After the Climb (River Rain #1) - Kristen Ashley Page 0,19
dream to reach than Genny’s dream of making a career of being an actor.
And that was when Corey struck.
Fucking hell, that guy had known precisely what he was doing.
Further, from that very night he slept without her for the first time in over a year, to what he had to admit was now, it had haunted him, like the ghost of a shackle cuffed to his ankle, one he had no hope of losing, that what had actually happened was what Harvey just said.
He’d jumped right on what Corey told him so he could set Genny free.
Free of the burden of him.
Free so she could be all she was supposed to be.
“Am I gettin’ in there?” Harvey asked with mouth full.
“You’re an asshole,” Duncan replied, and shoved more food in.
“In this instance, I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Duncan’s phone vibrated in his breast pocket.
He reached in, pulled it out and saw it was a text from Chloe.
She had his number because she’d confiscated his phone, demanded his passcode, and she was Genny’s girl.
For the life of him, he could not refuse her.
He didn’t and she’d texted herself from his phone
So now he was open game.
He sighed before he read the text,
Plan in place. Noon thirty, El Gato. Our partner in crime knows what to do.
“Shit,” he murmured.
“What?” Harvey asked.
“Chloe, she’s full steam ahead.”
“And?”
“She wants me at El Gato at twelve thirty.”
“I could use some beef pinchos,” Harvey declared before shoving more food in his mouth.
Duncan stared at him a beat before he stated, “If I go, you are not going with me.”
“I totally am,” Harvey declared in return.
“Bud—”
“And you’re going.”
“Har—”
Harvey put his hands, still holding fork and knife, to the table and gave Duncan his full attention.
“Jesus, Bowie, you know I’m gonna tell Beth all this shit and you know she’s all romantic and you know she loves you like a brother and you know she’s gonna lose her shit if she finds out I didn’t get your ass to El Gato at twelve thirty. And last, you know she’s gonna ride my ass if you balk and keep ridin’ it until I get your shit together. So throw a man a bone, please. I don’t need her nattering in my ear, and you don’t need Beth wading into this situation.”
One thing in all of this Duncan did know.
That was the truth.
With less bullshittery, Harv asked quietly, “Seriously, my man, what will it hurt?”
“It might hurt her,” Duncan said.
“I see this as a concern,” Harvey allowed.
“I think Corey and I have done enough, don’t you?” Duncan asked.
“Corey, yes. You…”
Harvey looked him straight in the eye.
And lowered the hammer.
“Not even close.”
Doing what he did to Genny.
Walking away from her.
Not reaching out for twenty-eight years, if only to reestablish some connection after all they’d been to each other.
What Harvey said was another thing in all of this Duncan knew.
His friend was right.
Chapter Five
The Lunch
Imogen
“Are you high?”
Heddy’s voice was rising.
“Keep it down,” I hissed, not a fan of any scene, but definitely not one that involved me.
Already, I’d noticed one person not-quite-surreptitiously holding their phone pointed our way.
One thing in this life I knew for certain.
The advent of phones with cameras sucked.
“He told…the man…you loved…the man… you grew up with…as your best friend…the man…who you gave…your virginity to…the man…”
She was stuttering all William-Shatner-like, I could tell it pained her, it was paining me too, thus I had to stop her.
“Yes, that man,” I confirmed. “And yes, he told him what I told you he told him.”
And sitting on the patio of El Gato Azul, I was seeing that Corey’s final fuck-you was going to have long-lasting effects.
I was also debating whether or not I’d tell Trisha and Scott that evening.
Scott would blow his stack.
Trisha would lose her mind.
They would both be hurt if I didn’t share, because I knew they were already more than their usual keen for this visit, seeing as they were worried about me due to the fact Corey committed suicide.
But I was done living Corey’s latest betrayal.
I’d had long enough of that, thank you very much.
Even if, until recently, I didn’t know it was happening.
“And that man barricaded you into his office with his body saying you needed to talk things out, and you left?”
“Heddy, what he wanted to talk out was a long time, a career, a husband, and three kids ago,” I pointed out.
“Ohmigod,” she breathed. “Again, are you high?”
I sat back in my metal chair on the crowded patio and sighed, all while reaching to my