Teyler laughs from the pit of his stomach. Yeah. This guy is all right.
They pull up at the B and B and Callan jumps out of the car. He pulls what looks like oven mitts to Teyler from his back pocket and puts them on before lifting the door to the man cave. That’s when Teyler sees a flying ball of fur, wearing a red hoodie and what appears to be yellow rain boots, leap into the air and Callan’s arms.
There are two men inside, Elliot Montgomery and Ace Lyons who welcome Teyler into the fray while only mildly acting starstruck as Callan takes the dog with him to hide Teyler’s car in the extra garage around back.
“That’s Beast,” the owner of the B and B informs him. “It’s my sister-in-law’s dog that she rescued from a life on the streets.”
“Why am I picturing him in a biker gang wearing leather?”
“Because he has that exact outfit,” Ace Lyons says with a laugh, and Jenny’s posted him wearing it on her Instagram account.
The door to the man cave opens and Callan enters with Beast under his arm, holding him by his oven mitted hand.
“What’s up with the mitts?” Teyler asks.
“I don’t like animals,” Callan states. “They have germs.”
“He’s in love with that dog,” Elliot whispers.
“Almost as pathetic as Jenny,” Ace adds.
“I hear both of you dicks. You’re both wrong…and assholes.”
The men spend a few moments enjoying their beers while asking Teyler about his career and the injury that ultimately ended it and brought him back to Falls Village. He tells them about how his knee was weak, had been his Achilles heel for years, but he doesn’t tell them how that came to be the first time he was in Falls Village and spent his summer with a beautiful blond-haired girl.
Then a ruckus from the pool area is heard—, female laughter and male grunting—and the men make eye contact.
“Falls Village really is going through some changes.” Teyler laughs. “It wasn’t like that,” he nods to the pool area, “when I was here last.”
Callan rolls his eyes. “That’s just Jordan trying to get me jealous. I’ll just go have a look to check it out.”
As Callan goes to do just that, Elliot and Ace fill Teyler in on their quirky friend.
“He’s the best at his job,” Ace Lyons begins. “Loyal to a fault and dedicated so much so, he’s recently just fucked up the only relationship he’s ever had.”
Elliot clears his throat. “Excuse me, he almost fucked us up.”
Teyler lifts an eyebrow. Neither man seem gay, but…
Elliot chuckles. “Not like that. Long story. Doesn’t matter now, we’re fine, but he and Jordan are far from being fine.”
The men hear a splash, barking, female screeching, and a pissed off Callan. Then Elliot and Ace fall into a fit of giggles fit for a twelve-year-old pack of girls.
“What’s going on?” Teyler asks.
“Callan is having his ass handed to him by a girl for acting like a douche and dumping her by text.”
Teyler stands to get a better look at the door, but a soaking wet, bitching Callan Black comes storming through with a barking Beast on his heels.
“What the fuck happened now?” Ace asks with a laugh. “I need to move here. This is too good to miss on a daily basis.”
Callan sends him the middle finger then screeches worse than a little girl when Beast shakes his wet fur and splashes the moisture onto his legs. “Motherfucker!” Callan swears. “Dog germs!” He runs in a circle until Elliot tosses him a towel.
“And I should be confident in him to keep me safe from the masses if they find out where I am?” Teyler asks.
“Oh, yeah. He’s fine with killing people, it’s animals and germs he can’t handle. So as long as your fans aren’t canines, you’ll be fine.”
“If I land in that motherfucking pool because of that girl one more fucking time this summer, I’m going to…”
“What?” Elliot asks. “What exactly will you do to Jordan?”
“I don’t know.” Callan groans as he pulls his extra pair of clothes, kept there for this reason, out of the drawer in the armoire against the wall. “I can tell you what I want to do, and it involves my knee and my hand smacking her bare ass.”
“My playroom is almost done,” Elliot states.
“Playroom?” Teyler asks. “You spank your child in their playroom and are offering it to him to spank his ex-girlfriend? Wow! Falls Village has changed more than I thought.”
Elliot moves to stand beside Teyler and throws an arm around the man. “I don’t have kids yet, just got my girl to marry me. Ace has an infant, and no, nobody is spanking their child. My playroom is for Adams and me to play in…sexually.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Teyler smiles. “Definitely has changed around here.”
The guys are able to calm Callan down enough that they’re able to spend a few hours hanging out and shooting the shit as they often enjoyed doing, but then Callan needed to get back to his apartment and plot out his plans to get Jordan back.
“Can Tey stay here until I figure something out?” Callan asks. “With the Colleen connection he decided to just drop on me,” Callan glares at Teyler, “staying at my place probably isn’t the best option.”
Teyler rolls his eyes.
“Sure,” Elliot says then sweeps his arm across his body and turns to Teyler. “My man cave is all yours. I mean, unless you’d rather my sex room.”
As the other men laugh, Callan promises Teyler that he’ll be back in the morning with a better long-term solution for housing before heading back to Colleen’s place.
Boy, does she have some explaining to do, but when Callan arrives back home, he finds the shop closed for the night. He finds it odd because Colleen usually stays well into the evening tidying up and getting ready for the following day. He shrugs, figuring the remodel has her changing her schedule. It bothers him, he’s a creature of habit, but he also welcomes the chance to do a little research on his new client.
He knows Colleen will not be happy with his meddling or the fact that his research includes her past, but Callan had an overwhelming need for information, and he knew there was a story here. Teyler refused to share any more than the fact that he knew Colleen from the summer of 1992 when he was in Falls Village on vacation with his family. He told the guys they fell out of touch once he left and he’d love to reconnect with his old friend.
Old friend, Callan’s ass. He’d seen the look on Teyler’s face every time he said Colleen’s name. It was the same he had on his when Jordan entered his mind. So, pretty much all the time.
Callan hadn’t expected the story to be so difficult to unravel, but after a few hours of Internet surfing, note taking, and his brain working overtime, he had pieced it all together. And boy, was he right. Colleen has a lot of explaining to do. Friend, his fucking ass, for sure.
He tries to confront her the following evening after a long Fourth of July spent at the B and B where Teyler holed up in the man cave while he was tortured by Jordan and her need to punish him for his breakup by text blunder.
Callan plops down at the counter that once was the checkout desk and smiles when Colleen hands him a cup of her new specialty tea. “Spill the tea, Callan,” she demands, needing some input on her new specialty item. “You look worse than me. Jordan again?”