WATERCOLOR WISHES: Love Along Hwy 30A, Book Four

by Chambers, Melissa

  She moved to the side of the bed, and he grabbed her hand just before she could get away. “Hey, don’t go like this,” he said, his shorts still unbuttoned and unzipped, taunting her.

  “I’m not going like anything. I just…I’m pretty sure this isn’t going to work out. But thanks for the movie and for lunch.”

  “You paid for your own lunch, which you didn’t need to do, by the way. It was on—”

  She held up both hands. “I did, actually. I don’t need to owe you. And I don’t need to get myself into a position where I feel like I don’t have control. And I’m definitely feeling out of control right now, so I just need to leave.” She headed into the living room and grabbed her purse from the bar where she’d left it.

  “You couldn’t be more in control if you tried, Marigold.”

  She whipped around. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He tossed up both hands. “Because you’ve been leading me around like a puppy all day.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Push and pull, push and pull. Which is it? Do you like me or not, because I really need you to clue me in.”

  Marigold’s mind spun around like that whirly ride at the county fair. Here was this great guy who she really liked, wanting to know if she liked him but slowing her down when she tried to move too fast in his bed. She was embarrassed, and maybe even a little ashamed, though she understood that was a silly reaction to have. The mature, adult thing here would be for her to quiet the ride in her head long enough to apologize for overreacting, calm herself down, and ask if they could start over. That road would get her a long, languid afternoon with a beautiful man who she was more attracted to than any other man she’d ever been into.

  She turned for the door. “I’ve gotta go.”

  10

  Marigold knocked on the door to Sebastian’s lavender house in Seacrest, her fist shaky. Ashe opened the door with a sympathetic frown. “Sweetie, come on in.”

  Even though he didn’t live there, she wasn’t surprised to find him there. Sebastian and Ashe were always together. Marigold never understood why they weren’t sexually compatible. They had such a close relationship otherwise. Rumor had it they’d tried it a few times and decided they were better as friends. How adult of them. At least she surrounded herself with mature people if she couldn’t behave like one. “I’m interrupting. I’ll come back.”

  Sebastian appeared with a glass of wine proffered. “You will not. Get in here.”

  “What were you all doing?” she asked, realizing that sounded nosy, but not sure how to take back the question without it being a thing.

  “Looking at movie times, but nothing’s on,” Ashe said. “We switched to wine night after Sebastian got your text.”

  Sebastian handed her the glass and then led her to his couch. “We were thinking of ordering takeout from Suzi’s. You want the grouper with the Brussels sprouts side you like?”

  Marigold leaned into him, relishing the way he spoiled her. “I love you.”

  “Oh, pooh bear. What is it?” he asked.

  “I’m a freaking psycho is what it is.”

  Ashe cozied in on the other side of her and rubbed her back. “Well, we already know that, sweetie. You’ll have to be more specific.”

  “I just walked out on a beautiful man.”

  “Which beautiful man?” Sebastian asked.

  “Dane Knight,” Ashe said, nonchalantly.

  She turned to him. “How do you know that’s who I walked out on?”

  He waved her off. “The two of you had chemistry out the wazoo the other night. I knew that wasn’t gonna be over anytime soon.”

  Chemistry was definitely the right word for it. Like an erupting volcano project that went bad wrong.

  Sebastian nudged her in the side. “Dane Knight. Good catch.”

  “I haven’t caught him. I’ve just released him back to the sea, actually.” She met his gaze. “You remember him from that night at the bonfire?”

  “Oh, God yes. I said he looked like Chris Hemsworth and you said Alex Pettyfer.”

  “Definitely Chris,” Ashe said, and then put his finger to his chin. “Although, somehow Ethan looks more like Alex.”

  “Aren’t they twins?” Sebastian asked.

  Ashe lifted an eyebrow. “Double your pleasure.”

  Sebastian winked at him and then put his attention back on Marigold. “So why did you walk out? What horrible thing did he do to you that we need to kick his ass for?”

  Ashe snickered.

  “What? I would absolutely kick some ass for Marigold.”

  “Of course you would, sweetie.” Ashe nudged Marigold’s leg. “Continue.”

  She relaxed on the sofa, letting her head fall back. She couldn’t tell both of these guys about her sexual hang-ups. She’d tell each of them separately, but a group discussion on the matter was out of the question.

  “Oh, you know. I just Marigold-ed out on him.”

  “We’re verb-ing your name now?” Ashe asked.

  She lifted her hands and then let them drop. “Why not? If the shoe fits.”

  Sebastian shifted a little, facing her. “Tell us what happened.”

  She let out a sigh, rubbing her temple with her thumb and forefinger. She’d already endured humiliation today. What was a little more? “I guess I was a little wishy-washy today because I wasn’t sure if I was ready to have sex with him yet, because it’s…been a while.”

  “How long is a while?” Ashe asked, looking a little too interested.

  She tightened her lips. “A long while.”

  “Mmm hmm,” he said, nodding like a therapist.

  “But then he said it’d been a while for him, too, so I thought we’d stumble through it together, and sort of get it over with.”

  Sebastian gripped her knee. “Hang on. Get it over with?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, I guess he wanted to spend time with foreplay. I mean, what guy likes foreplay?”

  They held up their hands in unison. “Me.”

  She looked between them both. “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Sebastian said. “That’s the best part.”

  “Anticipation,” Ashe said with an eyebrow waggle.

  She took a sip of her wine and looked at the glass like it could tell her something. “What is this? It’s wonderful.”

  Sebastian waved her off. “I’ll have to look at the bottle. So what happened?”

  She rested the stemless glass on her knee, swallowing her pride. “He was taking a really long time, kissing and touching, and all I could think was that I wanted him inside of me, and it was like my libido took over my brain and I just starting going for it.”

  “It, as in…” Sebastian trailed off.

  Ashe tilted his head to the side. “His big toe. Of course she’s talking about his penis. You’re such a school girl sometimes, Bastian.”

  “Says the boy who walked away from this hot guy’s twin brother the other night,” Sebastian said.

  Ashe lifted his chin. “I’m playing hard-to-get. Otherwise he would have been done with me that night.”

  “Has he been texting you?” Marigold asked.

  “Oh, yeah. I respond to about every other one.”

  She backhanded him on the knee. “See. You’re the exact kind of guy that I get myself in trouble with. I sleep with them, and then I get all attached and weird, and then they ghost me, and then I feel like shit. I’m incapable of being a normal person.”

  “You need to channel your inner Cassidy Anderson,” Sebastian said.

  Marigold turned to him. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you think she lets herself get in a tizzy over men she sleeps with who don’t call back?” Ashe asked.

  Marigold thought about it. “She wouldn’t, would she?”

  “Hell no,” Ashe said.

  She clenched her free fist. “I’m just so not cool like her. Why can’t I be cool?”

  Sebastian squeezed her knee. “You’re pe
rfect exactly how you are.”

  “I have perfect friends, for sure.”

  “That, too,” Ashe said, and then squinted at her. “You do know that you totally self-sabotaged this afternoon, right?”

  She pursed her lips. “I guess.”

  “I think we need to analyze why you wanted it over with so quickly,” Sebastian said.

  Ashe considered her. “I think you didn’t want to let yourself actually enjoy the whole thing because you were punishing yourself for giving in and having the hot sex with the hot guy. I think your rushing it was a way to go ahead and get to the part where you start the disappointment and heartbreak.”

  “Yeah, but who’s to say Dane Knight would have been one of those guys who didn’t call back?” Sebastian asked.

  “Exactly,” Ashe said. “He very well could have been a guy who wanted to keep seeing you because you’re wonderful.”

  “I’m wonderful to you two because you love me and don’t have to put up with my neurosis.” They both gave her a look. “Okay, so you have to, but not out of obligation because we’re dating.”

  “I think you manufacture your neurosis to protect yourself from situations, including possibly letting yourself fall for a man who might break your heart,” Ashe said.

  “Nice, Dr. Phil,” Sebastian said.

  “But that’s just self-sabotage,” she said.

  “Exactly,” they said in unison.

  She glanced between the two of them. “So it’s not the guys who are assholes. It’s me.”

  “Bingo,” Ashe said with a smile.

  Marigold let her eyes dart around the room as her mind spun. “I’m exhausting.”

  “But wonderful,” Sebastian said with a hug. “Now, before this turns into a big ugly ordeal, get your behind back over to this guy’s house and apologize for any confusion and let him know he can play with your body all night long if he wants.”

  She looked between them. “What would I do without the two of you?”

  Ashe patted her leg. “Be sex-free for the night. We can’t let that happen. Off you go.”

  She kissed them both on their cheeks and stood. “I’m going back in, tail between my legs.”

  “There’s getting ready to be something else between those legs,” Ashe said out the side of his mouth.

  Marigold pointed at him. “I’ll report back and let you know if it’s worth your while with Ethan. They’re identical twins, you know.”

  Ashe rubbed his hands together. “Oh, this is good.” He waved her away. “Go.”

  She grinned. “I’m gone!”

  11

  Dane sat in front of his television with a beer but was too dumbfounded to drink it. He kept replaying the day, wondering where he went wrong. They’d been so in sync all day, all last night, too. But they’d been completely out of sync when it came to sex, or lack thereof.

  What had been so bad about a hot girl trying to get in his pants, anyway? What kind of man was he to try to pace her? She wanted him, and for fuck’s sake did he want her, but somehow he thought the right thing to do was to slow her down.

  It was just that he’d not had sex in a whole year. If he was being honest with himself, the reason he’d slowed her down was because if he would have let her go for it like she was trying, he’d have done the same exact thing he did the first time a girl tried to have sex with him when he was seventeen years old, and he couldn’t hack that kind of humiliation, not with Marigold.

  He wanted to impress her, not make her think he was as capable in bed as a twenty-nine-year-old male virgin. He wanted to ease his way around her body, touching and tasting every inch of her before he made his way inside of her. They were still in the early parts of the hotel bidding. Once that swung into high gear, she may never want to see him again. He couldn’t stand the idea of having a quickie with her and that being the end of it.

  What a dick he must have come off as, asking her to slow down. She wanted him and was showing that in the most awesome fucking way ever, but he was too afraid of losing control to let things progress naturally. This was what he got for letting a whole year go by without having sex.

  He needed to apologize. Explain. Fuck, he didn’t want to explain. But he needed to so she could make sense out of it. And then he needed to throw her down on the goddamned bed and show her exactly how ready he was for her.

  As he picked up his phone to call her, a knock sounded on his door, startling him. He grinned. She was back. He set his phone down, ready to go grovel before she had the chance to tear him a new one.

  He slung open the door, and his heart dropped when two little blond heads shouted, “Dane!”

  He wrapped his arms around both of their backs, his instincts replacing any logic and sense, and then dropped to his knees to bring the two of them in for a bear hug. His eyes closed for the briefest moment as he drank in their little boy stink, their sticky hands all over him.

  “We saw the alligators at Fudpucker’s,” Noah said, like it hadn’t been three months and one week since they’d seen each other.

  “Chris held one,” Jaden added. “It was huge and it had all these teeth.”

  “Yeah, it was like…” Noah made a big chomping motion with his mouth and arms all together.

  Dane peered out into the hallway, but came up empty. “What’s going on with the two of you? Where did you come from?”

  “The hallway,” Noah said, informationally.

  “Yeah, I figured that, but what are you doing here?”

  “Mom said she texted you,” Jaden said.

  Dane stood and peered out the doorway, but no Erin. That same old familiar pull at his heart stung his chest. He’d worked so hard to get over the loss of these boys in his life, and there they were, back in his apartment like they’d just been there yesterday.

  Even though they’d been apart for a year, Erin had made a practice of continuing to dump them off on him at her will. Sometimes he would protest, and other times he was just so damn happy to see them that he wouldn’t even say anything. But the last time she’d done it, she’d stayed gone for three days. She’d not given Dane any notice, and he’d lost an important deal because he’d had to miss the meeting he’d set up. After that, Ethan had laid down the law, and Dane had conceded. He’d let Erin know in no uncertain terms that the days of drop off were over. She’d flown off in a rage, shouting that he didn’t love them like he’d once claimed and throwing out the big guns, saying she didn’t understand how he could turn his back on them like his father had on him. It was classic manipulation, but it’d done him in. He knew he needed to detach for good, and he’d done that. Yet somehow, here they were.

  The door to Ethan’s condo opened, and Dane winced, waiting for the other shoe to fall. Ethan had no time for Erin and her bullshit, and definitely no time for Dane’s putting up with it.

  Ethan came into the doorway with a plastered-on smile. “Well, look who it is. If it’s not Zack and Cody.”

  Jaden frowned. “Who’s that?”

  “Mr. Ethan!” Noah, who hadn’t gotten the memo that Ethan wasn’t into little kids, especially ones whose mother used them as pawns, ran over and wrapped his arms around Ethan’s legs.

  Ethan breathed in. “What is that scent, eucalyptus, or is that alligator dung?”

  Dane gave him a tempered smile. Of course, he’d heard the whole exchange.

  “We petted an alligator!” shouted Noah.

  “Mmm hmm.” Ethan put his finger to his chin. “Don’t you mean you wrestled an alligator?”

  Noah giggled. “That, too.”

  Jaden was old enough to sense Ethan’s restrained concern, so he held tentatively back.

  Ethan looked around. “So, where’s your mom?”

  “She texted Dane,” Jaden said.

  Ethan lifted his eyebrows. “Did you get a text, Dane?”

  Dane went for his phone that he’d left on the end table, cringing when he saw her name come up on his screen.

  We were driving back th
rough from Destin. They were begging to see you. It’s only for tonight.

  Dane just handed Ethan the phone and then went to the kids. “So, tell me about this alligator you slayed.”

  Ethan picked up the remote. “First, we’re going to put it on a little cartoon and Mr. Dane and I are going to have a word.” Ethan walked out into the hallway, and tried to go into his apartment.

  “I’ve got to stay where I can see them,” Dane said.

  Ethan pursed his lips and then came back into the hallway. “You can’t let her start this up again.”

  “What do you suggest I do? Load them in the car and drive to Panama City? I don’t even know where they live now. They were moving somewhere last I saw them.”

  Ethan handed Dane the phone back. “Call her to come get them, now.”

  Dane humored him, knowing she wouldn’t pick up. And she didn’t. “Not answering,” he said, pocketing his phone.

  Ethan pulled out his own phone. “I’ve still got her number in my phone.”

  “I’ll text her,” Dane said.

  Ethan stood there, eyebrows up, waiting. Dane let out a heavy breath, trying to think of what the hell to even say.

  “How about no?” Ethan said, reading his mind. “How about come and get your—”

  Dane gave him a look that shut him up, and then peered into the apartment. The boys sat on the couch, watching a cartoon. Jaden glanced at him, and Dane held up a thumbs-up. Jaden returned it with a sad little smile.

  Dane pulled the door almost all the way shut. “She said in her text it was just for the night. Let me make these next couple of hours okay for them, and then I’ll let her know that if she does this again, I’m calling the police or the department of child services, or whoever the hell you call for stuff like this.” Ethan shook his head, a huff of air coming out his nose like a dragon. Dane put his hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “I got this, okay?”

  Ethan shook his head and walked back into his apartment. There were perks and problems with his brother living next door. Ninety percent of the time, the perks won out. Tonight, though, Dane wished Ethan was on the other side of the earth. Or at least the other side of town.