Sandcastle Beach--Includes a Bonus Novella

by Jenny Holiday

  “Yes. I’m your boyfriend now.”

  She hadn’t thought she was looking for one of those, but now that he, he specifically, was here, she understood that she’d been looking for him.

  She exhaled.

  “Unless you don’t want me to be,” he added.

  She shook her head, suddenly weirdly shy. “I want you to be.” Her voice had gone embarrassingly squeaky, so she burrowed into his chest. She didn’t want to have to look at him while she asked her question. “You don’t mind that I’m basically out of commission for two or three days a month?”

  “No.” She felt the surety with which he uttered the word. It rumbled through his chest. “I mean, I mind because I don’t want you to be in pain, and I think we should try to figure out a way to cut down on that, but I don’t mind in any elemental way.”

  This. This was what the girls had meant. Jay was going to be someone she could rely on. But what she hadn’t seen was that that wasn’t the same thing as being dependent on someone.

  “Having sex all the time is going to be exhausting, anyway,” he went on, laughter in his voice. “It will be good to break for a couple days for board games.”

  “And you don’t mind…”

  “What?” He levered her off him, and, using his hands to cup her face, forced her into eye contact with him.

  God, this was so mortifying. But radical honesty, right? “You don’t mind that I can’t have kids?”

  He smiled so tenderly. “Which means you’re basically my dream girl, because I never wanted them.”

  “But why?” It seemed an important question, suddenly. He had said that once when they were talking about their parents, but she needed to make sure he meant it. That he wasn’t settling.

  “I’d be terrible at it.”

  “I don’t think you would be. Are you sure? Do you understand what you’re missing out on? Or if you only want me because I can’t have them, that makes me feel kind of—” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s way too early to be talking about this stuff.”

  “Will you stop?” For the first time since she’d met him, he sounded truly annoyed at her. But then he shook his head fondly and softened his voice. “I want you. Full stop. Whatever package of qualities come with you, that’s what I want.”

  Wow. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.

  “And for the record, it’s not too early to be talking about this.”

  “We only just slept together for the first time. We’ve known each other two months.”

  He shrugged like time was a minor detail not to be concerned with. Like it didn’t apply to them. And maybe it didn’t. The thought was buoying. No, it was exhilarating. “So this is it?” she asked.

  “This is it.”

  “I always kind of worried about the kid thing being a barrier,” she confessed.

  “Do you want them?” Was it her imagination, or did he stiffen a little?

  “I’ve always known it wasn’t going to happen for me, so it’s not really a question I’ve spent much time worrying about.”

  He smiled—a big, wide, delighted smile that gradually turned hotter, more wicked. “Well then, Elise Maxwell, I’d say we’re ideally suited. Hiring you was the best goddamn decision I ever made in my life.”

  All she could do was sigh happily. And also sort of frustratedly, because the way that smile had morphed before her eyes was making her achy again. Restless.

  But then his phone buzzed. “Shit. I’m sorry, I should get that. It’s probably Patricia. She’s freaking out because I told her to cancel my morning appointments tomorrow so we could…” He waggled his eyebrows. “Sleep in.”

  “Right.” She somehow doubted they were going to get any sleep, either tonight or in the morning. But a lazy morning holed up with Jay playing hooky was pretty much the best thing she could imagine.

  “Ha!” He threw his head back and laughed, tickled by whatever he’d read on his phone. “It is Patricia.”

  “So late on a Sunday night?”

  “I do feel a little bad about that. I’m not acting like myself, and it’s throwing her for a loop.” He winced. “I’m afraid my not being there tomorrow morning is creating more work for her. I also had her cancel everything on Friday when the rugs suddenly arrived, so I could hightail it to your place. So basically we’re two for two on me bailing on work for booty calls, and she’s having to compensate.”

  “But were they really booty calls?” she teased. “The first one was more of a Yahtzee call.”

  He didn’t laugh, just stared at her for a long moment before saying, “No. They weren’t booty calls. They were everything calls.”

  Everything. That was the thing about Jay. He could give her screaming orgasms, take care of her when she was hurting, admire her professional talents, and sink her battleships. He was everything. On the one hand, she should feel like they were moving too fast. But on the other hand, she didn’t feel that way. He was right somehow: by some alchemy she didn’t understand, it wasn’t too early to be talking seriously about the future.

  “Well, poor Patricia.” Elise felt bad. But not bad enough to tell him to go to work tomorrow. She wanted her lazy morning.

  “I’ll give her some time off to compensate.” Still looking at the phone, he barked a laugh.

  “Everything okay?”

  “She reports that the big rug in my office has a tear in it.”

  “Oh.” That was funny, given all the sexually charged meaning they’d jokingly invested in the rugs. Still, it was brand new, and it hadn’t been cheap. “We’ll send it back.”

  He whipped his gaze to hers, interrupting his typing. “No, we won’t.”

  “It’s defective!” she argued. “You can’t just spend two grand on a rug that’s defective from the get-go.”

  “I can do whatever I want. I’m the client. That rug has symbolic value, and it’s staying.”

  She was flattered, but he wasn’t being reasonable. “Come on. You’re not the superstitious type.”

  “Elise.” He set his phone aside. “Listen to me very carefully. The rug stays.” Something flared in his eyes. “I’m going to be buried with that goddamn rug. Just roll me up in it and heave me into the ground.”

  All right, then. Elise fanned herself with her hands. She had a feeling that being cold wasn’t going to be a problem anymore.

  “Now,” he said, pushing his phone farther away, so far that it clattered off the bed onto the ground, “let’s try the whole keep-your-hands-on-the-headboard thing again.”

  Epilogue

  Four months later

  The text came in when Elise was out with her friends. She and Wendy and Jane had planned a night of drinks and dinner. Gia had flown in at the last minute, which was a bit of a surprise because she’d visited only a week ago, and she was in the middle of a job in California. But whatever, Elise would take Gia whenever she could get her.

  Jay: I sent the rug back.

  Normally she wouldn’t answer a text while she was out with the girls, but this particular one was impossible to ignore. They were sitting at a bar having cocktails, and she turned away to try to reply without drawing too much attention to herself.

  Elise: What? The ripped one?

  She tamped down a little spurt of panic. It was just a rug. She was the one who’d tried to talk him into returning it in the first place. It didn’t have any inherent meaning. Just because it was a silly symbol of their relationship didn’t mean it had any actual power over their fate.

  “Is that Jay?” Gia asked.

  “Judging by how alarmed she looks,” Wendy said, “I’m gonna go with Daddy dearest.”

  Jane laughed, but then she stopped, like she was trying to hide it. Elise looked at her friends. What was up with them? If Wendy really thought Elise’s father was texting, she’d be all up in her face about it, rushing to defend Elise from what she perceived as the enemy.

  Her phone dinged again.

  Jay: Yeah. I thought it was time
to get a new one. Come over and see if you like it.

  Elise: You got a new rug without consulting me?

  That might have come off a little shrewish, but she was his designer. And he was in the advantageous position of not being charged for design services these days.

  Jay: Come see it. If you don’t like it, I’ll return it. Bring the girls.

  “Seriously,” Wendy said, “Who is texting and making you make those faces?”

  Elise looked up. “It is Jay. He got a new rug at the office, and he wants me to come over and see it.” Which, said out loud, sounded like a dumb thing to be texting about. The girls didn’t know about the rug subtext. They’d all enthusiastically endorsed her whirlwind romance with Jay, but Elise was maybe guilty of not telling them every single detail. Which was a new one for her. But…She felt her face heat as she thought back to Jay working her over so expertly and thoroughly this morning before they got out of bed. Some things were private.

  She picked up her phone. “I’ll tell him I’ll see it later.”

  “Let’s go see it!” Jane said with a strange amount of enthusiasm.

  Elise narrowed her eyes. “It’s eight on Friday night. We’re all together”—she shot Gia an affectionate look—“so we’re not going to an accounting firm to look at a rug!”

  “Mmm, look at a rug.” Gia snorted. “Sounds like it could be a euphemism for something dirty.”

  Wendy hopped off her bar stool. “Let’s go. This place is boring anyway.”

  “And Cohen & Smith is not boring?” Elise grinned. “Besides the decor, I mean. The decor is the opposite of boring.”

  Wendy slapped down a wad of cash and was halfway to the door when the others shrugged. They all knew there was no point in trying to talk Wendy out of anything.

  Fifteen minutes later, they were in the elevator, on their way up to Jay’s office. “Hey, maybe after we’re done here, I can show you guys the bank job.” She’d redone the HR department of a major bank, which spanned three floors of Jay’s building. It hadn’t been the most exciting job because she’d had to work within a narrow corporate-approved color palette, but it had led to another job doing the CEO’s house, which had been an exciting one in that she’d been given carte blanche—and a huge budget. Still, she was proud of her work in the bank offices. It was a living testament to how far she’d come, and if they were on-site anyway, she wanted to show it to her best friends.

  “For sure!” Gia said. “I totally want to see it.”

  “Yes!” Wendy echoed, with an uncharacteristic degree of excitement.

  What was wrong with them? They were way too chipper.

  “Ladies.” When they pushed through the heavy oak doors to the Cohen & Smith lobby, Jay rose from a sofa. He must have been waiting for them.

  His eyes roamed over everyone as he greeted her friends, but then his intense gaze landed on Elise and stuck there. “Hi.”

  “Hi.” Her heart stuttered. It had been four months, but he still had that effect on her.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Wendy said. “Get a room.”

  “We just said hi!” Elise protested, but she knew what Wendy meant. Jay’s intense look had not dimmed. It promised possession and protection and tenderness, and, amazingly, the doses of those things he delivered seemed to grow with each passing day.

  “Let’s see this magical rug,” Gia said, “and you two can get on with it.”

  “We’re going for dinner,” Elise said to the girls as they followed Jay into his office. They’d booked tonight as a girls’ night, and they were sticking to it. She would admit to being a little torn, though. Now that she was in close proximity to Jay, it was hard not to want him to throw her over his shoulder and cart her off to have his way with her. But she wouldn’t admit to that publicly. Besides, Mr. Intense Look would wait up for her.

  They filed into Jay’s office. The old rug—the ripped one—was still there.

  “I thought you returned it.”

  “Well, yeah, I didn’t actually.”

  Huh? He’d just told her, via text not thirty minutes ago, that he had returned it.

  Jay moved over to the rug, which wasn’t in its usual place under the coffee table, anchoring the casual seating area in his office. It had been sort of awkwardly placed next to that area.

  “Well, you can’t leave it there. It looks terrible there.”

  “I got a new one. It’s underneath it.”

  What? That was so strange. “You can’t leave the new one there, either. You can’t put any rug in that spot. It’s squished in and not anchored with anything and looks totally random. Whichever rug you’re using needs to go back under the seating area.”

  Gia coughed, and Jane made a point of clapping her on the back.

  “Yeah, they’re just out here temporarily to show you,” Jay said, crouching down and snagging a corner of the old rug.

  “You are so weird.”

  He shot her a grin, knelt, and started rolling the rug back.

  “That color doesn’t work in here.” It was a dark red. Not a bad color inherently, just not for this office. “And I’m not sure a straight-up solid is what you want in here. A print would—”

  Gia’s coughing fit seemed to take a turn for the worse. A little alarmed, Elise turned and walked over to her, but Gia just shook her head and made an urgent pointing gesture back toward Jay and the stupid rugs.

  She turned back. Okay, the rug did have some pattern in it. A white loopy—

  She gasped. He wasn’t kneeling in order to roll the rug back. He was on one knee gazing at her with undisguised love. And those loopy things were letters. The rug had words woven into it.

  Will you marry me?

  Jay had been pretty confident she would say yes. He’d put his odds at maybe 90 percent. They were moving fast, objectively speaking, but from the inside, it felt like they were moving at just the right speed.

  But in that moment, with her standing there, postgasp, utterly silent as she stared at the rug, fear started to sink its claws into his gut. Maybe it was too soon. Or the rug thing, which had seemed like a cute inside joke when he thought it up, was actually really dumb and not even remotely worthy of her. He should have hired a freaking skywriter. He should have—

  “Yes. Of course.” She looked down at him with watery eyes. “Of course I’ll marry you.”

  All his fears flitted away as she pulled him back to standing and threw herself into his arms. He could feel her shaking, so he held her tighter. Buried his face in her hair and marveled that she’d said yes. She was his. He was never going to let go.

  He’d meant that last sentiment metaphorically, but when she eventually pulled back against him, he had a hard time lowering his arms and letting her step out of his embrace.

  He was glad he had, though, because the look she gave him, so full of love and heat and promise, was not a sight he would have liked to miss.

  He cleared his throat. “I didn’t get you a ring. I figured you’d have opinions.”

  “Smart man,” Wendy deadpanned.

  The interjection reminded him—and her, judging from the way her eyebrows shot up—that they had an audience.

  She turned, and her friends rushed her. He stood back and grinned at the group hug that transformed into a group squeal.

  When it broke up, Elise kept one arm slung around Gia’s waist. “This is why you’re in town!”

  “Yup. When Jay told us he was doing this, I knew I had to be here.”

  “Really, he didn’t tell us,” Jane said. “It was more like asking our permission.”

  “It totally was!” Wendy confirmed.

  She looked at him, equal parts amused and incredulous. He shrugged. “It wasn’t like I was going to ask your parents. And anyway, you all are kind of a package deal, right?”

  He was teasing, but not really. The early weeks of his relationship with Elise had been insular, private. But he’d learned pretty quickly that these women were her soul sisters. And he was gl
ad of it. Each was amazing in her own right, and as a unit, they provided Elise with an unshakable support network.

  “We are a package deal.” Elise went in for another group hug with the girls.

  “Yeah,” Gia said. “We already gave him the if-you-hurt-our-friend-we-will-rise-as-one-and-murder-you-in-your-sleep speech, so we’re all good.”

  “And then we signed off on this rug idea,” Jane said.

  Elise’s head popped up from this latest group hug. “The rug thing was great. It totally makes me think we could incorporate some cute rugs into the wedding itself—you know, because they’re kind of our thing? Where did you get it?”

  “Well, I thought I was going to have to get it custom woven, but it turns out proposal rugs are a thing.”

  He chuckled. He could see her perfectionist designer brain firing up. Then her eyes sparked, and she lifted her arms to the sky like a revivalist preacher. “Oh my God! I have the best idea for a wedding venue.”

  A peal of laughter from Gia drew his attention. She was pulling a bottle of champagne out of a giant handbag. To his amusement, it was followed by five stemless plastic flutes. Gia, he had come to learn, was known for her giant bags, but even for her, that was impressive. She passed the glasses around, popped the cork to cheers from the group, and started pouring.

  When she was done, he followed her lead in lifting his glass.

  “I say this with love,” Gia said, winking at Elise, “but you are going to be such a bridezilla.”

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  About the Author

  Jenny Holiday is a USA Today bestselling and RITA®-nominated author whose works have been featured in the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, and the Washington Post and by National Public Radio. She grew up in Minne­sota, where her mom was a children’s librarian, and started writing at age nine after her fourth-grade teacher gave her a notebook to fill with stories. When she’s not working on her next book, she likes to hang out with her family, watch other people sing karaoke, and throw theme parties. A member of the House of Slytherin, Jenny lives in London, Ontario, Canada.