Tangled Love on Pelican Point (Island County Series Book 3)

by Karice Bolton

  “No. That’s thanks to my stylist.”

  “You have a stylist?”

  “What? You can’t tell?” He’d placed both bowls of soup on his tray.

  “I just always see you in plaid shirts and beanies, so I wouldn’t think you’d need to pay someone for that.”

  “You’d be surprised.” He smirked, and his attention turned back to the screen. “They’re about to walk down the runway.”

  My eyes went to the DVR, and I chuckled, realizing he’d recorded the show and was replaying it.

  “If Victoria doesn’t win this challenge, the show is rigged.” He turned up the volume and placed the remote on the couch. I handed him his glass of water. There was only one loveseat in the room. All other furniture had been stripped from the space.

  “I think Tarog has it in the bag,” I informed him.

  “You watch?” His brow arched.

  “When I can.”

  “Tarog can’t cut it under the pressure.” Anthony shook his head. “Have you seen this episode? His design looks like a space suit, and the poor model can barely walk in it.”

  I nodded. “At least he didn’t have to sew his model into it, and there’s a working zipper.”

  “Minor details.” Anthony laughed, and the room felt so much lighter, like the Anthony from a week ago had returned.

  I took a sip of the soup and was surprised at how good it was. Little pieces of parsley and carrots floated around in the broth, and it made me smile to picture Anthony in the kitchen slicing and dicing.

  The introductions began and the models started strutting their stuff down the runway. We both enjoyed providing commentary in between each spoonful of soup.

  The music intensified and the program cut to commercial break right before the winner of the challenge was announced.

  “Tarog is totally the winner,” I giggled, my body relaxing deep into the sofa.

  “He’s only up there because he’s the loser. Watch and see.” Anthony grinned and slid his hand to my leg. Even the slightest touch stirred feelings inside me, and I wondered if maybe I should just give in. Knowing there would never be a future between us might make it fun and easy. Maybe the release would be all I needed to get me through the recent dry patch. That was what I always told Natty, but somehow, applying the same rules didn’t seem so easy.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked, placing his empty bowl on the floor.

  “Nothing,” I mumbled, taking the last spoonful of soup. “This is really good soup.”

  “Thanks. Seriously though. What’s running through your mind? You look like you’re up to something.”

  “Honestly?”

  He nodded.

  “Why did you make your doorbell so difficult to find? I stood there forever trying to spot it.”

  “It wasn’t my doing, and nice avoidance tactic.” He hit fast-forward on the show and I chuckled. “I’m ready to prove that Victoria is the winner of the challenge.”

  “Let’s make a bet.”

  His brows rose and he smiled. “What kind of bet?”

  “You pick.”

  “I’m so positive I won’t lose that I don’t care what’s on the line.” I placed my soup bowl next to his and straightened back on the couch.

  “You’ve never been out of Washington, right?” he questioned.

  “Right.”

  “If I win, you have to come with me to California.”

  “I can’t do that. I have jobs and family obligations.”

  “Have you ever heard of a vacation?”

  “Whatever. I’ll agree to it only because I know I’m going to win.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Anthony hit play, and the remaining designers all stood helpless on the stage. I watched Anthony out of the corner of my eye and noticed he looked far too confident, but I was sure I read online that Tarog won the space challenge and this had to be the space challenge. Why else would you send someone down the runway looking like a Martian?

  “Here it is,” Anthony said, turning up the volume with a grin.

  “Victoria—,” the announcer began.

  “See.” I slapped Anthony’s arm. “I told you I’m the winner. They’re sending her home. They always tell the loser first.”

  “Victoria, congratulations. You’re the winner of the dystopian challenge. Tarog, I’m sorry. That means you have to go home. Auf Wiedersehen.”

  “Wow. How about that? Looks like you might have to pack your bags.”

  “Did she just say dystopian challenge?” I asked, avoiding his eyes.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “I thought this was the space challenge.”

  “So you play dirty?” Anthony grinned, realizing I’d attempted to cheat a little.

  “Obviously not well.”

  “Well, when the time comes, I won’t make you go if you don’t want to.” He sat back on the couch and exited the DVR.

  “We’ll see.”

  He scratched his chin and stretched his neck, letting out a low, gravelly groan that sounded like something I wanted to experience elsewhere. “I don’t know what to do with you.”

  “I could say the same.” I turned on the couch and crossed my legs under me. “What made you do it?”

  “Do what?” he asked, raising his head back up.

  “Get trashed at the club.”

  Anthony let out a deep sigh and the light blinked out of his eyes in an instant. I scooted forward on the couch and nervously sucked on my lip as I waited for him to respond. I couldn’t believe the words that had tumbled out. I mean, I wanted to know the answer, but I certainly hadn’t expected to ask him—not today or ever. My plan had been to come over to thank him and check on him. That was it, and now I’d put him on the spot and made him feel like crap in the one refuge he had for something he couldn’t even help.

  “You know when I said your honesty was refreshing?” A dimple I hadn’t noticed before appeared in his left cheek.

  I nodded.

  “I’m not so sure any longer.” His eyes held mine for a long moment, and then he stood up, leaving the soup bowls on the floor.

  Was he about to escort me out?

  Probably.

  “Follow me.” It wasn’t a question. There wasn’t an option.

  I bent over to pick up the soup bowls.

  “Leave them there. I’ll get them later.”

  So he was kicking me out. Moments like these highlighted why I might be stuck in the struggle of life forever. Just as things started to turn around, I always managed to stick my nose where it didn’t belong. I let go of the bowls and weakly smiled at Anthony’s expressionless face.

  My time with a rock star had been fun but brief.

  At least I’d gotten a kiss out of the deal. I looked out the window and saw a ferry chugging toward its destination off in the distance and glanced at Anthony out of the corner of my eye. Why in the world, if you hated somewhere so much, would you come back when things weren’t going well?

  “Come on,” he said impatiently.

  “Sorry,” I said, feeling completely flustered.

  When I made my way over, instead of turning around and leading me to the exit, he reached for my hand. I stopped and stared at his open palm.

  “Are you gonna grab it or not?” he asked, a hint of a smile surfacing.

  “It depends on whether you’re kicking me out.”

  “Kicking you out?” He shook his head. “I’m not kicking you out, but I’m surprised how quickly you forgot the promise you made me.”

  “Promise?”

  He nodded and grabbed my hand. “To not believe everything you read.”

  “I didn’t have to read anything to see what happened and then Natalie and Cole—”

  A flash of anger darted behind his gaze. “What about Cole? What did he say?”

  “Nothing. Just . . . he was worried about you. They both were.”

  His mouth parted and his tongue slowly traced his lips, and my mind went to the gut
ter—right in the middle of a heated discussion, an important discussion.

  “It’s great to know so many people have faith in me,” he muttered, pulling me through the kitchen to another hallway that led to a bedroom. It wasn’t the master bedroom, because I remembered that being on the second floor, according to the floor plan. Not to mention, many a make-out session took place on the second floor back in high school. Not with me, but with a handful of my friends who I always wound up tracking down to get home by curfew.

  “I have faith in you,” I said, glancing around the bedroom. There was a mattress on the floor with two open suitcases and a cardboard box full of clothes. “But I can see why you’re not into staying here for that long if this is what you call home. You’re living like a squatter in here.”

  He chuckled and let go of my hand. Anthony walked over to one of the suitcases and stared at it for a second. Bending down, he grabbed a pill bottle, and my heart started hammering in my chest.

  Pills?

  I crossed my arms and readied myself to bolt. I wasn’t cut out for this lifestyle.

  “What?” he asked, twisting the lid and swallowing a pill the size of my thumb nail. He put the lid back on and tossed the container over to me. I caught it but immediately dropped it to the floor, not wanting my fingerprints on anything illegal.

  “Pick it up.”

  “No.” I scowled. “You pick it up.”

  He rolled his eyes and hid a smile as he walked over and grabbed the orange plastic container from the floor and shoved it in front of my face.

  “Why don’t you read it out loud?” he directed.

  My eyes tried to focus on the label, but he had it so close, I had to push his arm back a little to see it

  “Ciprofloxacin,” I read aloud.

  “Do you know what that is?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “It’s an antibiotic.”

  I took a step back and handed him the bottle.

  “For what?”

  “Pneumonia.”

  I closed my eyes, feeling like the biggest creep in the world. Not only did I march uninvited into the house of one of the most generous people I’ve ever met, but I accused him, in not so many words, of being a reckless addict.

  “So the medicine made the drinks you had last Friday more potent?” I asked in a whisper.

  “Sophie, I didn’t have anything to drink. I’d been out with friends and texting you, if you remember. I had Coke and garlic fries.”

  “But I saw the picture on the web with you crashing onto the sidewalk, and you were even wearing the same outfit as when you met me earlier in the evening. So you can’t tell me it’s an old picture.”

  “I told you pictures don’t tell you the entire story. You even became part of a warped narrative about my time on Fireweed.”

  “Warped?” My brows arched.

  “It made it sound like we were dating, and even if I wanted to date you, that’s obviously not in the cards.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I’d been tired the last week or so, and I was blaming it on the stress from not writing my next album and staying up at night thinking about you. I haven’t been getting a ton of sleep.”

  “Likely story,” I said, smiling and halfway wondering if he really had thought about me.

  “I passed out on my way out of the club. Of course, the paparazzi had a field day with it, but I knew I hadn’t been drinking and figured people would believe me.”

  “What about your friends when it happened?” I tried to push away all the glittery women staring at him. Were those really his friends?

  “They all thought I’d been sneaking it so they didn’t think twice about me crashing to the concrete. But I had my driver take me to the hospital, where they diagnosed me with pneumonia. I stayed there for a couple of days.”

  “Which was why you weren’t at any of the hotels Cole checked.” I felt like the most awful person in the world.

  “That would explain it.”

  “Why not just tell your brother?”

  “We have a complicated relationship.”

  “Can’t be that bad.”

  “I’ve given him reason to be doubtful over the years.”

  “About what?”

  Anthony took a seat on the mattress and smoothed out the comforter that laid over it. I took a seat next to him.

  “In my twenties, I drank too much. I partied like I had nine lives.”

  I looked out the window, unsure of what to say, so I didn’t say a word.

  “I hit it hard and acted like a real ass. Cole always acted like the perfect gentleman, and it drove me crazy. All he had to do was look at me, and he had the power to make me feel like the biggest idiot on the planet. I’d come home from practice, celebrating with the band, and Cole would be at the apartment, studying and dreaming about someone he left behind.”

  “Natalie,” I supplied, and Anthony nodded.

  “A lot of animosity built up between us. Don’t get me wrong. We’re more than brothers. We’re best friends, which is why I think I hated how much I disappointed him.”

  “There’s no way you disappointed your brother. He’s so proud of everything you’ve accomplished.”

  “Maybe. But I can tell you that all through my twenties, I was one big letdown to Cole. He didn’t like me taking advantage of my status. He didn’t understand why I wanted to enjoy some of the things coming my way.”

  “Makes sense, though. I wouldn’t blame you. I can’t imagine what you’ve been able to see and do. I doubt I’d be able to resist either.”

  He slid his hand on my leg and longing surged through me.

  “Anyway, I’d left that lifestyle mostly behind me and focused solely on the work and my love of music. Cole, being in the business he was in, always managed to help my party image get out there, even if it wasn’t accurate. He’d stage things and hire photographers to leak the photos to the magazines. It always looked like I was going heavy when the truth was that I was as sober as could be, hoping to get back to the studio. We had a well-oiled machine.”

  “You still do.”

  “I don’t know. There’s a trust issue that I didn’t realize lingered between us.”

  “How so?”

  “When I came back to Fireweed to work on this house, I was hit with so many emotions I thought I’d explode, and I kind of did. One night, I kind of lost it and pounded several beers as fast as I could. Cole told me to knock it off, but I didn’t listen. I got on a ladder and climbed up to the top and, with hammer in hand, began ripping down a wall in my parents’ bedroom. It was like that wall represented everything that was wrong with my family. I couldn’t stop tearing it apart, and before I knew it, my hammer hit a stud, and I fell off the ladder and broke my leg.”

  “Ooh.”

  “I’ve never told anyone before. Cole thinks I was just drunk and into home renovations, but I couldn’t stop. It was like with every fling of my wrist, everything I’d been carrying around for the last thirty plus years escaped.” He grimaced. “Until I hit the stud.”

  I listened to his words but still didn’t understand where this animosity came from. Why would he feel that he had to pretend a wall was his parents?

  Anthony slid his phone from his pocket and went to voicemail. I saw the several I’d left listed on his screen with ten times as many from Cole.

  “So this was the first message I got from my brother and why I needed time away. I got it while I was in the hospital.”

  Dude, when are you ever going to get your act together? Even when you tell me things have changed, you prove otherwise. I’m so disgusted by your behavior. I don’t even know what to say. I’m getting tired of it, Anthony. I’m about at my breaking point. I’m starting a family with Natalie. Someday, I’ll have children to care for and I won’t have time to fix your messes. I’ve already given up on fixing you. Call me when you sober up.

  I’d never heard Cole that angry. The sharpness to his words m
ade me cringe on Anthony’s behalf.

  “So you didn’t call Cole to tell him you weren’t wasted and that you were just sick and hospitalized with pneumonia? That would straighten the whole thing out.”

  Anthony shook his head. “But it wouldn’t. He’s left another twenty messages with the same delivery. If he can’t trust me, what’s left?”

  “An amazing relationship between two brothers. Forget the work stuff and the image thing. I didn’t know about your family’s past. I always thought you had the perfect family. I think all of Fireweed figured that. It sounds like that wasn’t the case, but through it all, you and Cole not only survived, you thrived. Don’t let a series of misunderstandings cause a divide.”

  I wanted to ask what it was that made them so close—what had happened in Anthony’s past to create such pain—but it wasn’t my place. Not yet, and maybe never.

  “It’s been years and years since I’ve done anything stupid. Except when I knocked myself off the ladder, I hadn’t had more than a few beers in over five years. It’s not like Cole hasn’t had his fair share of screw-ups.”

  “People tend not to take their own faults into consideration when they’re busy critiquing someone else. It’s human nature.”

  A few minutes of silence passed, and I placed my hand on his knee, feeling a spark I had to ignore. More than anything, Anthony needed a friend.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “You don’t have a thing to apologize for.”

  “Yeah, I do. I thought the photo was just you being you.”

  “It’s a reputation I earned, and it has been hard to shake.”

  “Especially when your brother is helping to perpetuate it.”

  “It helps to sell albums.”

  “Does it though?” I asked, sliding my hand along his knee.

  “Who knows?” He let out a sigh. “But I don’t blame you for thinking that. If I were in your shoes and saw all those women around and someone who’d just kissed you flat on his face—”

  I tilted his chin toward me.

  “From this moment forward, I’m only going by what I know about you. And you’ve been nothing but the most kind, generous human I’ve ever met.”

  His eyes darkened a shade and he smiled. “Unless you want another kiss, you’d better stop rubbing my leg.”