“Excuse me, sir. Is there a problem?”
I looked straight into the eyes of the man that had walked up.
“Are you Brad?” I asked.
“I am.”
“Are you the man that fired Michelle for screwing around with some guy?”
I watched him steel his eyes as Cecily took a step behind him.
“We let Miss Danforth go because of the distraction she caused. The reason for that distraction doesn’t matter. What mattered was that my business was suffering because of it.”
I stepped up to him, going toe to toe with the man that had thrown Michelle out on her ass. And I realized how much I resembled him. I’d tossed her out on her ass as well. Maybe not literally, like Andy. But metaphorically, I had. I wanted to slug him. I wanted to break his jaw and leave him writhing on the floor.
But that action would only serve to make me a hypocrite.
“I think you need to leave and stop harassing my employees,” he said.
My eyes dropped to Cecily as a mischievous grin crossed her cheeks.
“Your business doesn’t suffer because of women like Michelle,” I said, as I took a step back. “Your business suffers because it’s in Stillsville.”
“Get out, and don’t bother coming back,” he said.
I shook my head as a grin crossed my cheeks. Holy hell, it felt good to finally tell this bullshit town how I felt about it. I walked out of the diner with yet another Stillsville establishment I couldn’t walk back into and it felt great. Laughable, even. I was constantly invited to the most exclusive and luxurious parties that took place around the globe, but I couldn’t eat at a two-star diner in Hicksville.
I chuckled as I got into my convertible and peeled away from the parking lot.
Next, I headed to Andy’s place. My last-ditch effort to figure out where the hell Michelle had gotten off to. But I also had a few words for him as well. If Michelle had been dicking around behind my back, then he would most certainly know where she ran off to. I pulled up to his place and didn’t bother knocking on his front door. I pushed right on inside and started stepping on cardboard boxes and stray empty cans of beer. Andy was slouched on the couch, drunk. With vomit hanging from his mouth. I grimaced and walked over to the couch, turning him over on the side so he didn’t choke himse
lf to death.
“Michy?” Andy slurred. “That you?”
I snickered and shook my head as I tapped Andy’s cheeks.
“Wake up,” I said. “Gotta ask you something.”
“Michy?”
“No, asshole. It’s Gray.”
“Come back, Michy.”
His eyes didn’t even open. The man was practically incoherent. Snores fell heavily from his lips, but I didn’t like what he’d said before that. Come back? Did that mean Michelle had left him as well? Shit.
Was she really not in Stillsville any longer?
I walked around the pathetic excuse for a duplex, trying to eye any evidence of Michelle’s existence. I found dirty ass boxers and vomit pooled in corners that hadn’t been cleaned up. A disheveled bed that looked as if it had been urinated on and a bathroom that sure as hell hadn’t been cleaned in weeks.
But there was no sign of any woman around.
I opened every cabinet and pulled back every curtain, and there was no evidence of Michelle anywhere. Which was unexpected, to say the least. I crossed back through the house, ready to rid myself of the place forever, then stopped in the front doorway and looked back.
My eyes took in Andy as he drooled down the side of the couch. I felt bad for my friend. Andy was heading down the same road my father took, and every time I saw him he looked more and more like the cranky man. Andy used to be my best friend, despite the fact that we had been assholes. But that didn’t mean he needed to kill himself with booze like my father was doing.
So, I drew in a deep breath of fresh air before I rolled Andy off the couch