“You shouldn’t give it up. Just don’t take it personally.”
“What are you up for? Want to go for a walk? Watch a movie? Sit outside and count the stars?”
Evan burst from his bedroom mumbling under his breath. He stormed out the back doors and paced the yard.
Caden stepped toward the door, and Bella grabbed his arm. “Don’t you want to let him blow off steam first?”
His concerned eyes locked on Evan, then shifted to her, then back to Evan. “He never storms off.”
“If you follow him, won’t he just snap at you?” Bella felt Caden’s muscles tense.
Caden shrugged from her grasp. “Let him snap.”
Her heart went out to Caden as he stalked out the door. She knew all he wanted to do was fix whatever had sent Evan into a tizzy. If Evan was anything like the teenagers she knew, when Caden asked Evan what was wrong, Evan would snap, Nothing, in a spiteful way that would cut Caden to his core, when really, whatever had sent Evan storming outside felt bigger than life in his teenage mind.
She went into the living room and sat down on the couch, debating whether she should leave and give them time alone. She didn’t hear any yelling, which she took as a good sign. After twenty minutes, Bella began to wonder again if she should leave. She went in search of Caden so she could bow out of the evening politely. She found them sitting on the steps of the deck with their backs to her, both leaning their elbows on their legs. Evan’s narrow shoulders and waist looked even smaller beside Caden’s broad body. Bella hesitated by the screen door, unsure if she should interrupt them. She didn’t want to leave without saying anything, and simply by being there she knew she was putting added pressure on Caden to return to her.
She opened the screen door, and they both glanced over their shoulders. Evan’s eyes were hidden beneath his hair. Caden’s were dark and serious.
“Hey.” She hoped she sounded casual. “I think I’ll take off.”
“Bella, stay.” Caden came to her side.
“You don’t have to leave,” Evan said from the steps.
She had no idea if she should leave or stay. They both sounded sincere, but she didn’t want to take Caden’s attention away from Evan when he needed him most.
“I’m sorry,” Caden said.
He might have wanted her to stay, but she knew that a bigger part of him needed time alone with Evan.
“It’s okay. Evan needs you more than I do right now. Thanks for dinner. It was amazing.”
He touched his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry, babe,” he whispered.
“Don’t be. I’m a big girl. Besides, I had you all to myself today.” She kissed him and felt his disappointment tangle with hers on the way out the door.
Chapter Fifteen
BELLA PULLED INTO Seaside still nursing her disappointment. She was happy to see everyone hanging around the fire pit in the quad. She could use a few laughs.
“Bella! Tony made Talking Monkeys.” Jenna hurried over to Bella with Pepper on her heels. She looked like a teenager in her purple hooded sweatshirt, jeans rolled up at the ankles, and purple flip-flops. “Where’s your man?” She looped her arm into Bella’s and pulled her across the grass.
Pepper clawed at Bella’s legs, and she knelt to pet him. He rolled onto his back and Bella scratched his belly.
“Evan needed a little daddy time.”
“Well, good.” Jenna touched Bella’s back with her knee. “I needed a little Bella time.”
“That’s why I love you.” Bella kissed Pepper’s fluffy head and rose to her feet.
“C’mon, Pep.” Kurt’s stern voice had Pepper bounding back to him.
“Remember when he used to sneer at Pepper?” Jenna whispered.
“Love changes everything.” Everything is an understatement.
“How’d it go today?” Jenna’s eyebrows jumped. “Did you break him of his goody-two-shoes ways?”
Bella laughed. “Actually, I think it was the other way around.”
Jenna’s eyes widened. “Yeah? Mr. Straitlaced Sexy Uniform has a bad-boy side?”
Amy jumped up, sending her chair to the ground. “Bells!” She was wearing a pair of flannel pajama pants and a long sleeved T-shirt and ran with her arms open wide, nearly toppling Bella over when she fell against her.
Amy stumbled back a few steps, and Tony caught her in one strong arm. She swayed on her feet and ran her finger along Tony’s chin. “Well, helloooo there, sexy.”
“Okay. I think I’d better take our little girl home.” Tony wrapped an arm around Amy’s shoulder, and she melted against his side.
“Holy crap, Jen. You let her get two sheets to the wind?” Bella glared at Jenna.
“Hey, it’s Tony and his Talking Monkeys.” Jenna poked Tony’s side. “We were just hanging around eating dinner, and he came out with a couple pitchers and, well, you know Amy and drinks that taste like candy.”
“I’m taking care of her, aren’t I?” Tony scooped Amy into his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck, closed her eyes, and sighed.
“She’s going to hate us if we let you carry her home.” Bella put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “Jenna? What’s the vote? Let him bring her home and we tuck her in?”
Amy patted Tony’s chest. “Sexy man can tuck me in.”
Tony shrugged, and the right side of his mouth quirked up.
Bella poked his chest as she spoke. “Tony Black, if you take advantage of this situation, I swear I will cut your balls off in your sleep.”
Tony looked down at her finger and shook his head. “I didn’t take advantage when she wanted me to. Do you really think I’d take advantage of her now?” He disappeared into the darkness between Vera and Leanna’s cottages with Amy safely in his arms.
“Do you think that means he’s never going to be interested in Amy in that way?” Jenna asked.
Bella sighed. “I’m not sure, but she’s going to be furious with herself, and with us. And I really wanted to go chunky-dunking tonight.” Chunky-dunking is what Bella and her friends called skinny-dipping.
“We can still chunky-dunk. We’ll get Leanna, and the three of us will enjoy a little moonlight nakedness.” Jenna dragged her over to the fire, where Leanna and Kurt were cuddling on a bench, kissing between whispers.
Just watching them kiss made her long to be cuddled up in Caden’s arms, kissing his lips, smelling his masculine scent. God, how could she miss him so much already?
“Good evening, smoocheroos,” she said to Leanna and Kurt.
Leanna rested her head on Kurt’s shoulder, turning the knot of longing in Bella’s stomach a little tighter.
“You’re back early,” Leanna said.
Bella shrugged. She wasn’t in the mood to talk about her date being cut short.
Jamie sat in a beach chair on the other side of the fire, wearing a pair of faded Levi’s and a sweatshirt. He used his bare feet to push a chair toward Bella. The fire reflected in his dark eyes as he handed her his plastic wineglass full of Talking Monkey.
“How’s it going, blondie?” Jamie asked.
She didn’t know why she thought she’d keep the night’s happenings to herself. She wasn’t very good at it, and if she didn’t answer, then her friends would think something awful was going on. She guzzled Jamie’s drink.
“Damn, that is good. Let’s see…Poor Ev had a teenage moment tonight, so I’m here instead of kissing my hunky boyfriend. Amy’s being tucked into bed by her dreamboat, but she’s too shnockered to realize it, and I can’t go chunky-dunking tonight because Amy will be really upset if she misses out on both Tony and our midnight sneak into the pool.”
“Speaking of which, anyone seen Theresa?” Bella asked. She shifted her eyes away from Leanna and Kurt as they nuzzled against each other’s cheeks.
“Yeah. She’s in bed.” Jamie nodded toward her house. “She reminded us to put out the fire, yadda, yadda, and turned in.”
She took another sip of Jamie’s drink and hande
d it back to him. “One day we’ll have to drag her butt out here to join us. I think she has a side that we haven’t seen yet.”
“We’ll liquor her up,” Jenna suggested.
“We’d have to sneak it into her. She never drinks, and I would worry about slipping anything to anyone, so we’ll have to find another way to loosen her up. We’ll think of something. Did you guys have fun tonight?”
“Always,” Jamie said. “Kurt read us the first chapter of his new manuscript, Deadly Thoughts.”
“Ugh. I can’t believe I missed that.”
Kurt pulled his lips from Leanna’s long enough to respond. “Don’t sweat it. I’ll let you and Caden read it anytime you want.”
She loved how her friends included Caden as one of their group.
“Thanks, Kurt. Did Leanna tell you about how well the new pitch worked? I have three new signups, and I’m meeting with the school board this week. I think I might just be able to pull this off after all. Now, if only my house would sell.” She’d checked her message from the Realtor, and she was hopeful about the three showings she had scheduled this week.
“Fantastic.” Kurt reached down and petted Pepper. “I guess if you and Caden decide you’re really serious, then you’ll definitely want to be here. If that’s not motivation, I don’t know what is.”
“I think we’re pretty serious.” She grabbed Jamie’s drink and finished it, hoping it would quell the ache of missing Caden. Jenna dragged her chair next to Bella’s, and Bella took her drink and finished it, too.
“Where’s the pitcher?” Bella asked.
“Why? Do you want Tony to carry you to bed, too?” Jenna asked.
“I like him, Bella. I’m glad for you. He seems like a good guy,” Kurt said.
“Thanks. I think so, too, Kurt.”
Jenna spun around and looked in the direction of Amy’s cottage. “Why isn’t Tony back yet?”
“As a matter of fact…” Bella grabbed Jenna’s hand and dragged her to her feet. “You’re coming with me. You should have been watching out for her.”
Jenna hurried along beside her. “What are you doing? If she is with him, you can’t barge in there.”
“He’s not going to be with her in that way. It’s Tony, for heaven’s sake. But what if she’s puking? She would be mortified if he saw her like that.” Bella slid open Amy’s glass door. The cottage was silent. Bella and Jenna tiptoed into the bedroom clutching each other’s hand.
“Oh my God,” Jenna whispered.
“Shh.” Tony held a finger to his lips. He was sitting on Amy’s bed with his back propped against the headboard and Amy snuggled beneath his arm. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she looked a little green.
“What happened?” Jenna lifted her knees up high as she tiptoed overdramatically around the bed.
“She got a little sick, so I pulled her hair up. Every time she lay down, she felt sick again.” Tony shrugged.
Bella’s heart melted. He was so compassionate, but come morning, if Amy remembered that he’d taken care of her, she’d want to run away as far and as fast as she could.
“We’ll take it from here. Thanks, Tony. It was so nice of you to stay with her.” Bella climbed onto the bed. “And if by the grace of God she doesn’t remember you taking care of her when she wakes up in the morning, you have to promise to take this to your grave.”
“I hear you cut off people’s balls. I’ll never tell a soul.” He kissed Amy’s forehead and held her up while Jenna climbed into his spot. With Bella on her other side, they wedged Amy between them. “I’ll get you guys her barf bowl just in case.”
Tony went into the other room, and over Amy’s head, Jenna mouthed, Barf bowl? Bella shrugged.
Tony came back with a big plastic bowl that Amy kept on top of her refrigerator and set it on the bed next to Bella. Bella turned it over in her hands. She’d never known Amy to throw up in this particular bowl, but Tony having tied back Amy’s hair and designating the bowl as a barf bowl were such compassionate gestures that she went along with it.
“Thanks, Tony.”
“If you need me, you know where I live. Take good care of her.” He looked thoughtfully at Amy before leaving through the sliding glass door.
“What was that all about?” Jenna whispered.
Bella shrugged and brushed Amy’s hair from her forehead. “Look at her. How can he not fall for her? It kind of pisses me off, actually. She’s everything a man could want. Why can’t he see that?”
“Because he’s all a woman could want. Why would he ever tie himself down to one woman?” Jenna leaned back and kicked off her flip-flops. “Besides,” she whispered. “She can’t get hooked up with a man before me. I’ll be all alone, and I hate that.”
Bella sighed and reached for Jenna’s hand. “We’ll always have each other.” The comfort she took in knowing her friends would always be there was exactly the comfort she knew Evan drew from his father. She closed her eyes, and the disappointment she’d felt earlier in the night subsided.
“Jenna?”
“Yeah?”
“I feel a little guilty because when Evan needed Caden, I was bummed to lose out on spending time with him.”
Jenna squeezed her hand. “That’s okay, sweetie. That’s because you care. If you weren’t bummed, it would be a bad sign.”
“But it was a selfish thought. Of all people, I know how much teenagers need their parents, and I’d never want to come between them.”
“Bella, honey, you weren’t competing for Caden’s attention or trying to take him away from Evan. You have to honor your feelings of missing the man you’re involved with and separate that from the rest. There’s no guilt involved with missing someone. I would bet that Caden’s feeling the same way.”
She smiled to herself. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I wasn’t mad or anything, just a little sad to leave.”
“It’s okay, Bell. Close your eyes. Barfy here will be up every hour.”
Bella curled onto her side and draped an arm over Amy. “I hope she doesn’t remember how she got here.”
Jenna curled around Amy’s other side. “I hope you guys still make time for me when you’re both in serious relationships and I’m alone.”
They heard the sliding glass door open and then close. Leanna peeked into the bedroom. “Do you have room for one more?” she whispered. “I miss you guys.” She climbed onto the bed behind Bella.
“What about your man?” Jenna asked.
“My man knows how important you guys are to me. He loves me no matter where I sleep.” She draped her arm over Bella.
“We do, too,” Bella said. “You guys?”
“Hm,” they mumbled in unison.
“I think I love Caden.”
“We know,” they said at the same time.
“We do, too,” Jenna said. “He makes you too happy for us not to, even if I’m green with jealousy.”
Bella drifted off to sleep, feeling safe and happy and on the right track.
Chapter Sixteen
CADEN RAN AT a fast pace along the beach. It was only six o’clock Sunday morning, far too early to call Bella, but he’d been up half the night worrying about Evan—and his relationship with Bella—and he needed to blow off some energy. Evan hadn’t given him any insight into what was bugging him beyond having played a PC game with a group of assholes. He’d tried to get Evan to open up more, but Evan had clammed up, and Caden didn’t press the issue. He was glad Evan had told him as much as he did. They’d watched The Replacements, and by the time Evan went to bed, he seemed more like himself again. It had been a while since they’d spent any quality time together, and he realized that as Evan spread his wings of freedom, the opportunities to spend time together would become few and far between.
Caden felt horrible about Bella leaving early, and he’d called her before he’d turned in for the night, but he still hadn’t heard back from her, which made him worry that she was upset about their evening being cut short.
Bella’s comment about Evan not wanting to share him had also nagged at Caden. He’d asked Evan last night if he had an issue with him dating Bella, and Evan had been adamant about being fine with it. He’d gone so far as to say he was glad Caden was finally getting a life and that Bella was cool. But Caden couldn’t help worrying that adding his relationship with Bella to Evan’s list of stresses—moving from Boston, having to make new friends, going to a new school—might be too much. That reality cut like a knife, and rather than contemplate what it would mean and what the remedy might be if it were too much, he pushed the awful feeling away.
As he headed home, feeling no less confused than he had at the beginning of his run, the sun burned through the gray morning and smiled down on the beach with a promise of a glorious day. Caden could think of a hundred things he wanted to do with Bella today, and the truth was, even if they did nothing at all, it would be more than enough.
BELLA AWOKE TO the smell of eggs and coffee Sunday morning. Amy was sprawled across the center of the bed with her arms and legs splayed as if she’d fallen face-first and hadn’t moved since. Jenna was curled up along the headboard hugging a pillow, and Bella was so close to the edge of the bed that if she rolled over she’d tumble to the floor. How many mornings had they awoken in a similar fashion since they were little girls? Bella smiled at the familiar scene.
She padded softly out of the bedroom and was not surprised to find Amy’s counters covered with flour, sugar, eggshells, and other accoutrements of Leanna’s morning meal. Bella was greeted by the homey scent of warm baked goods. She put her arm around Leanna, who was busy cooking omelets.
“I think I love you.”
Leanna smiled. Her hair was still damp from a shower, and she smelled of soap and floral shampoo. “Because I’m messing up Amy’s kitchen instead of yours?”
“No. Maybe,” Bella teased.
Leanna pulled a tray of muffins from the oven.
“You are a goddess. I hope you know that.” Bella reached for a muffin, and Leanna slapped her hand. “I take it back. Meanie.”
Seaside Dreams (Love in Bloom: Seaside Summers, Book One) Contemporary Romance Page 18
