Oceanside

by Michelle Mankin

  “That means a lot to me,” I told him.

  “Cool. We got your back, each and every one of us. We all just want the best for you.”

  “I hear you.”

  “Good. But you gotta want it for yourself, you know? Maybe it’s time to stop hiding in the studio, step out and take a chance.”

  “Maybe.” Talking with Ramon had me revisiting my earlier thoughts regarding Fanny. My gaze returned to her. Trust, honesty, faith. Those issues kept coming up. I knew they were linchpin concerns. I also knew that winging it and going with the flow wouldn’t cut it. The door was open between us, but to get to where I wanted to go with her was going to require careful planning and measured action.

  ~ ~ ~

  Fanny

  I was sitting to the right of Ash. He commanded the head of the table, comfortable in his role as host. It seemed like he’d had lots of practice. He refilled my glass. He snagged additional servings of potato salad and roasted asparagus the moment I asked for them. He directed the conversation, introducing topics that he knew would keep my sister and me engaged. But as the three guys continued their discussion about Freewave a local band Ash managed, and the girls talked about their favorite TV shows, my mind returned to what had happened earlier. It hadn’t escaped my notice that Ash had overheard about Tristan, and that it had visibly upset him. Yet he hadn’t pressed for more information. Did he not care to know? Or did it not matter? And then that kiss he could have had but didn’t take. Would it have really mattered that his friends might have seen it? Or was it a convenient excuse? Maybe his ‘trying for more and my trying for more’ were drastically different things.

  “You ok?” Warm fingers settled over mine.

  I blinked Ash’s handsome face into focus. “Yeah, why?”

  “You got quiet all of a sudden.” His gaze dipped to my plate, then rose. “And you stopped eating.” Humor shimmered in his eyes. “Even though there’s food on your plate.”

  “Haha. Very funny. The food was wonderful, Ash. All three rounds of it. But I’m pretty stuffed.”

  “Me, too,” Hollie said, casting a glance around the table. “Thanks to all the great cooks.”

  “I didn’t make what I brought,” Karen confessed. “The potato salad was from Lavons.”

  “Hey, I’ll take some cred. I did the grilled asparagus,” Ramon chimed in.

  “I brought beer and wine.” Linc lifted his Longfin Lager.

  “I drove him to the liquor store and remembered flavored water for Karen and Hollie.” Simone smiled.

  “But the piece de resistance belongs to Ash.” Linc turned to his cousin. “Been a long time since you grilled steaks, but you’re almost as good as your dad at it. Exemplary. You earned your point back and then some, Casa Keys and company gets a thumbs-up from me.” He turned his gaze to Karen. “Sorry, surfer girl. My Aunt Maggie’s homemade beats Lavons.”

  “Home cooking always wins.” Karen smiled. “Something about the love that goes into preparing it, I think.”

  The others murmured their agreement. Ash picked up on the look my sister and I exchanged. He gave her a gentle chin dip, and he squeezed my fingers. “You’re thinking about your mom, aren’t you?”

  My chest tight, I nodded. “Love was at the heart of everything she did.”

  “I know she passed her culinary skills on to you. And I can extrapolate from everything you’ve told me and how you and Hollie miss her that she must have been a special woman. Can you tell me some more about her?”

  “She was a strawberry blonde like Hollie.”

  “And she had silver eyes and a beautiful smile like Fanny.”

  “Thank you, Hols.”

  “It’s the truth, but you’re welcome.”

  “She used to say that Holly was the dawn, and that I was the sunset. She was the light of every single day I had with her. Even the cold nights on Vancouver Island seemed warm when her arms were around me. Her stories made me believe the backseat of our Buick was an enchanted castle instead of a car. She put down a path for Hollie and me to follow mixing her beloved yoga and Shakespeare. And her scent…” I trailed off. Oh how I missed her and her scent. “It was the love that she baked into her famous cinnamon rolls with those buttery layers of bread and that sweet vanilla bean frosting.”

  “She made hope seem like something tangible, like we could grab and shape it into being with our bare hands if only we had enough faith.” Hollie’s expression softened in remembrance.

  “The chorus in ‘Tomorrow Today’ was from something she always used to say.” I paused to try to speak her words without my voice cracking. “‘Nights become bright days when dreams like the stars guide your way’.”

  “Love is the good in me. Where there is love, there is hope. Where there is hope, there is light. Where there is light, there is a way,” Ash said.

  Surprised he could quote my lyrics so accurately, I nodded. “And she was an incredibly gifted performer. Almost otherworldly.” I closed my eyes picturing her on the stage, whispering. “Like a princess from some mystical realm under the lights with her hair looking like spun fairy gold. Her voice echoed with so much emotion in a hushed theatre that it gave me chills.”

  “Then she was a lot like you.”

  “What?” I opened my eyes to see that Ash had risen from his seat.

  “I saw you,” he said in a deep meaningful tone that resonated deep inside my chest. I started to crane my head back to look at him, but he slid my chair out from under the table the legs scraping the concrete as he turned me around to face him. “Under the lights at the Dolby Theatre. The night I first met you. In person you were impossible to forget. On the stage you were incomparable.” Ash knelt in front of me swiping tears from my cheeks I hadn’t noticed I’d shed. His eyes warm currents of compelling compassion, he continued to unravel me. “You mesmerized me and everyone else that night. Seasoned industry professionals, celebrities, media moguls. No one dared breathe during your performance.”

  “I…I fumbled the first few words. I…”

  “You were perfect. Your hair was copper fire. Your eyes shone like moonbeams on the water, and your voice was a siren’s call that wrecked half the audience. I was completely captivated and so was everyone else. I’m sure that your mother would have been very pleased and proud to know how strongly her legacy lives on in Hollie and you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Ashland

  I woke with the covers twisted around my lower body. Nothing unusual there. Finding Fanny when I cracked open my eyes? That was different, and it was anything but ordinary.

  “You’re awake.” Her soft hand slid away from my brow.

  “Yeah, little one,” I whispered. “What are you doing up in the middle of the night?”

  “I heard you.” Her brow crinkled. “Again. I couldn’t soothe you back to sleep this time.” Her face glowed with the moonlight streaming into the living room through the windows. I found myself grateful that the retractable blinds hadn’t come in yet. Her hair like a bathing cap shaped to her head, her expression earnest, her eyes reflective, her hip pressed possessively next to mine from where she perched on the couch beside me, she captivated me as much now as she had back on stage at the Oscars.

  “Do you have nightmares every night?”

  “I’m a restless sleeper,” I hedged.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Give me parts of an answer but not the whole. You’re shutting me out.” She glanced away, looking out the windows while she formulated her thoughts. I just stared at her mesmerized. I couldn’t fathom how she had gotten under my skin so quickly, first as Fanny and then as Frances, or how seamlessly she fit in with my friends. The dinner party I had been reluctant to approve had ended up being an inspired idea.

  “How do you mean?” I prompted, and she turned back to look at me.

  “Your voice changes when you’re redirecting me or being evasive. And…” She trailed off. Her hands fluttered. I captu
red them.

  “And what?”

  “Your scent changes.”

  “Explain that.”

  “Scents have layers, especially with people. Dominant ones and more subtle notes. Most of the time I just get the dominant ones from you. Ocean. Sun. Citrus. But sometimes I get hints of more.” Her eyes unfocused. Darkened. “A lot more.”

  Interesting. “When sometimes?” I pressed.

  “When you’re emotional. When your guard goes down I think. Up on the roof when…when Tristan came up…then later when I thought you wanted to kiss me.”

  “No thinking about it, Fanny. I wanted to, make no mistake.” My frown mirrored hers. “Why would you feel like I didn’t?”

  “I don’t know, Ash. I feel a lot of things about you. I have for a while now. Old stuff from before. New things, too. They all get jumbled up inside of me. And when that happens, answers I thought I had turn into more questions.”

  “I can empathize. I told you earlier I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. If I had those answers I’d give them to you. You know that, right?

  “Yes.”

  “So you had trouble sleeping tonight, too?” I questioned gently.

  She nodded. “I came in to get a drink of water.”

  “Ah.” I didn’t point out that she could have more easily gone to the attached bathroom for that. But she didn’t point out that I could sleep in the guest bedroom rather than the couch. “You wanna share what’s keeping you awake?”

  “You and me. But…” She shook her head. “That’s an issue I don’t think either of us have even sorted out for ourselves yet.”

  “No. You’re right.” But I think I was closer than she was. I let go of her hands and pulled myself to a seated position. “How about I try to tackle those other things you mentioned.”

  “Alright.”

  “The kiss first.” I stroked her soft cheek with the back of my hand. I enjoyed caressing her, not only because it affirmed the rightness of this experiment between us, but also just because I liked the way her breath hitched whenever I did. “To me kissing is very personal.”

  “Isn’t it for everyone?”

  “It’s especially so for me. And this is going to come as something of a shock to you, but I’ve never kissed anyone.”

  “What? No way.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Well, it’s the truth, little one. Never lip to lip. Breath to breath. Never shared that intimacy with anyone. The reasons for that are complicated. I don’t know if I can explain them fully.”

  “Can you try?” she entreated, unfolding her arms. “Please?”

  “For you, little one, anything. But I’d have to go back a ways.”

  She nodded encouragingly.

  “It’ll take a while.”

  “I’m not sleepy.”

  I smiled. How could she put me at ease when the truths I was revealing were so…well…revealing. “Then you might as well get comfortable. Stand up for a moment.”

  She did. No questioning my directive.

  I kicked off the covers and put my own feet on the floor ignoring the way her gaze bumped down and her lips parted. She had noted my erection. Yeah ok, it was impossible for either of us to ignore. I grabbed and lifted her. Her breath rushed out from her parted lips, and I returned us both to the couch only this time with her arranged on my lap. She wiggled her sexy ass so she could shift to look at me. And the way that felt was heaven and hell.

  “Can you feel me? I asked.

  “Yes.” Her breathless reply made my cock even harder.

  “Any more doubts about me wanting you?”

  “No.”

  “Good. You feel so good.” I groaned. “And you know I like touching you.” I skimmed my fingers up her arm, drawing back the silky sleeve and wondering when the hell Karen had started carrying sexy lingerie like Fanny was wearing at her surf shop.

  She shivered. “I’m beginning to get the idea.”

  “Never had a woman respond like you do to me.”

  “But all the groupies.”

  “They’re just turned on by the idea of sleeping with a rock star. They don’t know me. They don’t really want to know me.”

  She nodded. “And in all those years you never kissed any of them?”

  “I was never even tempted to.” I pulled in a breath and began. “The guys and I, we kinda went from being a bunch of nobodies to a bunch of somebodies really quickly. A dream come true professionally, for sure, but personally it was a nightmare. Everyone wanted a piece of us, and we gave it to them, losing ourselves in the process. One by one we became images, bad guys of rock ‘n’ roll, one dimensional caricatures of the guys we once had been. The only reality remaining was who we were to each other. And even with that there were big lies underneath the surface that made for a shaky foundation.”

  “Ash, I’m sorry,” she breathed sympathetically.

  I gave her a tight nod and continued. “With little to nothing and nearly no one I could truly trust or believe in, I pulled way inside myself. A matter of self-preservation, really.”

  “I know, I get it.” She covered my lips with her thumb and just the gentle glide of it across my lips beneath made lust I had kept dampened until now roar to flame inside of me. I wanted to lift her off my lap and throw her down, climb on top of her before she could even catch her breath, and rip off that robe and show her how much I…no…not yet…not like this…I had plenty to scare her off. Coming on so strong right from the beginning was not the way for us to start. I jerked my head to the side shuddering as I yanked back on the reins that had nearly slipped from my fingers when she had touched me.

  “It must have been a difficult time. You were younger than I was when I started touring with my song.” She was rambling. “And you loved her. You and Linc both did.” And then she wasn’t rambling but hitting the center of the target or pretty fucking close. I snapped my gaze back to her tethers trailing loose but at least back in my grip. “You still love her.” Another misread. A significant one. I saw tears forming in her eyes.

  “I do, gypsy rose. But not the way you think. As a friend. As a possibility.” And because she was his and loving her was the closest I could get to him.

  “I’m not trying to compete.” She swallowed. “I’m not trying to take that away.” She brought her fluttering hands up toward my face. I captured them before she could touch me. “But do you think there’s any way that in time that I might become a possibility for you, too?”

  “Absolutely. If I didn’t believe that I wouldn’t have agreed to try for more.”

  She exhaled a shaky breath. She was so brave to ask me a question that made her so vulnerable. And I was trying so hard to do this right. To do right by her. To mete out information about who I was, and why I was the way I was in a manner that wouldn’t overwhelm her with too much too quickly.

  Once upon a time I had reserved a kiss for a day I knew now would never come. Linc would always be Simone’s. But what had been my greatest regret might now be redeemed in a most unexpected way. A first kiss could become a second chance for Fanny and me because I was free to give that gift to her.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Fanny

  “We’re getting low on eggs,” I told Ash from the kitchen when he emerged from the guest bedroom.

  Wearing nothing but a towel.

  Damn.

  “Just put what you need on a list.” His hand on the twist of white terrycloth at his trim waist, he gave me a smoldering side glance and a half-grin that would have ignited my panties if I’d been wearing any under my chemise and robe. “I’m out of clothes.” He stopped at the other side of the bar, and I stopped whisking eggs to stare at him.

  “So it seems.”

  His half-smile transformed into a blinding full-one that incinerated the rest of me. “Is Hollie still asleep” he asked. “I need to get into my closet.”

  “Go right ahead. She’s up on the roof doing yoga. She’ll b
e there for an hour. Take your time.”

  “An hour, huh?” He stalked closer, his gaze raking over me. “Forget the omelet.”

  I set the bowl on the counter so fast it clattered.

  “A perfect time to get on with the more between you and me.” Eliminating the space between us, he leaned in and put his lips near my ear. “I wanna scramble something alright.” His sun, ocean, citrus and that additional musky scent of his hit me. “You,” he concluded, his warm breath and the anticipation of what that scrambling might entail raised bumps on my skin.

  “Alright.” My legs quivered.

  “Excellent.” His eyes broadcasting intent like a gathering thunderstorm before a lightning strike, he grabbed me and scooped me into his strong capable arms.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, throwing my arms around his neck and sifting through the satiny strands of his hair while I had the opportunity. He touched me plenty, but he seemed to be stingy about letting me have freedom to do the same.

  “To my bed.”

  “Oh.” Heat hit my cheeks.

  “Oh-my-Ash in a couple of minutes,” he warned, striding with me following out of the kitchen and into the hall. “I’ve got a few things I’ve been thinking about doing since I saw you naked.”

  “Only a few?” I retorted as we passed through the threshold into his room.

  “Time constraints.” The groove in his cheek appearing, he lowered me to the floor. My soft curves grazed warm chiseled granite before my bare feet hit the ground. He framed my face with his large hands. Mine went to his forearms finding the sinewy strength I needed. Already he had me feeling lightheaded. His gaze dipped. “Hard to decide what to do first. Those lips of yours have been driving me crazy.” My heart raced as he moved one of his hands to gently trace my lips with his thumb. “Lush. Soft. Sexy.”

  “Ash,” my breath spilled onto his skin. “Whatever you decide I’m ready.”

  “You just think you are.” He tagged my bottom lip pressing the rough pad of his thumb deeper into it to widen the separation of it from the top one. My breathing stopped. My fingers flexed on his arms. Was he going to kiss me?