by Liz Talley
Jess made a face.
“I have a black belt.” He’d achieved that several years ago, when he still wore a lab coat.
“Of course you do,” she said with laughter in her voice. Then she swiped a hand over her face. “This is surreal.”
“So, dinner?”
“Honestly I really don’t want to go anywhere noisy. It’s been a long first day for me,” she said, gesturing to the brown bag of wine. “And I have a date with a wine bottle.”
“Not a great conversationalist,” he said, pulling the wine from the bag and reading the label. Sauvignon blanc. Decent vintage. Nothing soul stirring. “We can order takeout and spend some time catching up. Or I can leave. I’m not trying to force my company on you. I guess it’s nice to see you again. I don’t run into too many fellow Morning Glorinians.”
“Is that what we are? Glorinians?”
“Best I can guess,” he said.
Jess took the bottle from his hand. “I’d love for you to stay. We can catch up, and you can tell me how you ended up here. I figured you’d be curing cancer or something by now.”
“Nah, I’m just a regular guy. I have a boat—a charter fishing business,” he said, taking the bottle and the bottle opener she’d pulled from a drawer from her hand. He had a need to be useful. She looked like she might argue with him about taking over the chore of opening the wine, but she gave up in favor of finding glasses.
“So you’re a fisherman?”
“No. More like a guide. I find fish for people who want a memorable vacation. Late spring all the way into fall is my busy season, but I took the day off on account of the birthday blowout. Morgan goes all out for every event. You should have been here for the Fourth. There was a slip and slide.”
“I can only imagine. So are you and Morgan …” She trailed off with a question in her voice.
“Friends. Just friends.” He wanted to make that emphatically clear. Not sure why, because he hadn’t carried a torch for Jess Culpepper in years. When he was a kid sitting across from her in that too-tight cheerleading uniform, he’d practically drooled on the desk they shared. She’d never acted annoyed with him like other girls had—in fact, she’d always been kind. Tolerant of his mooning over her. Made him wince to think back on how lame he must have been. He’d brought her silly pencil erasers and her favorite candy bar. She’d always acted so pleased with his thoughtfulness, and now he knew she must have thought his adolescent crush so annoying. He’d made a fool out of himself for her. But that had been long ago. Now he was a different person.
Jess snagged a pair of wineglasses with flip-flops painted on them. “This is all I can find.”
“That’ll do,” he said as the cork made a satisfying pop, coming loose.
“Since I’m new, what are the good takeout places?” she asked.
“Partytime Pizza and Little China are two safe bets. What are you in the mood for?”
Jess took the wine from him and poured a hefty portion into a goblet. “Definitely Chinese.”
Ryan pulled his cell phone from his pocket and hit his favorites list. Little China delivered to him at least once a week. A cook he wasn’t. “Hey, Lin.”
His friend Henry Lin responded with, “You want usual?”
“Yeah, and add …” He arched a brow at Jess.
“Sesame chicken, one spring roll,” Jess said, handing him the glass with the lukewarm wine. He took it and relayed her order to Lin, giving the man the unit number for delivery.
“Ah, you with girl tonight, player?” Lin asked a bit too loudly.
“You know it, bro,” Ryan said into the receiver, winking at Jess.
“You so lucky, Ry. I work all the time. No time for honeys.” Lin sounded disgusted.
“Lin, I’m having dinner with an old friend. No being a player tonight. Can you deliver for seven?” he asked. After confirming the order and telling his friend he’d see him at the tennis courts soon, Ryan hung up.
“Player?” Jess drawled, opening the freezer to fetch an ice cube, which she promptly plopped into her wine. “Want one?”
He nodded, and she slipped an ice cube into his wine. “I’ve cultivated a certain reputation among delivery guys.” He lifted his glass, clinking it against hers. “To old friends and new beginnings.”
She lifted her glass. “I’d rather drop the old, thank you very much.”
They each took a sip. Ryan allowed his gaze to wander over his “old” friend. Jess had thick, curly hair that often stuck out in riotous curls around her face. Her skin was golden, her eyes a sleek feline brown, her chin pointed elfishly. She was taller than most women, about five foot ten, and her breasts were a nice size, slightly out of proportion with her long, slim-hipped angularity. Back in high school, Jess had had an untouchable vibe, a sort of innate coolness and confidence. Her smiles weren’t easily given, but when she did smile, it was as if the heavens opened. Her words were measured, her intentions always clear, her tongue razor sharp. He’d thought she was all that and a bag of chips.
“So what brings you to Pensacola?” he asked, sliding onto a bar stool.
Jess leaned her elbows on the granite countertop and glanced past his shoulder out at the gulf water rolling onto the beach. Several seconds ticked by in which she seemed to weigh what she wanted to tell him. “Well, let’s see, my husband left me, Lacy died, I got divorced a month ago, and the medical company I work for sent me to fill in for a surgical nurse on maternity leave at Bay View.”
Whoa. “Uh, Lacy Guthrie died?” The image of a round friendly face, blonde hair, and a funny orange truck named something absurd appeared in his memory. Lacy had been a nice girl. “How?”
Jess swallowed and didn’t bring her gaze back to his. Instead she stared hard out the window. “Cancer.”
“God, that’s terrible.”
“Yeah, it was. It is,” she said softly.
“And you’re no longer with Benton?” Something inside him gave a standing ovation to that notion. He’d never liked the cocksure Benton Mason, with his rolled-up Oxford button-ups and flask of bourbon in his back pocket. As the son of the mayor, Benton had strolled through Morning Glory secure in his position, unafraid of the Barney Fife cops in the small town. Fourteen years ago there had been no social media justice, antibullying campaigns, or people willing to stand up to fat cat Mayor Mason. Benton was an apple who’d not fallen far from the tree. Ryan knew all too well what it meant to be on the receiving end of Benton’s attention.
“Weird, huh? We were always ‘Benton and Jess.’ Still feels strange to me.”
“You were together a long time.” He wanted to ask what had happened but didn’t think it polite to push. Sometimes his southern upbringing emerged to strangle his curiosity.
“Yeah,” she said, taking a big gulp of the wine. She looked sad, and he didn’t want her to be sad so he was relieved when she asked, “So do you like living in Pensacola?”
“Love it. The weather’s nice, even in the winter. Early spring can be rough with the constant cold fronts, but even at that, Mother Nature gifts us with warm days to remind us of what’s coming. I’ve only been here for a year and a half, though.”
“Oh,” she said, her gaze finally locking on his. He could see so much in those eyes—regret, longing, grief, and a sort of gameness, as if she refused to sink too far into the mire within her soul. That was something he’d always liked about Jess—she was a fighter. “So before here you were in California? Think that’s what my mother told me.”
“Yeah, California. Similar gorgeous weather, except for the humidity.”
“But the downside is earthquakes, forest fires, and health food.”
Ryan laughed. “True. Never been much of a tofu or kale guy.”
“You told your friend to deliver the food at seven. You want to take a quick walk on the beach?” she asked, her face now impassive. “I need some beach therapy.”
“If that’s what you want,” he said, meaning every word of it. Something told
him Jess needed time and space. Any possible thought he had of taking things to another level with his fantasy girl fizzled like cheap champagne in Christmas punch. Jess needed a friend … even if it was an old one she hadn’t recognized.
“You know how rare it is to hear a man say that?” she joked.
Ryan smiled. “Well, I was always your puppy.”
Jess paused, her face dimming. “You knew we called you that?”
“I’m not stupid,” he said—truer words never spoken. He wasn’t stupid. Far from it. Hadn’t that always been what separated him from everyone else? The fact that he was a genius?
Jess touched his shoulder, light as a moth wing. “No, you’re definitely not stupid.”
Jess watched a group of teen girls stroll ahead of her and Ryan. She’d left her shoes at the end of the walkway and rolled up the jeans she’d slid on after dumping her scrubs into the laundry at the hospital. Her white cotton shirt caught the wind and ballooned, so she tied the shirttails together at her waist. Ryan looked suitably like a beach bum.
Ryan Reyes.
She still reeled at the thought that the skinny kid with the runny nose and strange comic book obsession had evolved into the hunk ambling beside her. Now that she knew, she could see traces of the boy he’d been. Same brown hair, even when burnished caramel by the sun. His eyes were the same golden green that had stared unblinkingly at her from behind the microscope. He’d been such an odd duck, smarter than his teachers, always sharing strange facts. And he’d watched her. Like, all the time. And he’d followed her around school, peeking out behind lockers. She’d known he had a crush on her and tried to be nice about it. Benton? Not so much.
Her ex-husband hadn’t been the most tolerant of Ryan’s public adoration of his girlfriend. Cocky, smart-aleck, and a bit wild, Benton took exception to the kid her friends had dubbed her puppy. Jess hated when Benton got jealous and resorted to bad behavior. They’d broken up several times over his possessiveness, but then Benton would do something endearing and beg her forgiveness, and she couldn’t resist. Perhaps her desire to fix people had led her into nursing. She’d always thought she could patch the holes Benton had inside him and use the balm of love to help him be the man she knew he could be. And she’d loved him. He’d crack a smile at her, nose her shoulder with a little whimper. Then his warm brown eyes would fill with an apology, and she’d take him back. She’d never been able to resist Benton’s charm, his dashing good looks, and the way he could play her. And when it came to playing her, Benton had been the genius.
Love was a funny thing. But after the pain, the heartache, the refusal to believe she and Benton were over, her love had finally withered. Love didn’t last if it wasn’t watered, given sun, or tended. Love didn’t last when one of the people stopped giving a damn and walked away. Now her love for Benton was a brittle tree waiting for a strong wind to blow it over.
“So why fishing?” she asked, kicking at a wave and drawing her thoughts from Benton and the tearing in her heart every time she thought about what they used to be.
Ryan shrugged his broad shoulders. “I never went fishing as a kid. Always wanted to.”
She didn’t know what to make of that answer. This guy, a veritable genius who’d scored perfectly on the ACT, blown the SATs out of the water, and skipped three grade levels, ran a fishing-charter service. Of course, there was nothing wrong with that, but everyone had always thought the Brain would do great things in the scientific community. His parents had always pushed him to excel. Her mother took yoga with Ryan’s mother at the Calvary Church of Christ community center, and she’d occasionally mention Ryan’s accomplishments at Stanford and Caltech. Every now and then, when Jess caught an episode of The Big Bang Theory, she’d think about skinny Ryan in a lab coat writing formulas on a whiteboard, hanging out with other geeky friends. That vision made her happy, like Ryan was doing what he was meant to do. Not shivering in some locker somewhere, deemed a loser because he didn’t play football or crush beer cans with his forehead.
But this Ryan—the one who lived in Florida, did Jell-O shots, and passed out naked (splendidly so) on the beach—was something she never expected. Things didn’t compute.
“But what about your other work,” she persisted.
“What other work?” he asked, turning to her, his eyes crinkling as he faced the sun. Sliding on the sunglasses hanging around his neck, he hid his gaze from her.
“Don’t you have a doctorate, and you discovered something to do with stem cell research or something like that?”
“Yeah, I have an MD and a PhD. The scaffolding for stem cells was a side project I got lucky on. I sold the procedure to a biomedical company and retired from science.” He stopped and turned to stare into the horizon. The sun hovered over his right shoulder, and his hair feathered in the sea breeze. He looked strikingly gorgeous, the antithesis of what he should have been—pale, erudite, with feverish eyes. He looked like a guy who should be standing on a boat, wearing tropical fashions and drinking imported beer from a bottle. “I like fishing.”
So much weight sitting in those three words. They said, “Back off,” “I don’t want to talk about it,” and “Don’t define me.” Jess decided to let the conversation go.
“So what else do you like to do besides find fish and play tennis?” she asked, moving to the other side of him and stopping to pick up a tiny shell that resembled a unicorn horn.
“I shoot pool. And I teach a beginner karate class for kids on Thursday afternoons.” He paused for a moment before saying, “and I kill it on ESO.”
“Eso?”
“Elders Scroll Online. It’s a MMORPG—massively multiplayer online role-playing game. I’m a sorcerer, but I don’t usually tell girls that, you know.” He smiled at the water, looking a bit sheepish. “But since you already know I’m a dork, I can be honest.”
“You’re not a dork,” she said, laughing at the very idea of anyone thinking this guy with his tan legs and hard body, not to mention her next-door neighbor fawning over him, was anything but—what had the Chinese-takeout guy called him?—oh yeah, a player. He certainly looked the part. He had a veneer—bright and shiny like his smile.
“Not any longer. Or at least not much,” he said, those teeth so white against his tanned face. “Look.”
Her gaze followed his pointed finger out beyond the sand bar to where two dolphins rolled over the incoming waves.
“Dolphins,” Jess said, awe welling inside her. She’d always loved the graceful mammals with their sweet faces and playful curiosity. And who didn’t like a dolphin? Really. This was why she’d told Jill Grover from Staff Pro she’d take the job. Didn’t even have to think about it.
“See them a lot here,” Ryan said.
“Then I know I’ll like living in Pensacola. Especially since I have an old friend with me,” Jess said, not taking her eyes off the two frolicking dolphins.
“You won’t tell everyone about me, will you?”
Jess jerked her gaze to him. “About you?”
“Like how I once was,” he said, his gaze seemingly on the two dolphins.
Those infernal glasses hid his eyes, so she couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. His tone sounded light, but it made her wonder if the idea of outing him as a geek made him uncomfortable. But she couldn’t figure out why. Did anyone really care that he played video games online or had an IQ in the 150s? She didn’t, but she didn’t know Ryan well enough to make a judgment. Perhaps being whom he’d once been had scarred him in some way. Maybe all that time locked in the storage closet or gym locker had caused an aversion to anything geeky. Or maybe Ryan was in hiding. Like he’d invented some terrible neurological weapon and was forced to hide from the Russians or the Chinese. He was hiding in plain sight. Jess nearly snorted as her imagination ran away with her. So silly. But maybe silly was good. She needed a bit of lightness in her outlook.
“If you don’t want me to say anything, I won’t. I’m not sure why it’s a big deal, though.�
�� She tacked on the last part so he would know she accepted him for who he’d been and who he now was.
“Thanks.” Ryan turned back toward the path they’d taken. “It’s almost seven. Lin is always on time.”
“Then we should head back.” She turned to start walking but stopped and faced him. “Hey, Ryan.”
He stopped. “What?”
“You know there’s nothing wrong with who you were, right? I know people teased you about being smart, but most were jealous as hell they didn’t have half the brain you did. You are incredibly gifted, and I hope you’re not ashamed of that.” God, she sounded like her mother. She wanted to snatch the words back even though she’d given them out of kindness … or perhaps as an apology for not standing up for him more when he was a kid. Not that she’d tolerated anyone being mean to him, but that she’d never tried to fix it in the first place.
She couldn’t read his face. He stopped walking, growing still. The corners of his mouth tilted down as he nonchalantly lifted a shoulder. “You’re the first person from my old life who’s shown up here in Pensacola. Guess I can be honest with you—you know too much about my past for me to be anything but.”
Jess didn’t say anything. She waited. Her therapist had told her she lacked listening skills, said she was too busy dashing into the fray, ready to fix things.
Be still and listen.
Ryan shoved his hands into his pockets. “I never disliked who I was. Sure, I had some scars, stayed away from guys who looked like they might torment me, but I was as well adjusted as could be expected.”
“Nothing wrong with being smart,” she said. “So why leave something you were meant to be?”
His brow lowered before he shrugged. “Because it was an empty life. Look, one night I worked late in the lab at Caltech. When I went out to my car, I found the battery dead. No reason. I never leave anything on, my OCD doesn’t allow for it, but the battery had given up the ghost. I tried calling a few colleagues, to no avail, and the security guard couldn’t help me. My apartment wasn’t far, so I decided to walk home and take care of the battery situation the next day. You know, I’d never done that, just walked home. As I crossed streets and passed houses, life opened up around me. It was as if I pushed open a door and a scene would unfold. One couple was fighting, hurling nasty accusations at each other while standing beside their van. One house had a bunch of guys sitting around on the porch, drinking beer, playing guitar. A little farther down, a couple with their baby arrived home. They were laughing and singing a funny song about eating beans and farting. And then right before I reached my apartment building, I found a drunk guy sitting on a trash can talking to a skinny mutt.”
