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Cole stands, albeit unsteadily.

“I’m going to bed. Don’t wake me up in the morning when you leave.”

“We know, we know,” I say, waving a hand dismissively.

He reaches down to grab the pillow I threw at him and throws it back. It hits me in the face and I make an ‘oof’ sound.

Marcus chuckles, reclining in the leather chair.

Cole wobbles off to bed and Marcus is snoring within a few minutes.

I lie in the dark, watching the storm through Cole’s picture window, Garland Falls spread out beyond it.

Downtown is Margo’s bakery. I wonder if she’s there now, proofing. I know bakeries start early. Lois worked for one when we were first married and living in a shitty one-bedroom loft downtown.

She was always good at it, the scientific and precise way she measured ingredients. I could never. But then again, she couldn’t boil water and I’m a great cook, so… we balanced each other out.

I swallow around what feels like broken glass.

When I close my eyes, I dream of a pair of gray eyes.

They turn brown, just at the end, but when I wake, I can barely remember.

CHAPTER FIVE

MARCUS

I’m hungover as fuck when I get the phone call.

But everyone who calls me is currently in this penthouse, so I figure it must be important.

My voice cracks when I answer.

“What?”

“Uh…is this Sterling Groundskeeping?” It’s a woman’s voice, quiet, hesitant.

Fuck.

A client.

Craig, my partner, keeps telling me we need to get a real office and a phone and even a receptionist, but I’m stuck in my ways.

Garland Falls isn’t a big enough town to need all that, even though we service the surrounding areas, too.

I clear my throat. “Yes. Yes, it is. I’m Marcus Sterling, how can I help you?”

“Wow, I didn’t think I’d get the owner.”

“We’re a pretty close-knit company.”

That’s an understatement. I have fifteen employees now, but I know all of them by face and name. They all live here in Garland Falls.

A pretty hum comes through the line.

I sit up straight, climbing out of the uncomfortable chair I’d slept in. Passed out is more like it. I’d drunk too much even at Envy, and the last few hours before bed were blurry.

Something about the wishes. Cole. Gabe.