Dylan (Bachelors of the Ridge #1) (3 page)

“We’re happy for you, son.” He wrapped an arm around my mom’s shoulders and she smiled at me, a bigger and stronger smile that made me breathe a bit easier. “Now, what can we do to help?”

I
t was official
.

If I didn’t get out of my truck in the next thirty minutes, I’d set the damn thing on fire. The eighteen-ish hour drive from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Denver, Colorado ended up taking about twenty-two because my full-size pickup truck hauling the U-Haul trailer wasn’t exactly the speediest mode of transportation in the world.

And through the familiarity of Indiana to Illinois, to the gentle, hilly greenery of Iowa into the flat, brown endless stretches of Nebraska and finally, the also brown, endless stretches of eastern Colorado, I had one companion. The weirdly soothing voice from the GPS on my phone told me to hang a left and then make an immediate right into my destination.

“Thank you, oh dearest love of my life,” I told her. Seriously, I think she kept me sane during the drive considering I had no one to talk to. At one point in Nebraska, I kept singing to her with little to no gratitude from her at my attempts to entertain her.

While I waited for the light to turn green, I leaned forward to look through my windshield, smiling at the Rocky Mountains off in the distance, the jagged peaks that jutted into the sky west of the city. When my cell rang from the console, the movement to the side made a sore muscle twinge in my feeling-very-old back.

I’d barely opened my mouth to say hello before quickly yanking the phone away from my ear.

“Dude,” Garrett bellowed. “What the ever loving hell is taking you so long?”

I waited a moment before bringing it back to my face when he called my name again. “Oh sorry, just preserving my eardrums,” I said, finally able to move when the light changed. “I’m literally thirty seconds away, jackass. Just turned onto Alta Vista.”

He gave a whoop and I laughed, slowing when the entrance appeared on my left. A stacked rock sign, easily over six feet tall, guarded the entrance with scripted metal letters adorning the face of the rocks.
The Ridge at Alta Vista.
Garrett had lived in the same place, a neighborhood association made up of homes and condos and upscale apartments, since I last took a long weekend to visit him, a paltry five years earlier. I told him I’d be at his place shortly, and tossed the phone on the passenger seat before taking a left into the entrance when traffic finally cleared.

Leaning forward again to stretch out my back, the long, curved roads through the development actually gave me an unmanly bout of nerves. I didn’t live in Michigan anymore. Thinking about pulling into Garrett’s driveaway, my temporary landing station until I found a place of my own, it actually dawned on me that this would be
it
. The nerves stretched and grew wings, but not like,
butterflies
or anything. They were bigger, a helluva lot scarier, with spiked, iron edges.

Dragons! Yeah, I had dragons swimming through my gut. Because that felt more masculine to say, that I was suddenly so nervous about that fact that I’d uprooted my life, moved away from my entire family, and it all finally felt real.

The road curved around nicely landscaped condos similar to Garrett’s, some more like giant houses, but all with some sort of natural rock or wood along the front. The development had grown, by a lot actually, since the last time I’d visited.

When I took the second right onto his street, I pulled the truck in front of the driveway and sank back in my seat after throwing it in park. Even though I wanted nothing more than to run screaming from my truck, I shot a text to my mom before I got out, letting her know I’d made it safely. Just as I was tucking my phone into my back pocket, the driver’s side door was wrenched open.

“Welcome to Colorado, dickhead!” Garrett said with a huge smile, then tossed something at me.

The sun made it sparkle as it settled into every nook and cranny on me. And in my truck. “Glitter? Seriously?”

“Not just any glitter,” he said as I picked a piece from my eyebrow. “It’s Denver Broncos glitter. Welcome to the state of actually having a good football team.”

Sure enough, the one I held in my hand was a tiny blue, white and orange Bronco head. It would have been a lot easier if I could have been pissed at Garrett, but it was virtually impossible. So I did the next best thing and grabbed him in a giant bear hug, lifting him up off of his feet and guaranteeing that he got as much glitter on him as I probably had on me.

He shoved at me when I let him go, and the way we laughed set something within me at ease. I hadn’t seen him in five years, and we’d only gone to school together for another five in late middle school, early high school when his family had relocated from Colorado to Michigan for his father’s job.

“Took you long enough,” he said, swiping at the glitter that was still stuck on his forearm.

“As much as I love my truck, and I do, it’s not the fastest for cross country travels. I swear I had semis passing me for a couple hours in Nebraska.”

Garrett laughed as I walked around the front of my truck and stretched my arms above my head. The sun felt amazing, and the heat in the air surprised me for May, especially since you could still see some white on the tips of the mountains.

“Need me to grab anything?”

“Yeah,” I said, then whipped a duffel bag at him, grinning when it caught him on the side of the head.

“Dick.”

“That’s for the glitter, a-hole.” Snagging the strap for my laptop bag and my backpack, I followed him up the driveway, admiring the way the sidewalk up to his front door was neatly landscaped. “You plant flowers now?”

He sniggered and looked over his shoulder. “Anna.”

“Ahh, makes sense.” Anna was his sister, younger than us by a few years. “What’s she up to these days?”

“She’s an interior designer at a firm downtown, still married to the douche, which drives me up a wall, but what can you do?”

We cleared the heavy wood door that led into his condo, and I stopped dead. It looked like I’d walked into a model home done up for a magazine shoot. All granite countertops, dark leather furniture and mahogany wood tables, and pillows. A lot of pillows in large, sturdy chairs.

“Garrett?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you sleep with one of Anna’s coworkers or something?”

He set my bag down just next to the door of the guest room that would be mine until I could find my own place. “You making fun of my place?”

“Nooooo,” I drawled and hooked my laptop bag on onto the back of one of the chairs tucked into the dining table. The immaculately decorated dining room table. “I’m just … having throw pillow envy. Garrett, I gotta tell you, that’s a really masculine shade of blue.”

He flipped his middle finger up at me, something he used to do often in high school.

“Anna,” he sighed and walked past me to open the fridge. “She thinks I’ll find a wife if my place looks nice. Want a beer?”

Even though my mouth watered, I shook my head. “I shouldn’t. I’m gonna take a quick shower and go check out the bar. I’ll take something with caffeine though, if you’ve got it.”

He rolled his eyes, but handed me a can of Coke from the door of the fridge. “I can already tell that your work ethic is going to annoy the shit out of me.”

“Shut up and come help me unhook the U-Haul, then you can be annoyed to your heart’s content.”

* * *

I
didn’t know
whether everyone had the feeling that I was currently experiencing. The feeling that when you visited somewhere new, everything felt nicer than where you came from but that was totally the case on my drive from Garrett’s to The Continental Divide. It just felt nicer than Michigan. The stores and neighborhoods, even the street signs looked foreign in a really exciting way.

The shower had revived me, along with the Coke and a piece of cold pizza, and I felt like I could maybe meet everyone at work and not feel the hangover of a solid day of travel covering me.

When I took a right into the parking lot, the building rose up on the crest of a small hill, all wood beams and field rock. The sharp peak of the front entrance held the metal sign proclaiming the name. It didn’t look like a brand new building, in a really good way; like it had been set there years before and everything grew around it.

At my request, Bill had left my key to the building with Garrett, since I wasn’t positive when I’d be in for the first time. Sure, I probably should have let him know that I would be stopping by, but I kinda wanted to see it without any notice. Using my key to open the heavy front door, I walked into the darkened waiting area and a slow, easy smile spread across my face. If I had to give it a name, I’d say he was going for Industrial Log Cabin as a look, and holy shit, did it work.

The large, curving host stand in the corner was hand-carved mahogany, with a wrought iron light fixture in the shape of a bell and three old-fashioned light bulbs visible through the spindles of metal. Along both walls were heavy benches stretching the length of the area. The floors looked like stained concrete, and they paved the way around the space to two large openings about ten feet apart, both framed with log beams.

Through the right opening, I could hear soft voices talking followed by the high pitched laughter of a woman. The left opening fed through to the family dining room, though that still had wood-framed television screens perched above both of the rock fireplaces that flanked each wall.

While I walked the length of the dining room, I ran my hand along the soft brown leather of the curved booths, each one easily fitting six people and I wanted to crow with freaking happiness. Everything. I loved everything that I touched my eyes on.

The voices in the sports bar grew louder, and I turned when someone walked into the dining area, a petite woman with messy blonde hair and giant brown eyes that widened at the sight of me.

“Umm, hi,” she said cautiously. “We’re actually not open yet.”

I braced my hands on the back of the chair in front of me and her eyes followed the movement. She reminded me of a doe, not sure whether she should bolt in the opposite direction or not.

“I know.”

She pulled up a few inches taller, still so much shorter than me, after I said that so calmly. “We certainly appreciate your interest, but we don’t officially open for another four days. Be sure to come back when we do.”

“I think I’d like to stay,” I said lightly, curious as to how she’d handle me if I really were just someone who wandered in. “It certainly looks like a nice place.”

“It is,” she said in a voice that was kind, but firm. “You’re welcome to check out the menu online or just come on back when we open next week.”

Our eyes held for a second, and when I started smiling, her brows dipped in confusion.

“Man, that’s too bad. I was really hoping to get some food today.”

“Bill?” she called out over her shoulder, keeping a steady eye on me. Inexplicably, and quite inconveniently, it sent lightning skittering down my spine. “You better come in here for a second. I’m about to karate chop this dude’s ass if he doesn’t leave.”

I barked out a laugh and she set her jaw, which made me laugh even harder. She was a solid foot shorter than me, and couldn’t weigh more than a buck fifteen.

Bill walked into the room and smiled at me. “Dylan! Good to see you.”

The girl clapped a hand over her mouth when Bill said my name, pinching her eyes shut. I took his outstretched hand and smiled back.

“This our bouncer?” I asked, jerking my chin at her. By now, she’d covered her face with both hands, peeking out from behind her fingers. Her shoulders shook a little and I could hear muffled laughter, which made me grin in return.

She lowered her hands and gave a pitiful wave in my direction when Bill laughed in response.

“Kat,” she said, cheeks pinking in a blush. “I’m just gonna go hide behind the bar now. Nice to meet you, boss.”

“So,” Bill started once we’d taken a seat, and spread open a folder with a bunch of papers in it. “I was working on staffing before you showed up and what we have left to do before we open on Saturday, which isn’t much. Kat is training the newest server we hired, but we’ll have to wait until we open to see if we’ll need another.”

“Kat? The girl?” I asked. “Is she even old enough to serve drinks?”

Bill coughed out a laugh and pointed a finger at me. “Careful, can’t ask that or we’ll slap you for age discrimination.”

I relaxed a little when he smiled. Because hey, you never know.

Bill shook his head. “You need to relax a little, Dylan. Kat’s in her early twenties. She was in our location down in the Springs for three years, and was going to move up here for a job after she finished school, so I asked if she’d help out with the opening and training some of the new staff.”

“Ahh, okay.” Great start. Insult what sounded like one of his favorite employees.

Bill nodded and we got to work, going over schedules for opening week, deciding what kind of specials we wanted to extend past those first few days, and a couple other things. After we’d finished that, Bill took me around the corner from the restrooms and we walked down a flight of stairs to where the storeroom and a small office was.