Chapter One
“Taste this.”
“What the…?” Slater choked as he sat up and started swinging. “What the hell, Connor?”
Unfazed, Connor stood back and blinked at him. “You said you enjoyed a good bourbon butter cake, so I made one and wanted your input.”
“It’s two in the morning!” Furiously kicking off his blankets, he stood. “How the hell did you even get in here?”
“I knocked lightly, but you didn’t respond.”
“So you thought it was okay to just break in?”
“Please, you never lock your door, and I was excited about how this came out and didn’t want to wait until the morning for you to try it. Plus…” He shrugged while holding the cake plate. “I figured you wouldn’t mind.”
His friend’s eyes went wide. “Wouldn’t mind? Connor, I was asleep, and you know what? I love to sleep. You know what I don’t love? Having someone shove a forkful of food in my mouth while I’m sleeping! What is wrong with you?”
He still wasn’t seeing what the big deal was. “We’ll come back to that in a minute…but what did you think of the cake?”
Raking a hand through his already mussed-up hair, Slater let out an angry sigh. “That’s it. You’re out of control. We’ve all noticed it lately, but this is the last straw.”
“The last…?”
“And where is Annabeth, huh? Did you just leave her alone in the cabin while you were baking up at the lodge?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I would never leave my daughter alone. I baked in the cabin. I figured I invested in the upgraded appliances; I might as well use them. Tomorrow, I’m thinking of making…”
“I don’t care what you’re making, Connor!” Slater yelled before letting out a long breath. “Look, you’re a phenomenal chef; everyone knows that. But lately, you’ve been obsessed with menus and trying new things. And before you say anything, I know we’ve all benefited from it, but…you need to calm down.”
“We are opening our doors in less than eight weeks, and we don’t have the menu finalized,” he reasoned tightly. “I think this cake could be a great addition, don’t you?”
Slater’s expression went from annoyed to furious in the blink of an eye. “Get out.”
“What? Why? I just need…”
“You need to leave. And then you need to go next door to your cabin and go to sleep. And lastly—and I can’t emphasize this enough—you need to never come in here in the middle of the night, ever again.”
“What if it’s an emergency?”
As soon as the words were out, he knew he’d pushed too far.
“Alright, alright. I’m leaving. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”
“It IS the morning!” Slater shouted, shoving Connor toward the door.
Connor stepped out onto the front porch and turned to say one more thing, but Slater slammed the door in his face.
And locked it.
He supposed it was mildly inconsiderate to feed his friend cake in the middle of the night.
While he was asleep.
“But in my defense, Slater’s a light sleeper and he should’ve heard me come in. And I did knock,” he murmured before walking down the steps and out onto the path that led back to his own cabin.
Which is where he should have stayed. His eight-year-old daughter was sound asleep and only a few feet away, but he had locked the cabin before he stepped out and knew it was secure enough for everything to be okay for a few minutes.
Still, it was the wrong thing to do, and now he felt awful about the whole damn thing.
