He hissed and swore, rubbing at his head. He wasn’t bleeding, so only his pride was banged up. Oliver bent to pick up one of the pages, designed with lots of space for him to write meal plans and other directions. Someday he’d use it to print corporate invoices too, but that was phase four, which wouldn’t kick off until the fall at the earliest.
He froze, as he saw the letterhead. Habeus Juice Us. That was wrong. He sifted through the pages on the floor. They all said Habeus Juice Us. They all had Cooper’s name next to his. Cold fear fought against a flash of bright anger in his chest.
He’d thrown these out. Getting everything rebranded and reprinted was an unplanned but necessary start-up expense, to prove the business was his and his alone; that although he was on his own now, he could still make it a success.
Except apparently he hadn’t thrown all the old papers out. Or they had come back from the dead to haunt him.
Oliver growled and checked the next stack of paper on the shelf. The letterhead saidPulpability, like it should
He gathered up the old papers and tossed them in the recycling bin behind the store. He wasn’t superstitious, but the purge felt good. Maybe this last remnant, lurking in the back of his shop, had been holding him back. He’d worked too hard to believe in luck, but maybe this was what he needed to turn things around.
He ignored the prickling feeling, like someone was watching him, for the rest of the afternoon.
* * *
Nick had been a walking, talking hard-on since Thursday. When Brian came by the dispatch office and not-so-innocently asked how Nick’s date had gone, he’d barely been able to hold it together. Answering that question in more than a few words would have brought back too many sights and sensations. Oliver and his celebrity smile. Oliver licking chocolate off his fingers. Oliver pushing Nick against the restaurant wall and turning his better judgment to putty in the space of ten seconds.
He’d grunted a few responses when Brian pressed for more information. Mercifully, a call came in, and Nick made a big show of answering it. Brian took the hint, but not before he gave Nick a knowing look saying he didn’t believe the story was as simple as all that.
Saturday wasn’t much better. When his shift ended, Nick practically ran to his car before his legs could divert him back toward Oliver’s place at the market. He’d gone home and locked himself in his small workshop in the basement. During rehab, his physiotherapist told him to find hobbies so he didn’t dwell too much on not being at work. His father made furniture, and Nick figured he could do the same, if his career fell apart completely. He’d taken some courses and had his dad’s old lathe refurbished. It never panned out, but he still had all the stuff. He spent the day turning spindles and planing arms for chairs, even though he had no idea what he’d ever do with them all once they were assembled.
On Sunday, Anya had the day off, and Hayden was in a reasonably good mood. Nick had to work overnight and spent most of the day napping and lying low, so Anya dragged Hayden outside to help her work in the yard. Nick wasn’t much for landscaping. He mowed the lawn and that was about it, so any work Anya managed to get Hayden to do would be an improvement.
Funny. When he’d first been arrested, Hayden would have treated gardening like a fate only slightly better than torture. Any time Anya suggested any kind of chores, there had always been a big show of eye rolling and heavy sighs. Standard reactions in the arsenal of any fifteen-year-old, but Hayden turned it into an art form. Sometimes it escalated into an argument. Other times, Hayden agreed to help and then mostly made excuses to go back to his room while his mother worked.
Now though, two seasons and nearly six months later, and with the warm weather back, the garden was about the only reason he was allowed outside on the weekend. It still required a small amount of mostly symbolic eye rolling—and a phone call to the probation officer to be clear Hayden wasn’t making a break for it—but after that, he was essentially a free man as long as he didn’t leave the property.
Watching them together was still hard, though. With less tension, and their heads tilted toward each other, the scene they made was almost domestic and happy. In another life, Nick might have had this, his wife and his son working alongside each other in the backyard. But Nick squandered that chance a decade ago.
“Today was a pretty good day,” Anya said when they were done. Her skin shone from the sunshine and fresh air.
“Seemed to be,” Nick agreed.
Hayden was in the shower. For all his selective adolescent hearing about anything said in the house, he might as well have police radar any time they talked about him. No matter where they were, and what room Hayden was in, he would appear and demand to know what they were saying. The shower bought them a few minutes to say things that would only bring on an argument if he could hear them.
Anya’s eyes went nervous. Without her usual mascara and eyeliner, she looked younger than her nearly forty years. “I need a favor for his court date next week.”
“Mm-hmm.” The court dates happened monthly, with the judge reviewing reports from Hayden’s probation officer and from the school. The bracelet was originally supposed to have been on for three months after his sentencing, but in the first month, Hayden had skipped a few classes, and in the next month, he’d tried to leave the house in the middle of a Sunday for no reason he would discuss. Both infractions added another month, so here they were, nearly six months in. Every month, they hoped for good news from the judge, and every month, they were disappointed.
“I don’t think it’s going to be a good one,” Anya said. “The hearing. Not with him missing community service and being late coming home from school. He’s had better months, and they still left it on.”
“Probably.” The ritual frustrated them all. He and Anya gave the lectures and the speeches, and revoked what few remaining privileges Hayden had left. Then Hayden promised to fall in line but followed that up with enough screw-ups to make a weak case when they stood in front of the judge.
“Could you . . .” Anya paused when the water in the shower turned off. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Could you take him? I know it’s not for a little bit, but I already know I can’t face it this month.” Her eyes were sad when she turned her gaze up to him.
“Yeah.” Nick squeezed her shoulder. “No problem.”
Except Hayden’s court dates were on Mondays. By taking him, Nick would miss out on a huge amount of sleep between his Sunday and Monday night shifts. But Anya wouldn’t ask if she didn’t need the relief. When they'd been married, she’d asked him for smaller things, and he hadn’t been able to get over himself enough to help. He would always regret that, but regret wasn’t worth much, so the least he could do was take Hayden to court. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d gotten through a shift on a coffee IV and willpower. Nick had promised to be this for her. Time to follow through.
Later, as he drove to work, Nick rolled his head on his shoulders. He was always tired now. They were making the best of a very bad situation, but most days weren’t like today. Even when Hayden followed all the rules, showed up where he was supposed to be on time, and didn’t kick up a stink about charging his bracelet or cleaning his room or any of the other things that might set him off, the tension at their house was thick. Every day, Nick hoped that today would be the day things turned around, and every day that hope withered into tired disappointment. The cycle was exhausting for all of them.
Oliver’s hands on his face popped into his mind again. He’d been caught up in a tornado of lust and arousal, but underneath it all was the tingling sensation of being touched. In particular, of being touched with affection. Nick wasn’t an especially touchy kind of guy by nature, but he liked the warmth of Oliver’s hands, the rough places that brushed over Nick’s skin. No one had given him more than a reassuring squeeze or a pat on the back in a long time, and now that he’d felt it, he couldn’t get it out of his head.
He wasn’t the right guy for Oliver, and his life was too much of a mess to make pursuing something with him worthwhile, but Nick had to force down a shudder of want as he parked the car. He couldn’t be distracted. Anya and Hayden needed him. Oliver would meet someone else who didn’t come with all Nick’s baggage. Once again, hope shredded itself into disappointment as Nick headed into the station.
* * *
Oliver put the whole letterhead thing out of his head. Seb and Martin invited him out for brunch again, and, while he should have stayed home and prepped for the workshop, he’d agreed to go for the distraction, if nothing else. His brother’s endless teasing was the rancid icing on the cake.
