ASHER SLAPPEDme on the back. “You done good, Mike.”
“I thought you were all worried,” I said with a grin, puffing on my cigar.
We sat around a makeshift desk on what would be the patio outside my office at the Firefly, Asher in his motorcycle boots and me in my basketball shoes—a pair not to be messed with on any day. Fucking right I was going to have a mack-daddy office ... I’d worked hard as shit for it.
“For a while there, I was,” Asher said. “Now that you got the girl back where you want her, don’t push her, Mike. Don’t rush her.”
“Because you know how to do that so well?”
“I never said to do what I did. I’m an idiot. A rich one, thank fuck for that. The hotel is fucking perfect, so you know what I say?”
“Hmm?”
He stared me down with his silver eyes, his cigar burning between two fingers. “Don’t fuck it up. Don’t fucking fuck up anything.”
“Copy, sir,” I said, earning myself a smack on the back of my head.
“Cut your fucking hair too. I’m the only one with good hair around here.”
I lifted my cigar to my mouth. “I plan to when I get my lady back for good.”
LATER THATevening, Asher being Asher, he arranged for some private catered dinner on the Firefly property, specifically where the pool deck was currently being built. Our Miami Wave gang and Asher’s family were seated around one big table lit by tea-light candles—Natalie’s soft touch. After a small rundown of dates, announcements, thanks, and toasts, Asher shared the hotel’s official opening date and some other big news.
“It came as a bit of surprise with a teen boy and twin toddlers, but I guess we’re just that good. Nat and I are having a baby.” He raised his glass and winked at his wife. “Just one baby this time, not two. My swimmers are good, but not that good. Plus, I’m getting old.” He ran a hand through his thick hair. “Eh, I guess not that old.”
The guy was so fucking in love with himself, but not nearly as much as he loved his family.
I wanted that. All of it.
As congratulations rang out from around the table, the need to squeeze Lynx’s hand or thigh ran through me, coursing through my veins, but I couldn’t. She’d intentionally sat across from me, her eyes on Asher and Natalie kissing and hanging on to each other as if their last breath depended on it.
Asher mouthedlove you, dolland kissed his wife again. Staci was crying at the sight; she’d been in Vegas when Asher and Natalie finally ended their decade-long separation.
My gaze returned to Lynx, noting her glassy eyes and how she sniffed back tears. We’d been seeing each other about every other day for the last two weeks—a meal here and there, a cup of coffee, a run, but that was it—since she’d spent that one glorious night with me.
I wasn’t pushing or complaining. I wanted more, but in due time.
Natalie arrived a few days ago, and had been pushing Lynx to see a new therapist. I didn’t know who or what or where or when, and when I’d asked Natalie about it, she told me, “Talk to the hand, Big Mike. I got the deets from Carson. You stay out of it, way out.”
I didn’t have any other choice. Those women were batshit crazy.
I’d never guessed Lynx would refuse to sit next to me tonight, though. Before I even knew what I was doing, I got up from the table and rounded it, stopping on the other side.
“Get up,” I told Sampson.
“The fuck?”
“Get up, dude. I want to sit here with Lynx.”
Lynx frowned up at me. “Mike, don’t do this.”
“Michael,” I said, correcting her.
“Michael.”
To me, it was a whisper, a prayer, a beckoning—not a warning like she meant it to be.
“Move, for the last time,” I told Sampson, and he did. After all, I was his boss.
