Evan lifted his middle finger in the air without turning. Asher responded with a hearty laugh. He should have hit him after all, he thought with a smile.
The asshole.
* * *
Faith lined up three bottles on the kitchen counter and described each one with so much detail, Charlie’s head spun.
“Which one?” Faith prompted.
Sofie, thankfully, seemed to have grasped onto more description than Charlie because she said, “The one with the cherry-chocolate finish.”
Faith lifted the bottle in the middle, the label a sepia tone with a cartoon cat, its tail wrapped around a wineglass. Her slim brows rose in question.
“Sounds great.” Not that Charlie’s palate was all that refined. Three-dollar wine? Thirty-dollar wine? Couldn’t tell the difference.
Wineglasses in hand, the girls went to the back deck. The sky had grown dark, and to keep bugs away, Charlie lit the citronella candles lined along her porch railing. She’d set the round glass table with dainty plates and cloth napkins, and dressed the four wicker chairs in cornflower-and-white seat cushions. Three flavors of hummus and a pile of blue corn chips sat in the center of the table and a plate of gourmet chocolates shaped like seashells and filled with white cream sat off to the side. Sofie dove into the chips.
“I love your house.” Faith reached for a piece of chocolate. “Beats apartment living.”
“No kidding. I’d love a place near the water. Or at least away from my neighbors,” Sofie agreed. “They’re so close. I hear everything they’re doing.” She hoisted an eyebrow. “And the couple in 2B”—she shuddered—“you do not want to know what they’re doing.”
Faith started to laugh, but then the laugh faded into a contemplative hmm. “Although, being close to your neighbors wouldn’t be all bad…”
Charlie looked over at her, then followed to where her eyes were glued.
“… If your neighbor looks like that,” she finished.
“Hello,” Sofie purred. Then to Charlie, she said, “Oh my gosh, is that him?”
“Him, who?” Faith asked. Then turned her eyes back to Evan. “Oh. Him.”
Wearing tennis shoes and running shorts, a T-shirt dangling from his waistband, a shirtless Evan Downey jogged off his deck and onto the beach. He turned his head left, then right, as if trying to decide which direction to run. When he spotted the three of them, and Charlie hoped it wasn’t because they were all staring with their tongues hanging from their mouths, he started in their direction.
“Looks like we’ll get an introduction,” Sofie said.
Oh boy. Okay. Okay. She could do this. “Be cool,” she said, more to herself than her friends.
“Like Fonzie,” Faith said.
Sofie laughed. Faith laughed. Charlie couldn’t make a sound. Her eyes were too busy traveling the expanse of Evan’s bare chest, tattooed round shoulders, and strong arms, all the way down to his confident stride as he approached the porch.
Then he was there. Standing in front of them, his mouth quirked just so.
“Good evening, ladies.”
Faith muttered, “Wow” under her breath, and Sofie sucked in a shallow breath.
Charlie managed a, “Hey,” but heard the catch in her voice.
Also, she should tear her eyes off his naked-from-the-waist-up body. Should being the operative word. He rested a hand on the square white pillar at the foot of her porch—the arm with the evergreen trees—and propped a foot on the bottom step, his grin both sexy and confident, and she couldn’t look away.
“I’m Sofie Martin.”
Right. Introductions.
Charlie blinked out of her stupor. “Evan, these are my friends, Sofie and Faith.”
His grin widened to a distracting degree. He nodded at each of them. “Looks like you’re up to no good.”
“Hummus?” Faith offered.
He scrunched his face. “Gonna go with no on that one.”
Sofie laughed. Faith laughed. Charlie swallowed a mouthful of wine. After—how about that, it did finish on a cherry-chocolate note—she blew out a low exhale, and glanced back in the direction of his house. “Where’s Lyon?”
“Sitter. Librarian’s great-niece.”
“You could have dropped him by here while you ran.” Both her friends’ gazes snapped to her.
“GNO is no place for a seven-year-old, Ace.” The nickname drew more curiosity from her friends.
“You know the acronym for Girls’ Night Out,” Sofie observed. “You’re a keeper.”
“I had a wife. I know my stuff,” he said with an easy smile. “Okay, I’ll let you get back to your hummus.” With a pat of palm to pillar, he turned his back on them and took off jogging down the water’s edge.
Charlie watched until he became a grainy shadow in the distance, then dragged her gaze away from his ass. On the way, she came eye-to-eye with Faith, whose lips lifted impishly. “He is smokin’ hot.”
“Seriously,” Sofie concurred. “And he likes Charlie.”
“Of course he likes me. He was married to my best friend,” she said, reaching for her wine.
“That’s not the kind of like she means,” Faith said, her smile evident.
“You,” she pointed at Sofie, “are reading too much into this. And you,” she gestured to Faith, “are engaged to be married.”
“And you”—Sofie poked Charlie in the arm—“are changing the subject. Admit it. He’s ridiculously hot and you’d love to know what’s under those running shorts.”
“Sofie!” Charlie said in a harsh whisper.
“We all want to see what’s under those running shorts,” Faith said through a laugh.
The sip of wine turned into a gulp. Okay, her friends had a point. His body was beautiful and mostly bare and she did want to see what the rest of it looked like. Which was awful. And made her a horrible best friend.
Sorry, Rae.
“Ace?” Sofie prompted.
Charlie opened her eyes, relieved to talk about something other than if Evan was a boxer-or-briefs guy—if he wore them at all.
Oh boy.
“I’ve never had a nickname,” Faith said.
Charlie cleared her throat, and her mind of Evan’s… everything. “It’s a funny story.” She couldn’t keep from smiling. The memory was a good one. “The four of us used to have poker nights when I lived in Columbus. Russell, me, Evan, and Rae. We usually played for Oreos or gummy bears, but this night in particular, we played for change. With real coin on the line, I decided to sneak an Ace of hearts out of my sleeve for the win. Evan busted me.”
Sofie gasped. “You? She who does everything right?”
Charlie’s jaw dropped. “I do not do everything right!”
“You do. You’re the goodest girl I know.”
She was? A frown pulled her lips. “Good” sounded synonymous with “bland.”
“Hey,” Faith spoke up, “I resent that.”
Sofie lifted a tortilla chip. “Sorry. I knew you back when we waitressed and you used to do keg stands.”
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
“You weren’t as sweet then as you pretend to be now, my friend,” Faith said to Sofie.
“I was so.”
“Don’t make me say his name.” Faith dipped a chip and munched.
When they quietly chewed for a few more moments, Charlie swiveled her head between the two of them. “Okay, now I have to know.”
Sofie drank, then drank a little more. Faith fell silent, craning an eyebrow in challenge.
“Seriously?” Charlie looked from one to the other. “No one’s going to tell me?”
“Sofe?” Faith asked, her face showing mild concern. “Should I not have brought it up?”
Sofie waved a hand. “Don’t be silly. Donny was forever ago, like, years ago.”
“Donny?” What were the odds? “As in Donny Pate?”
Sofie’s brow crinkled. “Yeah.”
“I knew him. Er, knew o
f him. He was one of the bad boys who hung out with Evan and Asher Knight years ago when we used to visit the Cove.”
“Bad boys?” Faith asked in an amused lilt.
“Yeah, or so Rae called them.” Donny was taller than Evan and Asher, had long, black hair, and was the quieter, more intense one of the three. She turned to Sofie. “He was cute. When he was seventeen, anyway.”
“Yeah, well, he was cute when he was twenty-four, too.” She drained her glass, then held it out for a refill. “Garçon?”
Faith tipped the bottle and emptied it into Sofie’s glass, her engagement ring glinting in the candlelight. “I have a surprise for you both.”
“You’ve set a date?” Sofie guessed.
Charlie sputtered into her glass. Faith had been procrastinating everything about her upcoming nuptials. Setting a date, picking a venue, anything and everything having to do with the planning.
Sofie had shared she thought this was a bad sign and Charlie agreed. Maybe because a version of Rae’s warning about Russell still rang in her ears. In Faith’s case, Charlie wondered if a man who didn’t push for marriage two years after he’d popped the question was also a man who’d walk away. For her friend’s sake, she hoped not.
“You wish,” Faith said with a smile.
Sofie held up a palm. “I don’t do weddings.”
It was true. Sofe handled corporate events, charity dinners, even anniversary parties, but never weddings. She said they were too big and complicated, but Charlie sometimes wondered if her reasoning ran deeper.
“I know, I know. No weddings. Now for my surprise.” Faith reached under the table and came up with a white bakery box.
Sugar Hi’s logo was the cutest. Confection-pink, swirly lettering designed around a frosting-laden cupcake with a cherry on top made up the word “Sugar” and “hi!” was in a little comic-strip-style speech balloon off to the right. Beneath the whimsical logo, in type almost serious by comparison, was the claim “Evergreen Cove’s Finest.” The claim was true. Hoity-toity Abundance Market and homegrown-style Cup of Joe’s could not compare to the epic sweets served up at Sugar Hi.
“It’s not.” Charlie leaned closer, drawn by the smell of sugar as Faith lifted the lid.
“It is.” Faith tilted the box, displaying the desserts as if she would rare and precious gems. “Soon-to-be-world-famous Devil Dogs.”
“Oh, no, you got one for each of us,” Sofie said, shoulders dropping in defeat. “Evil.”
“Yes. And you’re going to eat every bite. Calories don’t count on girls’ night.”
“Besides, when you cut the cake in half, the fat grams fall out,” Charlie joked.
Sofie acquiesced with an eye roll. “Fine.”
They lifted their chocolate-dipped cakes out of the box and Faith raised hers in a cheers. “To the bad boys of Evergreen Cove.” She smiled. “And the good girls smart enough to stay away from them.”
Rather than chime in on that proclamation, Charlie took a bite of the most amazing, moist, crème-filled, chocolate-dipped cake she’d ever tasted in her life, and tried desperately not to think of bad boys.
Like the sinful, rich chocolate and bad-for-her sugar causing her entire body to buzz and her taste buds to tingle, thoughts of Evan crashed into her brain front and center. Thoughts about his body, his tempting mouth, and the way those long, long eyelashes swept over eyes that’d seen more darkness than light.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Three a.m.
Three. Fucking. a.m.
Evan glared down at the black, gray, and navy-blue paint covering the canvas in front of him, hating it. Hating the proof of the darkness that covered him during sleepless hours. Hating that this lived inside him while on the outside he struggled to be the best father possible. A father like his own.
He wanted to turn over the easel, smash the painting, knock everything off his desk. But he didn’t want to wake his son; have him come down here and find Evan in the throes of… whatever he was going through.
He’d moved here to find the light. Not get darker.
He snapped the graphite pencil in his hand into two pieces and threw it across the room. It plinked off the walls and rolled across the wooden floors. Too tame a reaction for what he was feeling. He paced across the room to the wide windows, feeling like a caged animal. Rather than seeing the nighttime lakeside landscape, he focused on his wavy, angry reflection in the glass.
After his run, he’d paid Lorraine to stay another two hours so he could come in here and get some work done undisturbed. He’d pulled out the tattered napkin with Ash’s pathetic sketch and attempted to get Swine Flew down. By midnight, Lyon was in bed, Lorraine’s curfew past due, and Evan had drawn three pages of sketches he couldn’t use.
He’d gone to bed shortly after only to wake from another nightmare-slash-memory, his head filled with thoughts of Rae, his big bed making a mockery of the idea of restful sleep. An hour ago, he trekked in here, his skin crawling, needing to let loose, let go.
Forget.
Needing the hit that paint on canvas promised. Needing the release of freeing himself from space and time and the life partner he’d never again see on this earth.
Shutting off the studio lights, he snatched the video baby monitor Landon had sent him as a housewarming gift, glad he had a way to watch his boy when he was in the bowels of the studio being tortured by repressed demons. A look at the screen showed Lyon asleep, limbs splayed, mouth open.
Evan needed to move. Walk off the building pressure, get a whiff of air not piped through the AC vents. He would bet the fancy monitor worked away from the house, as well.
Say… two doors down from the house.
Charlie.
Suddenly, he needed to see her. The painting hadn’t cleansed him, hadn’t exorcised this twitchy energy radiating across his back and twanging down both arms. If nothing else, the walk would do him good.
Monitor deep in one pocket of his cargo shorts, he locked his door behind him. Humid air hit him in the face, blowing the longer strands against his forehead. He sucked in a deep breath, listened to frogs and bugs chirping in the night, then broke into a jog for the destination of Charlie’s wide, white, and welcome back porch.
When he arrived, he felt less desperate, a tad less crazy. The house was dark, no sign of her staying up late to work. Just as well.
At least one of them was getting some sleep.
Hand on the pillar by the steps, he stared blankly at the swing on the porch, his fingers drumming, his mind a zillion miles away. After a minute, he turned back toward his house, figuring he’d save Charlie the trial of dealing with his shit, when he heard her speak.
“Evan?”
She sounded slightly groggy, and damn adorable, and he turned to find her looking the same. Her mass of honey-blond waves hung out of the small screenless window upstairs, her huge eyes heavy.
He tilted his head to take her in, then put a hand over his heart. “Juliet.”
A sleepy smile pulled her lips, and the tension choking him loosened its stranglehold. In a raspy chuckle, she asked, “What are you doing?”
Great question. What was he doing? Freaking out? Walking off frustration? And now that he’d laid eyes on Charlie, he considered a chunk of that frustration was sexual.
“Coming to see you,” he answered honestly.
Her smile faded. “Something wrong?”
Nothing she needed to know about.
“Nope. Couldn’t sleep. Figured you’d be up.”
“Well, I’m up.” Once again her full lips parted into a smile and something curled around in his chest and tugged.
She closed her window and he glanced at the monitor again. Lyon hadn’t moved. Not surprising. Where he’d suffered sleepless nights a year ago, now his kid was a rock. Evan had been relieved for the end of that phase.
The kitchen light snapped on and he stood on the other side of her sliding glass door watching as she entered the room. Short shorts edged in lace coasted along
her ample thighs, a matching, tiny sleeveless top bared her delicate shoulders and stretched across her incredible tits. He refocused his gaze to her face when she pulled a long, thin, silky robe over those bare shoulders and closed it, hiding the pale pink pj’s—and the promise of what lay beneath them—from view.
“Don’t be a horndog,” he warned himself as the door slid aside. What neither of them needed was for him to bury this… this bizarre need in her—have some sort of displaced lust at three in the morning ruin the easy friendship they had going.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he returned, his voice rocky.
“Wine?”
“Gonna take the same plea as I did with the hummus, Ace.”
“Want to come in?” She bit her bottom lip and he watched as her white teeth scraped the plump flesh.
Yes.
“You gonna keep that robe on?”
Her brows curved in confusion. “Yes.”
“Then, no.” So much for not being a horndog. Man, he needed some sleep.
“Um…”
Before she could respond to that, he said, “Come outside.”
“Okay. Give me a second.”
Turning, she darted into the kitchen and moved for the fridge. He watched her fluid movements for a beat longer than he should have, then lowered himself to the top porch step and faced the silent, dark lake. The quiet was new. On East Level, the semi-busy street provided plenty of background noise to sleep by, and a few gray hairs when Lyon had become a wandering toddler.
He heard the door slide closed and a moment later, a bottle of water appeared in front of him. Accepting it, he watched as Charlie padded barefoot down a step, arranged the robe over her long legs, and sat next to him, a light, pleasant scent lifting off her hair or skin.
Lid off, he guzzled down half the bottle.
She took a dainty sip of her own water bottle, then eyed him. “Studio time not working out?”
One could say that. He shook his head.
“Can’t sleep?”
“Not tonight.” He’d be up until morning, which ensured a rough start to his day. Nothing he could do about it now. His eyes left her face and wandered over her robe, covered in bright yellow and pink daisies. “You like flowers.”
Bringing Home the Bad Boy Page 6
