Page 24 of Take the Blame (Seaside Mergers #3)

Chapter Fourteen

AUGUSTUS

This was a bad idea. A terrible idea. I should have known it was going to rip me apart.

Two things were becoming abundantly clear in the days that followed the little brunette coming into my shop and rocking my world. One. Alta Fernandez could fucking kiss. And two. She knew how to make a man wait.

I knew when I noticed her jogging halfheartedly in front of the shop that day, something would happen. That she was finally going to break.

I didn’t know it was going to feel like that . Like my world was suddenly in flames and she was holding the match. And now I couldn’t go a second without thinking about her lips, her body, her tiny little moans… Her smile when she laughed .

I remember wanting to kiss her more, but that laugh had stopped me cold. She looked so free, like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. And so different, like her ever present guard was finally down with me. I’d been speechless. And hungry to do it again.

But the week following was not one that inspired many kisses or laughs for that matter. She was all over the place, hustling and bustling in preparations for her big party. So I could only sit back and watch her as she took the world by storm.

Now, flashes of booths and games and that surprisingly familiar face stripped my brain of all thoughts of Alta and brought it back to my past. To summer camp in Connecticut where I fought a boy at breakfast and we’d become friends by lunch.

When I left Connecticut and my family behind, I’d left my contacts too.

I didn’t need them where I was going, and I didn’t want the reminder.

But while seeing Clay had shocked me in the moment, it also brought up a sadness I didn’t know was there until it was already stabbing me in the chest. I had shaved some dead weight off over the years, sure—in the world of money and business and the self-proclaimed familial elite, bad people came out of the woodwork.

But every once in a while, there were good people, and then really good people.

Clay Ferguson was a really good one. Upfront and real as they come, he was also kind to his core.

Something I knew many people didn’t see at first glance.

And while I was settling into Seaside fine, having been in the town for three years now, there was something missing with the friendships I had cultivated here.

Relatability and understanding. I missed that. Being understood, if only a little.

My knuckles connected with a solid fist as I sauntered up to the waiting form on the street. Tall, light in complexion, curly hair and dressed casually, Clay Ferguson stood with the biggest smile on his face as I approached him. “Montez! Give me a hug man, stop playin’ around.”

I laughed and did as the man said. He was right after all, there was no reason to act like a stranger when we weren’t.

He was my only friend from summers that I ever kept up with throughout the years.

We had even visited each other in college a few times.

Everything only went dark because, in the wake of losing Mar, it sort of had to.

But now, in the light of his sunny face I couldn’t help but feel sort of excited.

Because mean as he was, Clay was a big softy at heart.

“Still a hugger,” I said as I pulled away from him. “I knew you were in love with me.”

“Ah, shut the fuck up,” he said. He took a long look at me and then whistled. “You’ve changed.”

I shrugged, “So have you.”

He shook his head, pointing at my sleeves of permanent art. “You’ve changed more. They’re going to have a field day with you in there. I get shit for just the one.”

Holding up his arm, he displayed a large forearm tattoo that spiraled up his elbow and into the sleeves of his shirt. I nodded at the ink. It looked well done and was well placed for him. If he was a suit for his family’s company, he would need something he could hide easily.

“Where’d you get that done?”

“Oh, a pretty cool guy, name is like Tore, I think?”

I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. “Man, fuck Tore. Come to me next time.”

Clay huffed, “What’s wrong with Tore?”

“What’s not wrong with that asshole?” I grumbled. “I’m just better, come to me.”

“Alright,” he put his hands up in surrender. “Would’ve anyway if I’d known.”

If he’d known what I did for a living—who I was now. The guilty thoughts filtered through my head and I tipped a thumb over my shoulder, “I have a jacket in the car. I can cover them if?—”

“Hell no.” He clapped a hand over my shoulder and started leading us forward. “Let’s give the stuck up pricks something to talk about. I might even take my shirt off, since I noticed you checking me out.”

I elbowed him but looked up at the tall building we were headed into. We were deep into downtown Seaside. I usually stayed around the outskirts where the beaches were, my home residing there too. Busy areas and corporate skeletons like this one tended to make me itch.

“Where are we going anyway?” I asked even as we walked through the revolving doors of a pristine lobby straight to the sleek elevators. Inside, he pressed a lone button opposite to the rest of the floors. Then he punched in some code on the keypad before sliding back against the wall.

“Knights. There’s a small charter here. Not as big as in the cities, but we take what we can get,” he said.

My eyebrows knit together. Knights was a popular members only bar.

Membership criteria couldn’t really be bought, though they had everyone’s black cards on account year round.

There was more to it than money, though.

Only a certain number of membership slots could be taken each year and those were generally reserved for people of power and influence.

It made sense that Clay, a Ferguson, would want to come here, but me…

I looked around the elevator car apprehensively. “Uh, I don’t have a membership anymore.”

He looked at me for a second. “Why?”

“I just don’t hang around like that anymore,” I said, kicking at nothing. “Like you said, I’ve changed.”

Clay hummed thoughtfully as we rode the rest of the way up in silence. When the doors opened, I felt another pat on my shoulder. “Try it. I bet you’re still in there. If not, I’ll tap you in as a guest. ”

I don’t know if I was more annoyed that I actually wanted to know if I was still a member, or that when I gave my name to the host at the front I found that I was. The easy way in which he said, “Welcome back, Mr. Harper,” unsettled me at the same time it eased something in my chest.

That call from my mother had shaken me up.

When I left home I also left my family’s company in a less than amazing place.

We weren’t in financial distress by any means, but my father had always wanted me to take things over–not as acting CEO, the running a corporation thing was never really for me– but something better suited to my strengths like the head of design.

I left before that title could be given to me.

They’d needed me, and I left. I just couldn’t stay. But that didn’t mean I wanted them to be doing poorly. And when mom called me, I worried that maybe that was the case.

So while being let into the members only club after ten years of my self-proclaimed detachment from the world that had driven my sister away was sort of irritating—suffocating in a way that ocean water never let you go once you were in its clutches, it was also relieving to know my family was still doing well enough to keep up with non-necessities.

While Knights had charters in multiple locations, the bar always looked the same. Deep mahogany woods, crystal glassware, top-notch spirits, and never a crowd.

We sat at the bar side by side. I ordered something fizzy, and he ordered something hard.

Same, same, same. It was crazy how familiar this all felt.

Crazier that I’d run into him, forgetting entirely that this was his hometown and not some place where he took vacations or used as a getaway.

It had always perplexed me that a family so affluent had chosen such a small place to settle down.

But now that I thought about it, I remembered him mentioning that there were actually two affluent families who originated here .

“So how’ve you been, man?” Clay asked over a sip of his dark liquid. “Still drinking that fizzy shit, I see.”

I smiled. I guess the shit talking was starting already. “I like it, okay? A little bit of lime and some bubbles never hurt anybody.”

“Yeah, says my sister,” he huffed. His shoulders went rigid after a second of realization. Looking over at me he gave me a sad observation. “But really, how’ve you been?”

This time I sighed, I guess the pity was starting too. “As good as I can be, considering.”

“Considering you went off the grid after everything went down?” he asked slowly.

Fair enough, although that wasn’t really the whole story. I just nodded. “Considering that, yeah.”

“Is she…” he trailed off and I didn’t help him along.

By now it was common knowledge that my younger sister had disappeared when she was eighteen, but the full story was not so privy to the outside world.

Everyone seemed to think it was some freak accident or an elaborate kidnapping.

It wasn’t their fault. When you saw search dogs and police parties and personal investigators suddenly working together to find one missing girl, you thought that she was probably taken.

Especially if it was from a life like ours.

No one once stopped to think that maybe it was her who did the disappearing on her own.

My family and I knew better. Aside from the disappearance of a large sum of money hacked out of a trust fund she wasn’t supposed to have access to until she was twenty-one, she left so abruptly it was clear that something pushed her into her decision to leave.

We’d just hoped that by now we either found her or she’d come back, but it didn't look like either of those things were ever happening.