Chapter 4: The Renegade Billionaire: Chapter 4

“Oh my gosh, guys. I’m so sorry I’m late,” I say while rushing up the front steps of the Chugaloo. “Things got, well… It was a messy morning, and then I had to turn around because I forgot Pops had a doctor’s appointment, and then he was hungry, again, so I made him a snack, and before I realized it, I was later than I thought.”

“No worries, Miss Madi. You’re always worrying about other people, but we haven’t been here long. Practice ran late ’cause Coach was all shades of mad at the D-line this morning,” Ethan says in his thick Southern drawl.

He’s a hometown kid so I’ve known him since he was little, and now he’s a superstar on the local college football team.

“Yeah, my body’s gonna hurt tomorrow,” Trevon says. He’s the starting defensive end this season, and he’s worked hard to make that happen.

“Oh no, Coach B. is at it again?” I ask as I unlock the door.

“I’m surprised you didn’t hear him yelling over at the Hideaway,” Trevon grumbles.

“Sorry, kid. You’ve got this though.” I enter the building first and turn on all the lights. “Blissy will be here soon, and I’m sure she’s got something in her cart for you.”

Blissy’s real name is Brenda, and she hates it, but she’s been called Blissy the entire time I’ve known her. She’s an older woman with kind eyes who owns Blissful Beans & Leaves, the popup caffeine shop here at the Chugaloo, and she knows every piece of gossip that passes through these walls.

The heavily debated war in town over what’s better, coffee or tea, keeps me from calling it a coffee shop because I prefer peace to war. If you ever need to change the subject though, you just ask anyone in town “coffee or tea?” and then watch the fireworks.

The residents of Happiness, Georgia are serious about their choices.

“You have midterms coming up, right?” Bending down, I plug in Blissy’s equipment for her. Thursdays are the only day she doesn’t get in earlier than me. Then I turn on the lights in the sound booth for the high school club that’ll be here after school.

“Yes, ma’am,” they say in unison.

Reaching into the quiet room, I turn up the AC then shut the door. Even at the tail end of September, Georgia’s sticky air lingers. “Are you both ready?”

Groans give me my answer.

“Trig is brutal, but I’m doing all the study packets,” Ethan says.

“My sociology midterm is a twenty-page paper, and it’s killing me,” Trevon says.

“I could help you with that,” says a deep voice I recognize.

I spin around so fast, I get dizzy.

Braxton.

“Ah…” Okay, I can no longer form sentences.

Braxton moves away from the doorway and shuts it behind him. “I was a journalism major with a minor in marketing and business management. I’m pretty good with a red pen,” he grumbles, the timbre of his voice scorching my insides.

“Um,” Trevon says, his gaze bouncing between us.

“Trevon, this is Mr. Braxton, Braxton, this is Trevon. Trevon’s very important to all of us around here because he’s a starting defensive end. You’ll quickly learn that we take college football very seriously in Happiness.”

I swear, Trevon blushes.

“It’s nice to meet you both.” Braxton turns to Ethan. “Sorry, I’m not much help with trigonometry. I failed that in college.”

Something about him admitting he failed at something makes him seem less godlike, but I have a hard time imagining him failing at anything. Everything I’ve seen so far screams that he’s the kind of guy who gets what he wants.

“Ah, that’s okay. I have a study session with a tutor tomorrow.” Ethan is trying not to stare, but he was born and raised here. New blood doesn’t happen often unless they’re part of the university, and the professionals who move here are hardly ever this young.

Wait, does he work for the university? My professors certainly never look like Braxton Mitchell.

“That’s good.” Braxton scans the space. “I’d never be able to teach.” Turning back to Trevon, he says, “But if you need a proofreader, I can do that in my sleep.”

But he also answered my earlier thought…he’s not working for the university, so what the heck is he doing here?

Trevon stares at him skeptically, but finally nods. “That would be great, thank you, sir.” He sounds so hesitant I almost laugh.

I take a closer look at Braxton and realize he’s changed his clothes. And they look…new. In fact, his jeans still have the clear size sticker on the leg.

“Ah, you’ve got something…right here,” I say, pointing to the back of my thigh.

I’ve never found a man blushing to be so freaking sexy before, but color me excited.

“Thanks.” He’s holding a MacBook still in the box in one hand and a Walmart bag in his other. It’s too far to walk from the Hideaway into town. Did he call Moe’s Taxi for a ride?

Why hadn’t he let me drop him off?

Braxton turns away from us to scan the Chug.

“Was there something I can help you with?” I ask.

“I was just driving back to the inn⁠—”

“The Hideaway,” Ethan interrupts. “The locals call it the Hideaway.”

That makes Braxton smirk, and it shouldn’t be so sexy. So when he does it, why the heck do my panties throw a party?

“The Hideaway, huh?” He chuckles, and I suppress a shiver. I need to talk to my friends because I’m not acting right around this guy. He can’t be so hot that he turns my brain to goo, it’s just not natural. “Then I definitely picked the right place,” he says, melting away my mental spiral.

Braxton’s stare sees right through me. “I was passing by and saw the sign for a coworking space.” He gestures with the brand-new laptop. “I’m loving the…Hideaway, but the Wi-Fi was a little spotty out there. I figured this would be a good place for me to spend the day.”

“What?” I choke out far too quickly. “What do you do?” I amend.

He averts his gaze. “Marketing,” he says, then rolls his shoulders back.

“Huh.” Come on, Madi. You can do better than that.

“Do you work here too?” Before I can answer, Blissy walks in.

She stares at the four of us, then gives me a troubling click of her tongue. “I heard we had a new friend in town. I’m Blissy. I’ll get your caffeine fix here in a minute, but think long and hard about what you choose. There are enemies on both sides.”

His brow furrows, and I even like this expression. Does he do anything that’s not attractive?

“I’m Brax.”

“Half the town thinks coffee is the best way to wake up, and the other half thinks it’s tea. It’s started all-out wars before,” Ethan says.

Braxton’s lips curl at the corners. “Wars, huh?”

“He’s not kidding,” I whisper.

The sparkle in his gaze dances with glee. “And you work here too?” he asks again.

“Pops has owned the train station since before I was born. A few years ago, he let me turn it into a coworking space.”

“And now it’s the heart of the town, right along with the Hideaway.” Blissy is full of maternal pride I don’t deserve. “It is,” she says when she catches my eye roll. “Madi here has given all of Happiness a place to belong. She’s the town treasure, that one.”

“Is that…right.” Braxton’s voice hitches strangely, almost as though he’s just learned a secret, but my biggest secret is that I can’t say no to anyone, ever—and it’s not exactly a secret to begin with—so that can’t be right.

Great, now I’m filling in his blanks with all kinds of made-up crap about myself.

“Okay.” I clap my hands a little too loudly. “So, let’s get you set up with an account, and then I’ll give you a tour.”

“Do you not take compliments easily, or is it that one in particular that makes you uncomfortable?” Braxton’s voice is pitched low, so I think he intends for only me to hear, but he’ll learn quickly that every wall in this town has ears.

“She can’t take a compliment to save her life,” Blissy huffs. The sound of coffee beans grinding drowns out any response I was going to make, so instead, I walk on wobbly knees to the desk hidden away in the corner.

“You can buy one session, a pack of ten, or a monthly unlimited pass.” At least those words manage to sound professional.

“How often are you here?” he asks to a chorus of oohs and ahs from my favorite football players.

I lower myself to the chair and drop my forehead to the desk. “You realize the entire town will think we’re dating by the end of the day, right?”

He snorts. “Because I asked you how often you’ll be here?”

“Because we want her happy,” Blissy calls out over the rattle of jars as she takes down tea leaves for the day.

“Blissy,” I hiss.

“Sorry, Mads. Happiness means well, but we’re a bunch of talkers. Don’t ever say anything out loud that you don’t want repeated.” Blissy is either blissfully unaware of my embarrassment or she just doesn’t care.

“Truth,” Trevon mutters. Internally I cringe over his own history with the grapevine. His first week here, he let slip that he sometimes watched Bluey because it reminded him of his little brother.

Within the hour, the entire town knew, and he heard about it from the stadium stands all season, poor kid.

“S-so,” I slur the word like an idiot. “What are you looking for today?”

The way Braxton traps me in his orbit with only his gaze makes me dream up all kinds of inappropriate answers that he would never, ever say.

Maybe the stress of life has finally gotten to me.

After what I deem to be an eternity, he winks. Freaking winks. Who winks anymore but creepers and peepers and dirty old men? Well, apparently this late-twenties/early-thirties too-handsome-to-be-real man does.

When’s the last time I had sex? That’s the only explanation for my wandering thoughts. It’s been so long I can’t even remember. Maybe we’ll have to girls’ trip it to Charleston soon.

But that will cost money, my inner voice sing-songs.

“Madison?” he says, and then I notice everyone in the Chugaloo is staring at me as if I missed the question more than once.

I bolt upright. “Sorry, what did you say? So, so busy today,” I ramble. “I guess my mind wandered to a to-do task.”

That full, plump lip of his hitches on the right side. “That doesn’t say much about me if I’ve already bored you into a to-do list.”

Humor is written all over his face. It’s a joke. I know it’s a joke, but my cheeks burn as hot as the pits of hell while a flush engulfs my entire body.

“I’m playing with you, Madison.”

“Madi,” I correct.

“Does everyone call you Madi?”

I nod.

“Right. Okay, well, I’ll take the membership please, Madison.” He says my name in a silvery tone that has even Blissy fanning herself behind him.

Good Lord. He’s going to cause me nothing but trouble.

“A membership?” I squeak. “How long are you staying?”

He shrugs one massive shoulder. I’d known he was a large man, probably six foot four, and built, but when he stands here in a straining T-shirt with a red soda can on it and jeans that shouldn’t look that good on him, there’s no denying this man is more than a snack—he’s the whole dang meal.

“As long as it takes,” he says breezily.

“As long as what takes?” I purposefully don’t look at him while typing his name into the computer.

“To find my happy.”

My fingers freeze on the keyboard, and my gaze is laser-focused on the floor six feet in front of me.

He’s looking for his happy.

For heaven’s sake. This handsome stranger is going to seriously turn my town upside down. And if I’m not careful, I might forget why I’ve sworn off all romantic relationships forever.

“He’s looking for his happy?” Savvy asks for the third time. She’s the most practical of my friends, which was why I was so shocked when she and Clover followed me home after my life was turned upside down at the end of our freshman year of college. “Was that some kind of a pick-up line or something?” Her bluntness is sharper when she’s concerned.

I press a button on my phone to expand the FaceTime images of my friends.

“He’s handsome, isn’t he?” Clover asks in that wispy voice of hers.

“Yes.” My answer came far too quickly.

“And he’s staying at the Hideaway?” Elle asks. We’ve been friends since I came to live with Pops when I was young. She was the town sweetheart who grew up to marry her high school love.

At least that worked out for one of us.

“And the handsome stranger is at the Chug right now?” Clover will probably call him handsome stranger in her head for the rest of her life. For a thriller writer who routinely scares the crap out of herself, she truly has a romantic soul. I’ve been trying to convince her to try romance for years, but she says she needs the fear to feel.

My friend is a complicated soul with a heart so big it contains oceans full of love.

“Yes,” I whisper-shout. “He bought a monthly unlimited membership for an entire year, but he says he has no idea how long he’ll be staying. It’s probably a waste of money.”

“Or he’s smitten.” Elle makes googly eyes at the camera as only she can.

“We’ll be right there,” Savvy announces. “Elle, tell your bodyguard to stand down. I’ll be there to get you in five minutes. Clover, meet me at my car. And Madi, don’t move a muscle.”

“I have to. I’m hiding in a closet on the second floor, and it’s so hot in here I have boob sweat.”

“That’s impressive with your B-cup.” Savvy has more snark than the rest of us combined.

“That’s why I said it. I’ll meet you guys downstairs. Come quick. I can’t tell if he’s just trying to fit in, or if he’s going to kill me in my sleep.”

“That’s a real concern in dating these days,” Clover says sagely. “You can never be too careful.”

“Clover,” Savvy and Elle say together.

“Right, sorry, they’re not dating. We’ll be right over. Love you, Madi.”

“Love you. See you soon.”

With the knowledge that backup is on the way, I ease out of the closet, shake out my shirt to encourage the air to dry my boob sweat, then head down the rickety stairs to find Ethan and Braxton sitting side by side, taping Ethan’s laptop back together again.

Why does the handsome stranger have to be so dang helpful?