Rough and Ready, page 6
“Okay,” Rafe said at last. “I’m in. Operation Haunted Inn is underway.”
“Hot damn! We gotta work the ghosts into the name of the place.”
Rafe grinned. “Keeley insisted that would be the biggest selling feature. The thing that would have folks lining up for a stay.”
“She’s not wrong,” Gio said, reaching out to shake his hand. “Partner.”
Rafe shook his hand, but when he started to pull back, Gio tightened his grip. “I know you’re overwhelmed, Rafe. I can see you’re stressed out, running on fumes. And I know this inn feels like one more obligation to you right now…but I really would like to do the heavy lifting on the project. At least until you get your sea legs under you on the rest.”
Rafe was unaware of exactly how tense his shoulders had been until Gio found the right thing to say to loosen the muscles just a bit. “Maybe even after that. I trust your talent. I’ve seen your work. Thanks for saying that though. It helps. Hell, now I’m starting to get excited. You and Keeley are becoming a bad influence on me—getting me fired up about things that are ultimately more work,” he joked.
Gio released him. “We’re coming up with ways to make you richer, and you know it. Tony just bought this cool AR that I can use. It’ll help draw up the designs, give you a chance to see what I’ve got in mind before we pull out the tools. Sound good?” Gio radiated enthusiasm, and Rafe suspected his best friend was only just barely restraining himself from grabbing a hammer out of his truck and starting work on the place tonight.
Rafe had always admired Gio’s what-you-see-is-what-you-get attitude. No one ever questioned where Gio stood on an issue because he so readily expressed all the emotions—anger, joy, sadness—and when he wanted something, he went for it, all in with no reservations.
His personality was one of the main things that had drawn Rafe to him in high school. Gio, a sophomore at the time, was the first person to reach out to him, offer to help him find his locker and his classrooms. He’d confided that his family had just returned to Philadelphia the previous year, so he knew what it felt like to be the new kid.
Rafe’s mom had moved them in with stepdad four, Douchebag, right after the wedding, and the change in address put Rafe in a different school district. So he started high school as the new kid, all his friends from elementary and middle school attending another school across the city.
Gio had been the first friend he’d ever confided in regarding his mother’s relationship record. When he was younger, he’d been embarrassed by his mother’s marriage and divorce routine, but Gio had helped him find a way to deal with it. Typically with humor.
Mom had surprisingly managed to move past her hurt over the will, and she’d texted him just this week to assure Rafe she wasn’t mad. Because he was her only child, Mom tended to rely on him for pretty much everything, but only when she was single. Once she met a new man and made that trip down the aisle, he was relegated to white noise in the background until the next divorce.
She’d confided yesterday that stepdad number five, Rodney, was still pissed off about the will and talking to a lawyer. Rafe wasn’t surprised, since Rodney was a lot like Douchebag. The two of them had only been married about a year. No doubt Rodney had learned she was the daughter of a wealthy, elderly, ailing man and had taken that trip down the aisle not with hearts in his eyes but dollar signs.
Grandpa’s lawyer—now Rafe’s—had assured him this morning that the will was airtight.
Mom was still hung up in the honeymoon phase, so she defended Rodney, certain he’d calm down soon enough. Then she mentioned that she’d booked a long weekend for the two of them in New York City because she was sure getting away for a little while would help. Rafe had been tempted to ask how she was paying for the trip, but he’d held his tongue, perfectly aware it was going on her credit card…and equally aware that at some point, he was going to have to decide if he would continue to bail her out the same way Grandpa always had.
Worrying about her and Rodney, the stepdick, was just one more thing adding to his stress, his sleepless nights, and his stiff neck.
Gio pulled him from those heavy thoughts, thrilled about their plans. “You know, if everything works out, I could move in pretty much immediately. I’ve lived in my apartment so long, I’m on a month-to-month lease. Once we sign on the dotted line, I’ll give the landlord notice and start packing my stuff.”
“That sounds great.” In truth, it did. Gio, like Keeley, never failed to find joy in life. With Keeley here during the day to lighten his load and make him laugh, and Gio here on the weekends and evenings, Rafe hoped the loneliness that had settled over him since Grandpa’s death would lift. “I hope this all works out,” he said sincerely.
“Me too. Now let’s go eat. I’m starving.” Gio placed his hand on Rafe’s shoulder, guiding him toward the door, when something obviously caught his eye. He turned his back to Rafe as he walked over to Keeley’s workstation. “That’s weird.”
“What’s weird?” Rafe asked.
“I swear to God I walked by this table three times and never saw this.” Gio turned around, holding up Keeley’s phone. “I can’t believe she hasn’t come back for it.”
“She probably thinks it’s in that gargantuan bag of hers.”
“Yeah. You know…it seems to me a big decision like going into business together calls for a celebration, something fancier than a cheesesteak at Founding Fathers. What do you say we go celebrate our new living situation with a couple real steaks? Saloon’s got good food.”
Rafe tilted his head. “Keeley will kill us if we show up there.”
“Maybe so, but you know she’d want this.” Gio paused, then added, “And I want to check the guy out.”
There was no way Rafe would argue with either reason for going. The idea of Keeley out on a date with a guy who was basically a stranger, without her phone, bothered him a lot.
“We’re just dropping off the phone and leaving,” Rafe stressed.
“We’ll see,” Gio said, more seriously than Rafe expected.
He sighed. “She’s gonna kill us if we crash her date,” he repeated.
Gio put a friendly hand on his shoulder, his grin firmly back in place. “Think Albert and Marta would share this house with us if she does?”
Rafe didn’t reply, too many things fighting for dominance at the moment.
Somehow, the guy who’d never done an impulsive thing in his life had quit his job, taken over a company, hired his friend’s little sister—a woman he was more attracted to than he cared to admit—moved into a haunted mansion he was now renovating into an inn, and acquired a roommate.
Those vast changes weren’t coming anymore. They’d already arrived.
He wasn’t sure, but for a moment, he could almost imagine he heard Grandpa Albert laughing.
Chapter Four
“What the hell are you guys doing here?” Keeley asked before she could stop herself.
She’d met Joel in the lobby of Saloon, and the two had engaged in some polite conversation while they waited for their table. She’d been very relieved when he’d arrived and looked exactly like his picture on Tinder.
She’d gone on dates with a couple guys who’d made liberal use of filters, and one idiot who’d flat-out photoshopped his head on some super-buff body. And, of course, her favorite was the guy who’d used a picture that had to have been him fifteen years earlier, insisting he hadn’t lied about his age being twenty-seven.
Yeah, right. That asshole hadn’t been a day younger than forty.
Gio held out his hand, revealing her cell phone. “You left this at the mansion.”
“The mansion?” Joel asked, clearly surprised by the arrival of two men at their table.
“Joel,” Keeley hastened to explain, “this is Gio and Rafe. Rafe’s my boss. Apparently, I left my phone at work.” She took her phone from Gio. “I didn’t realize it wasn’t in my purse until I got here. You guys didn’t have to bring it to me. I could have swung by tomorrow and grabbed it.”
“It was no problem,” Rafe said. “We didn’t think you should be in the city without it.”
Though he was looking at her, Rafe’s tone could be considered nothing less than a warning to Joel to toe the line.
“Well, I have it now. So…thanks.” She hoped they would take the hint and get lost.
Gio was looking at Joel, who was starting to get visibly uncomfortable under the intense scrutiny. Keeley was no stranger to this tactic. God knew she’d watched her brother employ the same with every guy she’d dated during high school.
“Do I know you?” Joel asked Gio after a moment. “You look familiar.”
Gio shook his head but didn’t offer a verbal reply.
“I could swear…” Joel mused, not bothering to finish his statement.
“Okay.” She waved her phone in front of them. “I’m good now. Goodbye,” she said firmly, when neither man moved.
Gio’s attention returned to her—and the second she saw his wicked grin, she knew she wasn’t going to like what came next. “You two have a nice date.”
Then he stopped a waitress who was walking by and pointed to the empty table next to hers and Joel’s.
He wouldn’t.
Shit!
Apparently, he would.
The waitress nodded, and he and Rafe claimed it.
Joel frowned. “That’s your boss?” he asked quietly.
Keeley nodded, her blood boiling.
“And the other guy?”
“Just a friend,” Keeley replied, glancing in Gio and Rafe’s direction, trying to establish eye contact so they could see just how furious she was. Both men pointedly ignored her, looking at the menus, talking quietly.
She wondered if there would ever be a point in her life where her brother and his friends didn’t treat her like some helpless child. She’d actually—foolishly—believed perhaps she had turned that corner with at least Gio and Rafe. After their night together in the storm, and this past week at work, she’d felt less like Kayden’s kid sister and more like a friend in her own right.
Then there were those brief wonderful moments…
Gio’s good-night kiss.
Rafe’s near-miss kiss.
Both times, they had looked at her like she was a desirable woman. Those looks ensured her vibrator continued to get one hell of a workout every night. Her fantasies had been quite steamy of late, always starring either Rafe or Gio.
Even now, when she wanted to be totally pissed at them, she couldn’t quite work up enough anger because it was overshadowed by the stupid feeling that it was sweet of them to go to such lengths to make sure she was okay.
If it was Kayden sitting at that table, she’d have already blown a gasket, so she wasn’t sure why something that felt intrusive from her brother felt…possessively hot from Rafe and Gio.
Was possessively hot even a thing?
She forced her attention back to Joel, determined to ignore the sexy men at the next table.
“I’m sure I know that guy,” Joel said again.
Keeley refused to discuss Gio, so she started with her standard get-to-know-you questions. The queen of first dates, she was a professional and had a long list of conversation starters on hand to keep things moving. The list also allowed her to get a pretty clear picture of the guy in just one night.
“So tell me about your job,” she said.
Joel, mercifully, forgot about Gio and Rafe at the next table and began talking. He worked in the family business, running a flooring store downtown. It occurred to Keeley that was probably how he knew Gio, but she didn’t bother to point it out.
Unlike a lot of her previous dates, Joel was very good at keeping the conversation two-sided. He asked about her work, stealing a glance or two at the next table when she talked about Rafe hiring her to be his marketing director and how much she was enjoying it. She snuck a peek over as well, watching as Rafe and Gio received their drinks and placed their orders. They were obviously hunkered down for the duration of her date.
“I was really glad we were able to make a connection on Tinder,” Joel admitted. “I took one look at your picture and knew I needed to meet you.”
She tried to take that as a compliment, but she always hated it when guys confessed to asking her out because of the picture rather than mentioning the profile she’d put together. She was proud of her pros and cons list. If a guy started the date by discussing the list and laughing at the funny stuff she’d included, he got a point. If not…the first red flag.
This time, Keeley let the comment go because it was still early. She’d learned at least twelve dates ago to hand out those red flags judiciously.
From there, they discussed their families. Joel came from a pretty typical family of four, two parents, him, an older sister. His grandparents were still alive, but they lived in other states. She shared a little bit about her parents dying in the plane crash, and her brother stepping in to raise her. Her retelling of that part of her life was always kept simple and told with the same words. She found that helped her keep her emotions under control. She never dove any deeper than just those few facts. And Joel was appropriately compassionate about it.
She noticed that he’d downed three bourbons in the time she’d finished one glass of wine, so he was getting a lot more relaxed and talking more freely, laughing a little louder. She attributed the drinking to nerves and let it go.
By the time their meals arrived, Keeley was almost ready to call the date a success, despite the fact Gio and Rafe were sitting nearby. But there was one last big hurdle to leap.
So she guided them to the past relationships topic. He managed to say all the right things, claiming he was tired of the dating game, and that he was looking for a woman long-term, with an eye toward marriage and kids.
And she believed him because Joel appeared to have better luck in the long-term relationship department, claiming three past girlfriends whom he’d dated for a year or longer. That was better than she’d done, and that information seemed to prove he wasn’t just looking for online hookups.
But then she felt less good about him when he confessed that, ultimately, every single one of the girlfriends dumped him. “For no good reason,” he claimed.
Which—fuck it, she was counting the first—was the second red flag.
She was old enough and wise enough that she knew not to tug on that thread…but she did anyway.
“No good reason?”
Joel shrugged. “They were dumb bitches, so no big loss.”
This was what she got for tugging. Joel was slowly crossing the line from pleasant company to rude and inebriated the longer they talked. It wasn’t a good look on him. At all.
“Yeah, well.” She struggled for some way to recoup her losses, but nothing clever came. Instead, she changed the subject because, well, dammit, her steak looked really good, and she was starving. “The online dating game is tough,” she threw out lamely, cutting a big bite of steak off and shoving it in her mouth.
“I guess.” Joel laughed. “But you know, there are ways to make it easier.”
She chewed and swallowed, and then against her better judgment said, “Oh yeah?”
Because karma hated her, Joel managed to screw it up once and for all with his next question.
“Have you ever considered having a boob job?”
“What?”
“My last couple of girlfriends got them and they looked great. Didn’t feel fake at all.”
“Riiiiight,” she drawled, trying to decide if the steak tasted good enough to endure ten more minutes of this so she could shovel it all in. Then she studied the garlic mashed potatoes on her plate. She freaking loved garlic mashed potatoes. “I’m not interested in plastic surgery.”
Joel shrugged, then sighed as his gaze drifted down to her tits, clearly unimpressed. “I’m just saying you should look into it. Maybe don’t be so quick to dismiss it.”
Aaaand now the date was over.
She was going to bed hungry tonight, but not before paying it forward for the next woman. Because Joel needed a little wake-up call.
“Here’s a little dating tip for you, Joel. No woman is going to stay with you as long as you keep trying to make her into your ideal. That’s a one-way ticket to becoming a skeezy, swaggering, lonely fifty-year-old man that no woman would touch with a ten-foot pole. If you seriously want to get married, get to know a woman and love her for who she is on the inside, not on the outside.”
She reached for her purse and pulled out her wallet.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Date’s over, hotshot. Because you just showed me your inside, and it’s butt-fucking ugly.”
“Oh God, you’re one of those feminists, aren’t you? Get pissed off whenever a guy offers a little constructive criticism on your looks.”
“I have no idea what feminism has to do with criticism, constructive or otherwise, so let’s just leave this with—you can go fuck yourself.” Keeley tossed down enough cash to cover her meal. She’d wasted enough time on this dick.
She’d intended to storm out of the restaurant, but at the last second, she picked up her wine glass and carried it over to Rafe and Gio’s table, where she sat down, certain there had to be steam coming out of her ears.
“Fucking bitch,” she heard Joel mutter behind her, before yelling for the waitress to bring his check.
Gio and Rafe both started to stand, but she gripped their forearms tightly, pressing them flat against the table so they couldn’t rise.
“Leave it alone,” she murmured.
“If you think for one second—” Gio started angrily.
“Gio. Please,” she whispered. Her anger was quickly giving way to depression, and she had to blink rapidly to beat back the angry/sad tears blurring her vision. She was so goddamn tired of this.
