Butterflies in Honey (Growing Pains #3)

by K. F. Breene

  “Don’t need it. I was born gorgeous.”

  Krista laughed to hide her shiver. There wasn’t a truer statement.

  “Can I use your bathroom?” she asked, holding up her bag of wetsuit.

  “Yeah, sure.” He stepped out of the way to permit her.

  She stepped over the threshold and found herself face-to-face with a surge of memories. Things they had said to each other, making love, laughing over dinner—it was all so present. All the episodes she had lost over the two year absence came rushing back in vibrant colors.

  Krista’s breath whooshed out and she staggered a little. She felt Sean’s hand on her arm to steady her.

  “You okay?” he asked gently.

  “Yeah, ‘course. I just need to eat a protein bar is all. My eating schedule has taken a real poop with this new job.” She straightened up and headed to the bathroom. She tried not to notice all the special places she remembered. It was hard. Everything looked exactly the same.

  As she crossed to the bathroom she couldn’t help but notice the bits of female paraphernalia. There were heels left by the couch and a hair thing on the coffee table. In the bathroom, she noticed more hair products and some perfume. He might be single, but someone came over regularly.

  She dressed quickly, suddenly wanting to be out of his house. The memories were too vivid, the female presence too unsettling. Unfortunately, getting into the wetsuit was turning out to be impossible in that small bathroom.

  She jumped when she heard the knock.

  “You fall in?” Sean’s muffled voice asked through the door.

  Krista opened the door, her suit half on. Sean was in his wetsuit already. Being that it was as tight as skin, Krista saw every nook and cranny of his body. “Christ, McAdams. The years have been kind.” She laughed as she hastily looked away.

  “Ditto. What’s the malfunction?”

  “My brain, I think. I tried this thing on before, but now it won’t budge. Either I gained ten pounds last night, or I got the wrong suit.”

  Sean studied her. “Nah, you’re just a newbie is all. Let an old pro help out. First of all, it’s on backward.”

  “What?” She looked down. Rookie mistake. She felt like a tool.

  She tried to hastily get out of the suit, but nothing with a wetsuit was fast. She ended up falling back against the wall. She would have then hit the ground if Sean hadn’t grabbed her.

  “Marshall, what the…? Here.” He braced her against the wall, his large hands glancing against bare skin, making her small hairs stand on end.

  Sean carefully stripped the suit off of her. She was wearing her bathing suit underneath, so she gave a quick check to make sure it was still on. Luckily (or unluckily?) he’d been mindful of it. He got the wet suit situated, turned it around, and started helping her into it. Krista planted a hand firmly on his muscular shoulder to steady as she lifted each leg, letting him work the suit up her body.

  She had her head tilted back and her eyes closed, focusing entirely on the feel of Sean’s hands working up her leg when she heard a woman call Sean’s name. Krista went rigid. Sean didn’t seem embarrassed or worried. He answered that he was by the downstairs bathroom, and continued working the suit up Krista’s leg.

  Obviously this would look bad. Maybe he was back to his womanizing ways. Worse, maybe his woman was understanding and completely trusting. That would mean they shared intimacy. Maybe ‘single’ meant nothing more than unmarried in Sean’s pea brain.

  Krista heard footsteps and braced herself. In walked a beautiful woman in pajamas. For the second time that morning, Krista let her breath out in a whoosh.

  “Cassie,” she said, doing a poor job of covering the relief in her voice.

  Cassie’s eyes were half open but her smile was radiant. “Krista!” she exclaimed, barreling into Krista with a bear hug.

  Krista couldn’t step back because Sean had her legs, so they fell into the wall before Sean grabbed them.

  “Cass, cut it out! I’m trying to get this suit on her,” Sean said with frustration.

  “How are you?” Cassie asked when they righted themselves. “I was so excited when Sean said you were coming by. Would have been nice if you chose a decent hour, though.”

  Krista laughed. “Surfing waits for no one.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I thought you hated mornings? Want a cup of coffee?”

  “I do and no thanks. Things change. I hit the surf before work if I can. It clears my head. Helps me focus.” Krista left off that it was also her time to remember Sean and her life in San Francisco before she started her lonely life in L.A.

  Cassie made a face that said Krista was ridiculous before she settled on the couch with her legs tucked under her and a steaming cup of java in her hands. “What are you doing for the rest of the day?”

  “Well, I wasn’t sure if I would get eaten by a shark or sucked out to sea by a rip tide, so I don’t have any plans.”

  “Good. We’ll go shopping and then meet back up with Sean for dinner. We can get Jasmine and Kate to come.”

  “Cassie, leave her alone. She might have something she needs to do,” Sean said tightly. Krista’s heart sank.

  “She just said she was free, Sean,” Cassie replied darkly. “And so are you, so stop squawking. Love that bathing suit, by the way, Krista.”

  Sean had the wetsuit to Krista’s waist. He worked it up higher and helped her get her arms in. Finally he turned her around and zipped her up.

  “See, all set,” Sean said, strain lancing his voice.

  “Great. Cassie, nice to see you again. I expect a big breakfast when I get back!”

  Cassie laughed and hugged her coffee. Krista followed Sean to the garage.

  “Where’s your board?” he asked, raising the garage door. He had a shiny, new Audi SUV where the Beemer once was.

  “New car?”

  “Oh, yeah. I make a ton more money now so I gave my car to Cassie and bought this. I splurged a little.” He sounded embarrassed.

  “What’s the point of money if you can’t spend it?”

  “Saving for a rainy day.”

  “This is California, baby. Ain’t no rain in California!”

  Krista headed out of the garage.

  “L.A. has warped you. Whose wheels are those?” Sean pointed to the Volvo she was driving.

  “Company car.”

  “Nice company car.”

  “I made friends. Well, let me take that back. Marcus made friends and introduced me.”

  “Marcus is a hell of a guy.”

  “More than you know. He has been my life line out there. Ben, too, but Marcus more so. He is basically my support group. When I want to jump, he talks me down. Ben is the one that catches me when I fall, though, so I guess they have an equal hand with the life-line.”

  “I always thought Ben had a crush on you.”

  “He does, in an asexual kind of way. Most shy guys do with an outgoing, hot-mess of a woman friend. But he’s seeing someone. I haven’t met her yet—she lives in Santa Barbara—but Ben is totally hung up on her. We’re supposed to do dinner when Tory gives me a break.”

  “Tory is working you pretty hard, huh?”

  Krista snorted. “That’s putting it mildly. And I thought you were tough.”

  Sean was quiet while he waited for her to wrestle her surf board out of the car. They crossed the street in silence and jogged to the ocean.

  “You still do your routine?” Sean asked as they neared the water.

  It was a cold day at the beach. The weather was overcast and the beach was nearly deserted. It wasn’t at all what Krista was used to.

  “I do. I tweaked it a bit. Made it harder. I figured I had to if I ever hoped to be stronger than you.” She laughed.

  They were at the water line now, the waves retreating and surging forward again. Sean ran in and dove into an oncoming wave. Krista hesitated and let the wave creep up her leg.

  “Holy crap its cold!” She yelled.

&n
bsp; She very nearly turned and walked back up the beach.

  “Get in fast. Like a Band-Aid,” Sean yelled as he paddled.

  Krista gritted her teeth and ran in. The first dunk was a shock to her system. She paddled hard through the next wave. Then the next. More just kept coming. Sean was a ways ahead of her, so she kept her head low and paddled with all she had. Finally, after a grueling workout, she caught up with him. He was sitting on his board, floating in the cold ocean, acting like shark bait. Krista did likewise.

  She was panting and shivering. Her head, hands and feet were going numb. The rest of her body wasn’t freezing, but the wetsuit didn’t keep it warm, either.

  “Not used to paddling so hard?” Sean asked with a smile.

  “I’m not used to so many waves coming in at one time. It is a long trek out here.”

  “Yeah,” Sean said, surveying the water. “It keeps you in shape, though.”

  “How often do you surf?”

  “As often as the weather permits. Every morning if I can, though a few times a week is all I usually get.”

  Do you do any other exercise?”

  Sean glanced at her. “Gym.”

  She took stock of her choice of waves. She wasn’t quite ready to try her hand on one. The paddle back out was too daunting.

  “And I still do the routine. Run more, though. Figured I had to if I ever hoped to be faster than you.”

  Krista heard the laughter in his voice as he echoed what she’d said. She closed her eyes against the surge of pain. Maybe one of those times, just one of those times, when she was walking on the beach, looking north and wondering if Sean was doing their routine, he was. Maybe one time they were doing it together, 800 miles apart.

  “How are Kate and Jasmine doing?” Krista asked, trying to keep the tears out of her eyes. Thankfully, her face was wet. Not thankfully, it was cold, her nose was probably red, and she certainly looked ridiculous.

  “Not well. They’ll tell you all is great, but they are excluded from the department for the most part. They only get accounts when I request them specifically, and I’m not able to do that very often. Otherwise, they get all the crap work. I think they do a lot of filing.”

  “At least they have each other. It was because of me, though, right? Because they came on under me?”

  “Yes. James resents them for it. They aren’t managed well, either. They goof off with the art department most of the time.”

  At least they were liked outside of the department. Krista would have to convince them to move on. She currently had an opening in her department. She thought she might see if one of them would move to L.A..

  “Okay, Marshall, do or die time. Get on a wave. Show me what you’ve learned in two years.”

  “Do you hate me for that meeting yesterday?” She stalled.

  “Why? Because you shut me down and made any hope of getting that account next to nil?”

  “Yes?”

  Sean laughed sardonically. “Actually, no. You did me a favor. Tory took my best players. I can’t physically keep up anymore. There aren’t enough hours in the day to harass Art and Research for better work. I have to have my hand in everything to keep our company going and I am exhausted. Physically and mentally exhausted. You did me a favor.”

  “I probably could have been a little nicer about it, though.”

  “You? Nice? I have heard about you over the last two years. More so over the last year. No, I didn’t expect nice. I expected insightful and fair. That’s what I got. Poor Larry had another thing coming, though.”

  “Poor Larry, my butt! He’s a clown!” Krista laughed. So he had heard about her. She wondered if it was from Judy telling others, or from someone else. She wondered if he ever asked or just wandered into it. She wondered what his reaction had been to her Bad Bitch persona. She asked about the latter.

  Sean leaned back and laughed deeply. “Well, I heard about that at the same time I heard about your promotion. I had to ask if they were talking about my Krissy. It didn’t take long to convince me. You shaped up our team in no time flat.”

  His Krissy? Krista knew he was just talking about his past team member, but she flew at the words. If only he knew how truly correct they were.

  “You created a monster.” Krista laughed. Waves were coming and going around them. She could have taken a dozen already, but she didn’t want to miss this time with Sean. The two of them alone, away from the world, was a treat she would probably never get again.

  “I discovered an insightful, hard worker. I think it was Tory that made the monster.”

  “Yeah, true. He said he would mold me and he wasn’t kidding! You could learn a thing or two from that guy.”

  “I have.”

  Before Krista could ask about that comment, he was paddling. “See you down there!”

  Sean smoothly got to the sweet spot and perfectly grabbed the coming wave. He hopped up on his board as if he’d been doing it forever, and away he went. It looked easy when he did it. His body cut and sliced through the water, his arms keeping balance. He got to the end of the wave and hopped off his board into the water again.

  Apparently that meant it was Krista’s turn. And she was no pro! She saw a wave coming and started paddling. She gave it everything she had for a quick burst of speed as the wave started to get ahead of her, and then she caught up just in time. She jumped onto her board, nearly lost her balance, but stuck it! Her mind went into sharp focus as she fought for balance.

  Near the end, she crashed into the water, tumbled a second, and then came up sputtering. Sean was there to help her up.

  “Nice work, Marshall! You look great out there!” Sean said, light infusing his eyes.

  Krista smiled like a kid that got a gold star. It meant a lot coming from him. He patted her on the back like they were buds, and he headed back out to the water. With a groan, Krista followed.

  For the next couple of hours, they didn’t get to talking again. Sean was a machine once he got going. He paddled out, caught a wave, rode it, then paddled out again. Krista could see where all his arm strength came from.

  In contrast, she paddled out, sat on her board for a while to catch her breath, caught a wave and fell as many times as she made it, sat on the beach for a second, then started paddling again. Toward the end, her arms were rubber and she was exhausted. She got out beyond the waves, sat on her board, and decided to give up.

  Sean caught up with her—not that it was hard—saw her immobility, and sat up on his board as well.

  “What’s up?” he asked, not even winded.

  “I’m tired. I give up.”

  “You going to surrender to the sharks?”

  “Yes, if they’ll have me.”

  Sean smirked and looked around. The sun was well up and more people lined the beach. It was still an ugly, cold day. Krista missed the sparkle off the waves on the clear mornings in L.A. It was the one part of her new life, besides her job, that she loved. Except for the new life part, Krista said as much.

  “You planning on staying down there?” Sean asked evenly.

  Krista shrugged, wanting to lay down. “I guess. I don’t really have anywhere else to go.”

  “How about your family?”

  “They’re in Seattle. Seattle is a no fly zone. So…”

  “Have you heard from Jim at all?”

  “About a year back he messaged me via Twitter; I hadn’t closed the account with the old name. He sent threatening messages every day until I closed the account—all networking accounts, actually. He even got on LinkedIn. He’s apparently visited my parents and a few of my college friends in Seattle, and I heard he tried to find me in San Francisco, twice. But after that he disappeared—my sister said she heard that he got caught for stealing and went back to jail. That infraction is strike three, so...”

  Sean nodded.

  “Hey,” Krista said louder than she intended. “You’re selling your house?”

  Sean looked out over the waves. “I am, yes.
Probably. I’m still not sure. I have a job offer.”

  “Oh, wow. Doing what?”

  “Well, it is still being determined, actually. But hopefully I will have control of a region.”

  “Sales?”

  “Actually, I hope to get out of sales. But it is all up for debate right now. The money is good. And the new responsibility seems more up my alley. I will have more resources. It’s the job offer I’ve been working toward.”

  Suddenly Krista felt left behind. He was a rising star, as always, and she was still earth bound. He had all these prospects and a glamorous life, whereas she was alone in her small two bedroom.

  “That’s really great, Sean. I’m happy for you. Are you moving locations?”

  “I might be, yes. But again, it’s all up in the air right now.”

  “You won’t be as close to this frigid water. What will become of you?”

  “I’ll have to find a group of hippies to include me in their drum circle.”

  “Where are you moving?”

  “That is also up for debate. Everything is in the air right now.”

  In other words, mind your own business, Krista. This doesn’t concern you.

  “Well, I’m going to head in.”

  Sean was looking at her. It seemed like he expected something from her. Either that or he was debating whether to say something else. All she knew was that her heart hurt. She needed a good cry and a dark room. Also a hot tub. She was freezing!

  Without saying anything else, and not wanting to cry over him in front of him, she started paddling. She heard her name, but it was too late, she was already reaching for the next wave.

  On the beach, she crawled up a ways, threw her board down, and laid in the sand until Sean came in. He crashed and burned on the wave he rode after Krista’s, so he wanted one more wave. His belief was that he had to end each surf day on a high note. It set up the day with positive energy, or some such nonsense. All Krista knew was, she was not moving a muscle unless it was to head back.

  Finally, Sean called for her to get her lazy ass up. She complied, but slowly. Stuff hurt.

  Sean paused next to her. “You okay?”

  “No. I am not a fan of this cursed beach. Not only is it way too much work for a little enjoyment, but it is too damn cold!”