Page 1 of Irreconcilable Attractions (Westwend Boys #1)

Colton

Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt.

Frowning down at my phone, I excused myself from behind the counter, motioning to one of my employees to cover the register while I took my father’s call.

This wasn’t normal for him. A call in the middle of the day?

Especially when he knew I’d be busy getting the cafe up and running?

Unease built in my gut as I picked up the phone.

“Hey, Pop. What’s up?” I tried to keep my voice level, oddly self-conscious that he’d hear my concern.

“Colton, son, can you swing by the house?” My father’s normally sweeping drawl was clipped and thick with something I couldn’t name.

“Now?” I asked, ice-pricks of dread spreading down my skin.

There was a short pause before he responded, “If possible. I need to speak with you.”

I was already walking back to the break room to grab my keys.

“Yeah, be there soon.” I said, stripping off my apron. Anxious energy coiled deep in my belly threatening to send me into a spiral of panic, but I was trying desperately to hold it at bay—at least outwardly.

My dad grunted in approval before ending the call.

Pocketing the device, I made my way back out to the main room before quickly muttering a short explanation to my staff—two whole people, but hey, they counted—and practically running out the front door.

I would have bet my left nut that today would be one of those dreadfully normal days here in my little tourism-driven town. And I’m quite attached to my left nut, thank you very much.

In fact, from the moment I woke up this morning, everything had checked the boxes on a list of average things that happen on a June day.

Mrs. Anderson came by at nine on the dot, walking Buttercup, her annoyingly loud but tiny dog, along the already sun-warmed sidewalk.

We exchanged the normal pleasantries as I got the mail and Buttercup yapped at me like we didn’t do this same song and dance every morning.

I opened my cafe, Bikini Beans, for the afternoon at one o’clock with the help of my employees.

Even our first set of customers for the day were a group of scantily clad teenaged tourist girls that strutted in wearing nothing but their swimwear.

They waltzed up to the counter, acting like they were so cool being half-naked, just to order some basic iced coffees and fruit pastries.

But, when I explained I couldn’t serve them due to their apparel—or rather lack thereof—they argued that a place with the word ‘Bikini’ in its name shouldn’t require a shirt or shoes.

( Pro-tip for future guests: health codes still exist. Wear a shirt. )

In a town like Westwend, Texas, excitement was a seasonal thing—gossip about the tourists, a minor scandal here or there. The biggest shake-up in recent memory? My dang cafe with afternoon-to-late hours.

Plenty of people swore it wouldn’t work; that nobody in their right mind would want coffee at nine p.m., but here we are. Still standing.

Even in the off-season, the place stayed busy with local kids using it for study sessions or a get-together location.

It had been a dream of mine to run a cafe in town, and now that I was doing it, I was dedicated to ensuring everything ran smoothly.

Which my father knew, and why he pointedly never called me during business hours.

My chest tightened as I drove through picture-perfect Main Street, my mind racing through worst-case scenarios about my mother or brothers. Did Mom have some sort of accident in the garden? Did Brooks get into another fight? He hadn’t in a long time, but… What if? What about Bailey?

This. Was. Not. Normal.

I sucked in a slow breath through my teeth, trying to force my brain to stop running away from me.

My twin older brothers had always been hell-on-wheels growing up, which had given my parents more than enough grief over the years.

It’d been only natural for me to fall in line and go with the flow of things rather than contribute to the hurricane-like destruction they caused.

Brooks and Bailey would throw a tantrum over literally anything, and I’d politely accept what was given so as not to cause a scene—even if I hated whatever I was getting.

My brothers would terrorize their teachers at school, so I’d swoop in to save the Shaffer name by making sure to kiss ass and get good grades.

They wanted to throw a rager in our backyard while our parents were away? I’d designate a cleaning crew from the attendees and move the party down by the river so Mom and Dad would never find out, all while partying on.

I might’ve followed the rules for everything I could, but I wasn’t a saint by any means. A teenage boy needed to let loose every once in a while, after all!

Mentally, I was preparing myself to be handed the worst news of my life as I bounded up the steps of my parents’ wrap-around porch. My thoughts were all over the place, but I took a steadying breath before heading inside.

Blessedly cool air was the first thing to greet me as I entered the house, the second being the sound of my father’s boisterous laugh. Laughing? Feeling thrown by the murmurs of chatter and more laughter, I followed the noises until I found myself stepping into the living room.

My old man sat perched in his armchair, arms pulled back over his head in a relaxed gesture that was a stark contrast to the raging anxiety coursing through me.

Across from him was a dark-haired man who was chuckling along to the apparently funny story my dad was retelling.

My father looked up and beamed as he caught sight of me, adding another confusing piece to the messed-up puzzle before me.

“Colton, my boy! You made it!” He grunted in his effort to stand, putting down his glass of… whiskey? Whiskey was a celebration drink. A reunion drink. I was so beyond lost, I might as well be in Narnia.

“Hey…” I managed a bit breathlessly. “What’s going on?” I asked, glancing toward the stranger, who was now standing up himself. I clocked the second glass of amber liquid on the coffee table, just across from him.

“Is everything okay?” I couldn’t help the note of urgency in my voice as I returned my attention to my father, who was rounding the furniture toward me.

“What?” He spluttered, “Of course. Of course!” Reassurance thick in his tone as he placed a warm hand at the base of my neck. While I wasn’t entirely convinced, I felt some of the tension bleed from my body with those words.

“Oh, good. I just thought… With your call…” I said, trailing off as I noticed our mystery man coming over out of the corner of my eye. What was this guy’s deal? Couldn’t he see we were having a moment? Like, sir, read the literal room and get out .

“Yeeees!” My father boomed in his lazy southern drawl.

He always seemed to talk at a decibel higher than necessary, his voice reverberating between the three of us.

“I was just telling Derek here that he can stay with you till something comes available after peak swimming season ends.” He removed his hand and placed it on whiskey guy’s shoulder.

Cue the record scratch.

All sound around me seemed to come to a complete stop as my brain short-circuited. My father’s lips were clearly still moving, and I could pick out words like ‘new lawyer’ and ‘moving to town’, but nothing else was computing. I briefly wondered if I was having a stroke.

“Say what now?” I probably had the dumbest expression on my face right then, but I couldn’t help it. “S-Stay with… me?” I stammered, mentally putting my thick tongue as a checkmark in the stroke category. What was the acronym for stroke symptoms again? Was tongue one of them?

My father shrugged, pursing his lips in a way that suggested he didn’t understand why I would have a problem with putting up a literal stranger. His mustache twitched in the familiar gesture of disapproval.

“What are you using that spare room for, anyway, bud?” He asked, eyeing me with the same green hues that stared back at me in the mirror every day.

Currently? Storage.

All the leftover products from when I’d splurged, thinking fun trinkets would sell in the cafe.

Laundry that wasn’t necessarily worn enough to be hung up in the closet or put in the dresser in my room.

Knick-knacks that I hadn’t quite found a place for in a house I’d owned for close to four years now.

Even calling it a ‘guest bedroom’ was a bit of a stretch if my guests couldn’t get to the bed without moving a few boxes here and there.

“I mean, nothing in particular, I suppose…” I conceded, ca utiously glancing back at the man my father was expecting me to just… let move in.

He was probably an inch or two taller than my own five-eleven frame, annoyingly good-looking, with a golden complexion, and the kind of stubble that was too perfect to be accidental.

He could pass for Barbie’s lawyer wearing a perfectly pressed off-white polo, navy shorts that were similarly pressed within an inch of their life, and boat shoes that screamed, ‘ I own stock in yacht clubs ’.

The man looked like he’d taken a wrong turn on the way to the Hamptons only to land in small-town Texas.

From the way he kept glancing between my dad and I like we were secretly lizard-men, he seemed just as thrilled about crashing at my place as I was about hosting him. I was starting to get the distinct impression that this was sprung onto both of us.

“So what’s the problem then?” My father’s voice brought my focus back to the conversation and away from the walking Vineyard Vine’s advertisement.

“He’ll only stay with you till he can get a place of his own.” He assured me.

“You know I’d put him up, what with him being the new lawyer at the firm and all, but Ryan is already here for the summer.”

Ryan was the current law student interning at Shaffer Law Offices. Our family had a tradition of helping the budding lawyers with finances by having them stay in the house for the duration of their internship.