Sail (Wake #2) by M. Mabie Read Free Book Online Page A

accounts just seemed to grow and push east through the country. I was proud of the work I’d done over the last few years, but if I ever had to do that much paperwork again, I was quitting and going back to the brewery floor. Projections. Gain reports. Loss business reports—luckily those were few. Travel expenses. Donations. Samples. Write-offs. Blah. Blah. Fucking blah.
    I needed a vacation.
    It was just after six thirty while I was scanning the last of my account reports to myself, standing by the copier, when I texted her.
     
    Me: I hate paperwork.
    Me: My head hurts and I need a beer.
     
    By the time I stapled the hard copies in organized groups and got back into my office, I finally felt my phone vibrate in my pocket.
     
    Honeybee: Work was crazy here, too. I know I was just off for a few weeks, but I need a vacation. That would only make everything worse though.
     
    Or would it? Things were slower around the brewery during January, and with opening up a few new production lines, we were caught up having the holidays behind us.
    Maybe a vacation was a good idea.
    I wondered if she’d go for it. I sat at my desk and immediately began a search. It was winter. So almost anywhere in the US would be cold, which boded well for indoor activities, but I was suffering a bout of cabin fever on top of everything else.
    I hastily made a list of priorities: sand, water, Blake in a bikini, taking Blake’s bikini off, beers—we must have beers. Then I was sidetracked and opened a bottle—one of the new test brews I had in my mini-fridge—and set back to the task at hand.
    Hawaii? No.
    Bahamas? No.
    Mexico? No.
    Then, I saw a picture. It looked like paradise. Beaches. Waterfalls. Private hot tubs near the ocean. Yep. I was fucking sold. I needed that. She needed it just as bad.
    She’d told her parents a few nights before. Everything. From the first night through to the wedding, and everything that led to New Year’s Eve. She’d called me right after, and I was shocked when she didn’t seem too upset. She’d admitted she was relieved. Even though they weren’t exactly impressed with how much she’d kept to herself and how she’d treated Grant, they couldn’t argue with her not being in love with him. They supported and comforted her, saying that if her heart wasn’t there, then it just wasn’t. They invited her to stay at their house until she got it all figured out.
    She didn’t get overly emotional when she retold me how it went down, until she got to the part where her mom said that she’d always wished she’d talked to Blake more before the wedding after what she’d heard us say.
    “My mom feels bad she didn’t make me talk to her that day. But she thought that since I told you to leave, I wanted to marry Grant. She said she hadn’t heard everything we’d said to each other, only the louder parts, but assumed if I really didn’t want to get married, I would have called it off,” Blake had explained. Looking back, it would have been confusing had she not heard the quieter things we’d confessed to each other that shitty day.
    Blake said that had been the hardest part, but it was like a fog had lifted while talking to them and being honest about what she really wanted. They just wanted her happy.
    She only talked to Grant via email. Knowing what I did about how they communicated, and how conversations happened more between their inboxes anyway, it was nothing new. Apparently, her message was brief, saying she was moving out and she, her dad, and Shane would be by later in the week to get most of her things.
    She told me that finding an apartment was on her shortlist of tasks to do. I wanted her to come here. I said that I’d help her, but she maintained she was going to get an apartment until everything was final.
    I didn’t like that, but as we’d never really dated publicly, and I hadn’t even met her parents, I couldn’t really ask her to move in, even though that was what I’d wanted most.