Bachelors In Love

by Jestine Spooner

  He couldn’t believe how much lighter he felt. He hadn’t realized that he’d felt as if he were withholding it from her. And of course, he had. He’d been withholding it from nearly everyone in his life. “I tell you all this to make it clear that there will be things we can hide from the public eye. It’s possible.”

  Tia nodded. “It’s not terrible.” She nodded her head to the gossip rag still back on the counter. “But I don’t like it. I don’t want to be in tabloids. And I don’t want people to know the personal details of my life. Least of all my patients. I wouldn’t want anyone to question my skills because I’m linked to a playboy. I’ve worked very hard to get where I am.”

  “I totally understand.” His words were as kind as he could make them. But it didn’t mean there wasn’t icy steel in his gut from what she’d just said. Linked to a playboy. Jesus. What did she think of him?

  ***

  He was still chewing over those words a few days later as Eli mashed avocados for guacamole. He stood in his kitchen, absently sipping a beer as Marcus grilled on the deck out back and Jay chopped vegetables for the salad.

  “You think I’m a man-whore?” Eli asked Jay out of the blue.

  Jay let out a bark of laughter as he tossed some carrots over the lettuce. “Uh. I plead the fifth.”

  “Come on, man, I’m serious. I’m worried that Tia thinks I’m a man-whore.”

  Jay stayed quiet for a second. “You’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection recently, Eli.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  Jay shrugged. “Nothing. I just think it’s a good thing. That she’s good for you. As long as you’re not beating yourself up too bad about the things you can’t change.”

  “Like the fact that I used to be a man-whore.”

  Jay bobbed his head. “Like the fact that you used to be a man-whore,” he agreed.

  “Shit. Why didn’t you slap some sense into me?” He diced garlic and squeezed lime over the guac.

  “Come on, Eli. You were fresh off of chemo. I was just happy you were up and kicking. I didn’t give a shit what it was you were doing. Or who.”

  Eli sighed. He often forgot how hard that time had been for Jay and Marcus. They’d gone from sitting in hospital rooms with him to tailing him to NFL parties. The ultimate wingmen, just trying to keep up with their friend who was hanging on by a thread.

  “Fair enough.”

  Eli heard voices at the front of his house and smiled at the fact that Tia just let herself in these days. No more knocking at his door. He really liked that.

  “In the kitchen!” he hollered, making Jay damn near jump out of his skin.

  “Hi!” Tia appeared in the doorway moments later and immediately crossed over to him, her eyes bright and dancing with happiness. She kissed that brightness right into him. Laura and Jace followed after.

  “Hey man,” Jace said, giving Eli the universal man hug back slap.

  “Glad you could make it,” Eli said evenly, even though it was still a little strange for him to imagine Jace Overshire settled down with a girl. Especially with Tia’s little sister. But as he imagined that Jace could probably say the exact same thing about him, Eli swallowed back the thought.

  Marcus came in the back door of the kitchen with a plate of steak and grilled fish. “Just in time.”

  His smile was genuine, if not a little distracted. He’d been pulling late nights on the Sandino case and it wasn’t going well. There was way more red tape than he would like and he’d recently gotten the feeling that there was even more to the story than he’d thought. Sandino wasn’t just bringing drugs into the country, he was fairly sure. He thought, with an awful, clenching dread, that he was also trafficking people. It made Marcus itchy and constantly half a thought away from the case. But he was determined to relax tonight. He hadn’t let himself take a breath in days.

  Tia walked over and kissed his cheek, and then Jay’s. Laura did the same and all the men couldn’t help but smile at the sweet, pretty sisters. So different from one another and also so much the same.

  They ate on the back deck. It was finally, just barely, warm enough to enjoy the evening outside. Summer was on its way.

  “I love this time of year when the temp is pleasant but the mosquitoes aren’t out yet,” Jay said, leaning back in his chair and tipping his head up to the night sky.

  “This guy hates mosquitoes,” Marcus said, debating and then reaching for another strip of steak. You only live once.

  “Doesn’t everybody?” Laura asked.

  “Sure, but Jay’s hatred is extinction level.” Eli filled his plate with salad, automatically refilled Tia’s glass of wine without having to ask.

  “You try living in the tropics and tolerating that shit,” Jay replied.

  “Where did you live in the tropics?” Jace asked, his red hair shining copper under the moonlight.

  “All over. Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, St. John, The Cayman’s, the D.R. All over.”

  “The Bahamas,” Marcus added pointedly.

  “Oh, were you in the Bahamas when Hurricane Clara happened?” Laura asked. It had been the biggest storm in fifty years and people still talked about it, even all these years later.

  “Yeah,” Jay answered gruffly, and Marcus regretted bringing it up.

  A short silence settled over the group before Laura broke it again. “You two need girls,” she pointed at Marcus and Jay.

  Something pained flitted over Jay’s face and something sharp and regretful flitted over Marcus’s.

  Damn, Laura thought, landmines everywhere with these guys. Well, in for a penny. “Unless you’re gay? With each other?”

  “I wish,” both men grinned and said at the exact same time.

  The group laughed.

  “Seriously,” Jay said. “My life would be a hell of a lot simpler if I could just shack up with this guy and call it a day.”

  Marcus grinned, shaking his head at the thought. “Nah, you’re a rolling stone, I’d never want that kind of uncertainty in my life.”

  Eli couldn’t help but chuckle at the look on Jace’s face. The younger football player was almost certainly more used to the hetero machismo of the locker room. Eli, on the other hand, had grown up with Marcus and Jay and was glad for it. None of them saw anything wrong with being gay and weren’t offended by Laura’s words in the least.

  Still, Laura couldn’t help but see the look of strange despair that came across Jay’s face as the conversation drifted on to other topics. Maybe it was because she’d made out with him one night a lifetime ago, or maybe it was because even though she was desperately in love with Jace, she wasn’t dead. But Laura found herself wandering back out to the back deck as the others cleaned up the kitchen.

  Jay sat on his own, his eyes still on the night sky. Eli’s house was far enough out from the city that stars were glittery jewelry over top of the world.

  He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t even hear her plunk down next to him. Laura, with the full understanding that what she was about to do could only be categorized as prying, plunged in anyways.

  “So, what’s her name?”

  “What?” Jay looked up in surprised confusion.

  “The woman who’s got you staring off sadly into the infinite universe.” Laura waved her hand at the stars.

  “Ah.” Jay cleared his throat and strongly considered lying. After all, he’d never even told Eli and Marcus about her. But for whatever reason, tonight, after seeing Eli absently playing with Tia’s hair and Jace smiling at Laura when she didn’t even notice, well, Jay was especially bummed tonight. “Mari. Her name is Mari.”

  “And why isn’t she here with you tonight?” Laura asked. The terrible sadness in his voice was alarming to her. She hoped against hope that this woman hadn’t died.

  “It’s complicated,” Jay replied as hurricane force winds whipped through his memory. A broken shutter winging past like a dead bird on the wind. The snap of a broken bone. Pain, an infinite ocean of pain. Salt water
up his nose. Her hands on his face. Her eyes so sad. He cleared his throat. “Lot of external circumstances that made it so we couldn’t be together.”

  Understatement of the century.

  “Huh.” Laura stared at the sky as well. If Jay Brady, hottest, nicest, calmest guy on the planet couldn’t make it work with somebody then what hope did everybody else have? “And you’re not dating other people?”

  “Nah.” He took a swig of beer. Something he rarely, if ever, drank. But tonight it tasted good. “I’ve tried. But I’m not good for anybody right now. It always just ends up with me feeling like an asshole and her being hurt as hell.”

  A horrible thought crossed Laura’s mind and she shifted away from Jay in her seat, unconsciously moving closer to Jace in the kitchen. “Oh god. You’re not secretly talking about me, are you? Like you didn’t just make up her name?”

  Jay threw his head back and laughed, really laughed. And it felt good. “No, Laura. I haven’t been pining for you since we kissed in the back of a car once ten years ago. Even if it was a damn respectable make out sesh.”

  “Phew.” Relieved and once again enjoying herself, Laura grinned at him before becoming thoughtful again. “You know, Jay, seems to me that external circumstances are easier to overcome than internal ones.”

  He rolled his head over the back of the chair to look at her. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you want her and she wants you, right?”

  Tan skin flashed through Jay’s mind. A hand fisted in a sheet. A gasping breath and black hair spilling in the moonlight.

  “Yeah.” His voice was gruff with the memory he only let himself think about every once in a while.

  “Then the other stuff? That’s gonna work itself out, Jay. You’ll find your way back to one another.”

  Jay sighed and looked back at the stars. Laura didn’t know how literally he needed that sentiment to be true.

  “Come in for dessert!” Tia called out to the deck, and Jay and Laura made their way back inside.

  Tia scooped vanilla ice cream onto warm slices of cherry pie and passed them around to everyone. The night had gotten chillier, so they sat in Eli’s kitchen, leaning against the counters.

  “Eli, you didn’t invite your pops?” Jace asked. “I really liked talking to him last time I saw him. He gave me some great ideas on places to camp around here.”

  Eli nodded. “The man loves the great outdoors. He used to drag the three of us to every campground in the area when we were kids. Especially after my mom passed. It was just the four of us.”

  “And sometimes my mom would come too,” Jay added. “She was invited tonight too, but she was busy.”

  “So was my dad,” Eli said, swallowing down half a slice of pie all at once. Then, as if a thought occurred to Marcus, Eli, and Jay all at once, the three of them looked up at one another. And then, obviously deeming it ludicrous, they all looked away in unison, scoffing.

  Tia stayed the night. But the others trickled out little by little. Marcus hung on the longest, seeming to want to cling to the night of relaxation. When he finally rose, stretching, to make the trek out to his car, Tia and Eli were curled up together on his couch watching the season’s first lightning bugs out the back window.

  Eli rose too, to walk his friend to the front door. When he got there, Marcus turned to him, brought him into his chest in a gruff, tight hug. “You’re lucky, man. To have found that woman.”

  Marcus’s eyes were focused on Eli’s intently. “Lucky,” he repeated. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve it.”

  And then Marcus was off, into the night, his dark hair dissolving in the shadows. Eli blinked after him, shaking his head. At some point, they were gonna have to talk about Marcus’s misguided beliefs about himself and women. Eli was starting to suspect that Marcus felt he didn’t deserve happiness with a woman, or some such crap like that. Eli shook his head as he wandered back to the living room to find Tia asleep on the couch.

  He bent and picked her up, carrying her back to the bedroom. If Eli deserved this kind of happiness, then Marcus sure as hell did, too.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Lately, Tia was having more and more trouble believing that her life was, well, her life. And this was one of those moments. She stood in her bare feet and a long t-shirt, gazing into Elijah Bird’s refrigerator for something for the two of them to eat for breakfast.

  When nothing particularly called her name, Tia decided that the birds were out, the sun was shining, there was a salty lick of ocean on the air and this morning was a morning for ordering in breakfast.

  Not something she’d ever done before, but what the hell? She pulled a diner menu up on her phone and put in an order. And then she took the opportunity to go back to the bedroom and get a healthy dose of grumpy morning Eli. One of her all-time favorite versions of Eli. There was nothing cuter to her.

  And she wasn’t disappointed.

  “Grrmmmph,” Eli groaned when she snuggled into his warm, naked side. But he threw an arm around her and snuggled her right back.

  Tia couldn’t help but giggle at his hibernating bear impression.

  “Grrrrrmmmmph,” he growled again. “What are you giggling about?”

  “Just that you’re such a grump in the morning. It’s cute.”

  “Cute?” He cracked an eye, scowl still firmly in place. She’d woken the beast. “Cute?”

  He growled again and rose up on his hands and knees, his eyes still mostly shut. Caging her in, he collapsed, pinning her down with his weight and nuzzling into her. “I’ll show you cute.”

  “Oof!” Tia wriggled against his weight but couldn’t help but smile, wrapping her arms around his back and giving him the light back scratch she’d learned he liked.

  “Alright,” he mumbled, his five o’clock shadow scratching at her skin. “You’re forgiven for waking me up. And now, coffee.”

  He rolled off of her and walked, naked and unabashed into the bathroom. He emerged a few seconds later with a quizzical expression on his face, basketball shorts on, and a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth.

  “Was that the doorbell?” he asked, around a huge amount of toothpaste. That was another thing she’d learned about him. He was a real glutton when it came to toothpaste.

  “Yup,” she sprang up from the bed. “I ordered in some breakfast for us.”

  “Wait!” he called after her, spitting out the toothpaste and racing after her. “I’ll pay!” He grabbed his wallet from the dresser.

  Yet another thing she’d learned about Eli. He didn’t like her to pay for almost anything. Unless it was expressly categorized as a gift. That was the only way he accepted almost anything from her.

  “I already paid,” she told him as he skidded up to the front door. She flung it open and accepted the food from the delivery boy, whose eyes went round at the sight of Eli. The kid clapped his mouth shut, going bright red—typical shy fanboy—and handed the credit card receipt to Tia for signing.

  “No fair,” Eli told her as she signed the receipt. “You paid for it before I even wo—”

  His voice cut off and his eyes went round as quarters as he stared down at Tia’s signature on the receipt. He snatched it out of her hand before she could hand it to the delivery kid.

  “Eli!”

  “This is your signature?” he asked her, something in his eyes wild and racing.

  “What?”

  “This is your signature?” he stared at it like it was a map to the Holy Grail.

  “Yes,” Tia responded, one eyebrow raised. She gently yanked the receipt out of Eli’s fingers and handed it back to the delivery kid. “Thank you,” she said, closing the door. She wasn’t sure what the hell was going on with Eli but she was fairly certain she didn’t want the delivery kid listening in.

  “I can’t believe it,” Eli whispered. His golden eyes were huge and searching her entire face, like he was desperate for answers she was hiding there.

  “What is it, Eli?”


  “I just can’t believe it.” Eli paced away from her and paced back, like a big, shirtless, prowling cat. He ripped a hand through his hair and made it stand on end. Seeming to be at complete loose ends, Eli just dug in the pocket of his basketball shorts and pulled out his wallet, handing it over to her.

  “Uhhhh.” Tia stared down at his brown leather wallet in his hand, completely confused as to why he’d just jammed it into her hand.

  “Open it,” he said hoarsely. “Look behind my driver’s license.”

  Tia did as he said, taking just a moment to smile at the grinning photo of Eli on his almost expired license. He looked much younger, so much closer to the boy she’d had a crush on in high school. The picture made the teenager in Tia’s heart sigh.

  She slid it out of the plastic sleeve only to find a carefully folded and very creased piece of yellowing paper. It was almost fuzzy with time. She gave him a quizzical look as she handed back the wallet and began to unfold the paper.

  And then the world just up and fell away from her. Tia’s eyes became even rounder than Eli’s as tears instantly sprang up, clouding her vision. Clouding her view of something she’d never thought she’d see again.

  “My note,” she whispered, blinking around the tears. “The note I left in your yearbook. You—you kept it?”

  “Kept it? Tia, I’ve treasured it.” His eyes were wild, his jaw set and ticking. Somehow his hands had ended up on her shoulders, clasping her tightly like she might just disappear.

  Tia’s eyes fell away from his intense gaze and they landed on the thin, faintly pink scar that she’d stitched up herself. Her eyes teared again and this time she wasn’t completely sure why.

  “Dear Elijah,” Eli said, his voice deep and full of vibration as he quoted the letter from heart, his eyes never leaving hers. “I waited four years to say this to your face, but I guess this’ll have to do. Elijah, I don’t know you very well, but I love you. I know that sounds funny to say, because how could anybody love somebody without knowing them? But the thing is, you have a light. An energy. And I’m a science person. I don’t believe in stuff like that. But I look at you and I have to believe. You’re so good, Elijah, on the inside, that I can see it on your outside. Your good heart glows. I can see your future as clearly as words on a page. You’ll be successful and brilliant. And if you ever find yourself doubting it, just walk over to a mirror, smile at yourself and allow yourself to see what I see. Your light. Your energy. Your goodness. Love always, Tia Camellia.”