by Leigh, Ember
It’s idyllic, not to mention the perfect ending to what is most definitely my favorite visit back home since the dawn of time. Leaving work drama and life quandaries behind for two weeks? I’ve never needed this more. Cultivating a satisfying relationship with my long-time heartthrob? Holy shit, the icing on this cake reaches a mile high.
Connor and I neck on a blanket for a little while, then he goes to play nighttime beach volleyball with Gray. I head for the empty seat at Hazel’s side. She smiles at me as I sit beside her.
“Hey there,” I say.
“Kinsley.” She squeezes my arm. “Or should I say Mrs. Connor Daly?”
I laugh. Her comment satisfies me all the way down to my bone marrow. “Aren’t you Mrs. Grayson Daly?”
“Definitely not,” she says with a laugh. “I mean…I don’t know. Maybe someday. Somehow.”
We both watch the crackling fire for a moment. Most of the friends have drifted toward the volleyball, so we can speak in relative privacy. I nibble on my lip as I turn over a thought in my head.
“Connor and I really aren’t…that serious,” I say, unsure how to explain the dynamic at work here. “But I want us to be that serious. I just…” I rub at my face. I didn’t realize asking her for help would be so embarrassing. “I kind of want to…surprise him.”
“In what way?”
I watch the flames licking at the domed steel grating encasing the bonfire pit. “Like…with how I dress. And how I do my makeup.” I swing my gaze over to her. She’s dressed down today, wearing an OSU sweatshirt and cotton shorts, but she’s got the fierce eyebrows and perfect lashes of a total babe. I want her face. I want her style. And I need her as my mentor. “I thought maybe you could help me.”
“Kinsley, you don’t need help,” she starts.
“No. I do. You haven’t seen even a third of my wardrobe. It’s pretty bad.”
She tuts. “You’re a natural beauty. You don’t need makeup.”
“Well, that’s what I think about you, but you still wear it.”
Hazel tips her head to one side. “Fine. What are you thinking about doing?”
I shrug, letting a puff of air escape. “There’s this quarter-end party at work that is always super fun and elegant. I’d like to look really good there. Because I’ll be going with Connor, and…” I falter, because I realize that we haven’t even talked about any of this. The impressing. The dressing. The dating. But I know it’s going to happen.
Because for once, I’m confident about what’s happening between us.
We haven’t talked about it yet, but I know.
And I know he knows.
“Ooh. You should come to the Bicentennial Ball instead,” Hazel says.
“I wish. That would probably be way more fun than this summer party E-bid always has.” I pause. “Though they do have quite excellent tiny cakes.”
“That does sound nice,” Hazel agrees.
“Except it’s all work colleagues, and, let’s be real, not all of them are great.” I’m thinking specifically of my boss. She’s the main part of it that I dread each year, and maybe coming dolled up will help me tolerate her more. Especially if I have Connor on my arm.
“I definitely think I can help make this year’s party better than ever,” Hazel says with a genuine smile. There’s practically a twinkle in her eye—though it might be the reflection of the fire—and I know why 90 percent of the county chooses her as their realtor. I’m not even mad about it. My dad is the other main realtor in town. He has his own faithful clients…and Hazel has the rest.
We chat a little while longer, until Connor and Grayson race past us, kicking up sand and shouting about a fluke. Grayson tackles Connor further down the beach, while Maverick cracks up and some of Grayson’s buddies egg it all on. Connor comes up laughing a moment later, and then Maverick shoves Grayson. The whole cycle starts again.
I don’t know what they’re fake fighting about, but seeing it makes my heart warm. I want to be part of this family. I can tolerate Annette and Damon never truly talking to me. Hell, maybe that’s for the better. They won’t interfere in our life choices and insert themselves in our parenting approach when we finally decide to raise kids or puppies or neither. Christmas might be awkward, but there should be less drama overall if we never truly speak to one another.
Some couples probably wish for this arrangement! We’re so lucky to have it right off the bat.
My phone vibrates, yanking me out of my rationalization.
MOM: Let me give you one last hug! We’re down at the marina. Just want to see my Kinsie. Alone.
I roll my eyes, not that she can see it. What a subtle way to say No Dalys Allowed. They dock right outside High-5’s, which is a quick walk from here. I tell Hazel I’m going to go say bye to my parents real quick, then I scout out Connor, who has his knee in Maverick’s back and has him pinned into the sand.
“Connor?” I dodge a spray of sand as Maverick fights to free himself.
“Babe, we’re establishing the hierarchy,” he says through laughter.
“Okay, well, I’m gonna go to High-5’s real quick. I’ll be back super-fast.”
“All right, hurry back,” he says, then doubles down on Maverick. “You don’t want to miss my victory.” As his brother howls, I take my chance to leave quietly.
The night is unseasonably cool. I take in deep breaths of the fresh lake air, because I need to store it away, or bury it deeper into my cells. The boardwalk is softly lit by round little lights set into the wooden walkway. I pass strolling couples and the occasional single gal or guy, just taking it all in.
I’m sad to leave Bayshore. I don’t know when I might be back, and furthermore, if any visit home will ever be as epic as this one.
But more than that, this visit home has been a gift. One that I’m still not entirely sure how to utilize.
My feet thud down the wooden docks as I hurry to my parents’ slip. Mom’s trademark ballcap with the name of their marina is on her head, her blonde ponytail swinging as she raises a beer to greet me. Since we kids flew the coop, my mom and dad turned into the partiers they’ve always dreamt of being. It’s funny seeing them flourish in their fifties. They go harder than I do at age twenty-five. It’s a work night, for God’s sake.
“Kinsieee,” my mom says, wrapping me in a big hug. She’s not toasted, but she’s getting there. I know her drunken stages, and this is about a two out of five.
“I’m going to miss you two,” I say. And it’s true. There’s nothing like being back in the warm embrace of home, where every item in my parent’s house is curated and comfortable and too expensive for my budget out west.
“When do you fly out, honey?” Dad asks, sinking into the vinyl equivalent of a La-z-Boy at the back of the boat. Cards are splayed out on a folding table near the back bench. Tiny palm-tree lights are strung along the top rails of their dock, and the neighbors on the slip to the right are laughing loudly about something. This is their happy place. Surrounded by friends and water and boats.
It makes me wonder. Where’s my happy place?
“Tomorrow at noon,” I say. Bayshore is a happy place, but it’s not the happy place. And even though I’ve had an amazing two weeks here, I’m ready to get back to the ocean bustle of San Diego.
“Did you have a good trip?” Mom’s tone holds a note of caution. They probably realize that I wasn’t visiting a friend all along, but they don’t need to know all the details about my life. I can tell them what I choose to.
“Yes. We had an amazing time.” Ah, the cryptic we. Mom clears her throat. Definitely not going to tell her that I spread my sex juices all over the bow the other day. Even though I thoroughly sanitized once Connor and I made it back to the dock.
“Listen. I want to tell you something”—she reaches for my wrist, giving it a motherly squeeze—“from one woman to another.”
I nod, waiting for her to go on.
“The Daly family.” She rolls her lips inward, shaking her h
ead as she inspects something on the ground. “They are not to be trusted. I thought I had made this very clear when you were younger.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“He will use you,” mom insists. “Because that family is full of users and abusers.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes. But in the back of my mind, something pings. The whole start of this trip was a type of using me, wasn’t it? Connor wanted to use me to play his girlfriend.
But no. It wasn’t using me if I agreed to it. That was then. And this is now. We’ve gone way past the ruse into reality.
“You don’t believe me,” she says, wagging her finger at me. “You don’t, but I swear to you. Please be careful with him. I don’t like that you’re with him—”
“Lisa,” my dad starts.
“—but you need to be made aware.” She slices her hands through the air.
I nibble on my lip, shifting from one foot to the other. “Okay, and what do you have to say about it, dad?”
He sighs, reaching for his beer. “I feel the same as your mother.”
“What even happened? And why does it still matter all these years later?”
My mom watches me for a few moments, nibbling on her lip in exactly the same way that I do. “Annette and I used to be best friends. The very best friends you could have hoped for. But she did not take kindly to the fact that I fell in love with your father.”
I blink, looking between Mom and Dad. “So she was…”
“She was with your father first,” Mom whispers, “but they weren’t compatible, and it ended. I waited until the appropriate time before I ever said how I felt.”
“Once she got pregnant with the first one”—Dad can only mean Dominic—“she called and tried to say it was mine.”
“She only wanted money,” Mom spits. “Because that horse of a husband of hers was broke.”
My mind is spinning with these long-gone details. Damon Daly, broke? I can’t even imagine it.
“One look at that boy, and it was clear he wasn’t mine.” Dad huffs, looking as shocked as if it had happened last week. “Besides, it was physically impossible. We hadn’t been together in so long.”
I blink, looking between the two of them, trying to imagine my dad with Annette. The idea refuses to fit together. What if Dad had stayed with Annette? Could I have almost been born a Daly?
Mom looks back at Dad, and something unknowable to me shivers between them. She reaches out for his hand and squeezes it. I rub at my forehead, suddenly exhausted by all of this.
This is their drama. Not mine. And it has nothing to do with Connor and me.
“I hear what you’re saying. I’ll tread carefully.” Though by carefully, I think I really mean run headfirst toward Connor with open arms.
“There are so many other things they’ve done over the years,” Mom goes on, flicking her wrist. “The laundry list would bore you as much as it would scandalize.”
Mom sends me off with about a hundred kisses, and Dad squeezes me long and hard and tells me to kick ass out west like I’ve been doing. I get a lump in my throat and nod. I don’t know how much ass kicking I’ve really been doing. More like ass wiping.
Because at the end of the day, I’m just Tamara’s bitch, and she knows that I know it. I scuff back toward the beach, glummer than at the start of my vacation. Two weeks ago, I had all this time off to look forward to. Now? I’m faced with the reality of returning to work with the woman who sparks a knot in my stomach every freaking morning.
Connor’s words return to me while I’m scuffing my way back down the boardwalk.
Let’s work on the eye contact thing.
He’d said it so good-naturedly, so matter-of-factly. Like it was equal parts regular thought, casual suggestion, and challenge.
I should take a page from Connor’s book.
Let’s work on the shitty job thing. I’m tired of dreading my work life, of not knowing what to do next.
When I get back to San Diego, I’m going to give E-bid one last shot to make it the dream job I know it can be.
Chapter 23
CONNOR
It doesn’t sink in that we’ve left Bayshore until we’re buckling our seat belts in business class on our return flight.
How have two weeks gone by already? I look over at Kinsley, who is smoothing down her billowy black pants before she settles into a paperback. I have to fight to keep the grin off my face.
We started as strangers, but we might as well be long-term spouses at this point. I feel like I know her inside and out…but yet, with so much more to discover still. With two fully sexy and idyllic weeks under our belts, I know one thing for certain: I want to continue the good times.
But as the plane taxis and we lift off, my thoughts turn toward San Diego.
I sent Tamara my finished app earlier this week in a last-ditch effort to extract whatever ounce of goodwill she might still feel about me. Because even though we’re toxic together, she might still want to see me succeed.
But I’ve gotten zero response so far, and I’m not hopeful. Which means that as soon as I’m back to the daily grind, I’m starting the hunt for a new job. My number one priority is getting my career in order, no matter what.
What does that mean for Kinsley and me? I didn’t want anything serious before this. Hell, I didn’t want anything. But now I have this ready-made girlfriend, and it feels a little bit too easy to contemplate continuing things how we’ve been doing them.
And if I’m honest with myself? I want to keep this up. Even though I wasn’t planning on this, there’s something so soft and sensual about Kinsley. We laugh our asses off together. We have fun wherever we go, whatever we do. She’s beautiful and weird and smart.
She’s my dream woman.
The one I definitely wasn’t looking for.
Kinsley rests her head on my shoulder as she reads, as though she can sense the vortex of thoughts inside my skull pertaining directly to her. I brush my lips against the top of my head, and she stops reading to smile up at me. Then she buries herself in her book again.
Yeah. I don’t want this to end. But I’m not sure how to move forward.
We should talk about it. That much is clear. But as the flight whiles on, I turn on my in-seat TV screen and find a new series to watch. The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s way more intense than I bargained for. A little while later, Kinsley abandons her book and watches my screen for a little bit. I offer her one of my ear buds. We settle in to watch, alternating between gasps and the occasional shout.
Our screens have to physically turn off during landing before we break for air. Kinsley and I share wide eyes as we land. I grab her hand and don’t let go until it’s time to get off the plane.
The walk through the airport passes like a dream. We’re floating—caught between vacation and the start of work; between our regular lives here in San Diego and the fantasy bubble we created in Bayshore. It’s hard to know what to do. How to act. Whether or not to invite her back to my apartment.
I use the restroom while she’s waiting for the bags, trying to imagine what spending the night without her will feel like. Spoiler alert: the outlook is grim. I need to figure out a way to get her back to my place, or vice versa, without looking like a needy asshole. When I come out, she’s tugged both our bags off the conveyor belt.
She’s fiddling with the tip of her braid when I approach. She rolls my bag toward me. “Here. I got this for you.”
“Thanks.”
She laughs a little, her gaze falling to her own olive drab bag. Silence stretches between us.
“Do you—” she begins.
“What are you—” I say at exactly the same time.
We both laugh. I grip the handle of my bag as if I need it for balance.
“You go first,” I tell her.
She nibbles on her lip. “I was going to ask if you want to keep watching the series at my house.”
Relief floods me. Yes. Yes. This is the perfect excuse, and ma
n, I need it. I don’t know why this is so hard, but it is. This was supposed to be the end of whatever we had going, but we can extend it for one more night. Because it makes sense. Because we want to.
Because I’ve already grown so attached to Kinsley that I’m not sure I can fathom a night away from her.
We call a ride share, and the trip to her apartment is quick. We bust inside, pure laughter and smooches, confronting the musty air and the trash she forgot to take out. I offer to take out the offending bag while she unpacks a little and showers. When I come back in, the water is running, a dull rush from deep inside the bedroom. Her place is quirky and comfy, just like her. I check out the pictures on the wall—mostly family, a few weird shots of sunflowers and abandoned washing machines—and then head into her bedroom.
But when I look out at the cityscape of San Diego stretching away from her tenth-floor window, I remember that I have my own life here. My own routines. We can’t keep living like we did in Bayshore. It won’t fit here.
So it’s important to me that I get a feel for what it might be like to not have this connection. What life would be like if I couldn’t waltz into her bedroom and get naked and surprise her in the shower. Is it even possible anymore?
I linger near the bed, checking out the scant progress she’s made on her luggage. I clench and unclench my teeth, counseling myself to go back to seeing her the way I did before. Shapeless. Uninteresting. Non-provocative.
But she’s in the shower right now, and God, I know how much she likes shower sex. I roll my neck in a slow circle. And then I start counting down slowly from ten.
I don’t make it to eight before I’m shucking my pants and tearing off my T-shirt. This is the proof I need. Kinsley’s got me wrapped around her finger, and I have no idea what comes next.
Except this. I ease into the bathroom, which is already clogged with steam and the floral scent of her shampoo. I quietly slide open the shower door and step into the stall. When she opens her eyes from rinsing out her hair, she screams.
“Connor!”
“Correct. You win the prize.” My grin is a mile wide, and I grip her slippery hips, bringing our bodies flush together. A throaty laugh escapes her.
