Page 44 of Rumor Has It

“I’ll catch you later, Hatcher!” Thorton calls after me with a chuckle, to which earns him the bird. Yes, I flip him off as I walk through the front entrance. It’s California, anything goes here.

“Son of a bitch!” I slide into my waiting car, slamming the door before my driver can close it. “I hate that motherfucker!”

“I’m sorry about that, sir,” Derick, my driver, says as he climbs in the driver’s seat. “I did text you.”

“It’s okay.” I lay my head back, trying to rid myself of him. “I left my phone on my desk. I’m such an idiot.”

He glances at me in the mirror. “If I may, he deserved it.”

“And so much more, fucker.”

“You said that already.” Derick chuckles.

I rub my chin, laughing. “So I did, and so he is.”

“The office, sir?” he asks with a smile.

“Will you ever just call me Boone?”

He shakes his head. “Probably not, sir.”

“The office, and I’m gonna have to change that.”

He cracks up at my accent. “You can take the boy out of the country…”

“But you’ll sure as hell never take the country outta this boy.” I straighten my jacket when he laughs. “Reed brings the worst out of me. It’s not like I don’t know it, but I can’t control my reaction to him.”

“If I may?” He stretches his neck, peering at me. I nod. “Don’t worry that you respond to him; worry when you stop responding.”

His words hit me hard. “Meaning?”

“You’ve stopped caring about what’s making you feel bad.” He cocks his brow, waiting for me to understand. I understand. It hit too close to home for me not to.

“Remind me…” I stare out the window as memories flood my mind. “I owe you a drink.”

“No, sir.” He pauses until I look at him. “You owe it to yourself.”

We both know he’s talking about so much more than Thorton or drinking, but today’s not the day to figure any of that out. It doesn’t stop me from thinking about it all the way back to the office.

Derick’s been our firm’s driver since I moved here, but I only started using him in recent years. He’s a big guy, brawn and brains. He’s also a good friend; we’ve grown close over the years.

Ten years, twenty-five hundred miles, many nights spent alone, and I’m dragged back to the hellish nightmare that’s my life and the one that got away. I stayed in Burbank after graduating law school. There was nothing to go back home to.

When my dad started this business, he wasn’t sure I’d want to be in entertainment law, but he was thrilled when I told him at a twelve, this is what I wanted to do.

He was already commuting from Cherry Grove to Burbank, his home office is small, but the this one in California is big enough for a team of attorney’s, still it’s just ‘Hatcher and Son’.

I’ve wanted to go home, but it would never be the same without her being there, and I’d probably make more trips to Fayetteville than most people would think was healthy.

A lifetime away still does nothing for the heart. Some say time heals all wounds; apparently, they’ve never had their heart ripped out, because time hasn’t done a thing for me but make me bitter and even more angry.

By the time we get back to the building, I’m a livid mess. Angry at everything and everyone. I storm past the receptionist and into the waiting elevator. Ten years and I can’t even get away from it.

The doors open with a ping on my floor, and I step out with tunnel vision, heading into my office. I hurry past Tina, my secretary, as the phone rings. I toss my briefcase across the room to a waiting chair, and make a bee line to the bar.

“Mr. Hatcher,” Tina says through the intercom as I pour my drink.

I hurry over, hitting answer. “Yes?”