The Summer Deal

by Jill Shalvis

  She nodded too. “All righty, then.” All righty, then? What the hell was wrong with her? “Good night.”

  “’Night. Oh, and, Brynn?”

  She turned back to him.

  His eyes were no longer just amused, but also heated. “You’ll let me know if that changes.”

  “The decision-making thing?”

  He smiled. “The ‘off men’ part.”

  BRYNN SPENT THE remaining hours of the night tossing restlessly, and not sure why. She loved this big, old, creaky house. Loved having her window open so she could hear the waves rhythmically hitting the beach. Loved that her roommates sometimes ate chocolate chip pancakes at midnight.

  Loved that she’d been brave enough to agree to staying here, even if she worried that, like most of her other recent decisions, it would turn out to be a bad one.

  She remembered how Eli had looked at her in the kitchen when they’d been alone, and how just that had changed the rhythm of her heart . . . Yeah. She was worried that he’d gotten under her skin in the very best of ways.

  When her alarm went off, she groaned and got out of bed to get ready for day one of the rest of her life. Thanks to her open window, the room was chilly, but she liked that. Nothing in here belonged to her other than the duffel bag on the chair in the corner, but somehow she felt more at home than she had in a long time. She grabbed a sundress and cropped cardigan from the duffel, showered and dressed, and then left the room.

  Kinsey stood in the kitchen in front of the opened fridge, frowning.

  “Morning,” Brynn said.

  Kinsey grabbed some juice before turning to eyeball Brynn, then immediately squeezing her eyes shut with a pained look. “Jeez, I need sunglasses just to look at you.”

  Brynn looked down. Okay, so her dress was a very bright and sunshiny yellow, but she thought it’d seem cheery to the kids. “Should I change?”

  Kinsey shut the fridge and sighed. “Like kicking a puppy,” she muttered. Then she shook her head. “No, you shouldn’t change. You should tell me to go to hell, that you’re wearing what you damn well want to wear and you don’t care what I think.”

  Brynn’s backbone snapped straight. “You’re right.” And oh, how she hated that. “Go to hell. I’m wearing what I want to wear and I don’t care what you think. And you know what else? Roommate rule number two—you have to say something nice for every not nice thing you say.”

  Kinsey blinked. “What’s roommate rule number one?”

  “No walking around naked.”

  Kinsey blinked again. Then she tossed what looked like a palmful of pills into her mouth and chased it with a glass of water.

  “Vitamins?”

  “They’re my superpower pills,” Kinsey said.

  “Fine.” Brynn shook her head. “Not sure why I thought things might be different.” She headed to the door.

  “Different how?” Kinsey asked.

  “I don’t know, maybe with you being sweeter and kinder.”

  Kinsey stared at her for a beat. “Those traits aren’t exactly in my wheelhouse.”

  “No kidding.”

  Kinsey took in Brynn’s outfit and appeared to squelch a grimace. “Um, okay. So . . . I like your bracelet.”

  Brynn was wearing a thin leather cord with a silver charm that said: BE STRONGER THAN THE STORM. “Thanks,” she said, surprised at the compliment.

  “So are you really going to wear sneakers to work?” Kinsey asked, and when Brynn just stared at her, she shrugged, palms up. “What? You said I have to say something nice first, so I did. I said I liked your bracelet.”

  Brynn sighed and looked down at her adorable favorite white sneaks. She started to second-guess her choice, but then narrowed her eyes. “I’m wearing what I want to wear and I don’t care what you think.”

  Kinsey lifted her glass of water in a toast—granted it was also with a cynical smirk—and Brynn yanked open the door.

  “Oh, and who walks around naked?” Kinsey wanted to know.

  “Your roommates.”

  Kinsey’s jaw dropped. “You saw Max and Eli naked?”

  Brynn just shut the door on her, pleased with herself for once having the last word. Or lack of the last word . . .

  At the school, Brynn was given the keys to her classroom and sent on her way without much fanfare. Two minutes later, she stood at the front of her classroom—gulp—staring at thirty-two little five-year-olds. She had them sit in a semicircle facing her and asked them to take turns telling her their name and a fun fact. She pointed to the girl on her left wearing a bunch of ponytails to go first.

  “I’m Cindy,” she said, jumping to her feet. “My dad thinks farting is funny, but my mom doesn’t.”

  “Okay,” Brynn said, biting back a laugh. “Thank you.”

  The girl in glasses next to Cindy was bouncing in place with excitement.

  “I’m Tabitha. Sometimes in the middle of the night, my mommy yells at my daddy to go faster.”

  Brynn chewed on the inside of her mouth. “Interesting. Thank you.”

  Next was a little boy missing both front teeth. “I’m Toby. The tooth fairy gives me different amounts of money depending on whether I’m at my mom’s or at my dad’s house. Why would that happen?”

  “Uh . . .” Brynn racked her brain. “Maybe the tooth fairy sells the teeth and demand fluctuates depending on which house it comes from?”

  Toby processed this answer and put his hand down.

  Huh. That actually worked.

  Just then, Kinsey popped her head into the classroom, and there was an immediate chorus of “Hi, Ms. Davis!” telling Brynn that as unsociable as Kinsey had been with her, she was the opposite with the kids, who all genuinely appeared to love her.

  Toby ran to Kinsey and hugged her tight before racing back to the circle.

  “Deck’s kid,” Kinsey explained.

  Brynn moved to the door for privacy. “I’m boggled.”

  “What, that I’d stop by and see you?”

  “That the kids adore you.”

  Kinsey actually laughed. Note to self: All you have to do to keep the new roommate in line is out-bitch the bitch. “Thought we had to say something nice for every not nice thing.”

  “You’re right,” Brynn said. “Your clothes are amazing.” She paused, let a beat of time go by. “But why do the kids adore you?”

  Kinsey shrugged. “Maybe they know something you don’t.”

  Yeah, and that was what was bugging her. How was it that she brought out the worst in this woman, someone others clearly loved and adored? There was no point in asking. Kinsey wouldn’t answer. Hell, she probably didn’t know the answer. “What can I do for you, Ms. Davis?”

  “Nothing. Just wanted to see if you were drowning.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  Kinsey blew a kiss at the kids and walked off.

  “You and Ms. Davis kinda look alike,” Tabitha said when Brynn moved back to the share circle.

  Brynn glanced at the window to catch her reflection. Stilled. Then pushed her glasses up. They did sort of look alike. How annoying was that?

  Chapter 10

  From twelve-year-old Kinsey’s summer camp journal:

  Dear Journal,

  Ugh. Sometimes I wonder if you hate our times together as much as I do. I’ve got a fever, so I’m stuck in the nurse’s cabin and not allowed to be near any of the others in case I’m contagious. The counselor said she called my mom to come get me. Good luck, lady. She’s with her latest dumbass at some music festival. No way she’s going to give that up.

  Eli snuck in last night after dark. He’s got every girl here stupid over him, but I decided to forgive him for that because he had forbidden snacks with him.

  Hate you,

  Kinsey

  “BREATHE, KINSEY.”

  She did, but not because Deck was telling her to. She breathed because she needed air to tell him exactly what she thought of him right then. “You suck.”

  “That
’s it,” he said in his low, gravelly voice, the one she found so sexy. He stroked a big, callused hand up and down her arm. “Only one more poke.”

  “I hate this,” she gritted out.

  “I know.”

  “And right now I hate you.”

  “I know that too.”

  She sighed and kept her eyes squeezed shut while Deck hooked her up for dialysis.

  “Find a good memory to replay,” he said.

  That was his trick, teaching her to pretend she was somewhere else.

  “Remember the bluffs,” he said.

  A few weeks ago, he’d driven her to the beach. Most people parked there and went to the sand. But there were walking trails all over the hills, one leading straight to the top.

  Kinsey got winded too quickly to use the trails, and for what had seemed like forever now, she’d felt like she had the flu. Tired. Nauseous. Off.

  There was no way she could get to the top under her own steam. So Deck had four-wheeled her up in his off-road vehicle. Without saying a word or making her feel incapable, he’d carefully buckled her in, checked her helmet, made sure her face mask was in place to keep out dust.

  And then he’d given her a hell of a ride. But not the ride of her life. That had come later that night when they’d been in his bed.

  She grinned at the memory. Deck had always made a point of spending their time doing things that thrilled her. It was glorious.

  He was glorious.

  But he wasn’t hers. Not to keep anyway.

  “Done,” Deck said calmly. “You can open your eyes now.”

  Little-known fact: She had a needle phobia, which made dialysis a form of torture. She had a fistula implanted just beneath the skin on the inside of her left biceps, which made things a lot easier, but it still required two needle pokes each time, one for incoming blood, one for outgoing.

  She wasn’t a fan.

  She was currently sitting on her usual corner cot of the dialysis clinic, which was attached to the small but efficient Wildstone hospital. She was grateful for both the clinic and the staff, as without them, she’d have to drive a hundred miles each way to the next-closest dialysis center.

  So maybe she didn’t hate the procedure as much as she wished things were different. A wish she’d been wishing for fourteen years.

  Friends was playing on the small screen hanging on the wall. Season five, the episode where drunk Rachel and drunk Ross accidentally get drunk married in Vegas.

  Deck had put it on. He wasn’t a fan of sitcoms, much less ones from the ’90s, but knew she loved them, so he always had something good playing for her.

  “Okay?” he murmured, squeezing her hand, his dark eyes on hers.

  “Yeah.” She managed a smile. “Thanks. I don’t really hate you.”

  “Oh, I know.”

  She blushed. Like actually blushed. To hide that, she rolled her eyes. She was the only patient in the clinic today, which she liked. It gave her some alone time, which she needed. It also meant that she had one hundred percent of Deck’s attention, which she also liked. He was the first and only person in her life who could make her feel like she was an amazing person. Yes, she had Max and Eli, and they’d do anything for her, she knew this, but they also had each other.

  She had no one. But being with Deck made her feel far less . . . alone. She squeezed his fingers.

  With a grin, he leaned over her and brushed his sexy mouth to her temple. The feel of his thick stubble gave her a cheap thrill.

  “You haven’t even asked me what today’s reward for being a good girl is,” he rumbled into her ear.

  “It better be a chocolate bar.”

  “Aim higher.”

  “An entire case of chocolate bars.”

  Deck shook his head. “Higher.”

  She met those dark, heated eyes, doing her best to ignore the feeling that the dialysis machine was slowly taking over her body. That wasn’t what was really happening, of course, but the sensation remained. “Is this a present for me, or you?”

  He grinned. “Getting closer.” He leaned in again and nipped her earlobe. “You get to go first.” He kissed the spot he’d just bitten. “And last.”

  She smiled, because they both knew she always got hers first and last—he made sure of it.

  “You’ve been scarce this week,” he said.

  “Well, not totally scarce . . .”

  They both smiled now, remembering the other night before the midnight pancakes.

  “Want to have a late lunch with me?” she asked. “I’ve got half an hour between afternoon meetings.”

  “Wanna have you for lunch.”

  Her good parts quivered. “It’d have to be . . . fast food.”

  His smile was slow and dirty. “I do some of my best work under pressure.”

  As she well knew.

  He crouched at her side, checking the lines and the machine. “So . . . tell me what you’re not telling me.”

  She stared at him. “How do you always know?”

  He shrugged. “Just do.”

  She could fool everyone but him. Which was annoying, but also . . . a secret thrill. “Just busy with work.”

  “Why are you lying to me? That’s against the rules.”

  Yes, they had rules. Hers being simple. They were friends with benefits minus the friends part, because he wasn’t allowed to fall in love with her. He was just the good-time guy.

  His rules weren’t nearly as simple. She wasn’t to hide from him, not how she felt, or what was happening with her health, nothing. And then there was the doozy—she wasn’t to lie to him. Ever. “I’m not lying,” she said.

  “You’re omitting then. Something’s wrong, something’s bugging you. Is it your new roommate? Is it because you two used to go to the same summer camp?”

  She drew a deep breath. “No. But Brynn’s not just my old summer camp cabin mate and new roommate. She’s also . . . my half sister.”

  Deck raised a pierced brow.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Shock, right?”

  “I thought you were an only child. It was just you and your mom, and the myriad of assholes she brought into your life, the ones you won’t give me their names so I can go beat the shit out of them for what they did to you.”

  “Okay, first, only one of them ever bothered with me, and it’s not like he laid a hand on me. He was just mean with his words. Big deal.”

  “Not all wounds are physical, Kins.”

  She closed her eyes. He was right. Way too right. But she didn’t want to think about it, much less talk about it. “Brynn’s not my mom’s daughter. She’s my father’s.”

  “The con artist guy who lived with you and your mom on and off until she found out he’d been cheating on her?”

  “That’s the one.”

  He took this in for a stunned beat. “How long have you known?”

  She squirmed. “Since I was fifteen and went looking for my dad’s relatives.”

  He absorbed that and shook his head. “How long has Brynn known?”

  “She doesn’t.”

  He arched a brow. “Are you serious right now? You never told her.”

  “No.”

  “How is that fair to her?” he asked quietly.

  “Obviously, it’s not.”

  “Kins.”

  She met his dark eyes, filled with things that hurt. But also hope, for her.

  “You’ve got a half sister,” he said. “You know what that means.”

  “That there’s a good shot she’s every bit as charming and gracious as I am?”

  He snorted. “Don’t forgot obstinate and impossible.”

  He never held back, another thing she loved. “I’m not going to tell her, Deck.”

  He frowned. “Why the hell not?”

  “Because I don’t want her to think I want her kidney.”

  “Not want. Need.”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “Kins—”

  “Ever, Deck. N
ever ever.”

  He stroked her arm in the way he did when he wanted her to calm herself, lower her blood pressure and heart rate, giving absolutely zero indication that he was disappointed in her.

  But she knew he was.

  Deck was a man who marched to his own beat, and though he played fast and loose with things like rules and expectations, he had a strong moral code. He was as badass as they came, and yet he was an amazing dad to his son, Toby, took care of other people for a living, and believed in the truth, always.

  “You’re quiet,” she said. “Which means you’ve got things to say.”

  He gave a single shake of his head. “If you don’t tell her and she finds out some other way . . .”

  She winced. “You think I don’t know that?”

  “Then why not just put it out there? You’re too stubborn to take her kidney, so there’s no reason not to tell her.”

  “I hate it when you’re more reasonable and logical than me.” She rubbed her temples. “Eli’s on me about it too. Plus, he likes her.”

  “Likes her likes her?”

  “I think so, yeah.”

  He studied her face. “And you have a problem with that. Are you . . . jealous?”

  “No.” She put her hand in his. “No,” she repeated more softly. “You know I’m not. I’ve never felt that way toward Eli, nor does he feel that way for me. Besides, I’ve got you.” She smiled. “And frankly, you’re more than I can handle on most days.”

  He laughed that sexy laugh and squeezed her hand.

  “I just worry about him falling for someone who isn’t necessarily sticking here. What if this is just a pit stop for her, a rebound?”

  “You don’t like her,” he said.

  “Actually, I think she’s fucking adorable, and adventurous, and exactly the right person to break through Eli’s walls. As well as the exact right person to break his heart. He’s had enough of that for a lifetime, Deck.”

  He nodded and fell quiet for a minute, giving her hope that he’d leave it alone. She should’ve known better.

  “I didn’t know my mom and dad,” he finally said.

  Her heart clutched. He’d been adopted by an elderly couple who both passed away when he was a teen. A troubled teen. He’d then had a very rough, very short-lived marriage with Toby’s mom, and by some miracle he’d managed to make joint custody work. He’d not had an easy go of things ever, and she knew that was because he’d felt like he had no one who wanted to claim him as their own.