by Amelia Wilde
“What are you thinking, Charlie?” Roman folds his hands on his desk.
We exchange a look.
“I don’t want to say it,” says Roman.
“Say what?” Beau sits up straight.
“Best if you don’t,” I answer.
“I hate both of you.” Beau shakes his head.
I go to find Leta and give her the news.
7
Charlie
Somebody has the music up loud.
I walk up the sidewalk toward my house, listening to the chords float by on the breeze. It’s not a bad beat. Still—which of the people on the club side has suddenly developed an affinity for blasting music? Aside from Beau, I can’t think of anyone who would play it at this volume.
I’m at the door before I realize that I’m the problem. Or rather, my house is the problem.
I push open the door and the bass deepens. “Leta?” It’s coming from the kitchen. Oh, no. “Are you in here?”
By the sound of it, she’s in here and she’s cooking. Cooking and Leta do not mix, unless she’s changed. My heart tugs in the direction of the music—in the direction she is. There’s no reason I should be this curious, but I’m seized by the urge to know if she’s the same Leta or different. On some level, she’s different. I know that. Time changes people. But does it change their ability to cook?
At the kitchen door, I’m stopped dead by the sight of her.
Dancing.
She dances with abandon, throwing her arms above her head, rocking her hips from side to side, tossing her hair. She wears a bright yellow jumpsuit with a floral pattern from the boutique at the resort, and the color is stunning on her.
Leta holds one of the tomatoes from my vegetable basket in both hands, circling it around her head and bringing it down. I could watch her like this forever, if it wouldn’t be fucking creepy.
“Hey,” I shout over the music.
Leta whirls, her mouth falling open, and drops the tomato. “Oh, my god,” she shouts back, bending to pick it up. The curve of her back to her ass makes my mouth water. “I didn’t know when you’d be back.”
“What are you doing?” She straightens up and turns the music down.
“Pilot Five’s new stuff is good,” she comments. “I was trying to make lunch for you. You know, in exchange for the oatmeal. And I threw away the eggs you made. They were cold and disgusting.”
I don’t quite believe she waited until they were cold, but I’m the one who turned my back on the eggs—and sitting across from her at the table. So I let it slide.
“Anyway…” Leta uses the back of her hand to brush her hair away from her face. “I thought lunch would be good, but so far…”
All she’s done is get out a tomato, and assortment of knives, and a frying pan.
“Looks promising.”
“I didn’t know where anything was,” she insists. “This isn’t a tuna casserole situation.”
I eye the tomato cradled in her palms. “Are you sure?” I laugh in spite of myself. “This hasn’t reached those proportions quite yet, I’ll give you that.”
Leta cracks a grin, big and familiar. “Why did I ever decide to make that?”
“For some reason you thought tuna casserole would impress me.” I make a face in spite of myself. “It was the first time you were going to cook anything at that place on Mitchell Street.”
“God, that place was a dump. Do you remember the water bill?”
“Don’t remind me of the water bill.” For one summer between junior and senior year at college, they’d lived together in a dive of a house just off campus. It had been old as hell and in need of repairs—lots of repairs. In July the water bill had come in at over two hundred dollars. Leta’s eyes bugged out when she saw it. Then she’d run onto the rickety back porch to paint a painting.
I followed her out there to ask what it was for, but she was frantic, setting up a canvas and getting out paints at warp speed.
“What are you doing?”
“Emergency painting,” she shouted, though there wasn’t a reason to shout. “I’ve got to pay this bill.”
I loved her so much in that moment. “Leta, I’ve got some savings. I can cover it. But we need to call the landlord. Two hundred dollars is an insane water bill.”
She was adamant. “I’m paying at least half,” she insisted, then swiped some yellow paint across the canvas. Apparently, it was going to be an abstract work.
“I did think tuna casserole would impress you,” she says now, tossing the tomato from hand to hand. “It seemed like the kind of thing you would like.”
“You had some strange ideas about me back then.”
Her eyes find mine, a spark there that I’ve never been able to forget. “I had some other ideas, too.”
“Yeah? What kinds of ideas?”
“Sexy ones.”
“There were a lot of sexy ideas going around.”
Leta throws her head back and laughs. “You make it sound like a disease.”
“They infiltrate your brain, those sexy ideas.”
“Yeah? Is it incurable, do you think?”
The air in the kitchen stretches tight between us, stealing the breath from my lungs.
Yes.
The answer is a clear yes.
It takes me a beat too long to get oxygen back to my brain. This is the question I’ve been trying so hard to avoid.
Maybe it would be easier to give in.
Maybe not.
“Don’t bother with lunch. We should go meet with the contractor so you can see what’s going on.”
“Oooh, a contractor.” Leta puts the tomato back into the basket. “Aren’t you hungry, though?”
“There are places on the resort. Or we can go into Ruby Bay.”
“Yes, we could.” She puts the slightest emphasis on the word we.
“Let’s go.”
Leta
Charlie walks me one block over and two blocks down. Two trucks are parked in the driveway, neatly pinning my little rental car in its place.
“How did you get people out here on a Sunday?”
“Bribery,” Charlie says with a straight face.
I slap him on the shoulder, a light, glancing blow, and immediately regret it. What am I thinking, treating him like we’re back in that house on Mitchell Street? But I’m already committed. “Seriously, how?”
“Seriously—bribery. We pay them extra so that they’re on call on the weekends for us.”
“Is that so you can impress everybody on the club side?”
“It’s so we can impress everybody. They also do work on the resort. It’s a good company—you can trust them.”
“Do I have another choice?” I have to admit that it’s been nice, letting Charlie handle this. I wouldn’t have known who to call. Plus, I’m not entirely sure I want to be the one to find those people. Every phone call, every contractor appointment, is another tie between me and this house. Aunt Mari’s the biggest one. Even so, this is supposed to be temporary. A couple of weeks. A mysterious detour off the path I’ve chosen for my life.
“Not really,” Charlie admits. “Part of the association contract involves using Bliss-approved contractors for work on the houses.”
“Why?”
“Lots of owners sell the houses back to the club when they’re ready to move on. This way, we can take some of the pressure off home ownership and we’re able to trust any repairs or renovations that have been done when it’s time to re-sell.”
“I never knew you were so interested in real estate.”
“I’m not. I’m interested in money.” Charlie’s shoulders tense.
“Right.”
I want to ask him so much more. I want to ask him how his love for all things financial—which came to him so easily when we were in college—has become something that eats at him. I want to know what he’s really doing here, back at his family resort. Where does he spend his days when he’s not dealing with contractors for a h
ouse I own but don’t necessarily want? What is it that’s bothering him?
The night I spent in his house is over, and that was it. I know that. And my two weeks here are going to be over in the blink of an eye. There’s not enough time on this walk to get into all of that.
We turn into the concrete walk in front of Aunt Mari’s house and a tall man with reddish hair steps out of the front door, pulling it gently closed behind him. “Charlie. Who’s this?”
“She’s the new owner. Leta Quinn.” The sound of my name in Charlie’s mouth is so…normal, almost like he says it often. My cheeks heat at the thought of him talking about me.
I step forward and shake the man’s hand. “Hi.”
“Pete Bower. I’ve got good news and bad news.”
“Okay. Hit me with it.” I stick my hands in the pockets of my new jumpsuit. It’s yellow with pink flowers, and I love the hell out of it. “Bad news first.”
Pete cracks a smile. “Wouldn’t give it any other way. The bad news is, you lost a bookshelf and an end table. The upstairs bathroom will have to be completely redone, and it might affect the flooring in the hallway and bedrooms.”
“That’s—that’s a bummer on the bookshelf.”
“I’m having the guys bring out what’s salvageable to the lawn so they can get some sun.” Pete looks genuinely concerned. “It’s a shame you had to move all those in only to have them crushed. The water damage might be heavy on some of the items.”
I swallow a lump in my throat. “Oh, they’re—they’re not exactly mine, but thank you. I would like to go through them.” I can feel Charlie watching me. There wasn’t time to catalogue everything that was in Aunt Mari’s office, which was more of a den with a few bookshelves and a writing desk. What else did I lose that I’ll never know about? “Any more bad news?”
“It’ll take at least a week before you can move back in.”
“Okay.” I take in a breath and let it out. “Luckily we’re at a hotel.”
“About that…” murmurs Charlie.
“Let’s hear the good news, Pete!” I say it too loudly to cover up my disappointment about the potential losses from the bookshelf.
“The good news is, the lower floor is mostly untouched.”
“That is good news. Any chance I can start going through things today, or—”
“Oh, no.” Pete shakes his head. “Three days, maybe, before it’s safe for that kind of activity. But this place is a treasure. Lots to do in the meantime.”
“Sure.” I search for a silver lining in the gorgeous sunlight, in the beautiful warmth of September, but this…I did not see this coming.
Charlie puts a hand on my shoulder. “About lunch…”
8
Leta
“I don’t know if we should have lunch.”
Charlie looks at me over the top of his menu. “We’re already at lunch.”
“We can still back out.” Helpfully, my stomach growls loud enough to be heard over the gentle background music.
Since my car was parked in by Pete Bower and company, we took his. Climbing in and taking a breath of that familiar scent—soap and cologne and sunlight on skin—was like stepping into a time machine. Only I’m not sure I should be going back there. I’m not sure either of us should be going back there.
It was a rough breakup, and it’s all I could think about on the drive over. We’d had plans to come to Ruby Bay. He’d take his place in the family business, and I’d start a studio in town.
And then…
My mom found the studio space in California. It was a sign. It felt like a sign, and I wanted to take the universe up on it. I knew he’d resist the idea. I didn’t know we’d break up over it. The last night we spent together, things got ugly. I accused him of being a weight around my neck, always wanting to drag me back to his comfortable life.
It was bad.
And now, sitting in the Italian restaurant in downtown Ruby Bay, all of it seems like it happened yesterday.
Charlie puts down his menu. “If you’d rather go back to the resort, we can do that. But I thought we should have a conversation.”
Frustration flares. “I thought you didn’t want to have a conversation.”
“I got new information.”
“Care to share?”
He folds his hands on top of the menu and looks me in the eye. “There aren’t any free rooms at Bliss. Normally, we’d provide you with one during the course of the repairs, but we’re booked through Tuesday at the earliest.”
“I’ll stay somewhere else, then.”
“That’s not—” He steels himself. “I was going to offer my guest bedroom, if you wanted to take it.”
“I don’t.”
“Okay.”
A silence stretches out between us, and I read over the menu again, even though I’ve made a show of wanting to leave. The truth is that I want chicken with buttered noodles. Charlie brought me here once before, when we came to stay, and I can still remember exactly how they tasted.
“There are a couple of smaller motels on the outskirts of town,” he begins, and I slap my menu down onto the table.
“I do want to stay with you.”
“Then stay with me.”
“I can’t.”
“You already have.”
“I can’t, because I want to talk to you, and you don’t want to do that. And I’m willing to respect it if you don’t want to rehash what happened. I don’t want to rehash what happened. It fucking sucked, fighting with you that way—”
Charlie arches an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t want to rehash it.”
“I don’t, but I’m also wildly curious about you.”
He takes one look at my stony expression and laughs. Charlie laughing is like the sun breaking over the horizon in the morning. Once it’s happening, you know it’s inevitable. But his default expression is thoughtful seriousness. “I’m curious about you, too,” he admits. “But because there are…things…that have happened in the past…”
“I get it. But the universe—and don’t look at me like that, Charlie, I really think it’s true—brought us together for some reason. At the very least, you shouldn’t look at me walking around in my underwear without catching up a bit.”
“You’re going to walk around in your underwear?”
“I didn’t have anything on under that bathrobe, if you must know.”
Charlie groans, putting both hands over his mouth. “Jesus, Leta. You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“I’m only here for two weeks, okay? I don’t want to be that far from the house. I wanted to get it in good shape so I can make my decision.”
“Decision about what?”
I look into those blue eyes, which are on fire with a need to know. I did it on purpose. I’m that person. Charlie Bliss could never resist getting new information, and I’ve hooked him with it. Fish, meet bait.
“I’m ready to negotiate,” I tell him.
He presses his lips together, a smile sneaking out nonetheless. “Terms for what?”
“I’ll tell you everything that’s going on.”
“Deal.”
“If we can both agree to leave the past in the past.”
Charlie leans back in his seat, looking thoughtful as usual. “How much of the past?”
“The parts that hurt.”
He gives one crisp nod. “This doesn’t mean we’re committed to anything.”
“No. But I already ran into you once. I don’t want to hide from you for the next two weeks. I can’t hide from you in your own house. Do you know how awkward that would be? I’d rather pay for a motel. Even if funds are tight.” I mumble the last bit.
He hears me anyway. “Funds are tight and you’re waffling about staying with me?”
“Protecting the heart is priceless.”
“I thought we agreed not to bring up the painful parts.”
“There you go, bringing up the painful parts. My finances are not my proude
st subject,” I say with a sniff. “That’s why I think it would be best if I—” I shut my own mouth. “There I go, getting ahead of myself. I won’t reveal any more secrets until you agree to the terms.”
“And those were what, exactly, again?”
“No dredging up past arguments. No fantasizing about me if you happen to see me in a state of undress—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Charlie puts both hands in the air. “That’s a dealbreaker.”
Maybe he’s kidding. Maybe he’s not. Either way, a glowing satisfaction spreads through my chest. “Do you really do that much fantasizing, Charlie Bliss?”
He picks up the menu again and fixes his eyes studiously to the print. “That’s the kind of information that would fall under the agreement, I think.”
“Then…do you agree?”
“Do you agree to stay in my guest bedroom instead of wasting your money on a motel?”
I purse my lips. “I wouldn’t take that attitude toward people staying in motels. If it’s such a waste of money to stay there, wouldn’t the same also be true of the Bliss Resort?”
“We offer much more at the Bliss Resort.” Fire in his eyes, and an edge to his tone that reminds me of bedrooms and living room couches and, once, the back of his car. Charlie extends a hand. “I agree to the terms. Do you?”
I take his hand and we shake. Firmly, without hesitation. His hand feels so big compared to mine. It’s been years since I felt this body-melting heart-swoon when shaking a man’s hand.
No. It’s been longer. I have never felt this way about shaking a man’s hand.
Damn you, Charlie Bliss.
I drop his hand. “I agree.”
“Good.”
“Is it?”
He locks eyes with me. “Yes. Now tell me how you ended up in Ruby Bay, down the street from me, after all this time.”
9
Charlie
