Read Sail (Wake #2) for Free Online Page B

her quivering lip. My dad moved around the table to sit next to me and asked, “How does Casey feel?”
    “He loves me too,” I affirmed. “He says we’ll get through it together.”
    It wasn’t going to be easy, but together we would get through it.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010
    ADMITTING YOU’VE BEEN A massive dick isn’t the easiest pill to swallow. But together, Blake and I were taking steps to clean up the messes we’d made.
    On Tuesday, I finally went into the brewery. I’d worked from home on Monday and set up a few sales calls for the month, but I needed to go in and do some year-end paperwork that I should have done, well before year-end, but it was what it was.
    I was apprehensive when I pulled in and saw Aly was there, but something about the way Blake stepped up and laid it all out for her parents and her brother made me feel like I needed to do the same thing. I owed it to her. I owed it to Aly. I owed it to me.
    It was a new year and my dick got hard thinking about how, already, so much had changed. It felt fresh and clean and there was so much to look forward to.
    In the same spirit as Blake had with coming clean with her family, I wanted to start the year off on the right foot. That began with swallowing my pride and apologizing to Aly.
    “I’m not proud of how I treated you,” I admitted from behind my desk in my office. I had called her in when I saw her pass by. She looked annoyed and a little smug, which I expected, because deep down she really cared for me. That was the truth. Even though she pretty much took advantage of a really shitty situation when she came to my house, I shouldn’t have done what I did. And although I loved how things were turning around, using Aly to make Blake jealous publicly at my brother’s wedding, wasn’t the coolest thing I’d ever done. But I worked it and—thank fuck for me—it might’ve all been for the best. But for Aly, it probably wasn’t.
    She sat cross-legged in the chair facing me and watched me expectantly.
    “I owe you an apology for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. What it boils down to is, I used you and it was wrong.” It was an awkward conversation to have, but a necessary one. I watched the light on my desk phone glow with an incoming call, but I ignored it. What I had to say took precedence over business.
    After I began speaking, her mood shifted and she refused to make eye contact with me, but then she finally said, “Don’t worry about it.” Her posture stiffened, putting up a tougher exterior, having realized I didn’t call her in for the reasons she may have thought. Of course, I was speculating, but I’d known her a long time. And unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time I’d had to start a conversation I knew she’d rather not be a part of. History had proven she only heard what she wanted anyway, but I continued.
    “We work together. We are going to run this business together someday, I think. And most importantly, we’re friends. And I’m sorry.” Her focus was on the floor in front of my desk. It became too tense and I couldn’t take it anymore.
    “Aly, please say something. You have to talk to me about this. We need to get it all out. Otherwise, it’s just going to fester and get worse.” I leaned back in my chair a little. It wasn’t the best place for a discussion like that, but I didn’t want to lead her on further by asking her to go and meet me somewhere.
    “I don’t know what you want me to say, Casey.” She stood up and it looked like she was going to walk out the door, but it wasn’t like her to leave like that. And when she closed my door and then came around my desk, I knew shit was about to get real.
    Sitting on the papers I had stacked up in front of me, she leaned toward me. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a tightly pinned bun thing. Like always, she was put together. Makeup. Dress. Heels. The whole nine yards.
    “I don’t think you understand what I’m trying to say here, Aly,” I