I nodded. The first five years after I’d left the MC, I was looking over my shoulder all the time, worried they’d drag me back kicking and screaming. But twenty years was a long time and before Luna I’d felt—finally—safe.
Luna da Rosa was a disruption to my life in more ways than one.
One of them was that I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her for seven days straight and the thoughts were so filthy I had to fuck my own hand every single night.
“We need to talk about what’s next,” Elián said. “The money is amazing. We’re probably out of the crisis. Now we gotta do something about it.”
“What do you mean?” I opened two more beers, passed one to him.
“Those foundation people were assholes. But they kinda had a point, Beck. I know you don’t want to do it because it seems risky, but we have to invest now. We have to develop a strategic plan and formalize our goals. All of these donors”—Elián pointed at the screen with the tip of his beer—“will want accountability for this massive public interest in us. We have to court them. Make sure they’ll give again.”
“More kennels, more dogs,” I shrugged, wanting to clam up.
But he wouldn’t let me. He threw an arm around my shoulders, patted my back. “Not having a high school diploma doesn’t mean jack shit and you know that. Everything I just said we can get help with. Board members. Volunteers. Shit, Luna can do this stuff for us. If you asked her she’d rally together the best brains in the business.”
Elián handed me a stack of square envelopes. “Like these. What are all these?”
“Invitations to community events and other fundraisers.”
They were all addressed to Mr. Beck Mason, Executive Director. “Don’t they know I’m a violent criminal or whatever?”
“Not everyone cares about trashy gossip,” Elián said, grinning as he took a swig. “You’re starting to be in high demand. Well, maybe not high. But like a low-to-medium demand.”
I flipped through the stack. Foundations, Rotary club meetings, church groups.
“Some of them want you to speak,” he said, tapping an envelope.
I grimaced. “That’s too bad.”
Elián sat forward, elbows on his knees. “Do you remember when I met you at the Miami SPCA? I’d never seen someone so angry and unsure. You were like Beatrix over there, snarling at anyone who got too close.”
I lifted a shoulder. “Hazard of juvie. Hazard of the club. If you don’t come out swinging, the other person will.”
“And I didn’t,” he said. “And you hated me in the beginning because of it.”
Elián was only five years older than I was, but I remembered thinking of him as being wise when I’d finally let him be my friend.
“Yeah,” I said, smiling a little.
“You barely said a word,” he continued.
“Still don’t.”
“No,” he countered. “You’re more talkative than you realize now, especially around Luna.”
I shifted at that. Was that true?
“You’re never going to be a chatty guy, Beck,” he said, “but my point is that you can grow. I’ve watched you grow. And you’ve never abandoned this cause or these dogs or your staff. You’re growing. Lucky Dog is now growing. That means you have to be a leader now.”
I watched Luna’s website light up with money. And she’d done it by telling the truth without shame. Telling people straight out: We need your help. You can give it.
I sent a text her way: Elián and I are watching your website. Lots of money. Thank you. It took me a minute—if writing on a computer was hard, that shiny text screen was even harder. The texts I received from Luna were cheery and funny. It caused ugly self-esteem things to rise in me.
And I was ignoring all the times she’d asked me on a date this week and I’d said nothing.
“Maybe Luna can help me with some of this stuff,” I said, feeling butterflies or moths or giant fucking pandas stomping through my insides and stirring shit up.
“Maybe you can finally take Luna on that date,” Elián said.
“Jem’s got a big mouth,” I sighed, although I was a little pleased.
“You like Luna.”
“… yeah.” I allowed.
Another nudge from Elián. “I know the excuses you’re going to throw out there. I’m going to stay one step ahead and tell you those excuses ain’t worth shit.”
“You mean the fact that she’s a famous billionaire and I’m motorcycle trash?”
The look he gave me spoke volumes. And he didn’t even know about Luna bringing me coffee and apologies last week, trying to find common ground for our very different lives.
I had no excuse, really.
It had been a long time since I’d ever felt this passionately about a woman and I worried that if I got Luna on a date, I’d scare her away with my feelings. My feelings and my lust, which wasn’t nice. But it was demanding.
“I’m going to go on a long ride,” I said, “grab a burger. And when I get home, I’ll give Luna a call and ask her out the old-fashioned way.”
“Classy guy.”
“I have a feeling a week from now we’ll be having this same conversation about Jem and Wes.”
“Wes’s got a crush on Jem, doesn’t he?”
“A big one,” I replied.
$105,000, $105,500, $105,700… the numbers went tick, tick, tick as I finished my beer with Elián. Wes had a crush. I was going to put myself out there. Lucky Dog was raking in the dough.
Things were looking up.
34
Luna
I was here to eat a cheeseburger. With bacon.
Or at least try to. I had my driver drop me off at a burger stand off the side of the highway that looked inconspicuous and moments away from being shut down for health-code violations. And if I contracted a strange, tropical disease from my first-time eating meat since I was eleven years old—so be it.
It was the punishment I deserved.
I’d spent the past week working long, exhausting days with my staff and my board, attempting to secure a store that could replace, even partially, our lost revenue from Fischer Home Goods. Jasmine had me doing fluff pieces for any magazine or online forum that wasn’t trying to smear my reputation further. I was posting about Lucky Dog constantly, attempting to reroute my personal and professional brand, all while watching our stock prices take a deep, terrifying dive.
There was a slew of hate messages in various inboxes across all of my social media platforms. I tried to stay upbeat all week—tried to hold tight to my values, my new path, Sylvia’s words resonating constantly in my mind.
The right thing or the safe thing?
I didn’t want to be an ordinary leader.
I wanted to be extraordinary.
Except today Claudia Bardot had decided to add her hat into the ring of online bullies. Claudia was a famous actress—a famous vegan actress—and when I was twenty-four and just starting out, she’d discovered Wild Heart products and become obsessed. We became fast friends… and Claudia became one of my earliest admirers. Her fans became my fans and I owed a lot of my early success to the buzz she built about my makeup and my company and the way we were doing things differently.
Today Claudia Bardot had disowned me. Publicly.
I understood her hurt at my perceived betrayal, understood the pain of realizing a brand you’ve loved is cruel to animals. But I thought… I hoped… she’d talk to me to learn the real story.
I hoped she was the kind of friend who could see me for who I really was.
Instead, she’d issued a comment today severing any ties to Wild Heart and to me. Her words had been short, but brutal: It’s heart-wrenching when you discover that a woman you idolize has been lying to you for years, building her brand of social justice based on hypocrisy. At this point, I’m not even sure Luna da Rosa is an actual vegan. She is, however, an expert actress.
“What do you fucking want?” the woman behind the counter
barked at me.
“Bacon cheeseburger and fries, please,” I said in a small voice. I’d contemplated a disguise but then—who cared? If the world believed I was fake, I might as well embrace it.
Except as I sat on the rickety table beneath an equally-rickety umbrella, I felt only an unsettled nausea and tears as I stared at the greasy burger.
I’d hit multiple lows over the past three weeks—Ferris Mark. Learning I was at fault. The online hate. The protesters calling me a murderer. Losing the contract. Losing Claudia.
This cheeseburger, however?
Was the lowest.
None of this felt okay though. None of this felt right. Which I found odd, since at this point, I was ready to throw in the towel and admit defeat. Your detractors will be many, Sylvia had said.
I wasn’t sure I had the strength left to push back against them.
Which was why I was going to give in to them.
As soon as I stopped dry heaving.
“Luna?”
A giant nonprofit hunk was stalking my way with a look of utter disbelief on his handsome, bearded face.
“What the fuck” I hissed to myself, hiding under the table since that was the only idea I had at the time. Until Beck’s shaggy head dropped down to pin a gaze on me that said gotcha.
“Evening,” he said. He dropped to his knees. I squinted up at him like I hadn’t been sure it was him.
“Beck?” I asked, like we were bumping into each other at the farmer’s market. “Oh my god. Hey.”
He passed a hand over his mouth, hiding a smirk. “What are you doing beneath the table at a burger joint?”
“Market research,” I said weakly.
“On the ground?”
“Being a CEO is about vision, Beck,” I said. “Opportunity exists in every grain of sand and straw wrapper.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he mused. “I’m just here to enjoy a juicy burger like the rest of us meat-eating evildoers.”
At the mention of the words juicy burger, my stomach twisted violently. I slapped a hand over my mouth. His smirk grew into a look of concern, narrowed eyes searching mine.
“Me too,” I said weakly.
A beat passed. Beck was too kind, too perceptive to bear witness to my personal nadir.
“Do you mind if I join you?”
“Under the table?”
“If I fit,” he said, shrugging his gigantic shoulders.
“You’re definitely too big,” I said. And immediately my brain flashed a memory of Beck’s cock outlined through his jeans while his fingers worked a heavenly magic on my scalp.
“Is that so?” His lips quirked.
“I mean, some would say.”
“Luna,” he said, chuckling now.
“I’m very busy under here,” I said airily. “This could even be an interesting corporate retreat if you think about it. A cozy way to incubate new and invigorating ideas.”
“I’m going to get a burger,” he said. “And I’m buying us more beer. I’m fine talking to you like this but it might be easier if you sat in a chair.”
“We keep ending up at these impasses, Mr. Mason,” I said, laughing a little. Then smacking my damn forehead on the table.
“Ouch—shit,” I said. I untangled myself from the ground gingerly, Beck’s strong hand lifting me. He swiped his thumb across my forehead with more tenderness than I could handle.
“Lying about eating a burger and saying the word shit,” he mused. “Sounds like you could use a friend.”
Beck turned around before I could answer, so I was left with his magnificent ass in those jeans, his helmet beneath his arm, and the sly grin he flashed me when he caught me staring. If Beck Mason was in a grinnin’ mood I wasn’t going to make it through this night with my clothes on. Grumpy Beck had his own appeal.
Beck with a crooked grin could cause spontaneous orgasms.
I distracted myself by methodically picking up the burger. Trying to bring it to my mouth.
Putting it back down. I did this fifteen times over before he returned, hitching a leg over a chair so small I feared for its engineering.
“For you,” he said, placing a second Heineken next to me. “Warm horse piss, as you call it, no mangoes this time.”
“Not as much alchemy,” I noted. His blue eyes blazed with kindness and good humor. “Well, maybe a little bit.”
“I asked Barb what she had for vegans and she gave me this plate of lettuce and tomatoes. Thought it might suit you better.”
Rabbit food—I’d heard it called that before. But suddenly the thought of crisp lettuce and fresh tomatoes was so compelling I could have wept. I dropped the burger and stuffed the lettuce into my mouth.
“Thank you,” I said, placing a hand on his wrist. “Truly. And please don’t make fun of me for being here.”
Beck shook his head. “Never.”
We ate in companionable silence for a moment. Beck seemed curious, not judgmental. And finally he said, “Rough day?”
I laughed—startling the silence. It was a cathartic sound. “Rough week,” I said. “We lost that Fischer contract and the media hasn’t been too kind. We’re in trouble, financially.” I took out my phone and showed him the comment from Claudia, gave him a summary of our relationship.
“You’re not these things this woman is saying about you,” he said. “You know that, right?”
“Aren’t I?” I reached for the burger, determined.
He touched the top of my hand, stilling me. “What does this prove?”
The palm trees swayed over our heads as cars from the nearby highway sped by.
“That they’re right.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“And they are,” I said.
He slowly slid the paper plate of greasy meat away from me.
“Sounds like a crock of shit to me,” he said. “I’ve watched you try and eat this for twenty minutes now. It’s not happening. It’s not you. What the fuck does this Claudia person know anyway?”
“It’s just…” I swallowed hard against a throat that felt locked. “It’s easier to stop fighting. I mean, I’m willing to keep going professionally for the sake of Wild Heart. But personally? I thought I might as well eat the damn cheeseburger.”
“Have you checked the Lucky Dog donation page yet?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“A hundred and twenty-five thousand before I left tonight. And that’s not including what’s come in the mail. We’re getting close to closing our funding gap. All of the dogs in our care right now are going to end up with loving homes because of you.”
I pointed at Beck’s chest. “That’s because of you.”
“Yeah, but the money helps, don’t you think?” And there was that grin—that burst of sexy, charming lightness across his usually scowling face.
“It does,” I said, slowly loosening.
“That’s who you are, Luna,” he said. “And I’m eating this burger.”
A smile flew across my face so fast I worried I’d pulled a cheek muscle. Beck caught it, returned it—and for a sweet minute, we smiled at each other beneath the swaying palm trees. We hadn’t really talked about Our Moment On The Beach—a moment I was fully prepared to escalate to a hot, gasping make-out on a public bench before he pulled back. We’d talked about what happened afterward, at Bluewater, but not those charged, heavy seconds.
And now here he was.
I could see his motorcycle in the parking lot. “My, uh, driver… .I sent him home for the night. Didn’t want any witnesses to my rock bottom meat excursion.”
Beck’s gaze stayed locked on mine. “That’s a good excuse for me to give you a ride home.”
Do it do it do it do it—chanted the voices in my head that sounded an awful lot like my best friends.
“So this is a date, Beck Mason.” I pointed between our paper plates. “You bought me a beer and some lettuce. And you’re escorting me home on your motorcycle.”
I expected him to tea
se me back. But instead he said, “It is a date. Our first one.”
I tugged at the collar of my worn sweatshirt. All week I’d been asking Beck out on a date via text message and he hadn’t replied. Meanwhile, Emily had been kind enough to troll through my closet and pick out 77 different potential first date outfits, none of which included this old University of Miami sweatshirt and basketball shorts. Had I even re-applied deodorant before coming over here?
“Well, okay, then,” I finally said. “Although I’ve heard that boys with motorcycles have less-than-noble intentions.”
“Not a boy,” he corrected. “And you heard right.”
35
Luna
“Come here often?” I finally asked, when I was able to function again after having Beck confirm his less-than-noble intentions toward me. My body felt hot, nerves fizzing.
“I come here at least once a week, sometimes with Elián,” he replied. “Usually by myself. It’s my favorite spot in town.”
“Are you fairly solitary, Mr. Mason?” I asked.
Beck took a bite of his burger and I watched his jaw work. “I like people. But I might like dogs more.”
“A lot of people connect more easily with animals,” I said. “Do you like parties? Festivals? Concerts?”
He shook his head. “I like, well, this. One on one conversation. I like Elián, my best friend. And Wes and Jem.” His cheeks went the slightest shade of pink beneath his beard. “I like you.”
Beneath our tiny table, he slid his knee between my legs. I placed my hand on his knee, squeezed.
“Rooms with a lot of people make me nervous,” he said. “I spent most of my childhood at the MC’s old clubhouse. We had a house about a mile away, but the clubhouse was where everything happened. They didn’t see any issue with their son playing with blocks in the corner while guns were being waved around.”
I paused in the act of bringing a slice of tomato toward my mouth. Watched Beck.
“What was that like?” I asked, trying to keep my tone casual.
“Like spending every day with a live bomb in the middle of the room. And the fuse isn’t lit but half the people in it have matches. Does that make sense?”
WILD OPEN HEARTS: A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy Page 17
