Sunset Flare

by Shannyn Leah

  “Gunner. Nice to meet you. I’ve heard plenty of stories.” More like he’d read plenty of incidents involving her almost as much as Izzy. He would bet the file Robert had on Abby would almost match in size.

  Still holding his hand, Abby said, “Well, hello, Gunner. I do not believe Izzy has mentioned you to me.”

  Izzy slapped their hands apart. Not with jealousy, but irritation. Then she added, with a huff, “I do not believe you’ve called me in weeks,” she said directly to Abby. “And don’t be all weird about it.”

  “We text every day. I literally have the last message you sent, what, an hour ago and I know there is no mention of you being on a date.” She whispered the last word, like contraband. “Are you on a date? Like a date date?”

  Izzy folded her arms. “This is you being weird. Stop being weird. I wasn’t weird when you were tapping Riley.”

  Abby laughed. “Yes, you were. You were all Tarzan to his Jane.” She hit her chest mimicking ape motions.

  “Because he looked like Tarzan. Long hair and quiet with a bad attitude, remember? That was the one thing that attracted you to him in the first place.”

  “Wait!” Abby’s hands flew through the air. “Are you two tapping?”

  Izzy huffed. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

  “Like more than once? Like how many times? For how long? No wonder you’ve been ignoring my texts.”

  “I’ve answered every single one of your texts.”

  “One word replies aren’t answers, they’re brush-offs, and now I can see why.”

  Wow. That was the only word that could describe the scene unfolding right before his eyes. His head pounded with exhaustion simply witnessing this interaction. And he could tell by Riley’s sigh and the casual way he walked to Gunner that the behavior between this two was the norm.

  “Riley Boyd.” Abby’s boyfriend offered his hand.

  “Gunner Mann.” He shook his hand, knowing that Riley owned a recording studio in Oakston.

  He’d done his homework before coming to town.

  “This could go on forever,” Riley said. “Thirsty? The beer tents right there.” He nodded at the fenced-in white tent. “We could probably drink a keg before this ends.”

  Hell yes.

  He’d drink a keg just to get away from the screeching, accusing, and girly-ass back and forth between these women...who were acting more like teenagers than adult women.

  “Lead the way.”

  “WHY DO YOU LOOK LIKE this?” Abby waved a hand over Izzy’s outfit. “What is this you’re wearing?” She tugged on Izzy’s sweater, swinging it open to glance at the shirt underneath. “Where did you get my shirt? I’ve been looking everywhere for this. It’s the first band shirt I made Avery.” Avery, the main singer of the band, Inch Away and AKA, Abby’s brother.

  Izzy swatted her best friend’s hand away and tugged her sweater closed again. “I know.”

  “I know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Elaborate.” Abby rummaged in her leather coat pocket, pulling out red lipstick and a mirror.

  “No.”

  “Yes.” She popped open her mirror and angled it in the light. “Here, hold this right here and don’t move.” Izzy held the mirror while she began applying the red lipstick. “And tell me about how you ended up with my shirt,” she said between pressing the stick to her lips.

  Izzy sighed. “It’s my Avery souvenir.”

  Abby gasped, grabbing the mirror between them and shoving it down to look at her. “You slept with my brother?”

  Izzy flashed her a disgusted face. “No.” Then she remembered this was her best friend, so she smirked. “Only because I had no idea he was going to go gaga over Cece.”

  Cece Boyd was Riley’s younger sister and, last year on a trip to Oakston, when Abby’s feelings for Riley had been developing, Izzy hadn’t been against a night of sex with Avery. Truthfully, she’d been planning it after news of his breakup with his high school sweetheart had broken. The drop-dead gorgeous man strummed the strings of a guitar like a musical superstar...which was exactly what he’d become. However, soul mates and all that jazz had struck Avery and Cece the second they’d laid eyes on each other. The mirroring eyes of Abby and Riley’s love interest, and Izzy had absolutely no interest in stepping into that fire.

  “You wanted to sleep with Avery? Izzy, gross. Gross.” Abby dramatically shuttered.

  “It had crossed my mind when he got back to town single. No Ems. They were attached at the hip all through school and I sort of thought I wanted to add a struggling musician to my belt of guys I’ve tapped.”

  “I take back all my questions. You’re grossing me out. I’m not easily...blah.” She made a puking face. “But right now, that’s how I’m feeling.”

  “Then I saw him look at Cece and knew I didn’t stand a chance.” Izzy moved in. “I tapped one of the guys at the after party though.”

  “Izzy!” Abby scolded.

  “What?” She played innocent, but somehow the bragging didn’t get the same reaction from her as it usually did. At the thought of being with another man almost felt like...cheating. And flaunting it seemed disrespectful to Gunner.

  What was the matter with her? They were just having fun. She could flaunt and brag and tease without worry.

  “I’m scolding you for keeping the top. My top.”

  Izzy could barely pull her concentration back to Abby. “I never planned on wearing it.” The words came out distant.

  “And yet, here we sit. What’s the beanie hat all about.” Abby touched the knitted material, then twisted it to look at the side and then the other side. “You know, that’s mine, too.” She glanced down. “And the black skinnies. Everything you’re wearing belongs to me. I swear if you have on either my bra or panties or both just keep them and return the rest.”

  “I can’t control what you leave at my place.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I like this very dark look today. The question is what are you disguising yourself from? Or whom?” Abby’s eyes skimmed the crowd and only when her eyes returned to Izzy did she answer. She scooted closer to her friend. “The paparazzi. Did you do something to spin up a web of interest?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Abby sighed, leaning her elbows back on the picnic table top and stretching her legs out in front of her. “Where did you meet Gunner?”

  Izzy twisted herself sideways, putting one leg on the picnic table facing her ready to tell Abby everything. “My parents are off visiting Corbin—”

  Abby’s eyes lit up. “Finally? That’s fantastic. It’s been like a year or two since they told you he was alive.”

  Izzy nodded. “Right. So they left and apparently Carl—”

  “Dad.”

  Izzy held her hand up. “Don’t even start.”

  Abby made a zipping motion across her lips, but she doubted that was the last about her dad she would hear.

  “Carl, had made an appointment for some relative from Italy to fly here and sort through Robert’s and my grandfather’s files. His name is Anton and he’s old and smells like cigars and alcohol. But Carl didn’t mention visitors to us, forcing Marc to go running around making last minute arrangements to have one of us supervise them in the basement—” She gasped. “Oh yeah. There’s another secret hiding room under the library.”

  “I like the castle of secret mazes at your house.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, Anton requested one of us supervise them while they de-code the files.”

  “De-code,” Abby purred. “Sounds so serious and dangerous.”

  Izzy held her hand up. “Oh, it gets better. My grandparents were apparently a division of the mafia in Italy. A big time dangerous, criminal activity sort of mafia, but moved here to get away from it.”

  “You’re related to mobsters?”

  “Yes.”

  Abby’s eyes grew wide. “Is Gunner a mobster? A thug? A criminal?” Her eyes flew d
own to Izzy’s outfit and grew serious. “That better not be what this getup is about.”

  Izzy swatted her. “Stop interrupting me. So, according to what we’ve discovered, as in what Gunner tells me, my grandfather never ended his ties with the mob and passed his ways down to Robert, but not Carl.”

  “Why not your dad?”

  “Because Carl is a good guy...and don’t think I missed the whole ‘your dad’ hint.” Abby only grinned at her lack of cleverness. “So, back to me and Gunner. The events of our introduction went like this. I smashed his surveillance cameras around the perimeter.”

  “Why was he putting up cameras?”

  Izzy covered Abby’s mouth with her fingers. “Shhh. Stop inquiring about the tiny details and wait for the big picture.” She removed her hands. “Here’s the short version.” She waggled her eyebrows at her, containing her wince when pain shot from the bump on her forehead. “I broke his cameras and he threw my phone in the pool followed by shoving me in. Marc forced me to supervise them, allowing Gunner to handcuff me to a chair. I tried to escape the handcuffs with seduction and failed. Then he showed me the torture room—” At Abby’s flaring eyes, Izzy gave her a stern shake of the head to silence her. “—we met up for drinks and supper, then we had some good sex in one of the private hot tubs at the resort. I tried for seconds but he wasn’t interested and I ended up back in the pool.”

  Abby laughed.

  “Afterwards, when clearly he wanted more but didn’t want to cross some messed up line in his head, he unknowingly followed me to a pole lesson.”

  Abby laughed harder. “No.”

  “And Elsa invited him in and he stayed for the whole lesson and I was his personal instructor.”

  “You vixen.”

  “We had sex on the lounger, then in my suite, in my bed. Oh!”

  Abby jumped. “What?”

  “He joined me on the camp run and we sort of almost got caught and had to swim to the cabin where I smashed Carl’s car and we were stuck there for the night until the next morning when the staff picked us up.”

  “And you slept with him there too.”

  Izzy had never lied to Abby. In all the years they’d been besties, she’d never kept a secret...until now. “Um, have you been listening to my story at all? Of course I slept with him.” A white lie, she countered. She had slept with him, just not had sex like Abby was thinking. “We are just having a little fun behind closed doors,” she added for good measure.

  “And yet, here we sit. Out in the open. At an event. A party. And you two are here, like a date. We busted up your date.”

  Izzy slapped her. “Stop it. He’s not Riley and I’m not you. I don’t want to fix Gunner and he isn’t sticking around. This isn’t a date like you’re thinking. There’s no future and you know I’m not the girl who’s looking for a future with a man. It’s sex and a little concert foreplay.”

  Abby looked more convinced than Izzy felt. “So, you’re sleeping together,” she pondered, tapping her fingers in a beat-filled tune on the picnic table top.

  “Of course we’re sleeping together. Have you not listened to a word I’ve said? What on earth would he be doing here if I wasn’t sleeping with him?”

  “I don’t really understand what he’s doing here if you’ve already slept with him.” And that popped her theory of Abby believing a word she’d said.

  “Foreplay to what is going to explode in the bedroom tonight.”

  “So you’re sleeping with him multiple times, but it’s not serious?”

  It sounded crazy because it was crazy and Izzy didn’t have a good reply.

  “Tell me what you’ve been up to.” Izzy needed a topic change.

  “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I’ll bite, only because I don’t get to see you enough. Alright, my life...I get to party with rock stars. Free concerts. Back stage passes. I live in heaven when I’m not working at the soap shop.”

  Izzy laughed.

  “The Oakston shop is doing amazing. Overwhelmingly so. Kate and Peyton branched off in every direction and I don’t even know what’s going on half the time. I also don’t ask. Those two are more than enjoying the wide span of our franchise while I stay in my little shop. And by little, I mean we have three locations in Oakston which I manage and my sisters are constantly trying to upgrade my favorite quaint shop into a bigger location. But I won’t let them.”

  “Your sisters are amazing.”

  “You call them amazing. I call them crazy.” Abby shrugged. “I love them regardless.”

  They talked a little more about Abby’s family and Izzy’s summer plans until they spotted Gunner and Riley heading back.

  Izzy had been right about one thing, watching him strut his amazingly lean body across the beach turned her on.

  “You girls ready to go?” Riley asked. “We can probably get back stage now. I need a word with security first.” Riley kissed Abby’s cheek before taking her hand and leading them in the direction of the back gate.

  “Hey,” Gunner whispered, nudging Izzy’s side. “I saw this in a store window.” He held up a black toque with a cartoon printed picture of a masked and caped couple spraying cobwebs. Beneath it read “2017 Camp Superheroes.”

  “I’m surprised they’ve whipped these up so quickly.” With a wide grin, he pulled one over his messy hair.

  “Cute,” Izzy said.

  “I’m glad you think so because I bought two.” He held up another hat and passed it to her. “For you.”

  Izzy took the hat, running her thumb across the only picture of her and Gunner she would ever have. A memory which trickled more sadness into her heart than she expected. Such a small gesture, but full of more meaning than any other that she’d ever received.

  When Riley stopped, leaving them to jog in the direction of the gate, Gunner took the hat from Izzy. She stood speechless as he removed her beanie cap.

  “I’ll take that.” Abby reached over and snatched the hat right out of Gunner’s shocked hands.

  He gave her a crooked smile.

  “It’s mine,” she assured him.

  His smile fell on Izzy, as he slipped the new toque over her hair, being cautious of where she’d hit her head earlier. He tucked the sides of her hair under the hat, his fingers traveling down her hair and over her shoulder. “A souvenir so neither of us will forget that day.”

  He wanted a souvenir to remember her? Caught by surprise, another exciting and frightening adjustment altered her heart. Painful, too. For the loss she’d feel when he left, but for his lonely life too.

  “Let’s go guys!” Riley waved them over.

  Gunner ran his warm finger down her face and under her chin, giving her a little wink before turning to step in line with Riley toward the gate.

  She felt like an idiot trailing behind him—like a teenage girl who just got asked to prom by the prom king.

  What was this? Why did a stupid hat light up her insides this way? Why did the way he looked at her make her feel...special, like the most important person on the beach? What on earth were these babbling thoughts inside her head?

  When she finally tore her gaze from Gunner it landed on a grinning, know-it-all Abby.

  Dang it.

  Izzy slapped her hand away when she reached for the hat which only generated a laugh from her best friend.

  “I like it,” she said, looping her arm in Izzy’s free one. “And not only because I get my hat back.” She laid her head on her shoulder. “Nothing more, huh?”

  This was a whole new world of way more that Izzy hadn’t been prepared for.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  AFTER THE CONCERT, Izzy felt the life she’d built—her world—being sucked right out of her. Her numb body stood in the tent of the private after party doing shots and drinking the night away. Her robotized responses, as she mingled with the band members and party-goers, were those she’d been forced to use when Robert had been alive. A show for onlookers—one she’d mastered. />
  This scene was a party girl’s dream come true, an ordinary regular evening out for her, but tonight, Izzy had no interest in partaking in any of it.

  She couldn’t exactly pin-point what had triggered her newly, never-before-experienced disposition. It could have been last night when Gunner had opened up to her, the little he’d shared, or this morning when she’d lied about being “that girl” because, right now, his rapid departure made everything around her seem minuscule...materialistic. She wasn’t “that girl” and still she heard Violet’s scolding—like Izzy’s second mother hen—telling her one day she would see the wasting days of her life for what they were. Today was that day.

  Gunner planned on going back to a life where it wouldn’t be a possibility for him to walk along a beach with people, or go to the movies, or have a reason to laugh and he’d take a piece of her with him.

  She needed air before this room imploded, before she imploded. She barely made it past security, flashing her backstage pass and swallowing down the panic driving up her chest.

  Why did he have to be so nice? Why did he have to be so thoughtful? Why didn’t he just treat her like every single other guy—like an object—and why did she go and fall for him?

  “What are you doing out here?”

  Izzy screamed and jumped, turning around to catch Abby jumping away. “Geesuz.” Her friend grabbed her own panting chest. “You’re on a beach with hundreds of people, what the hell are you doing screaming?”

  “You snuck up on me,” Izzy accused.

  “I didn’t. What’s the matter with you? You took off without warning and you’ve been out of it since we got backstage. What are you doing out here?”

  “You were right. I like him,” Izzy blurted out. So much for coming out here to calm down and forget all the emotions stealing her good sense. “More than like him. I like like him.”

  Izzy, shut up.

  Her friend smiled. “Awe, this is adorable. Izzy’s first real crush. I knew it!” Abby punched her shoulder. “You can’t lie to me. I could see you all gaga-eyes with him.”

  “Stop!” Izzy heard the rush of emotion and watched Abby’s enthused face drop to dead serious.