“Oh,” I say, coming back to earth. “Of course.” I back out of the room, bouncing off the doorframe. He lifts his chin with that half smirk that I imagine has brought many women to their knees and then closes the door.
6
Brett
“I thought you were spending today at your mom’s,” Tori asks, salting her eggs.
“I spent the night last night. Mimi needed some meds. Mom did some errands early this morning, but I’m going back tomorrow, too, just to give her a break.”
“Will you be able to tear yourself away from the blond bombshell staying at your house?”
I give her a look.
“What? You know you think she’s hot. You could have invited her to come with us.”
“I did,” I say, forking a piece of my waffle. “She’s cleaning the house.”
She kicks me under the table. “Why aren’t you helping her?”
“Ow. She said she wanted to do it solo.”
“So? Your mom would kick your ass if she knew you were here stuffing your face when a stranger was home cleaning your house.”
“Will you give me a break? I’m trying to figure this shit out. She’s staying with me this weekend. I need to keep space between us.”
“What was up with you staking your claim on her with Jack last night, anyway?” Tori says, picking up her cup.
I know I was out of line putting my arm around her waist like that, but I don’t want Jack anywhere near this girl. “So, you’re cool if she gets with Jack?” I ask.
“This isn’t about me. This is about you pissing on her like a dog marking his territory then pulling away.”
I shift in my seat, my stomach full. “There’s no need to get attached.”
“She’s a person, not a puppy. And she’s our new co-worker.”
“She’s not working with us at Kids Company, is she?” I meet Tori’s gaze.
“No.”
Good. I’m drawn to this girl. I wouldn’t want her in my workplace distracting me. “What job did she take here?”
Tori lifts an eyebrow. “You haven’t asked her yourself?”
“Forget it,” I say, taking a drink of my soda. I sit back, moving my plate toward the end of the table.
Tori gives me that look like she knows every inch of my brain, which is fair at this point in our lives. “Why do you have to always be such an ass to girls you like?”
I huff a laugh. “Girls I like. Who said I like this girl?”
“I say it.”
“Why?”
“Because you didn’t want Jack anywhere near her. You respect her,” Tori says.
“That’s ridiculous.”
She lifts her eyebrows at me.
“You know what I mean.”
She sits back, considering me. “Just be careful, there, Romeo.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“We’ll see about that. She’s rich, you know.”
“How do you know?” I ask, though I suspected the same thing. “I know she drives a luxury car, but if she’s rich, why the hell is she staying with me and not in a hotel?”
“I’m talking about her family. Have you checked out her Insta?”
“Of course not.” I don’t dare tell her I tried but didn’t want to request to follow her private account. “What were you doing checking her out?”
She gives me a guilty look. “Trying to figure out why in the hell she’s starting work here as a pool attendant.”
I blink my shock. “A pool attendant?”
“Yep.”
I try to blow it off, but now I’m too interested. I assumed she was taking some cushy business office job. “What’s in her Insta?”
She puts her fork down and pokes on her phone while she chews and then shows it to me. It’s a picture of Kylie in a nice dress with a guy in a suit standing in front of what looks like a fancy hotel or a country club. My stomach groans. The greasy hash browns were definitely a mistake.
“That her boyfriend?” I ask, trying to sound unthreatened.
“I assume. Or an ex.”
“What’s the date on that post?” I ask.
She pulls her phone back to her chest, grinning at me. “You are into her.”
I sit back, holding up both hands. “Fuck it.”
“All I’m saying is be careful with this girl. There’s something going on with her, and we don’t know her or anything about where she comes from and who she’s involved with.”
“Got it,” I say. “You done?”
She tosses her napkin on her plate. “Yep.”
We pay, head to the car, and then ride in silence until I spot a bagel place and pull into the parking lot.
“Still hungry?” Tori asks.
“If she doesn’t have enough money to stay in a hotel, I’m guessing she doesn’t have a lot of money for food.”
“There’s a sucker born every day, isn’t there?”
I put the truck in park. “A thank-you for cleaning the house. Don’t you think my mom would approve of that kind of gesture?”
“Just as long as you’re watching yourself. I get tired of doing that for you.”
I glower at her as I get out of the car.
I drop Tori off and then trod up the steps to my unit. When I open the door, the scent of cleaner has replaced the stench of sweaty feet. I find her in the kitchen putting a plate in the cabinet. She squints at me. “It’s possible I may have rearranged some of your dishes, but not on purpose.”
I hand her the bag. “I come with bagels.”
She looks at it like it’s a pot of gold. “You’re kidding?”
“I wasn’t sure which kind you’d like so I got some different ones.”
She digs through the bag and looks up at me with almost weepy eyes. “There’s cream cheese in here.”
“I just got plain. There were too many flavors to choose from.”
She throws her arms around me, hugging me to her like the end of it all is upon us. “Thank you.”
I pull away before I get a big head. “It’s just a bag of bagels.”
“But it’s…” She shakes her head, pinching the bridge of her nose like she’s trying to think through emotions.
I want to ask her why a woman who drives a late-model luxury vehicle is tearing up over a bag of bagels, but I don’t need to know the root of her problems. I’ll just get sucked in. “Okay, well, I’m just gonna head to the beach. There’s a spot where a lot of staff hang. It’s right in front of the Dolphin’s Fin…that’s a restaurant, not an actual… Never mind.” I head out the door, my heart pulling me back to the room like gravity taking hold, but I push through the pain and make it out the door without even so much as a beach towel.
7
Brett
As expected, a group of my co-workers hang in our usual spot—hotties in bikinis batting off the dudes. This is what my weekends should look like. All is symmetrical with the world except the girl back at my house who won’t get the hell off my brain.
Cohen stands at the shore watching his cousin Logan skid across the surf on his WaveRunner. I sidle up next to him. “Does he have buyer’s remorse yet?”
“He will. I told him he’d be better off just renting one when he wanted to ride, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“He probably bought it to spite you.”
Cohen eyes me like he hadn’t thought of this option. “You’re probably right.”
Logan pulls into the shore. “What’s up, OT? You wanna ride?”
I do, but I think I’m too antsy. I find myself checking the beach access stairs for some stupid reason…really stupid. “I’m good.”
“Then let’s play football.” He shields his eyes from the sun as he looks at the blankets where Bailey, Simone, and Isaac sit. “Isaac, you wanna play?”
“Sure,” he says and hauls himself up. “Only if I can be on Cohen’s team.”
“No, fuck that,” I say. “You and me.”
“Why?” Isaac asks.
“Because if those two are on separate teams, they’ll kill each other.”
Cohen and Logan look at each other and shrug. They’re cousins, but they’re more like brothers with a vengeance for one another.
Logan tosses me the football, and we start a game. We’re probably half an hour in when Tori strides toward the group with Kylie in tow. I hate that my stomach does that stupid fizzy thing when I see her.
“Dude,” yells Isaac. “Eyes over here, man.”
“Sorry,” I say and make a point to play the game without looking at the blanket once, which takes some serious work on my part.
We finish the game and head over to the blankets, where Kylie has shed her cover-up to reveal a yellow sunflower bikini, her blond hair draping down her shoulders, a smile stretched across her face as she talks to Bailey.
Kylie meets my gaze with a smile and then looks away quickly as something Bailey says gets her attention, and they laugh together. Damn, she’s got a beautiful face when she laughs.
Logan and Cohen both collapse on the blanket while Isaac rifles through a cooler. I’m trying to figure out my next move when Kylie pushes herself up off the blanket. “I think I’m going to walk down the beach…check things out.”
“I’ll go with you,” I say without even thinking about it, which earns me the side-eye from Tori.
As we head toward the shoreline, I say, “I see you’re getting cozy with some of the girls.”
“They’re fantastic. I met Bailey and Simone last night. They’re being super welcoming today.”
“They’re both sweet girls,” I say.
She nods agreement and looks downward, twirling the string on the side of her bottoms. She’s all torso in that bikini. Damn. “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry if I came on too strong in the kitchen. I wasn’t trying to maul you, I promise.”
I shrug as if I’m not even sure what she’s talking about.
“I swear I’m not usually this emotional. It’s been a rough few weeks.”
“Want to tell me what happened?”
She rubs her forehead, thinking for a minute. “Let’s just say I’ve been living with my head in the sand. I’m not used to being grateful for food. It’s been an eye-opening experience.”
I just nod, wondering what her story is, but I don’t want to push her.
“I mean, I did a lot of charity work in my previous life, but I’ve never really understood what it’s like to be totally on my own and literally hungry. I mean, usually I’m hungry on purpose because all women where I come from are hungry on purpose. But I’ve always known where my next gourmet salad or kale smoothie was coming from.”
“What the hell’s a kale smoothie? That sounds nasty.”
“And that’s not even fair for me to say,” she says, ignoring my question. “I’m choosing to be on my own. If I got truly desperate, I do have…options.” By the look on her face and the fact that she’s sleeping in a stranger’s bed for the weekend, I’m guessing the options aren’t great. She glances over at me. “I know you probably want to roll your eyes at me.”
“Not necessarily.”
“It’d be okay if you did. I’ve been doing a lot of eye rolling at myself, lately.”
I point at her. “I won’t be peer pressured into an eye roll.”
This gets a smile out of her, even though it’s a small one. She heads into the water, so I follow her in. When we’re both far enough out that we’re past the breaking waves, she turns to me, waist-high in the water. “You Floridians have no idea how lucky you are. I’ve been landlocked for twenty-five years.”
“You’ve been to the beach before this, though, right?”
“Yeah, but my crew usually goes to New York for shopping or to Sedona for spa treatments. My dad hates the beach. We always went to the mountains growing up. It made me a good skier, though.”
“I am, too,” I say.
She gives me a doubtful look. “Anyone can ski on the water. Try suiting up in a ton of garb and tackling the slopes in Aspen.”
“You never had a boyfriend take you to Aruba or Cozumel?”
When the smile leaves her face, I want to kick myself in the nuts for pushing her. She gives a closed-mouth smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. She turns and ventures out a little farther into the water, jumping waves, her mouth breaking out in a grin like she’s ten years younger than she is. “This feels so good.”
I join her, my body reflexively hopping waves with her like I haven’t done since I was a kid. My mind goes to a memory from my childhood. Kylie looks at me curiously.
“What?” I say.
“It’s just that I haven’t seen you smile like this yet.”
“Smile like what?”
“Like you’ve quit the player game for a second…like you genuinely mean it.”
I turn away from her, embarrassed about how well she has my number. “I was just remembering something.”
“Tell me about it.”
I shake my head. “It’s nothing really. Just a memory of Tori and me out here, each of us holding our little brothers as we jumped waves.”
Kylie smiles so sincerely it makes my heart sore. “Tori’s your family, isn’t she?”
The idea strikes me as truer than anything I’ve ever known. “Yeah, I guess she is.”
“Tell me about your brother.”
A tornado of words and phrases collide in my brain when I think of Matthew. It’s hard for me to put him or the need I feel to protect him into words.
“He’s clever. Hates sports.” I have to laugh at a memory. “I signed him up for this basketball league at the community center when he was six just to get us both out of the house. Other kids would toss him the ball and he would duck.” I shake my head. “I had no idea what to do with him.”
“What does he like to do?” she asks.
“He’s into video games. It’s always been a struggle, getting him to balance playing video games with going outside and doing stuff. But now he’s interested in coding. So maybe some good can come out of his obsession after all.” I try to keep a positive attitude about Matthew, but high school was no picnic, and now college is turning out to be an even bigger struggle for him.
“You sound like a father…a really good one, actually,” she says with a smile that makes my stomach feel even looser than these waves.
I have to look away from her as my face heats up, and not from the sun. Nobody’s ever given me that kind of validation when it comes to Matthew.
“I wish my father was as supportive as you are,” she says with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
“What’s going on with your dad?” I ask.
She turns toward the waves, her fingers skimming the water aimlessly. “He’s just having a hard time digesting that he doesn’t control me.”
“You said your dad hates the beach. Is that why you came here?”
She huffs a laugh. “Probably. This was the first place that came to mind. My aunt brought me here once for vacation when I was about twelve. It was just the two of us. I loved it so much. We made sandcastles and walked on the beach every day. We worked puzzles at night and she showed me how to prepare seafood. It was the best week of my life. I guess when things went south, I wanted back in that world.”
“Where is she now?” I ask.
She gives me half a smile. “She died a few years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
She waves me off and lets out a strong exhale. “I guess we should head in before we shrivel up.”
“Or the sharks start circling.”
“Are there really sharks around here?”
“We are in the ocean.” I focus on something behind her. “Shit, is that one?”
“Where?” she asks, grasping my arm.
I smile at her. “God, you’re easy.” She squeezes my arm, pursing her lips at me, and then we head in toward the shore. “Tell your dad you’re sleeping in some guy’s bed who you met yesterday. That’ll piss him off.”
&
nbsp; She lifts her eyebrows. “For sure.”
“Tell him I ride motocross, cage fight, and have a tattoo of a snake on my inner thigh.”
“Is any of that true?” she asks.
“One of the three’s true,” I say, wanting to keep her guessing about me.
“Are you gonna tell me which one?”
“You’ll have to find out.”
We hold each other’s gaze, and I start to wonder if she’d let me kiss her, when a wave breaks and she slams into me, the two of us going tumbling through the ocean, our slick bodies tangled up in one another’s.
As we gather our footing, another one comes. “Crap. I guess I forgot what happens when you come into the breakers.” She squints at the shoreline. “Wow, we’re almost back where we started.”
“That’s the undertow. It pulls you in without you even knowing it’s happening.”
She looks away, unable to hide her smile, and I start to wonder what I’m getting myself into with her.
The ocean pushes us to the shore, and as we head over to the blanket, I see Tori sitting with the others, glancing between Kylie and me. Her gaze lands on me, and her eyes narrow. How that woman can make me feel like I’m inside out with one glowering look is beyond me.
Kylie collapses onto the blanket next to Simone and Bailey. Tori clears her throat, getting my attention. I mouth, What?
She lifts one eyebrow in that expert way she does, and I roll my eyes and sit at the other end of the blanket.
“What are we doing tonight?” Logan asks.
“Kylie here starts Monday at the lagoon pool,” Bailey says. “Let’s show her around in prep for her first day.” Bailey’s expression morphs into a sneaky smile.
“Hell yeah,” Isaac says.
Simone flicks a bug off her knee. “We can’t get her fired before she even starts. We like her.” Simone smiles at Kylie, and Kylie grins back.
“Buddy’s working security in that perimeter tonight,” Bailey says.
“Ah,” Simone says. “In that case, we’re all clear. If everyone will pitch in ten, I’ll make my famous margaritas.”
“You’ve got to tell us what’s in those,” Cohen says.
Down for Her Page 4
