Interference: (St. Michaels Duet #1) Read online

  Interference

  Harlow Cole

  Contents

  Prologue

  Batter Up

  1. The End & The Beginning

  2. Finders Keepers

  3. Book Club

  4. Tug-of-War

  5. Go Fish

  Backward K’s

  6. Knuckle Sandwich

  7. Undefined Variables

  8. Hit the Spot

  Curveballs

  9. Hooker Tits & Bad Questions

  10. Licking Guilt

  11. Whiskey Lips, Vampire Kisses

  12. Secondhand

  13. Checkmate

  14. Candy Land

  15. Stay

  16. Garlic & Grief

  17. Short Leash

  18. Mercy Rule

  19. Megawatt

  20. Rhinoplasty

  21. Walking Wounded

  22. Unsolicited

  Foul Territory

  23. Toxic Princess

  24. Prodigy

  25. Fools Rush In

  26. Wasting Away

  27. Misfit Toys

  Squeeze Play

  28. Trouble’s Door

  29. Killing Me Softly

  30. Lucky Bastard

  31. Dirty Secrets

  32. Skills Assessment

  33. Lost Currency

  34. Porn *

  Rain Delay

  35. Space Invaders

  36. Hope and Awe

  37. Stealing Base

  38. Rising Tide

  39. Ballpoint Ink

  40. Numb

  41. Full Circle

  42. Fault Lines

  43. ______ (Speechless)

  44. Cat Vomit & Irony

  45. Drowning

  46. Go

  47. Post-It Apologies

  48. Lined Paper

  Epilogue: 1,427. And Counting

  Stealing Home

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2019 by Harlow Cole

  All rights reserved.

  Visit my website at www.harlowcole.com

  Cover Design & Formatting: Juliana Cabrera,

  Jersey Girl Design, www.jerseygirl-design.com

  Editors: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com

  Marla Esposito, Proofing Style,

  www.proofingstyle.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  To Bill –

  For giving me the chance to fly.

  Interference

  Noun

  In·ter·fer·ence, [in(t)ərˈfirəns]

  : unwanted involvement in the activities and concerns of other people.

  : signals that weaken or block a broadcast transmission.

  : in sports, the act of illegally getting in the way of an opponent.

  Prologue

  All the King’s Horses

  A trio of yacht club princesses were holding court at table ten. The one dipped in diamonds and neon Lilly Pulitzer wanted lemons with her drink. In a dish. On the side. Because, as she’d pointed out, “You people probably never wash them.”

  We washed the lemons.

  The dish and the glass were another story.

  That retort still soured inside my mouth as I stood at the bar filling their glasses. For a moment, I allowed myself to wonder what would it feel like, living a life so pristine, avoiding the taste of ordinary tap water became a real need.

  At the start of our shift, the whole staff had played rock-paper-scissors in the break room to see who would get stuck with the low-tipping Barbie wannabes.

  Stupid paper.

  I should’ve gone with the rock.

  I was already in the mood to break things.

  I’d spent the better part of my afternoon on hold with the health insurance company, trying not to slit my own wrists to the melodious styling of Neil Diamond. After forty-plus minutes of hazing, an agent had confirmed they’d received my appeal. Claim, once again, denied.

  I never had to ask for lemons.

  Life kept tossing them at me, free and unsolicited.

  I placed the water glasses on a tray and started picking lemon wedges from the bowl on the counter, trying to locate the ones with the biggest seeds.

  My quest to find Karma was interrupted by an unwelcome hand slapping my backside.

  “I have a proposition for you.”

  “Not remotely interested.” My well-practiced reply lacked forethought or hesitation.

  “Bitch. You could at least hear me out before you reject me.”

  I didn’t bother looking up.

  Eye contact serves false hope.

  My job only required serving watered down liquor.

  “Come on, give me a chance.”

  “Are there people who still think persistence is a virtue?” I sarcastically asked myself aloud. “My daily quota for short straws is all filled up today,” I added. “Come back tomorrow. Or better yet, pick another victim to harass.”

  “Just listen to me. And don’t freak out.”

  I groaned as I finally turned to face my pint-sized assailant. “My answer was no, Joe.”

  I knew this drill all too well. This scene played out at least twice a week. Joey got a certain glow before unveiling one of her grand plans.

  Chances were slim whatever she had cooked up came attached to a good idea. But, I already knew, turning her down would be hard. Harder even than avoiding the wandering hands and day-drunk eyes of the two hipsters at the end of the bar. They’d already succumbed to my three magic words.

  Not please and thank you.

  The other ones.

  No and fuck off.

  Unfortunately, rejecting my best friend took more than words. It took a whole freaking spell book.

  “Unless you’ve figured out a way to win the lottery, or rob a bank without going to jail, I’m not interested. I’m definitely not covering your tables so you can sneak off with Conner for a quickie in the parking lot. Again.” I snickered as I filled the pocket of my apron with extra straws. “Fool me once, Joey . . .”

  My teasing wasn’t met by one of her typical, sassy retorts. Instead, she turned for a third time to glance back over her shoulder toward the sad excuse for a Friday night crowd. Normally, the bar would’ve been packed with wall-to-wall weekenders, double fisting cocktails and their American Express cards. But this season, too many days of drab, gray skies kept holding the city slickers at bay.

  Joey turned back to look at me. The side of her face was highlighted by the neon strobe of the half-lit Pabst Blue Ribbon sign that hung over the bar. I smiled as I surveyed her against the ridiculous backdrop.

  Joey never wore the standard staff T-shirt, but tonight’s outfit was over the top. Even by her standards. Her hot-pink sundress had layers of billowing lace running down the back, revealing a black leopard-print bra beneath it. Open-toed combat boots were laced up over her ankles, and glitter liner highlighted her eyes.

  This week’s theme must’ve been glam-rock.

  She swore her getups distracted customers from noticing the gaudy fishing nets and plastic crabs stapled to the wood-paneled walls.

  “I was going to suggest you get out of here,” she said, hands on tin
y hips. “I’ll take your tables. None of these collared shirts look like big tippers. We don’t both need to kill our Friday night. You should go look for some fun. You do remember what fun is, right?” She cocked a sculpted brow at me.

  “It’s time to break your vow of celibacy. Go get yourself laid by a Mr. Right For Now. Preferably, one who has a porn-sized cock and enough brain cells to navigate a G-spot.” As she spoke, she kept alternating between looking over her shoulder and nervously pulling at the ends of her fire-engine-red Victoria Beckham bob.

  I didn’t have the guts to tell her I preferred last week’s platinum-blonde extensions.

  When we’d met in seventh grade, Joey’s hair was still an undoctored, shoe-leather brown. As Earth Science partners, we’d both felt morally opposed to keeping our little salamander caged in a tiny glass terrarium. We snuck him out of the classroom in the pocket of her sweatshirt and declared his emancipation in the school courtyard during a private lunchtime ceremony. Our friendship had blossomed from the act of rebellion, and Joey had been coming up with grand plans ever since.

  I frequently got caught in the crosshairs.

  Something about this one smelled fishy though. When Joey concocted a plan, she went all in. She stood next to me now, looking fidgety and anxious.

  Two things firmly against her religion.

  “You’re up to something.” My eyes narrowed as my head tilted to one side. “Why are you trying to get rid of me?”

  “Can’t a girl do something nice without being questioned?”

  I blankly stared back at her.

  Foxy’s Dockside Grille served as a second job for her, too. I put up with having my ass pinched by weekend tourists, so I could help pay the stack of bills Satan kept leaving in the mailbox. Joey was building a nest egg to buy out the salon she managed weekdays.

  She knew I had nowhere else to be on a Friday night. If I wasn’t here, working, I’d be taking care of things at home or down at the marina, holding the family business together with duct tape and a prayer.

  Orgasms didn’t fit into my current lifestyle. Even the no-strings variety. The shiny purple vibrator Joey gave me last Christmas sat stuck in a box in my nightstand—a sad relic of my neglected vagina.

  I needed to work. Plain and simple.

  When my father came back, life would get easier.

  At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.

  Maybe that’s why serving froufrou cocktails and lemon waters, to a table full of city girls in flippy, designer sundresses, irritated the bejesus out of me. I should’ve been out exploring the world, too. Instead, my dreams lay scuttled on the ocean floor, buried somewhere between the eastern shore of Maryland and bright lights of Paris. I’d been left behind, schlepping trays of food and a load of stress I was far too young to be hefting all alone.

  “Joey, I don’t have time for sex. I haven’t even shaved my legs the last two days.”

  She sighed.

  I prepared myself for a lecture on personal grooming habits.

  “Okay, okay,” she said, dramatically holding her hands up in submission. “Plan A is a bust. You couldn’t make this easy on me and listen for once?”

  Joey didn’t usually do testy.

  Her glass stayed half-full.

  “So, here it goes. I’m just gonna rip off the Band-Aid.” She huffed out a breath. “Your past just sat down in Emma’s section. Either you stuff the years of resentment down in those apron pockets or you go ask Johnny for the biggest knife he’s got back in that kitchen. You and I can carve our initials in his balls like we shoulda done a long time ago.”

  “My past?” I pursed my lips in annoyance. “Oh, please. I’m not running from Preston. He needs to leave me the hell alone. How can someone with a trust fund and an Ivy League education be so freaking clueless?”

  Preston Ward Thacker The Third was what we locals unaffectionately referred to as a sunbird. Our little Chesapeake Bay town hosted a flock of them every summer. They came ashore straight from a frat house, with a lifetime supply of pink polo shirts and Axe body spray. They worked callus-free jobs in the upscale restaurants or on glossy charter boats. They drank like professional alcoholics, hell-bent on soaking their livers in memories they could romanticize once adulthood tucked them into beige cubicles at their daddies’ law firms.

  This marked Preston’s third summer pilgrimage. I’d foolishly hooked up with him during his second tour of duty. Evidently, he thought that gave him a season pass to fuck me whenever he pleased.

  Even my vagina wasn’t that hard up.

  His wallet was his largest appendage, and I had no intention of becoming a repeat casualty.

  “No, Ash. Preston the punk-ass, I could handle. Gladly.” She sighed again and then mumbled to herself, “I knew this was gonna happen, and like the train wreck that it is, I just didn’t say anything.”

  Frustrated with her cryptic description, I pushed up onto my toes to see around her. I was still searching for the pencil-dick prepster, so at first, I gazed right past him. But something drew my attention back.

  Poles of a magnet snapped into their natural place.

  My stomach suffered the shock before my brain had a chance to catch up. He looked so casual. Like he belonged. Like he wasn’t completely out of place. He was sitting with someone I didn’t recognize. From the size of his shoulders and similar baseball cap, I assumed it might be a teammate.

  “Oh . . .” My mouth couldn’t form more than that one syllable.

  He looked good.

  Damn him. Of course he did.

  After years apart, it was oddly disorienting seeing someone I once knew so well. At first glance, everything seemed so familiar. The time spread between us withered until it felt like only hours or days had passed since we last stood face-to-face.

  How long had it been?

  For a while, after he left, I’d counted the minutes. Then, the days. Eventually, the weeks and months. After we rounded the year anniversary, keeping track became too painful. With a great deal of effort, I’d forced myself to stop marking time by the void stretched between us.

  So much had happened the last few years. So much had changed in my life. But there he was now, looking very much . . .

  The same.

  I couldn’t fault myself for staring. He still looked like a god. His chest strained against his T-shirt, bragging too much about what lay beneath. His jaw angled sharply into straight-up sin. It had a thick dusting of dark scruff—the kind that made women squeeze their inner thighs together while dreaming of how it would scratch across sensitive skin.

  As he listened to his friend talking, one side of his mouth quirked up into that same old lopsided grin. A bottle of beer pressed to his lips, gripped loosely between his index and middle fingers. The label already curled at the edges. He always slowly peeled the paper away as he nursed a buzz.

  I blinked a handful of times to stave off the moisture building behind my eyes.

  That’s the crazy thing about time, it refuses to stay in the background and play the happy mistress for very long. As my mind courted all the similarities, change stood up, demanding to be noticed.

  The face beneath that scruff-covered jaw was fuller than the one that still occasionally haunted my daydreams. The shoulders that used to carry me caveman-style were bigger, broader.

  This was a man I’d never met, who grew out of a boy I used to know.

  A boy I used to love.

  The cavity between us deepened. The overwhelming sense of loss, that had once tried to swallow me whole, sauntered up into my belly all over again. In dark moments, when I’d allowed myself to think about it, I’d wondered what it would be like to see him again.

  Now, I knew.

  It sucked. Badly.

  I didn’t know the count of days or months anymore, but I knew it had been too long.

  Just when I thought nothing could be worse than the shock of seeing him, he chose to look beyond his friend’s shoulder.

  “Oh, shi
t.” I quickly glanced down, letting my thick, dark hair fall forward to cover my face. “He saw me staring.”

  “It’s okay. Just act natural.”

  She looked over her shoulder in a not-so-stealthy, I’m-going-to-peek-but-please-don’t-notice-me way.

  “What’s he doing? Why the hell is he even here? Shit. What’s going on?” I tried to look up from under my lashes without lifting my head.

  She gripped my shoulders, turning me away so both our backs were to the room. “Listen, this is my fault. I should have warned you. I know you block out all things espin, but, babe, the short version is, Karma finally bit him in the ass. He’s hurt.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “It’s E-S-P-N, Joey. Not espin. And what do you mean, he’s hurt?”

  “He had Bobby Joe Brown surgery,” she said, maniacally waving her hand around in the air and pursing her lips in disgust.

  “You mean, Tommy John.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Basically, his throwing arm is fucked, and the whole world is ending. Everyone thinks he’s ruined the season and cursed babies and banished puppies to hell. It’s all anyone wants to talk about. His team will never win another game. He’s killed the entire dynasty. Those sports-talk guys Conner is always listening to have been endlessly crying about it. It’s sickening.”