Searching for Neverland (33 page)

I turned to face him. “It’s moving day, and Al is obviously upset. Be nice to her.”

“Why is she upset?” He looked extremely confused.

“Because she’s moving out. We’ve been roommates for eleven years. It’s the end of an era.”

He looked even more confused. “She has ‘lived here’ in the loosest sense of the term for the past six months. I’m not even sure what she has to move out since she’s pretty much taken everything to Corey’s already.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re a guy. You wouldn’t understand, but today’s a sad day – for both of us. Just, please apologize to her and try to be nice.”

Josh looked at me like what I was asking caused him physical pain. “Fine, whatever.”

“I’m getting up, okay,” I told him.

His arms grabbed me and pulled me tightly against him. “Would you be sad if I moved out?”

I paused and searched his eyes for the hidden meaning. I’d been wondering when he was going to bring up our living situation now that we were together. I knew co-habitation freaked him out, so I was sure he was going to suggest an alternative option. Maybe down the road we could live together again.

I nodded, trying to mask my emotions but be honest at the same time. He leaned forward and kissed my nose.

“Is this your way of telling me you’re going to start looking for an apartment?”

He reeled back in surprise. “What? No. Why would you think that?”

I took a deep breath and explained my reasoning.

He shook his head. “Tay, I was just joking. I told you the other day that I was serious about us, and I meant it. Unless you’re freaked out by the fact that we’re starting a relationship and living together, I don’t really want
to
change things. Do you?”

I leaned forward and kissed the bare skin of his chest. It felt like a giant weight had been lifted from my shoulders. “No, I don’t.”

“Okay. Then it’s settled,” he said, and deftly rolled on top of me. He kissed me once, and I felt his erection growing against my thigh. “What do you think the chances are of me getting some this morning?”

I started to answer him that his chances were very good, but a loud noise from Allison’s room forced us both to look toward the closed door. We heard Corey say something to her and she snapped at him.

I looked back at Josh. “Raincheck?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I’ll go talk to her.”

For as tough as Allison came across, she was also equally sensitive, and we both knew it.

* * *

“Hey,” Josh said into his cell phone, plugging his ear with his finger so he could hear better.

I looked over at him, wondering who could be calling or better yet, why he was even answering his phone. We were at dinner with Allison and Corey – a little thank you to us
for
spending the day helping move them into the new house they were renting together.

Josh didn’t usually answer his phone when we were out unless it was something important, but maybe it was Brad and there was an issue at the bar. I watched him intently as he listened, and then his face drained of all color.

“What?!” he growled, and his whole body went rigid.

I had immediate visions that the place was on fire or we’d been robbed or a fight had broken out and someone had gotten killed. My mind was racing as every crazy scenario that I imagined could happen in a bar was going down in the place I’d just purchased. Good thing we had insurance.

I noticed around the table that all eyes were on Josh. I looked at Allison in question, and she just shrugged.

“Okay. I know. Just stay calm. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He ended his call and blinked a few times as if he needed to get his bearings.

“Josh?” I questioned, not sure what was going on.

He looked up at me for a split second, blinked a few more times, and shook his head as if trying to wrap it around something.

I put my hand on his arm in an effort to calm him down.

He looked up at me in surprise, almost as if he hadn’t expected to see me there, and I wasn’t sure what was going on. I was starting to freak out a little.

“I-I have to go,” he finally stuttered, as he glanced around anxiously at Allison and Corey.

“You okay, man?” Corey asked, but Josh ignored him.

He just pulled out his wallet, threw enough money on the table to cover our drinks and headed for the door. I jumped out of my chair and ran after him.

When I caught up to him on the sidewalk, I put my hand on his shoulder, and he jumped a mile.

“J, what is going on?”

He ignored me and threw his hand up to a passing cab. The cabbie saw him and swerved over to curb. Josh put his hand on the door handle, yanked it open and got into the backseat, so I followed him.

“Airport,” Josh shouted to the cabbie, and the guy abruptly pulled away from the curb, slamming me against the backseat.

Airport? What the hell was going on?

I reached over to Josh to gain some support, my hands encircling his bicep. He looked at me in bewilderment, and it took his eyes a few seconds to focus. “Taylor, what are you doing?”

I looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean, what am I doing? Josh, what the hell is going on? Why are you going to the airport?”

He shook his head. “I have to take care of something. Something happened.”

“What do you mean? What happened?”

At least it wasn’t something with the bar.

He took a deep breath and shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Shit,” he said, as his head dropped into his hands.

“Josh, where are you going?”

He raised his head and looked out the window for a second before leaning forward toward the driver. “Can you go any faster?”

“Only a little bit. I don’t want to get a ticket,” the cabby answered in accented English.

“Josh!” I said, louder this time because he still hadn’t answered me.

He was punching things into his cell phone at a rapid-fire pace. I could see he was on an airline website.

“Joshua Nolan!” I practically screamed.

His head snapped up. “Atlanta. I have to go to Atlanta.”

So he had heard me. He was just ignoring me. Great.

In my bag, my phone was beeping like crazy, and I knew it was Allison. She was as concerned as I was, but I couldn’t answer her just then.

“What is in Atlanta? That’s the third time you’ve been there this summer.”

“I have to take care of something, okay?”

“Is it Carlie?” I demanded, and he didn’t answer me. “Josh, why are you keeping secrets?”

Dread filled my gut. I could feel the tiniest of pinpricks along the back of my eyes, and I wondered how I could go from being someone he couldn’t get enough of to, basically, an afterthought since had I not followed him into the cab, he would have left me at the restaurant.

And then it was like he suddenly realized how he was acting. I don’t know if he saw the fear or the concern that was written all over my face or if he realized I was about to cry, but he reached out and pulled me into his arms. He took a few steadying breaths, and I knew he was trying to keep it together.

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry,” he said, as his lips met my forehead. “I can’t go into the details, but Carlie’s in a lot of trouble, and I need to get there. I have to help. It’s not good.”

“When will you be back?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. A few days, hopefully.”

We made it to the airport in record time, and Josh moved to get out of the cab as soon as it stopped, releasing me in the process. I watched him, wondering how everything that had been so perfect was suddenly falling on its head, and I didn’t have the faintest idea why. But I knew it had nothing to do with me, and that at least brought me some sort of comfort.

He swallowed hard and seemed to compose himself. “I love you,” he said, straining to sound normal. He sounded anything but. “I’ll pay the driver enough for you to get back home or back to the restaurant.”

“Will you call me?”

“I’ll try.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

He shook his head. “No. Thank you, though.”

Then he leaned forward and kissed me, and it was the strangest, most gratifying, confusing kiss I’d ever received. And it was over far too soon. Josh was out of the cab before I could even open my eyes. When I did, he was walking away from me and into the terminal of the airport.

I slunk back against the seat and watching until he disappeared.

Chapter 19

“Okay, so I’m thinking if you can shut down for three weeks we’ll be able to lay down the hardwood floors, paint, and refinish the bar. We can also do some of the minor work on the back patio, but if you want us to do anything more out there, it might be longer. Taylor?”

“Hmm?” I asked, snapping back into the moment where Sean was talking to me. I had completely zoned out as I’d been watching his lips move and not really following what he was saying.

He sighed. “Tay, are you paying attention?”

My shoulders slumped. “No, I’m sorry. I’m not. What were you saying?”

“I was talking about shutting down for three weeks to do the remodel. You’re still cool with that, right?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” I said, repeating what Josh and I had talked about.

I’d hoped he’d be back for the final walk through of the plans, but he wasn’t, and I hadn’t even heard from him. It had been two days. And I was a lovely mix of pissed off and worried and insecure, and I hated it. I was not this girl.

“Do you want to explore what we talked about in regards to expanding the bar itself?”

I bit my lip. Josh and I had talked about extending the bar to wrap around
in an L-shape
. It would add more seating, but it would take away from the tables. Our other option had been to put in pool tables and dart boards using that same space and add high-tops nearby.
Leanna
had drawn up several designs for us to peruse as we made our decision, but we hadn’t come to a conclusion by the time Josh had bolted on me.

“What do you think Josh would want to do?” I asked Sean.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s your partner. What do you think?”

“I have no clue. He’s the one with the experience in this field. I have only frequented bars in the past. I’m new to this owning/running gig. Cole, did he indicate to you what he might have wanted?”

Cole looked up from where he was standing, reviewing the blue prints he’d drawn up for the remodel.

“I haven’t talked to him about it,” Cole said, not bothering to look over at us.

I looked back at Sean. “Is he okay?” I whispered, and Sean shook his head. “Have they talked?”

“I don’t think so,” Sean told me. “But since they’re both my best friends, I’m trying to stay out of it.”

I sighed. I hated that Cole and Josh weren’t speaking. It made the dynamics of our close knit group extremely awkward. Maybe I could convince Josh to reach out to him when he got back from Atlanta –
if
he got back from Atlanta.

Maybe I’d be on my own with this bar thing after all. And if that was the case, I didn’t need Josh to weigh in.

“What would you pick,” I asked Sean.

“Well, it depends on the kind of establishment you want to run. I know Stu wanted this place to be traditional. He felt like a bar should be for drinking and eating, but you might draw more people if you added some pool tables and dart boards. Personally, I feel like pool tables might not create the classiest vibe, though, so I’d vote no on them.”

I sighed. “What would you pick, Cole?”

I figured asking Josh’s closest friends their opinion was just like asking him. “I think as long as you don’t add those cheesy-ass video games on the bar, you’re good.”

And he was a world of help. We weren’t even considering adding those game consoles or any video games for that matter.

“Okay, let’s do this,” I said confidently, as I turned back to Sean. “Extend the bar, and we’ll use remaining space for couches and arm chairs and a gas fireplace. What do you think of that? Is a gas fireplace do-able?”

Sean grinned. “I think we can make it work. I know a guy who specializes in those. Good choice. I think it’ll class up the joint.”

“Thank you,” I said, fighting the urge to take a bow. “Now let’s talk about the back deck and the apartment upstairs. If we stay closed for four weeks, what can we do out there, because I really envisioned a stage for live music, and I know we’d like to do something upstairs since neither of us plans to live there.”

My uncle had lived above the bar for years, but neither Josh nor I had a desire to do that when I owned the house we lived in that was
a hundred
feet from the bar.

“Why don’t you turn it into a room that people can rent out for parties, like a banquet room, only smaller,” Cole suggested.