Of course, maybe the real issue was that he was actually the person he was irritated at.
He had forced himself to keep entirely clear of Marlowe for the last three and a half weeks. Which was no mean feat.
But then, considering there were a million and a half things to do ahead of the resort opening, he had been able to come up with reasons that he was too busy to do any kind of interfacing with her.
He had made sure that Walker and Lila did the communicatingwith her, and that wasn’t even weird. It was reasonable. It would be weirder if he were constantly involved. It would feel like he was trying to get proximity to her because they’d slept together.
Lila was the one overseeing more of the hotel specifics than he was, and Walker was the events person.
Anyway, even without seeing Marlowe, he felt like he did. He saw her every night in his dreams, and he woke up breathing ragged and hard as iron. Reliving that afternoon in the cabin. What it had been like to be inside her…
“I think booking weddings is aging you,” he said, looking at his brother’s profile.
“I got asked for white peacocks. How stupid is that? And why the fuck do they think that I should be the one providing the peacock?”
“Are you going to do it?”
“Yes. Because I named a ridiculous fee for finding them, and the couple is willing to pay it? They’re ridiculously rich. From California.”
“Where are you getting white peacocks?”
“There’s a farm. And I have to pay for the handler’s time, because we have to make sure that the peacocks are treated appropriately. It’s like hiring a child star. They can only work for so long, and then we’re going to have to bring out a different pair.”
“To dowhat?”
“I guess they’re just… Supposed to kind of be there? But they’ll be sort of posed in the flowers for some pictures? I don’t know. You would think they would just put them in in post.”
“I don’t know. I’m just glad that none of this is my problem.”
“Yeah. Because you made it my problem.” At least that was an amusing distraction from…
He should be focused on the resort. Only the resort. Keeping himself away from Marlowe was supposed to ensure that.
But all he could do was think about her. He’d had to take a cold shower more than once, and he refused to jack off thinking about her… until he couldn’t refuse it anymore, and then did, because he was only human.
He hated it. He wasn’t some kid wanting all these things he couldn’t have anymore. He didn’t like longing. Didn’t like a big empty ache in his chest. It reminded him of too many of those times.
It reminded him too much of being inadequate. Unworthy.
He resented the hell out of the fact that she was the one who made him have that feeling again. Resented the hell out of the fact that it made him wonder if this was a fraction of what his mother had felt when thinking about his father…
He didn’t think that had been love. It had been something dark and twisted, something obsessed.
He didn’t like the discovery that something similar lived inside of him.
He didn’t like it at all.
She would be at the barbecue tonight, most likely. Unless she decided she was too busy, and stayed in the hotel.
They were working with a local, large-scale barbecue catering company for the event tonight, but Laney was providing dessert — a gourmet s’mores bar— even though he’d told her she didn’t need to do that, because he knew she had a lot else going on. She had insisted that she and Marlowe had the hotel so dialed in that she had extra time.
So, Marlowe probably would be there.
Especially because she would probably want to show support, and be a good leader and all of that.
Neither of them could avoid their jobs just because theyhad slept together. That would mean that their sleeping together had actually compromised something.
Worse, it would mean that it had meant something.
