Seacrest Sunsets

by Melissa Chambers

Chase, positioned on the couch behind them, let out a snort in his sleep. Maya turned to Bo, and they cracked up. She nodded at Chase, sprawled out on the couch that was too short to contain him, his feet dangling off and Felicity crashed out up against his chest. “We should totally wake them up and tell them to go to bed.”

  “You ever woke up an eight-hundred-pound gorilla?” Bo asked.

  Maya gave him a cute grin, lifting an eyebrow. “You have experience sleeping with Chase?”

  “Lots of it. He’s been known to sing power ballads in his sleep.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do, too.”

  She grinned at him, and then turned to the television. Sebastian sat up straight. “I dozed.”

  “For like half an hour,” Bo said.

  “I’m going to bed,” Sebastian said. “You two should, too. There’s empty bedrooms going to waste.”

  Maya’s expression fell, and she sat up straighter, gluing her eyes to the television.

  “I think we’re gonna finish the movie,” Bo said.

  Sebastian tried to focus on it. “Is it still on?”

  “Yeah,” Bo said. It was The Godfather. He’d bet a hundred bucks Sebastian couldn’t tell it’d been over for the past fifteen minutes and the second one had started, at least not in his current groggy state.

  “Mmm,” Sebastian said and glanced over at Ashe, who was crashed out in the big chair, feet up on the ottoman and cradling Desiree to his chest. Sebastian waved them off and stumbled to his bedroom.

  Maya looked over at Ashe and Desiree, who looked content as a pile of sleeping puppies. She turned back to Bo. “So are they…a couple?”

  He bobbed his head from side to side, considering the question. “In what way?”

  “Well, I thought he was gay, but they seem like more than just friends.”

  “They might be for all I know. Maybe they love each other in a way we can’t understand.”

  She looked at him thoughtfully, like she was seeing a part of him for the first time. “That’s kind of beautiful.”

  He shrugged and ate another chip.

  She nudged him with her shoulder. “You seemed to have a little connection with her. Did the two of you ever date?”

  “No, but I did drive her home to New Orleans for her aunt’s funeral last year. Ashe was supposed to take her but he came down with the flu.” He smiled remembering. “You should have seen the looks on her family’s faces when they saw me coming. She was holding my hand to make me feel comfortable, and they about shit their pants, thinking a redneck like me was dating their beautiful, artistic daughter.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it is. To this day I’ve never seen a group of people look more wary or relieved when she set them straight, but they warmed up after a while.”

  “You know you’re not nearly as redneck as you like to think you are.”

  “Hush your mouth, woman.”

  She giggled, making his heart light up. “Did you go to college?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “Florida State.”

  “That’s nothing to sneeze at. What did you study?”

  “Business.”

  “How long were you there?” she asked.

  “Five full years including summers, but in my defense, I got my MBA as well.”

  She gave him an impressed look, and he was a bit ashamed of himself for letting that little brag slip out, but he couldn’t help wanting to impress her.

  “So have you ever had a job besides your pool cleaning business?” she asked.

  “Well, yeah, lots of them, in bartending and construction work, that sort of thing. But nothing in the business world.” He cleared his throat. “And the business is actually a little more than pool cleaning.”

  “Oh?” she asked.

  “I’ve got a pool supply store in PCB.”

  “Really?”

  Her wide smile made his neck heat up. He adjusted himself in his seat on the floor. “Yeah, you should come by sometime this week and say hello. If I’m there I’m usually in the back, but just ask for me.”

  She nodded, still smiling. “I will.”

  Ready to move the focus away from himself, he nodded at Ashe and Desiree in the chair. “One of us should take a picture of them. They look pretty cute all snuggled up like that.”

  She looked at them. “You know, I think I can see the attraction to Ashe. He’s sort of sexy in an Adam Lambert kind of way.”

  “The singer?” Bo asked.

  “Yeah. I’m totally inexplicably attracted to him. He’s openly gay and absolutely nothing like any guy I’ve ever dated or been attracted to, but I see his picture, and I’m like…” She put her hand over her heart and closed her eyes, mouth open. Damn he wanted to kiss her. She opened her eyes and looked at him. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  She grinned, tucking hair behind her ear. “Who’s your unexplainable celebrity crush?”

  He thought about it and got a little embarrassed. He glanced at her and then looked away.

  “Who?” she asked.

  He looked down at the bowl of chips, unable to contain his smile.

  She shoved him playfully. “Who?”

  “I don’t know her name.”

  “Well, what’s she been in?”

  “I don’t know. She was in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.”

  She thought about it, squinting off in the distance. She pulled out her phone and typed into it, and her face lit up. “Catherine Keener?” She showed him her phone, and his face got hot.

  “Yeah, that’s her.”

  She smiled. “I love her. You’re into her?”

  He shrugged, breaking a potato chip in half.

  “She’s quite a bit older than you.”

  He shrugged again. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s sort of hot, Bo.”

  “What is?”

  “That you’re into older women.”

  “How’s that hot?”

  She grinned, readjusting herself on the floor.

  “Is the floor hurting your butt?” he asked. “We can kick Chase and Felicity off the couch. Send them to bed.”

  “No, it’s fine.” She looked over at Desiree and Ashe again.

  “Go poke them,” Bo said.

  “Bo,” she whispered, nudging him.

  “I didn’t mean anything sexual by that. Get your mind out of the gutter, darlin’.”

  Her eyes went wide, and she broke out in a closed-mouth grin. “I didn’t think you did,” she said through clenched teeth.

  She was about the most fun person he’d ever hung around with. “Go poke ‘em,” Bo said again.

  “I’m not poking them.”

  He picked up a napkin and wadded it up. She grabbed his hand, and a jolt of electricity shot through him.

  “Do not throw that at them.”

  “Of course I wouldn’t.” He tossed it over his shoulder, and it bounced off Chase’s forehead. She shook her head at him, but she seemed to be having just as much fun as he was. He nodded at the almost empty bottle of liquor. “Wanna do another shot?”

  “God, no. I had to choke down that other one.”

  “Wanna play a game?” he asked.

  She eyed him. “What kind of game?”

  “The first one of us to utter a sound has to do that last shot.”

  “No way. I’ll lose,” she said.

  “Why do you say that? We haven’t even started.”

  She picked up a napkin off the coffee table and tore a piece off of it. “Because I’m so bad at awkward silences.”

  “No you’re not,” he said.

  “I didn’t say I knew how to fill them. I said I’m bad at them.” She gave him a look. “Wait, have we had awkward silences?”

  He chuckled. “Not a one since I’ve met you. I just meant you seem thoughtful sometimes. You take your time choosing your words, and you don’t seem to notice
there’s silence in the meantime.”

  “I do?”

  “That’s just my observation.”

  “Nobody’s ever told me something like that.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just what I see.”

  She stared at him a minute. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

  “You want to?”

  “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

  “All right. You ready?”

  “Yep.” She inhaled a deep breath and let it out her nose while staring at the table. He looked at her, and she finally met his gaze, smiling, but then zipped her lip. He pinched her arm, and her eyes went wide and she shook her head. He pinched her again. And she looked at him again, shaking her head quickly. He went for her a third time, but she grabbed his hand and held up her pointer finger on the other hand.

  He let silence sit between them for a little while longer, then he picked up a chip and put it in his mouth, crunching it. She put one finger to her nose and pointed at him with the other. He shook his head, indicating it didn’t count. She let out a breath like she’d been holding it. “You made a noise.”

  “I did not. That was the chip making that noise.”

  “That counts.”

  “It does not. I said the first one to utter a sound. I did not utter a sound.” He grinned. “But you did.”

  She closed her palms over her eyes. “Oh, God, I totally fell for it, didn’t I?”

  “Yep,” he said, pouring the shot in her cup.

  When she looked back at him, a little bit of her mascara had smudged, but he liked it, so he didn’t tell her. He handed her the cup. “Time to pay up.”

  “You’re not a nice person. You know that, right?”

  “I never claimed to be.”

  She glanced down at the liquid and then up at him. “This stuff is really disgusting.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  She narrowed her gaze at him. “You’re really going to make me do this, aren’t you?”

  “I can’t make you do anything.”

  “But you’ll shame me if I don’t.”

  “That’s possible.”

  She winced, putting it up to her mouth. She was just about to tip it back when he stopped her. “I’ll split it with you.”

  “You will?”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  She smiled. “Thank you.”

  “What are friends for?” he said, and her smile wavered a little. That was certainly an idiotic word to use, especially since he’d never flirted harder with anyone in his life.

  She put the cup to his mouth, and he opened for her. She poured the liquor in and kept going till it was all gone. She pulled back, eyes wide. “You drank my shot.”

  He swallowed down the cinnamon-flavored liquor, wincing at the burn on his throat. “You’re gonna pay for that.”

  She jumped up. “I’ve got to powder my nose. But I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for taking my shot today.”

  A girl like that who could make a Popeye joke. He was so in over his head. She went up the stairs so he hit the head in the downstairs hallway. He found some toothpaste in the drawer and sloshed it around in his mouth. When he came out, Chase and Felicity were heading up the stairs, so he sat on the couch where they’d been lying.

  When Maya came back down the stairs, she had on a T-shirt and a pair of sexy little shorts with lace on the bottom. The mascara smudge was gone, and her hair was smoothed out. “Sorry. I had to get comfortable.” She sat down on the couch, sort of next to him, but too far away.

  “Don’t be sorry.”

  “I was going to tell you before that I would steal your keys back for you if you wanted to go home, but after you hogged my shot of red hot…” She clucked her tongue against her cheek and shook her head.

  “I hope you know my throat’s still burning from that.”

  Desiree let out a whimper followed by a sigh, and then snuggled back into Ashe’s chest. He knew he should wake them up and let them go to a real bed, but having them there in the room with Maya and him took some of the pressure off. He was having a lot of fun, and he didn’t want to do anything to ruin it.

  Maya looked over at him, lowering her voice. “You deserved it for tricking me.”

  He pointed at the television. “Shh, we’re missing the movie.”

  She shot him a look that called him out on his bullshit, and then sat up tucking her legs behind her. He pulled the blanket off the back of the couch, and then tossed the cushions off. He scooted back, lying down, and patted the spot in front of him. “Come here.”

  She gauged the situation a second, eyeing the spot.

  “I promise I won’t snore in your ear like Chase.”

  She smiled. “Promise?”

  He nodded. “On Chase’s future grave.”

  She widened that smile and lay down in front of him. Covering her with the blanket, he let his arm drape over her, a sense of home that he’d never felt before with a woman washing over him.

  They watched the movie, this time without saying another word, her breathing taking on a slow rhythm that lulled him right to sleep.

  Chapter Seven

  Maya fluctuated in and out of the strange state between sleep and consciousness. Her brain was trying to wake her up, but she wasn’t ready. She needed more sleep, but her pillow was too firm, and it was making her face sweat. Or was that drool?

  She forced her eyelids barely open, and a stubbly chin came into focus. She froze as she realized not what, but who she was lying on. She lifted up a bit to reveal a small puddle of drool pooled on Bo’s shirt.

  She cringed, reaching for a stack of napkins on the coffee table. She delicately sopped up the drool, but it was hopeless.

  “Hey,” he said, his voice low and gravelly.

  She looked up at him wincing. “Sorry,” she whispered.

  He looked down at the spot on his shirt and smiled, closing his eyes again. “No problem.”

  The last thing she wanted to do was leave the warmth of his body, but she needed to brush her teeth and people would start getting up soon. She peeled herself off of him and tiptoed across the room to the stairs.

  After brushing her teeth and fixing her hair back to presentable, she put on some real clothes and headed back down.

  Desiree wiped underneath her eyes, her crocheted sleeve falling down her arm. “I can’t believe we slept in this chair the whole night.”

  “We should have woken you up, but you looked comfortable,” Bo said.

  Desiree smiled. “So did the two of you.”

  Maya’s ears burned and she chanced a glance at Bo, who quirked a smile as he stacked cups on the table. Maya went to help him clean off the table, and they both grabbed for the bottle of liquor at the same time. “Go ahead,” she said.

  “You’ll end up making me take it anyway, won’t you?”

  She shrugged with a little smile and let him take the bottle. They carried all the trash to the kitchen, and Maya indicated the counter. “Just set them there. I’ll rinse it all before I put it in his recycle bin. He’s got a whole system in place.”

  “I’ll help you,” he said.

  “It’s a one-woman job.”

  His eyebrow went up. “And you can handle it?”

  “Absolutely, I can.”

  He smiled. “All right. I better get home. My dog’s probably crossing his legs right about now.”

  Her phone rang in her pocket, and she grabbed it from habit. “This is my boss. I’m just gonna…” She went to hold up a finger to indicate for him to hang on, but at the last minute she held up her hand awkwardly as she stepped out onto the patio to take the call.

  “Ken. Hi,” she said.

  “So sorry to bother you on vacation, Maya. This will just take a second though. I’m trying to access the system through the admin logon, but it’s not taking the password. Hang on.”

  She waited impatiently while he carried on a conversation with someone. She glanced through the window to see Bo walking toward Sebastian in the livi
ng room. She wasn’t ready for him to leave. They needed to give a proper goodbye that hopefully ended with a kiss.

  “Sorry about that. So do you have the new password?” Ken asked. She started to give it to him. “Hang on. Spinning wheel of death. How’s it going? Where are you? Florida?”

  “Yes, it’s great. Do you want to just take down the password on a sticky note?” She knew what his desk looked like on a given day. She’d be lucky if he could find anything to write with much less to write on.

  “Hang on. It’s coming up. Christina!” he shouted at his assistant.

  She inhaled a deep breath, pinching the bridge of her nose. She wished he would let her talk to Christina. She’d find a sticky note and a pen.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m ready.” She rattled it off to him. “Great. I know you’re on vacation, but would you mind hopping on this conference call at ten? I don’t care if you do it from the beach. I just need your input on the implementation of the Smith-Sneed initiative.”

  Bo waved at Sebastian and then locked eyes with her a brief moment before holding up his hand in a final wave and heading out the door. She closed her eyes, that familiar stress of work bearing down on her shoulders. “Yep,” she said.

  “Great. Christina will send you the call-in info.”

  She ended the call and then started to head back inside until her phone buzzed again, this time with a far worse fate…her mother.

  She clenched her eyes shut and figured now was as good a time as any to take her medicine. She answered the call. “Hello, Mother.”

  “From sunny Florida, I hear,” she answered with that snippy, slightly shrill voice that sent Maya to the moon.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “Oh, is that why, now?”

  “How are you, Mother?”

  “Same as I was when we had lunch Friday and you failed to mention the fact that you were going on vacation. How’s Sebastian?”

  “He’s wonderful.”

  “Being the perfect host, I assume.”

  “Of course.”

  “Taking you to a lot of good seafood restaurants?”

  She cringed, gritting her teeth. “Lots of fresh fish and salads.”

  “Good. Sounds wonderful.” Silence sat between them for a moment while Maya rubbed her forehead, then her mother said, “Do you remember Sondra Bloom from school?”