Unbound

by Kimberly Derting

  “So, you, what . . . decided to beach-bum it for the summer?” Lucas asked.

  Em shrugged, looking to me to see if she should elaborate. “Something like that . . .”

  Uncomfortable with the way this conversation was headed, I reached out and tapped the table in front of Lucas, forcing him to stop ogling Emerson long enough to notice me. “About this Billy guy . . .”

  “Uh, yeah . . . like I said, I couldn’t get his attention.” He pointed to the bar, where a cluster of scantily clad blondes congregated like there was a blowout sale on Prada bags. “Busy night,” he told me dismissively, shrugging to let me know he’d given it his best shot.

  “Yet, somehow you managed to get our drinks,” I persisted, ticked that he wasn’t taking this seriously.

  He sighed. “Different bartender.”

  I looked again, this time following to where he was pointing, at the other end of the bar. It was far less crowded there, where a dark-haired girl was working behind the counter.

  I huffed impatiently as I shoved away from our table. “Fine. I’ll get ’em myself.” Busy or not, there was no way I was walking out of this place without our keys.

  I was on a mission. As I waded through the sea of tanned and toned bodies, it became more and more obvious I was out of my element in my worn blue jeans and Grateful Dead T-shirt. Whenever someone pushed me, I pushed back, trying not to be skeeved out by the fact that when I did, my hands met exposed flesh more often than not.

  If you judged by looks alone, Emerson could easily pass for one of these California girls, with her straight-from-the-bottle blonde hair and those superlong legs of hers. It wasn’t until she opened her mouth and you heard her twang, or you learned of her undying love for Taylor Swift and spangled clothing, that you knew she really belonged deep in the heart of Texas.

  Me, not so much. I wasn’t the typical California beauty, but I’d never really been the typical anything. I hadn’t inherited my mother’s sultry Cuban looks. Frankly, I didn’t even pass as Hispanic on the surface. But I also didn’t have my dad’s pale Waspy thing going for me either.

  I’d landed somewhere in between mousy and uninspiring.

  Still, I had my assets, and I’d learned how to best use them to my advantage. I’d just never been one of those girls who felt comfortable putting those assets front and center, at least not in real life.

  I blamed my parents for my lingering hang-ups. They were great people, even if a little . . . let’s call it overprotective. I’d been given every opportunity a kid could dream of, ski lessons, great vacations—they even gave me a horse for my eleventh birthday. What little girl doesn’t want her own pony?

  I had it all, as long as it didn’t involve beaches or swimming pools . . . anything deemed a drowning hazard. So there’d never been any reasons to run around in swimsuits the way other kids had. I’d never learned to be shamelessly uninhibited about my body.

  But it wasn’t like I’d grown up Amish or anything either. Plus, I’d gone to school in Arizona, where it wasn’t just hot it was downright sweltering. Most of the girls came to class wearing midriffs and booty shorts.

  Personally, I preferred observing all that skin from a distance. And this . . . this sliding between all the half-naked bodies . . . well, a can of Crisco might have made it easier.

  By the time I’d made my way through the crush, I leaned against the bar and let out an audible sigh. I couldn’t decide if I deserved a trophy or needed a shower.

  From the other side of the counter, I got a good look at the brunette bartender, and was struck by how stunning she was up close. Not a California girl in the typical sense, with her glossy curls and full scarlet lips that stood out against her porcelain skin. She looked airbrushed.

  She’d just cracked two beers and passed them to a guy who handed her a twenty. She didn’t offer him any change in return, and when he started to complain, she arched a brow at him, letting him know this wasn’t a negotiation.

  He opened and closed his mouth, and then, when she continued to stare him down, he took his beer and stalked away.

  “He’ll be back. He always is,” she told me, the trace of a smirk transforming her expression. “What can I get you?”

  Immediately, I liked her. I wanted to be her. Self-possessed. Poised. Fierce.

  Bolstered by our new girl-bond, I figured she might be just the person to help me out. “I’m trying to find Billy!” I had to shout since it was louder over here by the bar.

  Her smirk melted as she gave me the once over. Both eyebrows rose this time, and I tried to translate her expression. Bored? Tired? Unimpressed?

  Then she indicated the swell of bodies squeezed together and clamoring for attention near the other end of the bar. “Yeah? Well, you and just about every other girl here.”

  I followed her gaze to where Lucas had pointed earlier when he’d come up empty-handed after going for my keys.

  It was like watching sharks locked in a feeding frenzy. I perused the mob of over-glossed lips and barely dressed bodies, as I tried to see what all the fuss was about. I finally managed to catch a glimpse of the bartender beyond them.

  Billy, I presumed.

  Something surged in my stomach, something primal and undeniable. I told myself it was probably just indigestion, even though I knew better.

  Billy was magnificent.

  Billy, with his tousled hair and wearing a T-shirt so snug there was almost no need to imagine the ripped chest hidden beneath. Billy, with his too-good-to-be-true boyish looks and who laughed in all the right places and flashed his Colgate-worthy smile. Billy, who revealed just the hint of a dimple as he slid drink after drink to the predatory girls who swarmed the other side of his bar.

  Billy, who had the keys to my new place.

  I crushed the butterflies in my stomach. This was no time to be thinking about strong biceps and sexy lips.

  “Thanks,” I told the bartender who’d pointed Billy out.

  Trying to channel some of her confidence, I stormed off in his direction. I wasn’t sure if I was seeing red because I was being forced to charge headfirst into a gaggle of beach sluts competing for some guy’s attention, or if I was really just mad at myself (and maybe at Em too) since this whole mess was our fault to begin with. If we’d been on time, I’d already be safely tucked away in my new “cozy beachside bungalow.”

  Maybe I was jumping to unfair conclusions about this whole situation. Maybe these were nice girls who were just incredibly comfortable in their own skin—literally—the way Emerson was. Maybe hanging out here and flirting with the hot bartender was their way of blowing off steam.

  Maybe I should stop being so judge-y and collect my keys so I could get a good night’s sleep, and in the morning I’d have a whole new (less cranky) perspective.

  Managing to find an open patch at Billy’s end of the bar, I leaned over its sticky, over-shellacked surface. “Hey!” I had to shout so I could be heard above the roar. “You Billy?”

  His attention snapped my way, but not before one of the girls whipped her head around to scowl down at me, her platform heels making her at least six inches taller than me. “Wait your turn!” Her voice was shrill and nasally.

  There went my whole “nice girls” theory.

  I opened my mouth to tell her to mind her own damned business, but she’d said her piece and was done with me, already icing me out as she turned back toward Billy-the-sexy-bartender. It was kind of awe-inspiring, how quickly her nasty expression transformed the moment she was eye to eye with him again. This girl had game face down to an art.

  She gazed at him like she wanted to gobble him up, no hint that she’d never bared her fangs at me in the first place.

  The bartender’s attention had jerked to me when I’d called out to him, but now he coolly examined me the way the dark-haired bartender had. I wondered if he noticed how much I stood out in this place, and if he was thinking I didn’t quite measure up to the other girls.

  Then his eyes narr
owed the slightest bit as he plucked a glass from the rack in front of him. “Name’s not Billy,” he said absently. He pulled the handle on the tap, filling the glass until foam spilled over the sides before handing it to the girl who acted like it was her job to run interference on his behalf. He winked at the girl. “On the house, Mona.”

  She picked up her beer and took a not-so-demure sip, batting her false lashes at the bartender. Then she suggestively licked the foam from her overly lined lips. Her tongue made several more trips around the block, just in case the gesture had been too vague.

  It hadn’t been.

  “Thanks, Will. You’re a doll,” she cooed.

  I stood there for a moment.

  Will. His name was Will.

  “You coming to the Sand and Slam Thursday night?” she asked, not yet ready to give up on him.

  Will-not-Billy gave the girl a sheepish grin while my cheeks grew hot over my mistake. “Sorry—can’t. Busy,” he explained.

  “Aw, you’re no fun! You’re always busy,” the girl huffed. She took another sip, her tongue doing that god-awful licking thing as it took another not-so-provocative pass around her lips. And when Bartender Will turned his back on her dismissively, she finally called it quits, casting me a good luck with that look, before tottering away on her sky-high platforms.

  I didn’t move right away, so he caught me off guard when he spun back around and leaned across the bar toward me. I opened my mouth, thinking maybe I should apologize or order a drink or something, but I never got the chance.

  “Who told you to call me Billy?” His tone and mood were far less banter-y than they had been just seconds ago, when he’d been giving free drinks to the Lip Licker. It only took me a second to make the connection I’d been missing.

  Will . . . Billy . . . of course. I hadn’t been mistaken. Billy was short for William.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “You are him?” My irritation at being here in the first place hit me full blast. “What the hell difference does it make whether you’re Bill or Billy or William . . .” My voice raised, and I couldn’t help noticing that my accusation had drawn the attention of several pairs of heavily made-up eyes. “Lucas Harper says you have my keys, and I want them.”

  The noise that had been deafening only moments before died down to a dull roar, and now it felt like everyone was listening to us. To me.

  I shot a glare at those around me and then snapped around to face Will again, but he’d already turned his back on me, snubbing me the same way he had Lip Licker.

  “Hey! Are you listening? I said: Give me my keys!” I pounded my fist against the bar.

  I no longer cared if I attracted a full-blown audience. I refused to be brushed aside.

  But he continued to ignore me, and I searched for a way to get his attention. I wasn’t above throwing something at his head.

  When I saw a giant bronze bell hanging above the bar, I reached for the cord and tugged it as hard as I could. The metallic clang vibrated loudly through the air, ringing hollowly in my ears.

  “You!” I shouted at Will’s back.

  That got him.

  He whirled around and I pointed directly at him. “I need to talk to you.”

  I was in my early 20s when I had my first real experience volunteering. I didn’t do it because I felt an honorable need to give back or anything. I did it because one of my best friends worked for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and she would invite me to help out at their events. One of those events was a black tie fundraising affair. I was excited because there were going to be athletes and local celebrities attending—my big chance to hob-nob with the upper crust of Seattle. And while there were celebrities, there were also those afflicted by CF, their families who were in the fight with them, and many who had lost someone close to this horrible disease. Ultimately, those were the people whose stories really stuck with me. I realized that night I hadn’t been volunteering to fill empty time, or to hang out with my friend, or to meet superstars. I was there to raise money and awareness for a genetic lung disease that destroys lives.

  If you want to learn more about the disease or find out how to participate in an event, visit the Cystic Fibrosis website at www.cff.org.

  This one starts with a special thanks to Annette Webber, who introduced me to the world of volunteering, when she worked at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and said, “I need volunteers. You should come help out.” I didn’t realize at the time that would change the way I view the world.

  To Sophie Jordan for not only providing me moral support, but also a (distraction-free) place to work when I needed one! To Shelli Johannes for letting me badger you with endless questions, both professional and personal. And to Alistair Wells for letting me keep your wife on the phone for hours on end. Oh, and for the gorgeous covers!

  To Lindsay Marsh for such thoughtful notes . . . again! To Monica James for taking my manuscript to the next level, and for making sure I properly use lay and lie, and discreet and discrete (both of which I still have a hard time with). And to Ali Cross for being a formatting wizard.

  A special thanks to my agent Laura Rennert and her assistant Victoria Piontek for their support and cheerleading through this crazy process!

  Finally, to my family. Thanks to all of you for putting up with my neuroses, weird hours, absent-mindedness, and everything else that goes into this roller coaster career I’ve chosen. You’ve not only accepted it, you’ve embraced it—I couldn’t do this without you!

  CONTEMPORARY ROMANCES

  The Men Of West Beach Series

  Undressed

  Unbound

  YOUNG ADULT NOVELS

  The Body Finder Series

  The Body Finder

  Desires of the Dead

  The Last Echo

  Dead Silence

  The Pledge Trilogy

  The Pledge

  The Essence

  The Offering

  The Taking Trilogy

  The Taking

  The Replaced

  The Countdown

  SHORT STORIES

  Skin Contact (A Body Finder story)

  Light It Up (Grim Anthology)

  Kimberly Derting has been in love with love since the first grade, when she would make “boyfriends” hold her hand during recess . . . whether they wanted to or not. In high school, she discovered romance novels and she’s been hooked ever since! She is the award-winning author of the Body Finder series, the Pledge trilogy, and the Taking trilogy. Her books have been translated into 15 languages, and both The Body Finder and The Pledge were YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults selections. These days, she spends entirely too much time ordering stuff off the Internet, binge watching Netflix, and holding hands with a guy who doesn’t have to be forced (her husband).

  Visit her website at www.kimberlyderting.com or sign up for her newsletter here to stay up to date on the latest news about releases, appearances, and excerpts. You can also find her online on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.