Before I Ever Met You

But our fun has to come to an end – for now. He has to take over for Kate at reception and I have to start my shift, though he asks me to drop by his house when I’m done.

I get through work with a smile on my face and even Johnny is wondering what kind of crack I’m smoking, and as soon as I’m done, I’m hanging up my apron and heading out into the night. Charlie asks where I’m going – I think he’s a bit insulted that I haven’t been boozing it up with him at the bar since he got back – but I just tell him I’m going for a walk.

Light rain is starting again as I hurry down the street and right to Logan’s. He doesn’t even have to answer the door, he’s waiting for me on the porch with a glass of wine in hand. I take it from him, take him in with my eyes, and then we disappear inside, making a futile attempt to watch something on Netflix before I’m riding him on his couch like a damn cowgirl.

I can’t stay the night though, and when it looks like it’s getting late, I have to go. I make a joke about becoming Cinderella and I’m halfway out his front door before he hauls me back to him, kissing me hard, kissing me so I’ll never forget him.

I walk, crooked, half-drunk on lust and wine, back out into the cooling rain and start walking down the road back to the hotel. I’m smiling into the night.

Then…

“Veronica,” a hushed voice comes from the darkness behind me.

Startled I whirl around to see Kate emerge out from underneath a dimly-lit streetlight.

“What are you doing here?” I ask her, my hand to my chest, trying to calm my heart. Oh my god. Did she see? Did she see?

“What am I doing here?” she exclaims in a hiss. “Charlie told me you went for a walk. Hours ago. In this fucking rain. I was worried so I went to see if Logan knew where you were and, well…what the hell, Ron?” She gestures wildly to Logan’s house, where the lights are going off, Logan inside and having no clue what’s going on. “When were you going to tell me that you’re fucking the boss?”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I give her a shaky smile. “Um, right about now?”

This is going to be a long night.





17





“I can’t believe this,” Kate says, clapping her hands together as she stands there in the middle of the road. I can’t tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing, she’s still so hard to read, and even when she’s happy sometimes she looks like she wants to murder someone – and vice versa.

“It’s not a big deal,” I say meekly, trying to play it off. “We really should head back, I’m getting wet.”

“I fucking bet you are,” she comments as we start walking down the road away from Logan’s house. Talk about awkward. “How long has this been going on for?”

“Um…since Thanksgiving.”

“I knew it!” she says, jabbing me on the shoulder with her finger.

“Well we kissed before. After the luau.”

“Oh my god,” she says. “I mean, I told you, didn’t I? I told you the way he looked at you, I just didn’t know if you’d feel the same. You seemed to hate him so much but I guess that was all an act.”

“Oh hell no,” I tell her. “That wasn’t an act…I just. It’s complicated.”

“No shit it’s complicated! He’s your sister’s husband.”

“Was my sister’s husband.”

“Well they’d still be married if she wasn’t dead.” She pauses, her hand flying to her mouth. “Ah, I’m so sorry. I’m being a bitch.”

“No. Well yes. It doesn’t matter though.”

“That I’m being a bitch or that you’re hooking up with your sister’s widower? Who is, also, by the way, your boss?”

I sigh. “Look, Logan and I started off…when we first met…Juliet isn’t who you…” I have no idea how to explain any of this without exposing Juliet and throwing her under a bus, even if she may deserve it. See, this is exactly why we needed to keep this a secret! I take in a deep breath. “Logan and Juliet didn’t have a happy marriage.”

Kate wipes the rain away from her face. “Right. I guess I could see that.”

“And Logan and I have a history…”

“I thought you barely knew him before you came here.”

We turn the corner to the hotel and I lower my voice. “I don’t expect you to understand, which is why we’re trying to keep this a secret. But haven’t you ever…met someone and you knew that, without a doubt, he was supposed to be with you?”

“No,” she says flatly.

“Well then you aren’t going to get it.” I sigh as we climb up the stairs to our place. “Look, can we just keep it between us. You trust me with all your Charlie stuff.”

“That is so not the same,” she says, opening the door.

I walk in after her. “It is. You keep going back to Charlie for reasons I don’t know and I don’t pretend to know. Maybe he’s awesome in bed. Maybe you like guys who don’t wear shoes. Scratch that – you definitely like guys who don’t wear shoes. But the point is there is something between you guys that’s hard to ignore.”

“His dick is hard to ignore. That’s it.”

I give her a dry look. “Fine. Blame his dick. I blame Logan’s then.”

“Oh my god,” she says, throwing her hands up and going over to the couch, sitting down in a huff. “There’s no way I want to think of Logan that way.”

“You don’t think he’s hot?”

She scrunches up her nose. “He’s hot in an older, burly, Hugh Jackman kind of way, yes. Hot like maybe one of my dad’s younger friends.”

“Kate, he’s still in his thirties, he’s not that old!”

She shrugs. “You’re not thirty yet, so what, you have a ten-year age difference? More? It doesn’t matter. He’s old. A few more years and he’s in silver fox territory.”

“So you admit he’s a fox.”

“I admit nothing.”

“Well he is and I have to ask who the hell your dad’s friends are if they look like Logan.”

She actually seems to think that over, tapping her fingers on her chin. “Well there’s this guy who used to work with my dad…”

“Kate,” I warn her. “Back on track here. I need you to promise not to say anything to anyone.”

“Why, are you ashamed?”

“Me? No. Hell no. But you just proved why people wouldn’t understand.”

She exhales loudly and flops down on her side. “You’ve turned my world upside down, dude.”

“And he’s turned my world upside down,” I say quietly, taking a seat beside her, lifting one of her legs out of the way.

She lifts her head, studying me for a moment before letting it fall back on the pillow. “Damn. You’re serious.”

“I am serious. I think I’m in love with him.”

I’m in love with him.

Nope, it’s not getting any less terrifying.

Kate groans, covering her face with her hands. “This keeps getting worse. You love him?”

Yes.

I shrug. “No. I don’t know. It’s complicated.”

“You keep saying that.”