Bad Love (Modern Romance Book 2) Page 3

As far as I'm concerned, breweries should be the eighth.

  It’s not because my grandmother founded Hunter’s Cross brewery five decades ago, when she was widowed with three young kids. Or because I grew up around this business, playing between the machinery, coloring in labels, and asking a million questions of any staff who’d indulge me.

  It’s because the light shining off tanks of brewing beer is an exquisite thing. There's magic in creating, making something that never existed before. Though they're stainless steel, I see what's happening inside those tanks. The yeast undergoing its chemical processes.

  The clipboard hanging off the side of one tank says this one'll be ready in two days. It's one of our newest brews, and in addition to the yeast, there are a couple hundred pounds of blackberry in it. It'll go into oak casks we bought from a vineyard in California for a few weeks, then bottles.

  I make my way past the tanks and equipment to the offices in the back. A man with dark, curly hair straightens and shoots me a grin as I pass.

  "Tell me the new one's going to be good, Freddy."

  His lean form shrugs. He looks as if he doesn't eat, though he has enough culinary friends in Manhattan to land the chef's table at any Michelin-star restaurant.

  "The test was not good. I massaged the recipe, and it was—" Frederick does that weird French finger-kissing thing. I clap him on the shoulder and walk to the now-open office door at the end of the hall.

  "If I called him Freddy, he'd rip my arms off." Monty's low rumble greets me over the clinking of the canning machine running in the background.

  My best friend refuses to wear jeans. His lower threshold is chinos with a pressed shirt. Which, coupled with perpetually troubled blue eyes and wild hair and a beard that makes my scruff look tame, gives off the impression someone grabbed him from a cave somewhere deep in the mountains, drugged him, and shoved him into a Brooks Brothers collection before he could wake up.

  But don't let the look fool you. Monty has a brilliant brain and drive. He graduated first in his business class—something my grandmother took notice of since Monty spent all his school breaks around our house.

  Monty’s parents didn’t have the means mine did. They also didn’t have much interest in helping him with his education or anything else.

  Which was why mine did.

  I shut the door, sealing out the sounds of the brewery. "Strawberry made a killing last year. I figured we could do some limited releases of other infusions too. Blackberry's nearly ready."

  "And our gracious brewmaster went with your ideas." My friend reclines in the chair behind his desk.

  "Yup." I open the file drawer. Without looking, my hand finds the mini basketball and lobs it into the net on the back of the door. “The flavored beers are good. But we should do something bigger. Exotics. Fruits you can’t find anywhere else."

  "If no one else can source it, how do we? Besides, your small brew uses local producers, which customers like.”

  I retrieve the ball. "True. If we source globally, we need to tell a story around it.” I think of Kendall's scent from the car. “If it’s worth it, people will do anything to have it.”

  Our easy banter has evolved over the last half decade, and there’s a rhythm to it. Most of our best ideas for the company come this way, through kicking things back and forth.

  “There’s a problem. Someone's gotta execute. We’re at full capacity, and we don’t have the budget to hire more staff. Especially with the annual shareholder meeting less than a quarter away, the focus’ll be on tightening.”

  I setup for another shot. Swish. “That’s what Deacon’s for."

  A rumbling sound at my back has me turning. Monty’s hands form fists on the desk, his posture tense.

  “The man already does half your job. You want him to take something else on? You can talk to him.”

  “This is a great opportunity for the company,” I toss. “Deacon doesn’t like selling more beer?”

  "He doesn't like selling more beer and getting zero credit for it. And I don’t blame him. Having Deacon do the rest of the marketing director job while you focused on PR and advertising was supposed to be temporary. A transition after you came back from traveling."

  "So?"

  Monty stares me down. "So, it's been three years. You can't tell your family you're running marketing for the company while we pay someone else to do it. Head of marketing’s not only new recipes and social media. It’s building a budget. Working with staff. Distributors.”

  The reality is I’m not cut out for that. The shiny, glossy stuff I can handle. The HR and accounting and logistics… I’d be setting the company up to fail.

  “We’re protecting the board—which, let’s be real, is mainly my grandmother—from information that would displease her,” I tell him.

  His eyes are serious. "No one’s more committed to family than you. There aren’t a lot of guys our age who take their grandmother for brunch twice a month, who spend their downtime helping their mother make calls for her charity, but we’re running a business. It’s time to stop pretending and give Deacon the job and the credit. The board meeting’s coming up. It’d be the right opportunity to make it official.”

  “No,” I say, automatic. I’m not letting my grandmother think I can’t manage my director position.

  Monty sighs. “Back when we were in college, we talked about starting a company. Everyone in school wanted to make the hard calls. To have the responsibility. But you… it’s your family. Your fucking legacy."

  Monty’s words land like an arrow in my heart, and I rub my face to hide my reaction. I crack a smile that takes more effort than usual.

  “Nepotism’s for Roman emperors and modern assholes, Montgomery. Every successful modern company from Coca-Cola to Google is built on promoting people who do exceptional work. Responsibility should go to whoever’s earned it. You’re the one who makes sure the people out there get paid every month. I'm an ideas guy."

  I take one more shot, miss.

  “You always get like this before board meetings,” I say as I return the ball to its drawer. “I have just the cure. Don Giovanni’s at the Met.”

  He rubs a hand through his unruly hair even as his eyes brighten. It’s comical how much Monty loves the opera. He came with us one year and has been obsessed since. “I can’t take a night off.”

  “Even for the merry tragedy?”

  He groans. “No.”

  “That’s unfortunate. I bought you a box. Tickets are in your email.”

  Monty’s mouth twitches under his beard. “I hate you.”

  I clap him on the shoulder with a grin. “You’re welcome.”

  4

  Moving to New York brought a lot of surprises. Some, like the cost of living, were tough.

  Some were delightful. Like Central Park.

  The public space is big and diverse and lush, the spring weather drawing the cherry blossoms out of their sleep. At Conservatory Water, there's a swarm of kids on a sunny Saturday morning, several steering the little remote-controlled boats.

  “He’s definitely the best,” Rena comments.

  My gaze lands on the red head of hair in the throng of kids. My smile is involuntary, as if the boy I’m watching is as in charge of my motor control as he is of his toy sailboat.

  “It’s not a competition.”

  “Everything’s a competition,” she insists.

  We sip our coffees as we stroll down the path. Rena looks fashionable for Saturday morning in tailored pants and a sleeveless pink shell. I’ve opted for the mom’s-best-friend athleisure look in yoga pants and a T-shirt. I nearly shoved my hair under a ball cap but opted to straighten it instead and tuck sunglasses overtop.

  “If it was up to him, he’d never leave the kitchen.”

  “You’ll never have to worry about him being single.”

  “Don’t even joke about that. It feels like he was just a baby.”

  “You had Rory eight years ago. You were a baby.” She laughs
, and I’m grateful she’s my friend. Sometimes I feel as though I’ve known her way more than a year, when she joined Closer after moving home to New York from Philadelphia.

  Not because we have lots in common. She grew up wealthy, went to a fancy college. But she had to deal with expectations from her parents, and I know too well what that’s like.

  “He must have been a handsome jerk,” she says. “Rory’s dad. You were married, right?” Rena’s direct, but she respects that we’ve never talked about this.

  I nod. “Blake and I both came from conservative families. When we found out I was pregnant, it seemed like the only option. Now, Rory’s my everything, and I don’t regret him for a second.”

  “But?”

  “But what Blake and I had was a mess.” My chest tightens. “After we separated when Rory was not even two, Blake took a job out of state and vanished from our lives. Four years ago, he came back for the summer and decided he wanted to be in Rory’s life. He was around every weekend. At first I thought it was a good thing. Then he started getting grandiose ideas. Blake works construction and has winters off, and he wanted to take Rory on the road for a month even though he had school. I told him no, and he disappeared again.”

  “Poor Rory.”

  “He was disappointed, but not as much as he could’ve been. I’m not sure he was old enough to fully understand what happened.”

  “How did you and Blake get together?”

  “I was a kid.” The coffee tastes deliciously bitter in my throat. “He was handsome and talented and said the things that make teenage girls bite their lips. But we never got on the same page the way you need to in order to adult. It makes it hard to think about dating again. I don’t want to make another mistake.”

  We go back to watching the kids. One of their boats gets stranded in the middle of the water, and someone in a rowboat has to help them get it back.

  “’Date’ doesn’t have to be a four-letter word,” Rena says when the debacle resolves.

  "Maybe not, but to find someone, you have to be on dating sites. Then squeeze in time to date. And tell them about your kid. And then there’re weirdos…” I shudder. “Maybe Wes’s DNA dating app is the way to go.”

  Rena met her scientist boyfriend when he came up with a way to match people genetically for compatibility. They’re adorable together because he tames her wild streak and she agitates his logic-driven one.

  “You need someone fun. A moment that’s not about Rory’s future or whatever mistake you think you made in the past.”

  “I appreciate the effort, but if I need to blow off steam, I can take a salsa class.”

  “I’m not talking about salsa!” she insists, her voice rising. “I’m talking about getting fucked. By a man who knows how.”

  A couple that could be my parents walks by close enough to hear her, and I wince.

  "Let's see," Rena goes on. "Which way would you rather get over your funk? Dancing in uncomfortable heels? Or hot sex with someone like… Logan Hunter?"

  I’ve had my “come to Jesus” moment. I’m not going looking for it at the end of some guy’s dick.

  Still, it’s as if, even though I know I’ve lived a full and beautiful life in my twenty-six years so far, maybe I’ve missed something. None of my limited sexual encounters would qualify as wild. It’s never bothered me, but lately there’s a restlessness I thought I’d buried. It’s as if the past few years of abstinence have woken some long-denied part of me, and now Bad Kendall’s scratching at the lid of her Pandora’s Box.

  Rena’s comment drags my brain toward thoughts of my newest client.

  Okay, so Hunter's gorgeous. Thick hair that stands straight up in that reckless "I wake up like this" way only a hundred-dollar barber can achieve. His broad chest stretching his shirt. The faded jeans that worship his legs as though they were made for it.

  But I will take that grudging admiration to my grave.

  “You’re calling yourself a gentleman?”

  “Not in bed.”

  His smug expression when he walked away from the car yesterday should’ve left me irritated. Instead, it left me imagining what a man like him would be like in bed.

  Wild.

  I think he’d be wild in bed.

  My thighs squeeze together.

  I’m saved responding when we're interrupted by a tall guy with dirty-blond hair wearing a button-down unbuttoned at the collar. "Who's Logan?"

  She smiles at him. "New client."

  "You're not having sex with him." The reply is smooth and automatic.

  "I meant Kendall, Dr. Strange. But it's cute that you think you can tell me what to do."

  Wes lets out an irritated noise low in his throat, then reaches for his girlfriend, threading his hands through her hair and pulling her up on her toes to kiss her.

  Hello, jealousy.

  Not because Rena and Wes are all lovey-dovey. Because they have this ease together. Like they're comfortable with themselves and each other.

  I'm still thinking about it when Rena steps back. "Logan is exactly what Kendall needs."

  Wes lifts a shoulder. "Better than goat yoga?"

  "Hunter”—referring to him by his first name when no one else seems to feels wrong—"is off the table,” I inform them both.

  "Too bad. I think he'd like you on top of the table." Rena wiggles her eyebrows.

  “My turn,” Rory chimes in as we board the subway train. “Okay. Which of these things is not like the other…” he says in a singsong voice.

  The train is a mix of people in athletic apparel and nicer clothes, some families, lots of young singles. We take a seat across from a gray-haired woman with a cane as my son cranes his neck to take in every inch of the train car.

  “Her,” Rory decides after a minute, nodding to the woman. “She’s old, and everyone else on the train is young.”

  “Honey, we don’t point out people as strange. Things only.”

  “Why?”

  His sweet face implores me, and I think of the right way to explain. “Because people like to fit in and not be called out as different.”

  His fine red brows pull together over dark eyes, his pert nose wrinkling. “But the whole game is finding things that are different.”

  “Things. Not people. People have feelings. And sometimes if you say what you see in people and it’s not what they want you to see, it can hurt them.”

  He shakes his head. “Bloody hell.”

  I bite my cheek and pretend not to hear him. He’s a sensitive kid, and I pick my battles. Telling him not to swear can wait until the next time he says it.

  “That’s why I like food,” my kid declares. “It makes more sense than people.”

  I smile. “I know you like food. How did you like boating today?”

  “It was okay.” He toes the pole with his sneaker.

  “We could try something else next month. Maybe kites?”

  “Mom…” He sighs. “I know you have your adventures list. But I don’t think it’s for me.”

  I bite my lip. “It’s good to try new things and find what you like.”

  “I don’t need things to like. I know what I love.” He nods for emphasis. “And there’s no more room in my heart after you and pasta, Mom.”

  Oh, man. Kids say the craziest things, but this one has my chest aching.

  Since he learned to read, he’s been pulling down my cookbooks. His first visit to the Food Network online transformed interest into passion. When he discovered Gordon Ramsay, he’d arrived at Nirvana.

  “You know what, Rory? The thing about love is there’s always more of it. It doesn’t run out.” He looks skeptical, and I laugh.

  Two hours later, Rory and I are back at home, and I’m on the phone with my parents.

  "How are the boys?" I ask, meaning my brothers.

  "They're good. Robert's just left for his mission trip. William's working on an oil rig. I wish he would settle down already. I worry about him out there."

 
My brothers are younger by two and six years. Robert has a wife and two kids. Will’s the baby of the family, still figuring out what he wants to do.

  "Has he brought any girls around?"

  "No. But I know he would tell us before he did."

  “Because they're the good kids,” is what she doesn't say. They do things the right way, in the right order.

  She continues to tell me about what's new at the church, then in the neighborhood. She rhymes off every family, most of which we've known since my brothers and I were small. That’s how it works, being a pastor’s kid. You know everyone and their business.

  On one hand, it’s beautiful, being so connected in the community. My father always said, “God never closes the door.” So, it seemed that we didn’t either. Members of the church would come all day and all night, seeking advice or company, and all day and all night, my father—and by extension, all of us—was there for them.

  My job wasn’t to counsel them. It was to make tea, or play with their kids, or sometimes just to smile.

  Implicitly, it was to set an example. Not so my parents could say, “You should be like Kendall,” because being better than other people wasn’t the point.

  It was about being good. Always, there’s some standard of goodness. Being polite. Well-dressed and neat. Even when you didn’t feel like it.

  Especially when you didn’t feel like it.

  But there were days I wished I could shut my door.

  "The house next door's up for sale."

  I snap back to attention. "The Mings are moving?"

  "Across town. But they've told your father they'll continue coming to church. Their daughter, Leah, has been doing so well in school."

  I watch my son preparing vegetables in the kitchen, one of his favorite tasks. "Rory's doing well too. His reading is very advanced."

  "And math?"

  Rory measures out a cup of fresh-grated parmesan cheese from the market. "Fractions are excellent."

  Rory visits them for a weekend every three months or so. I take the train there and back with him. But in the six years since we've been here, they’ve never come to the city.

  Even though my brother moved across state lines to be with his family, they visit at least once a month.