Page 13 of My Wild Mountain Man (Summer in the Pines #15)

bash

. . .

Like an idiot, I kept staring at the clock on the main wall of the brewery, and when I wasn’t, my attention would move to my phone to check the time.

I was a fucking goner for Raven. One kiss had changed it, crumbled all the self-control I had held on to so fucking tightly, my hands ached from unclenching.

“Got plans?” Austin asked. I grunted, serving a beer to a customer. “You meet someone?” Because I knew Austin, I cut him off, shooting him a look, one that admitted my guilt. And he wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly what I had done. Or was planning to do.

“You have got to be shitting me,” he hissed, looking over his shoulder to find a distracted Onyx not paying us any attention. “He will?—“

“Breathe,” I ordered, walking away knowing he would be hot on my heels.

“What the fuck?” he asked the moment we were alone in the back office. “When the hell did this happen?”

“The night you cancelled on me,” I admitted, though if I was honest, it had started a long time before that.

“What the…” He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “Shit.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “This is going to be a fucking mess.”

“It’s not.” I shook my head. “I’m going to talk to him.”

“Oh! You are, huh? What exactly are you going to say? Hey, buddy, I fucked your little sister, by the way. Oops, sorry.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I growled, stepping closer to him, not shying away from my natural height. “Don’t ever talk about her like that.” I pointed my finger at his chest. “I haven’t touched her.” Technically, it was true.

“Wait. Nothing’s happened?”

“No. Not really.” He stared at me for a moment, then suddenly, his gaze grew hopeful, and I knew I wasn’t going to like what he had to say. “Great! No harm, no foul! All you have to do is keep your hands off her and keep them to yourself. Easy peasy.”

“It’s not that easy, Austin,” I groaned, and he rolled his blue eyes.

“Man, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, there are literally apps for this. All you need to do is get laid. You swipe?—“

“I love her,” I blurted out, my eyes unwavering from his. He stared at me for a long moment before dramatically sitting down on the couch we kept back there. “For real, genuine love. She’s the one for me, Austin.”

“Fuck,” he groaned. I could tell he believed me.

“I’m going to talk to him,” I rasped, knowing in my bones I had to do it sooner than later. It was risky. I hadn’t even taken Raven out on a date. Not a real one. Shit, we might not even be compatible. For all I knew, the things I liked that I wanted to do to her would scare her off.

“When?” he asked.

“Monday morning,” I answered. She would know by then. Or have an idea whether she actually wanted me and not whatever version of me she’d made up in her head all these years.

“Man…” He shook his head, and I saw him slow down before his gaze moved up to mine, his arms resting on his knees. “Please tell me this isn’t why you agreed so easily to the whole us each getting some time off?”

“I was going to come in here and ask for the three days off. You guys bringing it up out of nowhere, honestly, the whole thing was dumb luck.”

“Shit…” He stared at me. “What the hell happened last week?” I opened and shut my mouth.

“I couldn’t keep watching her from afar anymore. This week… it’s like she’s there. Everywhere I look. Not only physically but in my head.”

“Have you ever thought that maybe she’s playing you?”

“Raven?” I chuckled because she didn’t play games.

“Hey, women play all sorts of games, even when they might not know they are,” he argued. I rolled my eyes.

“That’s the stupidest thing I have ever heard,” I muttered. “She’s mine, Austin.” I stared at one of my two best friends. “I don’t know how she will feel about me when she gets to know me a little better, but“—I shrugged—“I need to try and see where it goes.”

“Why?” he asked, completely dumbfounded.

“Because if I don’t, I know I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

“Even if it means fucking up what we have? Our friendship? Our brotherhood? Our business?”

“Honestly? This is going to sound like a dick thing to say, but yeah.”

“What the hell,” he groaned dramatically. His head fell back.

“Austin, you know me. You know I wouldn’t do something like this if… if I genuinely could help it. But the idea of letting her go, seeing her with someone else?”

“What?” His attention slowly returned to me. I sighed.

“It fucking kills me.”

“What if you do try shit out? See where it goes, but it fucking blows up in your face and you still end up seeing her with someone else?”

“Then at least I can say that I tried.” I shrugged, answering so fucking honestly, it surprised myself. I wasn’t an emotional guy. Fuck, I wasn’t a relationship guy. But Raven changed that in me.

“Fine,” he muttered before he stood up, just as the door opened. “But you need to talk to him.”

“Talk to whom?” Onyx asked, showing up out of nowhere.

“The hops vendor. They keep doing their deliveries a day or two later than they say,” Austin quickly answered, and Onyx frowned.

“Why would Bash need to talk to him? Isn’t that your shit to deal with?”

“I get along with the guy.” I shrugged. Onyx shrugged and looked at us.

“You guys going to be back here all night, or what? It’s pretty busy with karaoke and shit.”

“We’ll be right there.”

“Yeah,” Austin muttered, patting Onyx on the back before hurrying the hell out to the bar.

“You good, man?” Onyx asked me. I nodded and rubbed the back of my neck.

“Yeah, man, just looking forward to a couple days off.”

“Right. I don’t blame you. I’m looking forward to my time off next week, too.”

“You finish the kitchen?” He shook his head. “Almost. The paint was off. I gotta redo it.”

“Really? Buddy usually doesn’t fuck up with paint.” Buddy was the old-timer who ran the hardware store in town.

“It wasn’t Buddy who mixed it,” he mumbled under his breath. “It’s not a big deal?—“

“What was wrong with it?”

“It had glitter.” My eyes widened.

“Glitter?” I repeated.

“It’s fine. The new paint should be in next week.” I wanted to ask if that was why he had been in such a hurry after finding me and Raven outside the diner, but I didn’t want to fuck shit up.

I wanted to talk to him.

To tell him that not only did I want to date his sister, but that I was fucking in love with her. I had no idea how the hell it was possible this crush, this infatuation, had grown the way it had, but there was no denying it. Monday , a little voice in my head muttered.

“Right.” I nodded and scratched the back of my neck.

“Any big plans this weekend? You’ve been staring at the clock and your phone like you’re trying to will it to move faster.”

“Nothing huge.” Just going to take your sister’s virginity.

I shook my head and cleared my throat. I didn’t need to think about that.

And I really didn’t need to start getting hard around my best friend while thinking about his little sister.

“I’ll probably just be home,” I muttered. At least that wasn’t a lie.

“Nice. Maybe do some laundry.” I chuckled and shoulder-checked him before heading back to the bar. He knew how much I hated doing laundry. I walked through the bar and saw him head towards the stage.

I loved this place.

Well, I usually did.

Yet when I got to my spot behind the bar, I started to think.

I wasn’t as comfortable as I’d first been.

Women smiled and batted their eyes at me, leaning over as they ordered their espresso martinis or beer on tap so I could scope out their cleavage.

Not that I looked. For the first time since we’d opened, the place felt too much.

Too loud.

Too crowded.

It was like my body craved Raven’s comfortable quiet ways. I could picture us on the couch. Her reading and me staring at her, never tiring of looking at her. Or waking her up with breakfast in bed and eating her after she ate every bit I cooked for her.

I was in deep trouble. I wanted that and more. It wasn’t just sex and lust. What I felt for Raven ran deeper than I thought possible.

Logistically, I didn’t know how I’d make it work.

We had different schedules work wise. When the hell would I see her?

Running the brewery took long hours, and we’d have opposing schedules.

I couldn’t exactly ask her to come to the bar every single night just so I could see her, talk to her. Could I?

I wasn’t sure, but I did know one thing: I’d make it work. I had to. Because as the clock ticked away, too slowly for my taste, I knew one thing: Raven Trejo was going to be mine and only mine, and I would do my damnedest to make her happy for the rest of our lives.