Inked Persuasion (Montgomery Ink Fort Collins #1) - Carrie Ann Ryan Page 0,23
then, studied my face and shrugged. “Be safe, Jacob.”
And then my ex-wife walked out of my office. I let my head fall back. Today was a shitty day already, and, honestly, I only had myself to blame for the choices I’d made that led me to this point.
“That seemed fast enough. I didn’t have to get you out for a meeting,” Seressia said, and I growled.
“We’re all out at six. I don’t care what we’re working on. We’ll come back to it tomorrow. I’m pretty sure I’m going to need a drink, and me thinking about it here isn’t going to cut it.”
Seressia grinned as Dustin and Lucas laughed behind her. “You’ve got it, boss.”
They left my office, and I went back to work, trying my best to focus on what I needed to do, rather than the outside world continually trying to drag me back in.
I didn’t love Susan anymore. I hadn’t for a long time. We’d been married for all of two years, and she’d cheated on me in the end. She and Bob had been happy for a split second, though apparently, they weren’t anymore.
Susan had once called me too raw, too angry at life. Said she needed normalcy. Fort Collins would be too ordinary for her. I didn’t know why she had come here, other than to disrupt my life because she didn’t know how to settle herself. Either way, we were two flames that burned too brightly near each other. We didn’t need to be in the same room anymore.
Being combustible meant leaving debris in your path, not a warm and bright glow.
And now, I was getting all poetic about my ex-wife. Time to get to work and focus on what was important. Not my future plans, not my ex-wife, and not a woman with blue eyes who kept haunting my daydreams.
By the time six p.m. rolled around, I was exhausted and really wanted to take off my tie and call it a day. I was true to my word and shoved my staff out the door before they had a chance to complain about it. They worked just as hard as I did, hence why they had disrupted their lives to come up here with me to begin with.
I had a feeling that Lucas and maybe Seressia would head back to Denver after they got a couple of additional years under their belts here and gained experience, but they were here for now, and we had an odd little work-family dynamic.
I looked down at my phone and figured I could eat or go and get that drink. And if I remembered right, Riggs’ had wings. Damn good ones.
Riggs’ was a bar owned by a nice guy. He’d given me a once-over the first time I walked into the place, and I had simply smiled and shaken my head. I wasn’t interested in starting anything, especially not with the bartender I wanted to get to know personally when it came to my drinks.
I tugged off my tie and made my way to Riggs’, grateful that it didn’t seem too busy on a weeknight. Once I got out of the car, I looked down at my slacks, nice shoes, and the button-up shirt I had on and figured I was probably a little overdressed for the place. But I wasn’t about to go home and change. I rolled up my sleeves so my forearms were bare and undid the button nearest my neck. It was the closest I could get to casual. Plus, I didn’t usually wear jeans. It just wasn’t who I was.
I walked in, the sound of music playing and people talking over drinks and food filling my ears. My shoulders immediately relaxed, and I knew I had come to the right place. I needed people around, but I didn’t need to talk to them. Wings and a beer and maybe a whiskey, neat. That’s all I needed.
But then I looked over into the corner, saw a familiar set of people, and ground my molars together.
Of course, they would be here.
The fucking Montgomerys were everywhere.
Chapter 7
Annabelle
“Okay, who is the hottie with that strong jaw?”
I looked over my shoulder, then at my best friend, Brenna, and winced. “That would be my neighbor, Jacob Queen.”
Eliza, my other best friend, gasped. “That’s Jacob Queen?”
I sighed and took a deep gulp of my beer.
“I love that whenever we talk about him, we always use both of his names. And someone always says that Jacob Queen. Like a title.”