by Marr, Maggie
“Is that because he’s boning your niece?” One of the campers yells.
My heart tumbles to my toes.
Oh no.
“Wait what?” Uncle Jack’s eyebrows crease and he glances from me to Matt and back to me.
“Okay folks!” Presley jumps in front of Uncle Jack and claps her hands. “Let’s get started with the final surf camp awards!” Presley smiles and shoots me a look. She is completely drawing the attention away from what one of the teenagers just called out. “Jorge can you come up here and give me a hand with these awards for our surfers?”
I meet Uncle Jack’s gaze. He motions to me and and starts to walk toward the surf shop. In his eyes, I can totally tell that storm clouds are rolling in. What am I going to do now?
Chapter 16
Matt
“You two are dating?” Jack paces in his office. Emma sits on the couch. Ashley and I stand just inside the office door.
“Uh…it was an accident,” Ashley says.
“An accident? What you just fell into each other?”
“Actually, kind of yes,” Ashley says. “We were at a party in Malibu and—”
“Together?” Jack interrupts.
“Jack, let her talk,” Emma says. Her voice is soft. Jack takes a deep breath and nods toward his bride.
“No, it was the night before Julia left, right after she and I got here. We went to a party in Malibu that one of the actors on her movie invited her to and Matt was there with Jorge and we…uh…” Red rushes up Ashley’s neck. I reach out and grasp her fingers in mine.
“We met,” I finish her sentence. “We didn’t figure out where we both worked until the next day.”
“At which point you did the adult thing and decided to stop seeing each other,” Jack says. His hands are on his hips and his gaze flashes from Ashley to me. Yeah, Jack’s pissed.
“Well, not exactly,” Ashley says. She bites her bottom lip in that way that normally is completely sexy, but that right this moment shows how upset she is.
“Uh, Jack?” He turns to me and the flash of anger in his eyes throws me back. “Uh, no sir, excuse me, but no we didn’t stop dating. We kept dating and to be honest, this has become very serious and—”
“Serious?” Jack’s brows pull tight and his gaze tells me he thinks I’m nuts for using the word serious. “You two have been going at it like dogs-in-heat for two weeks and it’s serious?”
“Jack!” Emma says.
Ashley’s mouth drops open and her gaze goes from Jack to me. Her eyes fill with tears.
“I mean, how convenient that you’re now not only sleeping with your boss, but you’re also sleeping with my niece. Puts you in a pretty good spot wouldn’t you say?” Jack’s voice is harsh and the look on his face borders on aggressive.
Heat builds in my chest. My hands clench and unclench. “I don’t appreciate your tone and what you’re implying,” I say.
“I’m not implying anything Matt,” Jack says. “I’m actually saying it—and what I’m saying is that you decided that sleeping with Ashley might be good for your career and instead of doing what was right, you did what would be good for you.”
I glance at Ashley and her bottom lip quivers.
“Jack, that’s enough,” Emma says. Her tone telling her new-husband that he’s overstepped. “I think we need to discuss this further,” Emma continues. “Alone.”
I clasp Ashley’s hand and turn toward the door.
“No, Matt, you can leave,” Jack says. “I intend to have some private words with my niece.”
I look at Ashley. “That okay? Is that what you want?” I ask.
Her gaze goes from me to the floor. She nods. “I’m fine. You can go. I’ll…uh…I’ll call you after.” She says.
“Okay,” I say. I turn toward the door and walk out. Emma shuts the door behind me and I wonder if I’ll ever be with the woman that I love ever again.
Chapter 17
Ashley
“What were you thinking?” Uncle Jack asks.
“I…I…” I glance from Uncle Jack to Emma.
“You can’t date him,” Uncle Jack says. He plants his hands on his hips. “You can’t date him and work here.”
My mouth is dry. I expected Uncle Jack to be upset and irritated but I didn’t expect for him to yell and pace and act like I was a some adolescent and that he could control who I could date.
“I’m a grown woman,” I manage to get out of my mouth. “I can date whomever I want.”
He turns toward me. His gaze is hard. “Right, well you can date whomever you want, much like I can employ whomever I want,” Uncle Jack says. “And let me just say this, as long as you’re both working here, you can’t date each other. The corporate policy is very clear about that and—”
“Wait?” I glance from Uncle Jack to Emma. “Weren’t you two dating for the last year?” Neither of them seem to love me pointing out this fact to them. “How did that work?”
Uncle Jack shakes his head and walks toward the window in his office. “Not the same,” he grumbles.
“Really? And why not?”
“Emma is not my direct report and I’m not hers,” Uncle Jack bites out and continues to stare out the window.
“Ashley,” Emma says. “Surely you can understand that Jack and my history over more than a decade is significantly different than you meeting and sleep—”
Uncle Jack whips his head around and glares at Emma.
“You seeing this young man. Comparing what you’re doing with Matt to me and Jack? Well it’s simply not the same.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” I say. “I know that my feelings for Matt are deep and that I love him.”
“Love him?” Uncle Jack sneers. “How could you possibly love him? You don’t even know him.”
My belly clenches. His words; Uncle Jack’s dismissive tone and his demeanor are all so.so..disrespectful. The way he’s acted since he found out has been mean and childish. I look toward Emma, “How long did it take for you to know that you loved my Uncle Jack?”
Emma’s gaze drops to the floor and then flicks toward my Uncle. She takes a deep breath and sighs. “I knew the moment I met him,” she says.
“See,” I say pointedly to Uncle Jack. “And she was what? Fourteen?”
The muscle in Jack’s jaw tightens.
“I hate to say this Uncle Jack, because, I never would’ve thought it, but it feels to me like you’re having more of a problem with the idea that I’m a grown woman who’s seeing a man and having a sexual relationship with him, than a problem with how long I’ve known Matt or the fact that he works here.”
“Ashley,” Jack shakes his head, “you can think whatever you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that the job you were hired to do will make you Matt’s boss tomorrow. Plus I just gave your new boyfriend a giant corporate scholarship for school. How does that look?”
“Like he’s an amazing student and a hard-working honest guy who deserves his job and the scholarship.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly how it did look and how it would look if you two had behaved like responsible grown ups and stopped seeing each other when you figured out where you both worked.”
“And we would’ve stopped seeing each other if we could’ve but we couldn’t and we can’t,” I say.
My heart aches. I want to make Uncle Jack, Emma, and Matt all happy, but I don’t see how I can. I need Emma and Uncle Jack to understand just how much I’ve fallen for Matt. “I’ve never felt this way and he’s never felt this way and we…we both love each other.”
“Now that I’m back from Medquale, you were supposed to take over and that means everyone in the store would be your direct report.” He turns back toward his office window that faces the ocean. “Or they would’ve been.”
My heart drops to my toes. It’s like the air’s been forced from my lungs.
“Would’ve been? Are you firing me?”
“No, but”—he glances at Emma and takes a long breath�
�“we need to discuss what’s best for the company and now…now I’m not certain what that is. We…there’s some possible liability now. This is a huge company and you’re dating an employee and me giving him a company scholarship…Ashley I won’t lie to you, we’ve got to speak with corporate human resources and our business affairs. This isn’t just me being upset because you’re my baby niece that grew up. This is me also being concerned about my business.”
“I didn’t…I didn’t even think about the liability.” Damn. I…I behaved like a selfish child and now, I may’ve put not only my job in jeopardy, but Matt’s scholarship, and even all of Bliss Boards.
Chapter 18
Matt
The streetlight from outside the window of Ash’s bedroom casts a glow in the darkness of her room. There isn’t much in Ash and Julia’s new apartment—not even Julia. Ash has a mattress, a folding chair, bed sheets, her suitcase full of clothes, and a coffee pot. The place is pretty barren, but in a couple months she and Julia will have this apartment looking great.
I may not be around to see it.
My heart aches. I close my eyes. I haven’t told Ash yet what I’ve decided to do, where I’ve decided to go. I…I’m uncertain how she’s going to take it, how she’s going to react once I tell her. Seeing Jack’s face when he discovered what was going on between me and Ashley made this decision pretty damn easy. I don’t have much of a choice and it’s the absolute right thing to do.
But it’ll be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Ash is naked beside me on her new bed and her skin is nearly luminescent. Most nights she’s naked beside me. She looks like an angel. My angel. I don’t want to have this conversation. Ashley will dislike what I’m telling her. I slide my arm around her and pull her closer to me. She smiles that soft post-sex smile.
“I’m going to quit my job,” I say.
“No you’re not,” Ash softly says. “I’m leaving the board shop. You need to stay. The scholarship is too important.”
My heart fills with her words and they’re just exactly what I knew she’d say, but I can’t let her do that for a million reasons. I lift myself onto my elbow. She’s so beautiful lying here beside me with her hair splayed out on the pillow. The lips that I just spent hours kissing. Her body, gentle perfect curves that fit me and give me so much damn pleasure.
“No way,” I say. “Jack’s your family. I’m not coming between you and Jack and this job. Jack…he…he’s like a dad to you.” I stroke my fingertips down the curve of her jaw. She’s so perfect and just the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. I need Ash to understand that I want her to keep her job, I need her to keep her job—family is everything and they don’t stick around forever. “You being at the shop means so much to him.”
“If it meant so much to him,” Ash says. “He wouldn’t be such an ass about this.” Her tone is sharp and hurt inhabits her eyes. She’s not being mean, but she wants this both ways. She wants her Uncle to let me stay and for us to be together.
“He’s trying to make the best out of difficult situation,” I say.
“What’s difficult?” She shakes her head. “We worked there for weeks without any problems. He did the same thing with Emma,” she says. “It feels like he’s just worried about this now, because he married Emma and the expansion.”
“Maybe,” I say, “or maybe he wants to make sure that nothing undermines you. He wants you to run the shop and eventually all of North America for Bliss Boards.”
“Maybe,” she says.
“Maybe?” I raise an eyebrow. “Running Bliss Boards is exactly what Jack has in mind for you? He paid for your entire degree. Emma’s family lives in Australia. Jack’s groomed you for this gig for a long time. And then I come along and mess it all up,” I say only half joking.
The more I thought about this, the more I believe what I just said is the truth. Jack is partly upset about me and Ash because he had everything all planned out for her, his niece, that is nearly like a daughter. I’m not saying any of that to Ash, because this isn’t a bad thing, what Jack wants to do for Ash. It’s a really great thing. “He has a point, okay, he wants people who work for you to respect you and that gets trickier with you coming in as his niece and dating a guy who works there, plus I got the Bliss Boards scholarship.”
Ash presses her lips together and sighs. The look on her face tells me that what I’ve just said is completely true whether she’s ready to admit it or not.
“You said that Emma wants their kids to go to school in Australia. Which means Jack’ll need someone he can trust running things over here.”
I press my nose to Ashley’s. She’s warm and her breath is sweet and soft on my skin. She smells like sunshine and the ocean and a sweetness I’ve come to love and need.
“You’re that person,” I say. “You’re the person that Jack and Emma trust. The person that they want to run Bliss Boards in North America when they go to Australia. You’re the way they can do that and not have to worry,” I stroke Ash’s hair. “He’s giving you a compliment. He trusts you and he believes in you,” I say.
She rolls away from me and onto her back.“Okay, yes. It’s crossed my mind and maybe even been discussed but—”
“But what?” I ask. I need her to really think about what this means, to have someone believe in you like this, especially right out of school. “You can’t walk away from this opportunity. Jack is trying to give your career the best possible start. He knows that pretty soon you’re going to be in charge—of everything. Which means everyone has to think of you as their boss. That’s tough to do if you’re dating me plus you’re Jack’s niece. And as for you leaving? No way. He’d be devastated. Ok. As much as it was supposed to be a secret that you were his niece, it was obvious that he was super excited for you to start your job. I mean, he had a spring in his step that wasn’t there before.”
I roll onto my back and stare up at the ceiling too. There’s as much at stake for Ashley as there is for me. Maybe Sarah doesn’t see it that way, but I see it completely clearly. Ashley’s future, her family, Jack, her career.
“I can’t be the reason you quit,” I say. “To take you away from Jack and your family.”
“You can’t give up this scholarship for me,” Ash says.
“I’m not giving it up for you, not even because of you. What I’m saying is that you’re the one that has to stay. You’re the one that is meant to run that place. Me? I’m just working the cash register and teaching surf camp.” I half-smile and turn to her. I’m trying to make light of a tough situation, because I don’t want her to feel guilty about a decision that I’m making.
“But that’s…it’s not fair,”
I press my lips to Ash’s lips. It’s adorable, that even after college, Ash still thinks that life should be fair, that the good guy always wins. I know life isn’t fair. I’ve been told this a million different ways. First with my mom and dad’s car accident and then when Keith ditched Sarah and Teddy. No, life isn’t fair, but it can still be amazing in just as many ways.
That Ash wants life to be fair so badly, makes me love her even more. I can’t discuss my decision with her any longer, because I’ve decided what I’m going to do and how I’m going to pay for school. She doesn’t have to agree with me…because couples don’t always agree…in fact I know she absolutely won’t agree. But I am going to quit Bliss Boards. Now I just have to make sure I can pay for school the way I think I can. I might have found a way and it won’t be by working at Bliss Boards and it definitely won’t be anything that Sarah or Ashley will want me to do.
* * *
Sunshine sweeps across the open hills of green grass. It’s a rare day that both Sarah and I are off. We’ve taken advantage of it with a packed lunch and trip to Teddy’s favorite park. There’s a breeze and the shade of trees keeps us and Teddy cool on the play equipment. He’s settled onto a swing. Now is as good a time as any to tell Sarah what I’m thinking.
“So I’ve got a pro
blem,” I push Teddy in the swing. Sarah stands beside me, texting on her phone trying to trade her night shift tomorrow for a day shift. I’ve been dreading this conversation, trying like hell to find a good way to tell her what is going on at Bliss Boards and what I plan to do.
“What’s that?” She’s still distracted by her phone.
“Higher! Higher!” Teddy yells.
I press my hands to Teddy’s back and push him in the swing. I push a little harder, but not too hard. I don’t want the little guy to go flying out of the swing. Just this past week he graduated from ‘baby’ swing as he calls ‘big-boy’ swings. He’s super excited, but I’m still a little nervous about him letting go of the chains and flying out of the swing.
“Wait,” Sarah says, “what’s the problem?” She slips her phone into her back pocket and looks at me. Still with the rings beneath her eyes. I hope she found someone for her night shift, I’d love for her to get a couple good nights sleep. She’s running herself ragged even with my help. I don’t know what will happen without me here.
“I got the Bliss Boards Academic scholarship,” I say.
“You did! Oh my God! Matty, why didn’t you say anything!” She wraps me into a hug and then drags my head down and gives me a big-sister noogie on the top of my head. I let her because no matter how old I get or taller than her, she’s still my big sister and her being proud of me is the closest thing I have to a parent being proud of me. “That’s huge! I’m so excited for you!! That means everything. And the amount of the scholarship? That’ll pay for you to finish at UCLA…oh my god you must be thrilled!”
She looks at me. I’m not smiling.
“Wait,” she says and shakes her head. “That’s not a happy-I-just-got-a-huge-scholarship face, that’s…uh…what’s wrong?” She asks. The smile slowly slides from her face and the fatigue in her eyes turns to concern.
