Alec welcomed the breeze on his face once Hunter closed the door behind them. Box checked, but those twenty minutes were the least comfortable he’d spent in that kitchen, ever.
“That was weird.” Colby twisted in the passenger seat beside him as he backed out of the driveway.
Alec didn’t respond. Hunter had been Hunter, raising valid concerns and having trouble dealing with something he couldn’t control. Nothing weird about that.
“I’ve never seen Sara so fired up.” Colby stared out the window. “Do you think she’s started hormone treatments again?”
Alec shrugged. Apparently living with his father’s outbursts had desensitized him to anger. Right now, though, worrying about his parents’ marriage took precedence over Sara and Hunter. It was one thing for Alec to fight with his dad over Colby. Quite another if his father perceived his own wife as betraying him.
“You’re quiet,” Colby said when he didn’t respond.
“It’s been a busy twenty-four hours.” He glanced at her, thinking about what other fallout they might face. “Hunter raised a good point about the staff.”
Alec would rather keep quiet, at least for a while. She’d already weakened his authority with the praise she insisted he dole out. Once the staff got wind of their relationship, his authority would be more diluted.
She bit her lip while thinking. “When people try to hide personal relationships at work, it usually backfires. Secretiveness adds another layer of stress and makes the couple more gossip-worthy.” Her voice wavered a bit. “Let’s be open. But we shouldn’t flaunt it, either.”
He disagreed. Privacy and secretiveness weren’t the same thing. Privacy would allow them to explore the relationship in peace. But he’d promised to be patient and to make her happiness his priority, so what could he say?
“You’re the boss.” He had to remember that, because lately the restaurant had started to feel like theirs instead of hers. The lines were blurring, and blending their personal and professional relationship would make them even fuzzier, validating Hunter’s concerns. He needed to keep the peace there, because that job was the key to reclaiming his reputation. And his reputation might help him earn his father’s respect.
“Maybe I’m the boss there, but not here. If you disagree with me, be honest.”
The gravity of her tone snagged his attention. Had Mark made her feel like she couldn’t speak up? Did it matter? Because in this particular case, there was no way to separate the girlfriend from the boss. If he disagreed with his girlfriend, he’d be asking his boss to change her decision about how to handle her staff.
“It’s your restaurant. If you want to announce it, that’s fine.”
She raised her brows. “It won’t undermine you?”
“Do you want me to talk you out of it?” He glanced at her, gauging her.
“No. I think it’s important to be open, with others and each other.”
Okay, then. He’d suck it up and deal with the staff’s snickering. As far as being open with her, nothing he was keeping to himself had anything to do with his feelings for her, so he saw no purpose in burdening her with his bullshit. “Then why are we still discussing it?”
She leaned on the center console and stared at him. “You seem edgy.”
Yeah, well, she’d be edgy, too, if she’d seen his father’s pain tonight, or witnessed him storming off.
“It’s been a long day.” He pulled up to her mother’s house, torn between wanting her to come over and needing to check on his mother. “I’ve got a splitting headache. Do you mind if we call it a night?”
She frowned. “Are you sure you’re not upset about Hunter?”
“I promise I’m not upset about Hunter.” Gratefully, he could answer that much with 100 percent honesty. “Will you go back to the city?”
“I think I’ll swing by my dad’s first. I might as well share our news with the whole family at once, plus it’ll give me a chance to talk to Gentry about Jake.”
Gentry seemed like a woman who could handle herself without Colby’s interference. “Did something happen?”
“Not yet, but I’d rather prevent a disaster than wait until it’s too late.”
Of course she would. She’d always hated seeing anyone hurt. Someone like Colby should’ve been spared having to suffer the disaster he could’ve prevented. “Okay. I’ll talk to you later.”
“I’ll call you on my drive home.” Colby leaned across the seat and kissed him. It’d take weeks for him to get used to that.
“Sorry to bail. I’ll see you in the morning.” He cupped her face and kissed her deeper, determined to convince her that he was worth her esteem. “Bye.”
“Feel better.” She smiled before exiting the car and climbing into her own. He watched her drive off before going next door to his parents’.
The porch lights were off even though it was getting darker. Tension coiled in his gut as he approached the front door. He knocked before entering. “Mom?”
He wandered from room to room, finding no one. Uneasiness stole through him, but nothing appeared to be broken—at least nothing inanimate.
Colby found her sister lounging in the hot tub with a Moscow mule in one hand and the stereo remote in the other. A pulsing beat and high-pitched vocals blared from the speakers.
“Can you turn that down?” Colby edged a corner of the lounge chair closer to the hot tub.
Gentry lowered the volume. Nodding toward the icy pitcher on the table, she asked, “Want a drink?”
“No, thanks.”
“Your loss.” Gentry’s free hand tapped out the beat on the slate around the hot tub. She’d piled her auburn hair on top of her head and fastened it with some bejeweled hair sticks.
When Colby had been twenty-five, she hadn’t had time for Monday-night hot-tub cocktails. She’d already graduated from law school, been approaching her first wedding anniversary, and just received Mark’s bipolar I diagnosis. It hadn’t been all roses, but she’d had purpose and meaning in her life, and she’d still believed that the love she and Mark felt for each other would be enough.
Hardship had forced personal growth. And no matter how broken Colby might still feel, she’d learned that she was a survivor. But Gentry? She’d never been tested, and Colby wondered how her sister would fare when confronted by real hardship.
“What brings you by?” Gentry’s toes broke through the water. “Dad’s not home.”
“I came to see you.”
Gentry raised a brow. “Something wrong?”
Her sister’s defensive reflexes exhausted Colby, although in this case they were justified. “Must you always jump to negative conclusions?”
“So you came to hang out?” Gentry’s sardonic delivery called Colby out.
“Not exactly,” she admitted. “I wanted to talk, that’s all.”
“I sense a lecture.” Gentry sank deeper into the water, steam rising up to curl her hair. “I don’t need another person telling me that my life is on the fast track to nowhere.”