Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 116455 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 582(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116455 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 582(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
I grinned up at him, only paying attention to half of what he was saying. I loved knowing JT was my person at home and in my heart—the guy I got to eat dinner with every night, whether it was sandwiches in my office at the Tavern at the end of a long workday, or rutabaga-dogs at a cookout at the Retreat, or excruciating prime-rib feasts at the club while Patricia tried to give me remedial lessons in navigating high society—but it was a special kind of thrill that I got to share my business with JT, too.
As Honeybridge Meadery’s new chief distribution and revenue officer, JT was already making things happen. He’d taken over the Ren Faire negotiation as soon as Brew Fest was over, and he’d scored us a way better deal than I ever would have been able to do on my own. He was also busy handling his own clients at Rainmaker Holdings, with Alice at his side.
Even though it had only been six weeks since coming home from Brew Fest, JT already had contractors at the former Hornrath Chair Company building, giving us estimates on the work needed to get the new meadery production-ready. It left me able to do the supply sourcing, keep the Tavern itself running smoothly, and give JT insight into his clients’ businesses based on my own experiences.
It turned out dismantling my defenses and letting JT in had made my life and my business stronger and more fulfilling. Who’d have thought?
He stopped talking midsentence. “What’s that look for?”
“Look?” I asked innocently. “Which look?”
“The look that says you’re madly in love with me and want to get me alone so you can take me apart piece by piece.” He turned his back to the crowd of guests and not so subtly adjusted his pants.
“Oh, that look.” I gave him a wicked, promising grin. “Was I giving you that look?”
“Drink up, Flynn,” he growled. “We’re leaving in an hour, tops.”
“Your mother’s never going to let you leave that soon,” I reminded him. “Any good-son points you earned by moving home were wiped out when you presented her with that bouquet from Willow’s cutting garden.”
JT snickered, and the sound went down deep in my belly. His happiness turned me on no matter where we were.
“The look on her face when I handed it to her was worth the bee sting I got assembling it,” he said before raising his voice into a semi-impressive Patricia Wellbridge accent. “Jonathan, darling, where in the world did you acquire this… wilderness hodgepodge?”
“She told me the arrangement was the ‘prettiest thing she’d seen since the spectacle Willow concocted for Box Day, Flynn.’” I shook my head fondly. Patricia was a connoisseur of the backhanded compliment. I was learning so much from her. It was much easier now that I understood snide comments were her love language. “I think Rosalia will like the flowers, though, and you and I both knew she’d be the one who ended up with them in the end.”
JT dropped the teasing tone. “That woman deserves all the flowers. She’s doing the lord’s work by staying here with my mother despite socking away money all these years. I don’t know how she puts up with… Oh! Senator Coglin.” He turned toward the older man with a friendly smile. “Nice to see you, too, sir. Have you met my partner, Flynn Honeycutt?”
If I could go back in time and tell the Flynn Honeycutt of a year ago just how hard my belly would flip to hear Jonathan Turner Wellbridge call me his partner, in any sense of the word, the old me would die a thousand deaths. But the two of us together was a potent kind of magic… and I was pretty sure I’d always recognized that truth, no matter how long and fast I’d tried to run from it.
It wasn’t that he completed me, or made me whole, or gave my life meaning, or any of that sentimental bullshit. I wasn’t one of Pop’s bargain-basement jigsaw puzzles with a missing piece, and neither was JT. But the way he supported and infuriated me, comforted and teased me, cared for me and saw me, made me more confident in myself than ever.
For the first time in my life, I truly felt like the Firecracker Pop had nicknamed me for, loud and colorful, shining bright, because there was no need to hide any part of myself. JT knew all the worst parts about me and loved me not in spite of them but because of them.
And if I ever tried to run from the scary, overwhelming happiness we’d found together, I knew without a doubt that he’d drag me back.
As soon as we finished our polite chitchat and Senator Coglin wandered off to find someone else to bore with his stories, I turned to JT. “I remembered to ask the man about his equestrian daughter and his interest in breeding Norwegian Lundehunds, plus managed to discuss your mother’s new yogaerobics studio with a straight face. That makes at least three blowjobs you owe me. Good ones. Not the quickie morning ones when I’m already hard for you.”