I hadn’t even showered this morning.
There was a film of whiskey on my tongue, and I wished there were a tumbler of it in my hand, but I’d left it in the back seat of my SUV while my driver waited for me in the company’s garage. I had known my siblings would give me endless shit if I was drinking in the office before nine in the morning.
“I need to talk to you,” I said to her.
She pulled her hands back and set them in her lap. “Okay.”
“Not just you. I think I should talk to all of you.”
“Beck isn’t here. As you know, he’s in Canada all week with the team. If he’s not tied up with working out or at practice, I’m sure we can conference him in.” She lifted her phone off her desk and hit the screen several times.
“Round everyone up. I’ll meet you in the conference room.” I released the frame around her door and made my way down the hall.
Once I took a seat at the table, my hands flattened against the thick wood, and I rubbed my palms across the shiny surface, my head pushing against the top of the chair. The chair didn’t bounce like the one in my office at Charred; it was too stiff for my liking. Shit, I’d rather be standing or sprawled out on a couch; the whole setting of the office didn’t jibe with me.
Neither did the accomplishments that were hanging on the walls in here.
I had been so deep into work that I barely remembered when these framed articles had been written or when I’d shaken hands with royalty or when we’d won foodie awards.
“Walker, my man,” Hart said as he walked in, eyes the same color as mine, but his were much clearer and far less red. “I didn’t expect you to come in today.”
I pounded his fist before he took a seat further down the table. “I didn’t expect my ass to be here today either.”
“Glad you are, buddy.” Colson clasped my shoulder and sat across from Hart. “Although I wouldn’t have hated it if you’d cleaned yourself up a little.” He chuckled. “Hit the bottle a bit too hard last night?”
“Last night?” I challenged. “Fuck, try this morning.”
“Damn,” Colson groaned.
Eden was the last to enter. She sat directly next to me, reaching for the phone in the center of the table, and pressed one of the buttons. “Beck, are you there?”
“I’m here,” Beck said, his voice coming through the speaker. “Hey, fam.”
All eyes were now on me.
I’d debated hard about whether I should even bring this to my family’s attention or just address it with Eden.
Ultimately, it was something they all needed to hear, even if I didn’t want to say a goddamn word.
“I’ll spare your ears the details.” I looked at Eden despite her and Colson already knowing this part. “But during my short time off, I hooked up with a woman I’d met on Hooked.”
“Hell yes!” Beck shouted. “I like the direction this conversation is going.”
“You won’t once I continue.” I set my elbows on the table, my fingers shooting through the sides of my hair. “Last night, as I was finishing up in the kitchen at Charred, guess who walked through.”
“Don’t even tell me … she’s stalking you?” Hart’s brows shot up high.
“Nah. Nothing like that.” I looked at each of their faces. “It’s worse.” I took a breath. “Alivia is her name, and”—why the fuck did my chest feel so tight?—“she works at Charred. She’s a food runner and water girl.”
“Fuuuck,” Beck moaned.
“I didn’t see that coming,” Eden admitted, pushing her dark hair off her shoulders. “But hold on a second. When you two hooked up, you didn’t recognize her from the restaurant?”
“Yesterday was only her second shift,” I explained. “I wasn’t there the evening of her first shift. And she was hired before anything happened between us.”
Eden swung her head with each point I made. “All right, that makes it a tad better, but when you did meet, she didn’t know who you were?”
I had known I was going to be hit with questions. Therewas no way my siblings weren’t going to drill me about this scenario.
