It was the frenzied pace of Autumn’s coffee dates that woke him from his apathetic longings and made him want to take a sledgehammer to an abandoned building. The men were everywhere, raising their virtual hands from inside the online dating site. Pick me, Autumn. Pick me. This week alone, she’d met three different men for coffee. Men grew from trees on that godforsaken site. All a man had to do was see her pretty face and decide to click yes, please match me, as if that made them worthy of Autumn.
Trey wasn’t a math guy, but he figured the odds of her meeting the wrong man disguised as the right man went up with every sip of iced latte. He had to do something. His passivity was getting him nowhere. He was disgusted with himself that he’d let his bitterness over his divorce keep him from making his move before she’d put him steadily in the friend category.
He was the one who knew exactly how Autumn liked her latte: two shots of espresso, nonfat milk, no foam, and one squirt of sugar-free caramel syrup. She asked for it over ice in the spring and summer and one hundred forty degrees in the fall and winter. Not that she would make a fuss if it wasn’t exact. She wasn’t like that. But he made sure, whenever they were together, that she got precisely what she wanted. He knew what she liked. Not some stranger. He ordered it for her every Saturday morning from the coffee shop in the Cliffside Bay Bookstore. Or he had, until she’d decided to explore online dating. Now her Saturday mornings were busy with other men. Unworthy men who drew her away from their comfortable Saturday morning stroll down to the coffee shop, where they’d spent hours reading together.
Comfortable. That was the very word that did him in. They were so darn comfortable together. He provided comfort instead of stirring her emotions. And he certainly hadn’t awakened any feelings of desire. He was like a Labrador puppy, all soft and fuzzy and harmless. Women wanted a little danger, maybe some mystery, not good old comfortable Trey.
They saw movies together and shopped for antiques or had coffee at the bookstore. All activities that encouraged comfortable silences. These activities had contributed to his downfall. They kept the words stuck inside him.
She lifted her face to look into his eyes. “What is it? You stumbled.”
“Did I?” The muscles in his left cheek twitched as they fought to keep his persona intact. He’d once been an amateur at hiding his feelings, but after his divorce, he’d become an expert at conveying a lighthearted stoicism. No one could know the depth of his wounds.
“You’re supposed to hold me up,” she said, smiling. “Wasn’t that our agreement?”
“I’d like to. I want to.” The words spilled out of him, pushing against their prison at the base of his throat to break free. “I mean, would you…would you ever consider me… Could I ever be one of the guys you’d let take you to coffee?”
She loosened her grip on his shoulder and punched him lightly on his upper arm. “We go to coffee all the time.”
“A date type of coffee.”
She went still in his arms and looked up at him with an amused expression in her eyes. Then she laughed. “Very funny. I know your stance on love and marriage. You’ve only been saying you’re done with love and marriage every day since I met you. Anyway, even if you were serious, I would never risk what we have. Eventually, the whole thing would blow up, and I’d be without my best friend.” She fluttered her eyelashes and spoke lightly, as if the next sentence was supposed to be funny. “Plus, you like pretty objects, not awful, damaged things like me.”
He wanted to say a good many words in response, but now his throat had closed back up and they were trapped once more. If he’d been able to, he would have told her that whatever her scars and damage, it didn’t matter. He didn’t care what her legs looked like. He knew her heart. And it was as lovely as anything he’d ever seen.
She was right. He liked beautiful things, and she was one of them.
“Why would things blow up?” he asked.
“Because they do. You, of all people, know that.”
“I suppose they do,” he said as his throat constricted and his stomach lurched.
“And you and me—we’re forever. Best friends never leave each other.” The dancing couples swayed around them, but for him the world stopped. It was only Autumn’s face that he saw. The fierce love in her eyes broke his heart and made it soar at the same time.
“Anyway, stop saying all these weird things,” she said. “How much wine did you have?”
“Not much. I promise,” he said, matching her teasing tone.
She laid her cheek on his chest. “I’m tired suddenly. Would you take us home now?”
“Sure. I’ll get Sara and meet you at the car.”
He dropped Autumn off at her cottage by the beach, then drove Sara out to her place. She lived up a country road not far from Jackson and Maggie’s place. They passed by the gate with the sign that read The Wallers and then shortly thereafter, another that read “The Hickses.” Kyle was Autumn and Stone Hickman’s brother, but he’d changed his name when he went into the commercial real estate business. “Long story,” Autumn had told Trey when he first asked about the name change. Later, she’d explained that he’d wanted to separate from everything from his childhood. She and Stone had been estranged from Kyle for over a decade. Just two years ago, they’d reunited, and Stone and Autumn had decided to join their older brother in Cliffside Bay.
Trey had decorated both the Wallers’ and Hickses’ homes. The Waller place had been a remodel of a crumbling house built in the style of a French château. He’d enjoyed working with Maggie Waller to honor the ornate architectural aspects of the interiors while bringing in a modern feel at the same time. The Hicks house had been the first project he and Stone Hickman had done together and had cemented their friendship and their decision to become partners. The other members of Wolf Enterprises had been added later: David Perry, architect; Rafael Soto, business manager; and Nico Bentley, landscape architect.
Before they formed Wolf Enterprises, they’d jokingly named themselves the mangy Wolves of Cliffside Bay. When Rafael, Stone, Trey, and later Nico and David had decided to partner up, they were broke and broken. In the last year, things had changed drastically for Rafael and Stone. Rafael had married Lisa, a beautiful blonde, currently the “it” girl of Hollywood. Stone was engaged to Lisa’s best friend, Pepper, also a rising star of stage and screen.
Sara didn’t say much as he rounded a corner and then took a right turn into her long driveway. When he pulled up to her house, with its newly landscaped yard, thanks to Nico, she turned to him. “Did something happen at the party?” The tone of her voice had lifted from its usual husky tone to a slightly teasing intonation that said loud and clear—whatever it was that upset Autumn most likely had to do with him. “Autumn was strangely quiet on the way home.”
“She was, yeah.” Autumn’s silence on the way home, as opposed to her happy chatter on the way there, had been starkly noticeable. He’d thought she’d dismissed his awkward advances as a joke. Her quietness indicated something else. “Maybe she was just tired.”
“No, that wasn’t it. I’ve been her friend since freshman year of college,” Sara said. “We know each other well. She knew, for example, that moving here was just what I needed…after everything.”
He nodded, unsure what to say. Everything. What a loaded word that was. Sara’s daughter had been only a few weeks old when her husband was killed. Autumn had convinced her to move to Cliffside Bay. Here she could start over and heal. Trey and Nico had done the same after their disastrous breakups. Sara had bought a piece of property and subsequently hired Wolf Enterprises to build her a home. Currently, Trey was helping her decorate the interiors. As an heir to a massive fortune, money was no object, yet Sara was particular, wanting an eclectic combination of unique pieces found at antiques stores and boutique furniture sellers. All of which made an interesting but complex design experience.
He sighed as he gripped the steering wheel. “I kind of hinted that I’d like more than friend
ship.”
Her mouth dropped as her even features stretched long in both directions. “You did? You do?”
“She thought I was joking and then shut me down fast.” He placed his forehead on the steering wheel between his hands. “I made a complete idiot out of myself. Worse, I think I freaked her out.”
Sara cleared her throat. The leather seat groaned as she shifted toward him. “Why would she think it was a joke?”
He lifted his head to look over at her. “I’ve been telling anyone who would listen that I have no intention of ever getting seriously involved with anyone. I meant it until I met Autumn.”
She scratched behind her ear and narrowed her eyes, staring out the front window. “You have been vocal about your feelings on romance. Not that I can blame you. Having been cheated on myself, I know how hard it is to get past the betrayal.” Sara Ness had a way of speaking that reminded him of a history professor he had in college. Well-spoken but a bit aloof, as though she was preparing for an eventual seat on the Supreme Court.
“I should’ve asked her out right away. Maybe everything would be different now.”
Sara pressed the palms of her hands against the faux wood strip that ran along the dash, as if working out what to say next. “When thinking about Autumn, you must keep in mind everything she’s been through. There’s a reason Autumn and I are so close. At school, we were odd ducks in a lake of swans. She sees herself as unworthy of a man like you, so she never lets herself go there in her mind.”
“A man like me?”
“Physically perfect.”
“I’m hardly perfect,” he said, thinking of his height and slight build compared to most of his friends.
She unfastened her seat belt and turned to face him. “I’ll deny saying this if she ever asks, but I believe she has feelings for you, too. That said, she’s never going to admit to them.”
“Why?”
“She’s terrified she’d lose you the moment you saw what she looks like without clothes.”
“I don’t care about her scars.”
Sara ducked her head. Her copper-tinted hair covered her face for a moment before she looked back up at him. “It’s happened to her before. Twice now. Men she cared for deeply rejected her when they saw all of her, so to speak.” Her fists clenched in her lap. “They crushed her. Do you know how brave you have to be to put yourself out there like that when you’ve been through what she’s been through?”
Kind of. Only his wounds were internal.
Sara tossed her hair behind her shoulder. “Men, especially young ones, can be so cruel. Any girl who’s ever been called a fatty knows that.”
He opened his mouth to agree when he realized she must be talking about herself. Odd ducks in a lake of swans. Maybe they’d felt they were ugly ducks instead of just odd. Had Sara been overweight? She wasn’t now. Not super thin, but just right, with curves and muscles. He remembered, suddenly, the magnet she had on her refrigerator. Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Guys can be such idiots.” His heart ached for Sara and Autumn. He knew how college had been—guys evaluating girls, rating them on a numbered scale. Jerks. He and Nico had not participated in that kind of thing, but they were witness to it more times than he cared to admit.
“Both of us spent a lot of nights in, watching movies and eating ice cream. Until I stopped eating ice cream. But my body issues could be dieted away. Autumn’s can’t. With that comes a feeling of hopelessness and a basic distrust of most men.”
“I can understand, but I’m not that way,” he said. “I adore her. No scarring or misshapen legs can change that.” He paused, swallowing against the ache at the back of his throat. “Actually, I love her. I have for a while now. She’s my favorite person. I could never get enough of her. All of her. But I have no idea how to win her heart.”
She gave him a good, hard look. “If you truly love her, then you’re going to have to get creative. She will never let you in if she thinks there’s a chance you would reject her. If you break her heart, she’ll never recover. There will be no more trying. No more coffee dates with these guys she finds online, hoping that one of them will be decent enough to look past her physical imperfections. She’ll curl up on her couch with her books and movies and comfortable pajamas and that’ll be it.” She didn’t have to add like me for Trey to hear it loud and clear.
He returned her stare, hoping his sincerity showed in his eyes. “I’m not going to break her heart. I had mine broken, so I know.”
“Well, then, Trey Wattson, what’re you going to do?”
“I’m not sure.” His friends might be able to help. The Wolves had promised to always have one another’s backs, in both work and their personal lives. Maybe they would help him come up with a plan, as they did for their construction and remodel projects. This would require asking for help and speaking his secret out loud. Not easy for a man like him, but these were desperate times. He must reach deep inside for courage. “I’m not going down without a fight.”
Sara smiled at him and patted his hand. “All you need is patience and persistence and total honesty about your feelings. She loves you, which is why she’s so terrified to lose you.” With that, she was out of the car and bounding up her stone walkway to the double front doors. He waited until she was safely inside before pulling out of the curved driveway and onto the road that would take him back to town and his quiet, lonely apartment.
The next day, Trey met the other Wolves at their favorite local haunt, The Oar. They sat around a table by the window, sharing a pitcher of the local IPA and eating burgers. Trey pushed his turkey burger around his plate, his appetite suppressed by his lovesick heart. While the others talked about baseball, he looked out the window. Tourist season had wakened their slumbering town. Families carrying beach umbrellas and baskets headed toward the strip of sand at the end of town. Teenagers hung out in clumps in front of the grocery store, playing hacky sack or gossiping and flirting. Young women in bikinis tops and shorts strolled by the business windows, showing off their tans. Surfers, wearing wetsuits with the torsos hanging from their waists, carried boards tucked under muscular arms. Cars inched along Main Street. Drivers craned necks as they looked for parking. They wouldn’t find anything downtown. Not on a warm summer day.
And summer had come to Cliffside Bay with a sudden urgency, as if the dormant flowers and trees were anxious to please the sun. Bright-colored flowers decorated the baskets that hung from the awnings of businesses. Red-leaved cherry trees, oaks, and maples dotted the hillside above town. Rhododendrons burst with lush, fat clusters of red and fuchsia flowers. Birds sang their happy tunes from the newly budded oaks that lined Main Street.
Between the lunch and dinner crowd, The Oar was surprisingly slow. The Wolves planned it this way on Saturdays during the summer, often meeting around two for a leisurely lunch during which they talked business. Because they were busy during the week working on the projects themselves, they weren’t often all together, as the houses were in various stages.
“Hey, earth to Trey.” Nico Bentley’s light brown hair caught the sunlight coming in through the window as he set aside the remnants of his veggie burger. After a diagnosis a few years back of high cholesterol, the guy had totally changed his diet. Unlike their college days together, which consisted of burgers, fries, and beer, now it was all red wine, poultry, and vegetables. Looking at the guy, you’d never think he had cholesterol issues. He was a lean and muscular surfer type, tanned to a golden caramel from all his time outside.
“You okay, man?” Stone Hickman slipped an errant slice of jalapeno back into his beef burger. He liked everything spicy, including his fiancée, Pepper Griffin. And no joke, Pepper was aptly named. Stone placed one muscular arm on the table. “You’ve been super quiet.” Stone, as steady as his Pepper was feisty, was also one heck of a general contractor. One only had to look at their completed houses to know the kind of work he did and the integrity with which he approac
hed each endeavor. God didn’t make them better than Stone Hickman.
“Yeah, you look a little rough today.” Rafael’s dark brown eyes focused on Trey for a split second before returning his attention to a steak fry and pool of ketchup.
“I’m good,” Trey said. Lying about his feelings came as naturally as breathing. He could thank his father for that attribute. Talking about emotions had been forbidden in the Wattson house growing up. The few times Trey had made the mistake of showing weakness or fear, it had been sufficiently snuffed out by his father’s ridicule. “Just a little tired.”
“Late night?” David Perry lifted the top bun off his chicken burger and slid the onions off with a swift flick of one long finger.
Rafael’s wedding ring flashed gold as he lifted a fry to his mouth, then chewed appreciatively. “God, this is a good fry. I love my wife, but Lisa’s trying to starve me with all the salads and bean sprouts.”
David, who happened to be Lisa’s twin brother, laughed. “The price you pay for living with a famous actress.”
Stone shook his head ruefully. “Pepper isn’t trying to starve me, but given her sudden desire to learn to cook, I just might.”
Trey, despite his bad mood, chuckled before taking a bite of his turkey burger. Just yesterday, the fire alarm in their apartment kitchen had sounded off, loud and obnoxious, followed by Pepper’s wail of dismay, like two discordant creatures calling out to each other. Other than her mishaps in the kitchen and her natural inclination toward messiness, he would miss Pepper when she and Stone moved into their own house. He’d grown accustomed to her lively ways and curious mind. She was always quick to suggest a party or a game, drawing Trey out of his shell. The sounds of Pepper’s and Stone’s voices in the mornings made him feel as if he shared a home with a family. A home completely different from the cold, quiet one he’d grown up in, but that was another story.
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