She finally took pity on poor Holden, who was standing there with his palm up, still waiting for his high five. After slapping it weakly, she offered the same hand to Maya. “Sorry, we haven’t met. I’m Brie.”
“Maya.” Maya darted her gaze back and forth between him and Brie, for God knew what reason.
“I’ve heard all about your theater. Sounds like a cool play you guys are working on.” Brie turned to Holden to include him in the sentiment.
Maya kept doing the eye-darting thing, but eventually her gaze stayed on Law. “Are you looking for my dad? He and my mom are visiting relatives in Brampton today.”
“Oh no, I’m not looking for your dad.”
She blinked. “Was there something you wanted, then?”
He felt dumb, suddenly, for thinking they had the kind of relationship where he could just pop in and say hi. “Yeah, give me two wishing flowers.”
She raised an eyebrow but went to the fridge to get them.
“I thought you said that was for full moons,” Brie said.
“Well, it can’t hurt.” Brie shook her head at him laughingly, and he added, “What? You can’t think of a wish?”
“That will be ten dollars,” Maya said curtly. Clearly she was pissed at him. Or extra pissed, given that “pissed at him” was kind of her baseline, their recent thaw aside.
He wanted to ask if she was still coming tomorrow for soccer. He had Carter opening so he’d have a buffer between when the match ended and when the bar opened. But of course he couldn’t ask her, not with an audience.
As they strolled toward the lake, Brie said, “I didn’t know if I should introduce myself as the new bar manager back there. I assume that part isn’t a secret? I’ll be here soon enough.”
“Oh no. Just the restaurant part. And I know I’m being kind of cagey about that, but small towns can be gossipy. I need to…” Decide if I’m mortgaging the damn bar. “Get it off the ground before word really gets out. But some people know. My friends know. Maya, who you met back there, knows.”
“Maya is not your friend?”
“What?”
“You said your friends know, and you said Maya knows. Which suggests that Maya isn’t a friend?”
“Oh. Right.” That was another thing that was hard to explain. “No, she’s not really a friend.” Was she?
“Ex-girlfriend?”
“No! God, no.”
“Sorry, none of my business. She just seemed a little frosty back there.”
“That’s just what she’s like.” Around him, anyway. He thought back to her laughing and dancing with Holden the other night. They’d reached the little beach. He handed Brie a flower and pointed toward the pier. “Let’s walk out there to throw them.”
“Aren’t these supposed to be moonflowers?”
“Traditionally, yes. But the town has gotten more popular with tourists, especially around the two big summer festivals, and everyone was stealing the moonflowers, so now the town steers people to buy flowers from A Rose by Any Other Name. And you can’t sell cut moonflowers, since they grow on vines, so this is sort of like a copycat flower. It’s an amaryllis, I think.” He paused. “And yes, I do realize how absurd that sounds. This town sometimes straddles that fine line between charming and bonkers.”
“Now you tell me,” she joked, “after I’ve signed the contract.”
He gave a moment’s thought to telling her about “the matchmakers,” but decided not to. He had no idea what her relationship status was, and as her boss it wasn’t his place to ask. Anyway, if she was going to be working downtown, she’d find out about them soon enough.
When they reached the railing at the end of the pier, she gazed at the water. It was a sunny day, and the lake was at its bluest. “Amazing.” She held her flower out. “You’re going to do it, too, right?”
He supposed he was. He’d bought two flowers. She flung hers into the water as he pondered. He hadn’t done this for years. His mind went blank. Brie turned to him expectantly. Okay, clearly he should wish for the restaurant to be successful. But that seemed so big. So amorphous.
He tried to narrow it down. To put it in Spice Girls terms, what did he really really want?
His mind flashed forward to tomorrow morning. Crystal Palace versus Liverpool.
Raising his hand, he threw the flower and wished for Maya to not be so mad that she didn’t show up.
Chapter Fourteen
When Maya arrived at the bar Saturday morning, she was thirty minutes early. She’d planned to run over to Jenna’s to pick up something—she usually tried to arrive at truces with some little offering or other even though she and Benjamin both knew she was going to drink his wine. Although no wine for morning matches. There was no precedent for this. But when she’d come downstairs from her room at the Mermaid, she’d found Pearl and Eiko chatting in the lobby with Eve. They hadn’t noticed her creeping down the stairs, so she’d quietly fled through the kitchen.
Once she was out back, she’d nearly run into Karl, who was, for God knew what reason, poking around in the passageway between the inn and the bakery.
Were these people everywhere?
Well, yes. That shouldn’t be surprising. They just seemed extra everywhere right now.
As she’d crept carefully past the passageway, Karl had looked up, but not right at her, so she’d hightailed it past and, instinctively, jogged over to the bar.
And now she was having a bout of indecisiveness. She was already here. She should just go up, right? Rather than risk Karl seeing her?
But was it rude to be so early?
She shook her head. When had she ever been worried about being rude to Benjamin?
She pulled on the door.
Locked. Hmm.
The back door opened onto a vestibule containing an old-school pay phone and a chalkboard list of what was on tap. From there, you could open another door to get into the bar or head up a flight of stairs to Benjamin’s apartment.
She’d assumed he always kept the outside door open, because she had literally never encountered it locked. And since he kept the inner door to his bar locked, and presumably the door to his apartment locked, this door was kind of superfluous. But on the other hand, this vestibule was often filled, when the bar was open, with drunk people up to no good.
Okay, well, she’d carry on with her plan to go to Jenna’s.
But then Karl stepped out of the passageway. He was carrying a ladder—she didn’t even want to ponder why—and thankfully, it was blocking his view of her. She flattened herself against the wall and got out her phone to text Benjamin. 911—I’m downstairs, and I need you to come let me in.
She wasn’t sure he would recognize her number. They were on some group chats together, but they’d never texted one-on-one. She had him in her contacts as Pizza Jerk. But presumably he wasn’t expecting anyone else at his back door this morning.
A few moments later, she could hear him clattering down the stairs like a herd of bison. Yeah, she probably should have said, “I need you to let me in quietly.”
He appeared on the other side of the glass door, and…welcome to the third See Benjamin’s Chest Day of the summer. She ordered herself to be cool and put her finger to her lips to signal quiet.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered urgently as he yanked open the door. She hustled inside, but because she was looking over her shoulder as she did so, she didn’t realize he hadn’t moved back—typical Benjamin, not giving her an inch—so she ended up banging against his chest.
Which, in addition to being bare, was damp.
As was his hair, she discovered, as she tilted her head back to look at him. No, not damp, fully wet. As if to punctuate her observation, a drop of water fell on her cheek.
To her complete shock, one of his arms banded around her waist, and he pulled her against his chest. “Are you okay?” he said urgently.
It took her a minute to get her bearings and therefore to answer. He was just so…hard. But also acc
ommodating. Comfortable to lean against even though he was…her nemesis. The Pizza Jerk. Or something. While her vocabulary was failing, his other hand came to her face, tilting it to the side, like he was trying to see her better in the dimly lit vestibule.
His hand on her face shocked her out of her stupor. “Of course I’m okay.” She tried to look anywhere except at his eyes. Being the object of such intense, direct scrutiny from him was suddenly uncomfortable—which made no sense, because they spent a lot of time having staring contests. She squirmed, trying to push back against his embrace, but he didn’t give way. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
“On account of the fact that you texted me 911?”
Right. She bit back the urge to apologize if she’d worried him. “It wasn’t 911 per se. It was Karl. I didn’t want him to see me coming here.”
He snorted and let go of her. Stepped back to make the room she’d been actively trying to acquire a mere moment ago but now found she didn’t want at all.
“Do you want Karl to see me coming here?” she asked.
He muttered something under his breath that she didn’t catch, but then raised his voice and said, as he mounted the stairs, “All right. C’mon.”
“Why was this door locked anyway?”
“It’s usually locked when the bar is closed. I unlock it when I know you’re coming. And if you haven’t noticed, you’re half an hour early.”
“You keep this door locked?”
He shot her a bewildered look over his shoulder. “Have you not noticed this town has its share of meth heads in and amongst the moonflowers?”
Of course she had. It just seemed uncharacteristically considerate of him to run down and unlock it in advance of her arrival, rather than telling her to text when she was downstairs. But probably he didn’t want to get into the habit of texting her. She’d made that Pizza Jerk contact for him, to keep things organized in group texts. But he likely had no idea which string of numbers was hers. Anyway, if they started texting regularly, they’d spend all their time typing rants at each other. Ranting in person was much more efficient.
Inside, Benjamin grabbed a full coffeepot. “You want some?”
She nodded—and she may or may not have admired the way the muscles in his back rippled as he reached up to a high shelf for a mug. “Sorry I didn’t bring anything. Oh, but wait!” She rummaged in her purse and pulled out a couple fortune cookies and dropped them on the counter. “Never let it be said I skimp in the hospitality gift department.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ll be right back.”
She took her coffee and strolled into the living room, taking the opportunity to examine his sweet apartment in the bright light of day. There were archways between the rooms, a charming little historical touch that broke up the large space. And he had good furniture—mostly midcentury teak stuff, but then his big, amazing, fluffy, pale-blue couch. The first time she’d come up here, she’d thought it was weird that his apartment was so nice while the bar was kind of rough. The bar was spotless, but between the wood-paneled walls and the wooden floors and booths, it was sort of dark and heavy feeling. But now she wondered if the fact that it looked like it was 1955 inside the bar was more a function of the family legacy thing than it was a reflection of Benjamin’s taste.
She strolled across the cushy living room rug to the front window. It was silly, but she liked to look at her apartment from his apartment. Well, really, she liked to do the reverse, to look at his apartment from hers. Since they were both up late due to their jobs, she was often still awake when he closed the bar. So she’d see his place dark, and later the lights would come on. She’d imagine him puttering around as he unwound and got ready for bed. After a while the light in this room would go off, and sometime later the light in another window she assumed belonged to his bedroom would go off, too.
It felt kind of weird that she hadn’t spied on him in recent weeks, because she’d been living in the Mermaid.
Had Holden spied on him from her apartment?
Nah. Holden wasn’t that observant. She smiled. She had developed a certain affection for her leading man, but she definitely no longer had stars in her eyes. That was probably helped along by the fact that he kept propositioning her. She’d assumed, that time they’d been dancing, that his suggestiveness had been a result of his drunkenness, but it turned out that no, he genuinely wanted in her pants. She had no illusions that it was anything other than that he was bored in this town, and she was convenient. They’d made sort of a joke of it—him asking and her rebuffing. But he kept trying—like yesterday, when he’d popped into the flower shop unexpectedly.
Who would have ever thought she’d be in a position to turn down sexual advances from a member of Two Squared?
“What’s so funny?”
She turned. Benjamin’s hair had clearly been towel dried, because it was merely damp now. He was wearing a bright-green Heineken T-shirt. It was worn-looking and, she was sure, incredibly soft. You could tell by looking at it. It also made his eyes, which were a few shades darker, pop like crazy.
She pointed over her shoulder at the window. “Do you ever see Holden from here?”
“No. He never opens the curtains.” His lip curled. She wasn’t sure if that little sneer was inspired by the idea of someone eschewing daylight or by Holden specifically.
She moved from the window and sat on the couch before she realized he was still standing, looking at her. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something but then shut it.
“Sorry I alarmed you with that text,” she said, but then had to stifle the urge to clamp her hand over her mouth. She never apologized to Benjamin, even on the extremely rare occasion when it might be called for.
“No, I’m the one who should—”
He didn’t clamp his hand over his mouth, but he did cut himself off rather abruptly.
Whatever. It was the first match of the season, and they were watching it live! She shook her head, scooched around so she could really get comfy on his perfect sofa, and let the excitement course through her. She’d been so incredibly busy rehearsing—and managing Holden—that she hadn’t had time to savor the anticipation.
“I see you dressed up for the occasion,” he said.
“I sure did.” She was wearing her Crystal Palace dress. It was nothing special, just a soft, comfy knit sheath dress. She’d paired it with her red glitter Cons, which she’d laced for the occasion with bright-blue laces. “Ahh! I’m so excited!”
He smiled at her a little too sincerely.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He picked up his remote and cued up the match. “It will be interesting to see how Hendricks works out.”
“Huh?”
“The new guy traded from Tottenham?”
“I know, I’m just surprised you do.”
“Eh, you’ve got me kind of invested in this band of hooligans.”
“Well, the conventional wisdom is that it was a bad transfer—they call it a transfer, not a trade.”
She expected him to razz her about her insistence on the UK terminology, but he didn’t. “I don’t know. I feel like Hendricks could go either way. Yes, they lost Diaz, but he didn’t have that great a season last year, really. He had some big, theatrical moments, but when you actually look at the numbers, I’m not sure he was worth what they were paying him.”
She blinked. She was struck dumb.
“What?” he asked.
“I just…” She was not used to talking to him about football. There was no one in this town who cared about the Premier League. There might be some passing interest toward the end of the season, but other than that it was a typical Canadian town, all hockey all the time with perhaps a small chaser of the NBA.
“What?” he said again, looking a little alarmed.
“Nothing!” Why was he suddenly so worried about everything? “Honestly, Benjamin, I’m a little gobsmacked to find that you actually enjoy this.”
Instead of respo
nding, he said, “Why don’t you call me Law like everyone else does?”
“Because everyone else does.” Crap. That had come out on its own. “I just…” Ugh, how to salvage this? “Law seems like a friendly nickname, and you and I are…”
“Not friendly?” he said cheerfully.
That was true. Or it had been. Lately they seemed to be swinging back and forth between their usual mode of “not friendly” and…something else. Something that felt friendly? She looked at his angular jaw, the morning sun making the auburn in his stubble glint. No, friendly was not the word.
She was overthinking this. “Right. Anyway, I don’t know, I don’t like calling you what everyone else does.”
“Well, I’m sorry to inform you that my mother calls me Benjamin.”
“Really?” Calling him the same thing his mother did felt…not right. “Does anyone call you Ben?”
“Not really. Maybe telemarketers trying to be friendly. And it’s how I introduce myself when I’m meeting someone new and I need a first and last name—Ben Lawson. But that’s pretty much it for Ben.”
Hmm. She let the name rattle around in her brain. Ben.
When Maya got up to get some more coffee a while later, Crystal Palace was ahead by one, and she twirled across the living room instead of walking, all stripes and glee. It drew Law’s attention to her blue-and-red dress. Apparently he’d been wrong that night in Bayshore when he’d had the notion that she never wore dresses in real life. This one was made out of T-shirt material, so it was casual. But it was kind of formfitting, which seemed…not casual.
“Does anyone ever wonder where you are when you come here?”
She paused under the archway that separated the dining room from the living room. “Not really. I live alone. Well, when I’m not living in the Mermaid. I did kind of have to sneak out this morning because Eiko and Pearl were in the lobby.”
“Weren’t you worried someone would see you in your dress? Everyone knows you love Crystal Palace.”
Sandcastle Beach--Includes a Bonus Novella Page 19
