t be the last time I see it.
My phone screen lights up with Molly’s name, and a rush of anticipation hits me. I haven’t seen her since the night she walked in on me jerking off—an image I’ve replayed in my mind a thousand times. The way her lips parted on a gasp as she watched, the lack of hesitation to turn away and the stiff peaks of her nipples through her shirt. She wanted me as badly as I wanted her, but I knew emotions were too high, and despite wanting to keep her, to sink inside her and ignore my conscious, I needed to tell her to go.
I haven’t been avoiding her, but I can tell she’s been avoiding me. I’m not embarrassed by what she saw. Not in the slightest. In fact, it was the first time I’ve let myself go like that since getting out. And the only reason I did was because of the way she tasted and the way she felt when I held her in my arms. Like home.
“Everything good?” Cash asks, noticing the look on my face.
“Yeah. It’s Molly,” I reply keeping my tone neutral. The last thing I need is Cash catching wind that something’s happened between us.
His eyebrows shoot up. “Molly Patrick? Your old friend’s little sister?” He whistles low, a teasing grin tugging at his lips. “She was always so cute with that jet black hair and those scary blue eyes.”
I shoot him a glare that’s sharp enough to cut steel, and he throws up his hands in mock surrender. “Alright, alright. I’ll leave you to it then.”
I turn my attention to the message on the screen.
Molly: Hey Colt. Sorry I had to reschedule your weekly parole check-in. Any chance you can meet tomorrow morning at 10?
Colt: That’s no problem. Where should I meet you?
Molly: Let’s try the offices again.
I smirk to myself. If Molly thinks the sterile, private setting of those business offices is going to tamp down the chemistry that’s sparking between us, she’s got another thing coming. Whatever’s brewing between us has already been set in motion. There’s no stopping it now and I intend on seeing things through to completion. Just like I did the other night.
Colt: See you there.
Chapter 23 – Colt
I have a plan.
After another session with my therapist—where I reluctantly filled her in on my latest attempt to feel something again—I finally head to my rescheduled parole meeting with Molly.
Liv pressed me about my progress, so I gave her just enough to satisfy her questions, mentioning a few recent flashes of anger but leaving out any mention of Molly. She didn’t need to be dragged into my mess. Liv wasn’t exactly thrilled that anger was still the only emotion I seemed to tap into, but she called it a step forward. Then she challenged me to focus on something lighter—love, desire, passion, joy, contentment, hope, relief. Anything that wasn’t born from rage.
But the only thing I can think about is Molly. And how I want to explore every one of those emotions with her.
Not that I’m in love with her—at least not yet. But I love her. I always have. She’s mattered to me as much as my own blood, someone I’ve protected and stood by no matter what. Loving her has never been a question.
And really, how different is loving someone from being in love with them? It feels like a natural shift, inevitable. Now, I just have to show her that wanting me is easy. That choosing me is the simplest thing in the world.
And today, I’m starting with desire. Because if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I want to watch Molly come undone in my hands. I felt it in the kiss and saw it in her eyes when she tasted me in the RV. Mollydesiresme too.
Now she’s sitting across from me in Isabel’s office, where we met before. I know we could be meeting anywhere, but I’m thinking Molly chose this spot on purpose—a safe place in her mind, neutral ground after the kiss we shared a few days ago, the one we still haven’t spoken about.
Well, if she thinks this is a safe place, she’s about to learn just how skilled I’ve become at bending the rules. There’s an art to seduction that doesn’t require laying a single hand on her, and I fully intend to show her every method I’ve mastered.
And to start, all it takes is a simple, but sincere, compliment.
“You look nice today. Did you do something different with your hair?”
