AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When I pull away, he gives me a small, happy smile. “What was that for?”
“You’re a good man, Nolan Ellis. It’s been a long time since someone has taken care of me like this.” Not that I would’ve let them if anyone would’ve offered. In my half-asleep state, I didn’t have the wherewithal to deny Nolan from coming over. Granted, I didn’t want to tell him no either.
“You make me want to be better,” he says against my lips before he kisses me again.
I tuck my arm through his and lay my head on his shoulder while I munch on the fucking delicious cookies he made. Before I know it, we’ve watched almost three full episodes of this show, both of us fully engrossed in the drama.
Cody comes bursting into the house, startling me away from Nolan. Sue comes in behind Cody with his backpack and tiny suitcase in her hands. I barely notice Nolan pausing our show.
“Nolan!” Cody jumps up onto the couch on the other side of him. “What are you doing here?”
“I was just keeping your mom company while you were gone. I wanted to make sure she was okay while she wasn’t feeling well.”
Cody nods as if he approves of Nolan’s actions. “Good. I was worried about her being by herself.” He turns to me. “How are you?”
“I’m better. Not quite 100 percent yet, though. How was your sleepover?”
“It was awesome.” Cody dives into story after story of everything he did with Sue. She helps him out when he can’t remember parts of his story, laughter in her eyes. I catch her gaze, and she raises an eyebrow at me and pointedly looks at Nolan. My cheeks flush at her attention. I recognize that this is so far from my typical dating scene that I’m sure she has a million questions. She gives me a look that clearly says we’ll be talking about this later.
I grin at her and nod. Maybe I’ll invite Ellie to come over to talk, too. I’ve been avoiding her because I wasn’t ready to tell her about what was happening between me and Nolan. Mostly because I wasn’t sure if anything actually was happening. I didn’t have the answers to the questions she no doubt had for me. But now that I’ve agreed to do this, I could use a little advice on what the hell is expected of me. It’s been nine years since I last dated a man, and look where that got me. I don’t have a fucking clue as to what I’m supposed to do.
I excuse myself to go to the bathroom. When I’m done, I grab my phone to text Ellie, only to find a voicemail from an unknown number. It’s likely spam, but I listen regardless.
When I hear a voice I never thought I’d hear again, all the blood drains from my face.
“Katherine. I’d like to discuss a few things with you regarding my son. I would appreciate a call back at this number. And if you ignore me, I will make things difficult for you. Keep that in mind.”
The voicemail cuts off, and I stare at the wall in utter shock. I don’t know how long I stand there frozen, but Nolan’s voice yanks me out of the trance I’d fallen into.
“Everything okay?”
I blink a few times. “Uh… yeah. Fine. Just zoned out for a second.” Except, I’m not fine. Not even close. I didn’t think I’d ever have to deal with Bryce again. What the fuck could he want with Cody now? And how am I going to stop him from getting what he wants?
CHAPTER 16
Nolan
Ishuffle the papers across my desk, doing my best to keep them organized. During my first week as the manager at O’Malley’s, Sara came over every day to help me create a system for the paperwork. We color-coded everything and organized the file cabinets to keep me from getting overwhelmed.
At the end of the week, Jimmy came in to do some payroll paperwork and just about fainted in surprise. I was terrified that I’d overstepped, but then Jimmy looked at me and said, “I knew promoting you was the right decision. Before long, you’ll be owning the place, and I can finally retire.”
Since then, he’s given me a few raises for every responsibility he’s added to my plate. I’m running the whole operation for him now. He comes in every few months to check on things and sign off on anything I’m not able to do yet. He’s hinted multiple times about selling the place to me. I’m just too scared to actually take him up on the offer.
He doesn’t seem to be in a hurry right now, and he’s also told me he’d be happy to set up a payment plan when I’m ready. I have no idea when that time will come, though. I’m also aware that the longer I take to pull the trigger, the more likely Jimmy will sell the place to someone else.
I’d die if that happened. Maybe I should talk to Adam about what I should do. He runs his own highly successful company, after all.
I stand from my desk to stretch out my stagnate muscles. I’ve been sitting here for entirely too long without moving. A few years ago, I’d have laughed at you if you told me I’d be able to sit at a desk doing paperwork for hours. It seems that all I needed was the proper motivation to hold my attention for longer than an hour.
I walk out of my office to the empty bar area. We’re always closed on Mondays. It gives my cleaning crew a chance to deep clean the whole place while I catch up on paperwork and do a cursory sweep of inventory.
Tate, one of my other managers, will be in early tomorrow to do a detailed inventory check, but I like to scan over our last inventory count to get an idea of what we’re going to need before I get the final numbers.
A couple of hours later, I’m packing up my stuff to head home. I used to spend way too many hours trying to stay on top of everything. It took an intervention with Adam and Matthew to tell me that it was a futile effort to try to check everything off my to-do list. They helped me to see that the list never ends. As soon as you check one thing off, two more get added. There will never be a time when my to-do list is empty, and I’d only end up burnt out if I made that my goal. Once I learned that lesson, my work-life balance evened out.
My empty apartment greets me, along with the rhythmic thumping coming from my neighbor. They’re either constantly having sex or they’re working out nonstop, but, in the year they’ve lived next door, I haven’t been able to figure out which.
Dropping my keys onto the small entryway table—something I never knew would be so handy. Thank you, Mom—I walk directly into my kitchen. My fridge is bare, as usual, and my pantry has a couple of boxes of cereal and some microwaveable mac and cheese cups. Fuck, I miss having Carter just a couple of streets away. I’d be over at his house in a snap right now.
