by May Archer
Wait, no.
The woman on the video had brown eyes. Brown, not Gulf blue. And she was probably light as a feather, not remotely solid. And she had breasts. Good Lord, the breasts!
But when I tried to picture them, to hold the thought in my mind… I couldn’t.
Fuck.
I could not.
And Fenn Reardon grinned down at me, looking all kinds of smug and happy, as the annoying motherfucker hijacked my jerk session.
My brain screamed abort, abort, but it was way too late. I couldn’t have, even if I’d wanted to and… okay, fine, I didn’t want to. Those blue, blue, blue eyes were spurring me on, and his voice in my head was chanting Mason, Mason, Mason in time to my thrusts, and it was like a magic spell turning a key in a lock because I remembered that he had said my name in the bathroom Friday night. He’d said, “Look at me, Mason.” He’d said my name, and he’d looked at me like he knew me.
And that, as they say, was that.
My orgasm hit me like a fucking freight train—head thrown back and spine stiffened all the way down to my toes, eyes squeezed so tight colors burst across my vision, as blast after blast of hot jizz spilled over my chest and stomach.
Then I jumped off the bed before my cock had stopped twitching and practically ran for the bathroom like the masturbation police might be after me, turning on the shower and resting my head against the powder-blue tile while all the evidence swirled down the drain.
So. That had happened.
But fuck if I knew what that was.
A bisexual awakening at thirty-five? Shit. No one would believe that. Hell, I wasn’t sure I could believe it.
Demisexuality, maybe? But weren’t you supposed to like the people you were aroused by? Did I have an annoyance kink?
Latent reverse-sapio-sexuality, where I was only into dudes who ignored me and acted like ignorant assholes?
Look, if I was bisexual, I was going to embrace the fuck out of it.
If I was.
But first I needed facts and data. I needed to diagnose the thing. I needed to figure out how to fit it inside my frame of reference, when it didn’t track to anything I’d ever experienced, or even heard of.
What did you call it when a person whose very existence made you insane was also the person you connected with more instantly and completely than any other person?
Was idiot-sexual a thing?
Was Fenn-sexual?
Because evidence suggested that if it hadn’t been before, maybe I’d just discovered it.
And I wasn’t gonna be able to do a damn thing to fix it as long as the guy down the hall shut me out.
Chapter Seven
Fenn
I was today years old when I learned that hotel room maintenance and guest satisfaction were part of my job description.
“Fenn, I need you to fix the air conditioner in a guest’s room,” Big Rafe had informed me this morning over the phone.
A guest. It hadn’t taken me long to mentally flip through our extensive list of visitors and figure out who had complained.
“Busy,” I’d informed him before hanging up and pulling my pillow back over my head.
He’d called back and started speaking like there’d been no interruption. “Mason’s leaving for work in ten minutes. You know he’s an early bird.”
“I know nothing of the kind.” In fact, I’d made it a point not to notice the way he’d left the motel before seven o’clock every morning in the week he’d been here. Or the way he’d come home by five o’clock in the evening. Or the way he kept his lights on each night until way late, like maybe the night-light I’d given him hadn’t worked.
I also hadn’t noticed him calling my name before I drove off last Friday night. And I most definitely hadn’t noticed him knocking on my door for nearly an hour earlier in the week. In fact, it was surprisingly easy not to notice a person, when you put just a bit of effort into it.
Not thinking about that person, though… that was harder. In the case of Mason Bloom, it was fucking impossible. The fact that thinking about him got me hard slightly more often than it pissed me off was the icing on the cake. One more thing to blame the straight guy for.
“—and I promised him it’d be fixed today, since it’s supposed to rain overnight.”
“He can keep his window cracked open to catch the breeze like the rest of us. Come on.”
“He shouldn’t have to,” Rafe shot back. “We take guest satisfaction seriously.”
“Thought he was an employee.”
“He’s both.”
Convenient. I sat up, dislodging the pillow. “And why is this my problem? Today’s supposed to be my day off. Gotta change the oil in the Charger and buff her up. Have Beale do it.”
Rafe sighed deeply, like the answer was obvious. “Beale can’t. And if you spend any more time with that Charger, people are gonna start to talk. You’re our mechanic, Fenn—”
“Still not a mechanic.”
“—and air conditioners are mechanical, ergo this is your wheelhouse.”
Rafe and his fucking ergos were gonna drive me demented.
But in the end, who’d levitated his sleepless ass off the bed, gotten in the shower, grabbed his screwdriver and Rafe’s vacuum, and dragged himself down to Mason’s room? Who’d pulled up a YouTube video on air conditioner repair and figured out how to remove the clogged air filter so he could wash it?
Yep. You know it.
So maybe “mechanic” was a thing one did as opposed to a thing one was.
“This is disgusting,” I said to the empty room as I pulled out a flat, rectangular thing that could possibly have been alive at one point, based on the amount of fur covering it.
But per the instructions online, I just vacuumed the filter off, vacuumed the rest of the inside of the machine, too, for good measure, and reinserted it. Then, because I reasoned that a good mechanic would stick around to make sure it worked, right? I sat on the floor and allowed myself to do what I’d been dying to do since the moment I’d gotten into the room: I surveyed Mason’s space.
Holy shit, the place was relentlessly, hopelessly, horrifyingly tidy.
The nightstand held a phone charger, a chunk of transparent rock that looked like something I could have found in Beale’s room, and a dog-eared pirate thriller. The bed had been made without a single wrinkle, and I had the sudden urge to throw myself down and make snow angels.
The closet doors were open, and it was clear that Loafers had actually unpacked his bags—which was fucked-up, in my opinion, since I’d been here five years and still mostly lived out of a suitcase—and hung his many, many polos and button-downs in the closet in precise rainbow order. More than that, he’d clearly brought his own hangers, since they were all the exact same color and all faced the same direction. He’d put a couple of his big suitcases on the shelf at the top of the closet, and on the bottom he’d lined up his shoes like expensive little soldiers: six pairs of shiny leather ones in varying shades of brown and black, a single sand-covered pair of track shoes, and some high-end sandals.
And which of us supposedly gave off serial killer vibes, I ask you?
For a second, I wished he were there just so I could give him shit about that, because he was so fun when he was riled…
And then I remembered I’d been avoiding him for a week precisely because he was so fun to rile that I got easily riled, and I couldn’t afford to be riled around him because he was so very, very, very, very straight.
And Life Rules were Life Rules, forever and ever. Amen.
“Fenn! Fenn Reardon!” a familiar voice bellowed from downstairs.
I stood and pulled back the curtains to find my uncle waving up at me. His T-shirt was orange today with the word MAYOR written in orange across the front in shiny block letters, like we were celebrating Halloween five months early.
Jesus. How many of those shirts did he have?
“You done yet?” he yelled, hands on his hips.
I t
hrew open the door and stepped out on the shared balcony.
“Nope.”
“Yeah, ya are. Stop mooning over Mason’s tighty-whiteys and get over to the house. I’ve got another job for ya and a big announcement!”
“Wait, what?” I had not been thinking about Mason’s underwear.
Though, if I had been, I’d have pegged him as the type to wear tight, black boxer briefs. The plain kind that hugged every curve, and…
How the hell did Rafe know what kind of underwear he wore, anyway?
And what announcement?
By the time I thought about any of these excellent questions, it was too late to ask. Rafe had disappeared through the trees toward his house, whistling a peppy tune.
I rubbed a hand over my face and went back to Mason’s room to collect my tools and vacuum, then—under duress, mind you—marched my ass next door.
I walked into the kitchen and found Young Rafe and Beale sitting silently, their bulky frames making the little table and chairs look like doll furniture. Rafe, who was just a fraction leaner than his younger brother with hair more black than brown, stared down at his phone and didn’t acknowledge my arrival. He looked vaguely pissed off, but that was so common these days, the real shock would have been seeing him happy.
Beale gave me his usual cheery greeting. “Morning, Fenn. Eye looks way better today.”
“Mmm. A week’ll do that,” I said sourly, heading for the coffeepot. “What’s this announcement?”
“Dunno.” Beale shrugged. “We were on the other side of the island, looking at the roof on Grandma Goodman’s old place to get it fit for human habitation so Rafe can move in—”
I poured myself a cup of coffee from the pot on the counter. “Aw! Are you identifying as human now, Rafe? Congrats, bud!”
Rafe raised his middle finger in a salute but didn’t otherwise look up from his phone.
“Anyway. We got a text from Dad, who told us to come home and wait in the kitchen. So here we are.” Beale stretched his long arms toward the ceiling. “I bet it’s about the Extravaganza, though. It’s all he talks about.”
I grunted in acknowledgement of this and grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter. “Rafe, you get your Jeep fixed yet?”
Rafe nodded absently. “You were right. Ignition coil.” He lifted his head from his phone and speared me with a glance. “Two hundred American dollars later.”
I winced. “Sucks.”
“Mostly sucks because you called it, and I shouldn’t have had to take it in at all. One of these days, you’re gonna trust that you know what you’re doing, rather than second-guessing every damn thing.”
“Yeah, well.” I sank into the seat opposite him and stretched out my long legs. “Last Friday was not that day. Today’s not either.”
Rafe snorted, but when he looked back down at his phone, a muscle in his jaw ticked.
“What’s your phone done that makes you look even grumpier than usual?” I demanded.
“I might have a fairly good idea what my dad’s announcement is about.” He slid his phone across the table in my direction without meeting my eyes. “Gage sent me this a minute ago.”
I took the phone and scrolled up, seeing the headline of the local paper.
“Jay Don Rollins returns to the Suncoast—” I read out loud, then paused. “Oooh, Jayd’s gonna be pissed they used his real name.”
Rafe huffed. “Good.”
“—returns to the Suncoast this summer for a series of engagements.” I glanced up. “He’s coming back to Florida?”
“Keep reading,” Rafe instructed.
“When asked about his plans following his sold-out North American tour, the singer-songwriter was quoted as saying he’d be spending time with family in the area, and he planned to play small shows in St. Pete Beach and Punta Gorda, before finishing with a… with a free public concert on the island of Whisper Key for the first annual Whisper Key Labor Day Extravaganza.” I slid the phone back to Rafe. “They didn’t even get the island’s name right.”
“The very least of my concerns.”
“So, your dad is inviting Jayd Rollins, even knowing that he’s…”
“Aimee’s brother. My ex-brother-in-law. My former friend. Yep.”
“And he doesn’t care that you’re gonna be—”
Rafe pushed his chair back from the table with a squeal. “I’m not gonna be anything, Fenn, except profoundly annoyed that he tried to keep this a secret.”
“Remember Dad’s trying, you guys,” Beale said softly. “Trying to bring life back to Whispering Key.”
Rafe and I exchanged a look.
“Beale,” Rafe began, “you realize Dad was the one who put the final nail in its coffin, right? You remember what happened last December, when we learned that Goodmen Outfitters had zero dollars left in its operating budget? When Dad told us the money was all tied up in his assets?”
“Of course I remember!” Beale said. “Gage stormed out and went back to campus. You stormed off and stayed off island all weekend, and it was just me and Fenn stuck here with Dad for the holiday. Fucking sucked.”
“Love you too, buddy,” I said dryly.
Beale flushed. “I just meant, it wasn’t much of a Christmas with half the family gone.”
“And that was on Dad. Because he lied, Beale, and of course we were mad! He wouldn’t say where he’d spent the money or what his assets were.” Rafe made air quotes. “But if past behavior is any prediction… Look, you were maybe too young to remember, but he and Mom used to argue about the same things back in the day. She’d need grocery money, but he’d’ve gone and bought shares in some expedition to find and raise the Esmerelda.”
“I remember!” Beale repeated. “I’m not an idiot, Rafe, and I’m only three years younger than you. I remember it all went to shit. I remember he promised Mom he’d stop investing in salvage operations, too. And he did.”
“Yeah, well.” Rafe shrugged. “Mom’s been gone for a couple years, bro. And this new money he’s got? He still won’t say where it’s from, and we have no say in how he’s spending it. Hell, the only reason Gage and I got involved with this concert was to try to hold him back. See how well that’s working?”
“He’s increasing tourism!” Beale argued a little desperately.
“Uh-huh. Because more tourists mean more people he can suck in with his ghost stories, which means more people interested in finding that fucking boat,” Rafe said flatly. “And in the meantime…”
“In the meantime he’s bringing Rafe’s brother-in-law and the prissy doctor to Whispering Key.” I rolled my eyes.
“Former brother-in-law,” Rafe corrected, just a trifle bitterly.
“Right,” I agreed. “That.”
“Hey! Mason’s not prissy,” Beale said, blushing hotly. “He’s… I dunno. Sweet.”
“Sweet,” I repeated, trying to reconcile that word with the guy I’d spent nearly an entire day with a week ago, and had been thinking about every day since. I couldn’t get there. Sexy? Yup. Distracting? As fuck. Intelligent? Duh. A smart-ass? Hell, yeah. But… “Sweet? Really?”
“Yes, sweet! And caring,” Beale said, blushing harder. “A really good doctor.”
“Do tell.” Rafe came back to the table with a fresh cup of coffee, spun his chair around to straddle it, and smiled just a bit too wide. “Maybe some good can come of this, after all. Have you been playing doctor with the doctor, little brother?”
“No!” Beale protested. “He just helped me out. Remember how I trapped that little opossum that’s been getting in the garbage last Saturday night? I strained my shoulder tryna release him. I was fixing it up myself, but Mase offered to help. He helped me stretch it out.”
“Mase, is he?” Rafe’s voice was knowing. “And was that all? Just a little arm stretching? Or did he offer to let you stretch—”
“Hey!” I cut in, more annoyed than I had any reason to be. “Shut your mouth. The doctor’s straight, Rafe.” Or at least
he claimed he was, I thought bitterly. I leaned my chair back to balance on two legs and studied the ragged edges of my nails.
“Weeeeeell,” Beale told Rafe slowly, darting a look at me. “I may have driven Mase to and from work the last couple days and asked him to look at my shoulder again. Just to follow up?” He grinned. “And he maybe asked me more about crystals and how they worked…”
I remembered the hunk of selenite on the nightstand next door, right next to the bed where Loafers slept every night, and fought to keep my breathing even.
Rafe cackled. “And you blinked your big eyes at him…”
Beale ducked his head and bit his lip. “Maaaaybe.”
I brought my chair forward with a thump. “Guys. He’s off-limits. Jesus.”
“And did you have him show you how to do the stretches again?” Rafe asked, wiggling his eyebrows and annoying me. “Did he have to put his big, strong hands on you to do it?”
Beale grinned innocently. “You know how bad my memory is, Rafe.”
“The doctor is straight,” I said, waving a hand between Rafe and Beale. “Hello? Straight. As in, not remotely attracted to a yahoo like you.”
Beale blinked at me in astonishment. “So what?”
“So what? So he’s not crawling into bed with you, that’s what. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“He’s pretty and he’s funny. I like talking to him.” Beale shrugged. “Plus, he smells good.”
“But it won’t go anywhere,” I said a little more forcefully than necessary, since the last thing I needed after stewing over Mason for days and nights on end was a reminder of how good he smelled. Like salt water and something fancy—
“Not every flirtation has to go somewhere.” Rafe sipped his coffee contemplatively. “Beale’s acquiring fodder for his spank bank, since I’m pretty sure his personal kink is Really Nice Guys—”