“That’s easy. I get to see her happy. I did a lot of stupid stuff for a lot of years and took chances that would make even the most adventurous man think I was just a little insane. I was a spoiled rich kid whose parents really didn’t give a rat’s ass about him, and figured there was no better way to escape than by losing myself in the rush all that reckless shit created. There were so many years where I didn’t care if I lived or died—and believe me, I came this close to cashing it in on more than one occasion. But then I met Riley. She was the one who showed me that the biggest thrill I can get is not by taking careless chances, but by putting everything I have into living. And yeah, I get how corny that sounds. But it’s true. That woman out there? She saved me and I’ll spend the rest of my life repaying her for that.”
“You’re still a thrill-seeker, though. That, I can tell.”
“Sure I am. But nowadays I look for the rush in things that won’t potentially kill me. Big difference there.”
“So you avoid things like whatever led you to lay your bike down all those years ago?”
“Among other stupid shit, yeah.”
Evan gestured toward Garrett’s legs with his water bottle. “I noticed your scars there. Impressive.”
Garrett glanced down to the eight-inch Frankenstein scar that slashed vertically through his right knee, along with the other puncture marks further down his leg from where his surgeons had implanted a metal rod and eight screws into his tibia. “Not so much impressive as it was idiotic. Take it from me, it’s never a good idea to listen to a friend who says he wants to borrow a private plane and take it for a joyride. Especially when said friend had only half the hours under his belt required for his pilot’s license.”
“Sounds like a serious case of clouded judgment.”
Garrett blew out a sardonic chuckle. “More like no judgment at all.”
“I hate to ask what happened.”
Garrett set his water on the table next to Evan’s phone before lacing his fingers behind his head. His knee picked that exact moment to throb, as if the thing had a mind of its own and knew Garrett was going to talk about the night of the crash. Goddamn thing always did that, as if the physical reminder was the only way he’d be able to remember all the details.
Yeah, right. As if he’d ever forget exactly what happened in the first fucking place.
“Not much to tell, really. It was a cloudy night. Windy as hell too. But my buddy assured me he knew what he was doing. He promised me a rush like none other and, well, he certainly delivered on that.”
“You crashed?”
The temperature on the beach had to be close to eighty-five, but Garrett shivered anyway. He crossed his arms over his chest and fought back the cold that wasn’t the result of an icy breeze or a quick-moving storm front, but was born from a series of terrible memories now clawing at his insides to get out. “We did. Less than a minute after take-off.”
“Jesus,” Evan murmured.
“To this day, I don’t know what Derek did to make us go down. And before you ask, yes, he was stone-cold sober that night. Hell, we both were. But it was dark and the weather was turning, and he was just so new to it all…”
Garrett kept watching Riley jump around in the surf, counting on his love of her to ease the pain that twisted around inside him whenever he talked about the crash, just as it had so many times before.
“He didn’t make it?” Evan asked.
Garrett clenched his jaw as the images from that night replayed like a slow-motion horror flick on the edge of his memory. There’d been so much blood. So many screams. And then there’d been nothing but silence.
“No. He didn’t. And I barely pulled through. I suffered some internal bleeding which made it pretty touch and go there for a while. They operated on me twice in the first twenty-four hours before they were able to find all the bleeders and get them stopped. And then afterward with my knee… They weren’t sure if I was going to be able to keep my leg or not.”
Nothing could compare to those six months he was laid up in that godforsaken hospital. He spent most of his time there flat on his back with his leg in traction, living through vivid flashbacks of crashing over and over again, all while trying not to let the knowledge that he’d survived and Derek hadn’t drive him out of his ever-loving mind.
“Jesus,” Evan said again. “I can’t even imagine. No wonder Riley worries so much. That’s just—”
“The whole thing was careless and stupid, I know. I was a very different person back then, though. Like I said, I honestly didn’t care whether I bought the farm or not. The main thing I took away from it all, the one thing that actually stuck with me—and it’s something I won’t ever forget—was learning how short life truly is. Still, it ended up taking a few more years before it sank in that I didn’t have to go around acting like some crazed stuntman-wannabe to bring a little excitement into my life. I finally discovered that kind of shit’s better left to the professionals, anyway. Let them be the ones who get all torn up. I’m done with it.”
“Hell, makes the few stunts I tried on my Monster when I first got her sound like a day at Disneyland in comparison.”
Garrett smiled and chuckled. “Just don’t make me go on It’s a Small World. I think I’d rather re-live the torture of physical therapy ten times over than have to sit through that ride even once.”
Evan laughed, too, then took another sip from his water bottle. “It’s no wonder she’s less than thrilled about this fishing trip, then.”
“She’ll be fine. It’s not as if we’re forcing her to jump out of an airplane or coating her in peanut butter and leaving her out for the bears. All we have to do is counterbalance her fear if we end up catching a shark with something a little more to her liking while we sit around and wait for it to happen. That shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“No, it shouldn’t be,” Evan said as he stared off to where Riley now stood at the edge of the waves. “I’m sure I could come up with a few things to keep her occupied.”
“You and me both,” Garrett added. “Speaking of which…” He slid Evan a scheming grin before shoving out of his chair and taking off at a dead run toward his wife. She saw him coming at the last second, which was too late for her to do anything but shriek as he lifted her into his arms and spun her in circles in the lapping waves. She looped her arms around his neck and held on, tossing her head back and laughing that deep and throaty laugh he loved so much as Evan waded in and joined them in the water. They played in the sun and surf as if they were teenagers, with him and Evan taking turns throwing her into the deeper green current and her trying to get even by jumping on their backs in vain attempts to take them down and dunk them.
Garrett pushed all thought of the crash out of his mind and concentrated on this, on the here and now, and on the time he’d been blessed to spend with the one woman he’d do anything for and this reticent man who was becoming quite an intrigue in his own rights.
It wasn’t as if dwelling ever did a damn bit of good anyway. The past was written in blood and stone, a lesson to be learned, yes, but one never to be altered. The day he met Riley he stopped trying to change all those chaotic years that had come before, stopped trying to make them better or to make them simply go away. They were a part of him, they made him who he was now and weighed heavily in forming the man he’d be in the future, but they were nothing more than a road map of where he’d been, not a premonition of where he was going. And with Riley, the places he could end up were limitless—and the amount of pleasure he could have while getting there wasn’t something he was even remotely willing to miss out on.
* * * * *
There wasn’t anything better after an amazing day on the beach than sipping an ice-cold beverage while a hearty meal waited in the wings to be grilled up. Evan had taken over the culinary duties as Garrett and Riley sat on the opposite side of the kitchen’s counter bar, and he had everything nearly ready for them to spend a quiet night in each other’s company. He fi
lled the stainless steel martini shaker he’d searched the entire kitchen for to the brim with ice, set it with a clunk on the countertop and slipped a mischievous look to Riley.
“Trust me?”
Her smile nearly floored him, as did her immediate answer. “Implicitly.”
“Good. After this afternoon, I guarantee you’re going to love this. Your boss,” he said to Garrett, “has a very well-stocked liquor cabinet.”
She peered over the counter’s raised top ledge. “What are you making?”
“Let’s see if you can figure it out,” he replied. “One part vodka, a little bit of cranberry juice, a splash of lime and one part of this,” he said, measuring out a bright pink liqueur in a jigger before pouring it over the ice. As he put the lid on and started to shake, she read from the label on the bottle.
“Oh, this is perfect. Look,” she said, showing Garrett. “It’s called Kinky Liqueur.”
Garrett stole a raw zucchini ribbon from the tray waiting to be carried out to the grill. “Very appropriate.”
“And this is what makes the drink so special,” Evan went on as he opened the bag of cotton candy, tore off a big chunk and tossed it into her martini glass. The strained pink concoction followed, melting the candy into the drink on contact.
She laughed as he handed the drink over and she sipped slowly, as if she wanted to savor the treat he’d made especially for her. “Whoa, that’s tasty. Sweet and so summery.”
“I’m calling it Riley’s Remedy. From now on, every time I get behind a bar, I’ll be thinking of that cotton candy. And remembering back on how you put such a sexy, kinky spin on something so ordinary.”
“You’ve named a drink after me? Oh my god. I love it. It’s so perfect. Thank you.”
His pride swelled a little bit more. “You’re welcome.” After he poured himself a club soda, he one-handed the tray loaded down with veggies and three beautiful filets. The grill was already set to go, but as he made his way outside he couldn’t help but get a little sidetracked by the striking oranges and pinks filling up the warm evening sky.
Riley sighed from the open doorway behind him. “There’s nothing more gorgeous than a beach sunset.”
“Sure there is,” Garrett said, kissing her shoulder as he moved past her to sit at the table next to the grill.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. You are.”
She snorted out a laugh, but Evan could tell that Garrett meant what he said.
“The older you get, the more schmaltzy you get.”
“Hey, I just call ’em as I see ’em.”
She took the seat next to him, setting her martini glass on the table while putting her feet up in Garrett’s lap. He didn’t hesitate to start rubbing the meaty part under her toes and she sighed again. Evan loved their banter, their playfulness. It was something he was definitely going to miss when he went home to Texas. That, along with so many other things…
“What were you two talking about today? Out on the beach? You both looked so serious,” she asked.
Evan shifted his concentration away from the grill to glance over his shoulder. Garrett held her foot in one hand while he massaged further up her calf with the other. He looked utterly relaxed, as if her question didn’t bother him in the least.
“I told him about the crash,” Garrett answered.
“You did?”
“Yeah, we were talking about all the stupid shit I used to do and how that ranked right up there at the top. And how once I met you, all that screwing around and taking crazy chances just didn’t appeal to me anymore.”
“Thank God. You never did any of that kind of drastic stuff, did you, Evan?”
He placed each steak side-by-side on the grill and tossed the veggies onto the slotted pan next to it. “Nothing as off the charts as that, no.”
“I hear a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”
He closed the lid on the grill, sat across from Garrett and twirled the ice in his glass. “But I used to do a little dirt biking. I pulled off a few stunts that, when I look back on those days now, well, none of it was probably very smart. I think my reasons for doing them, though, were very different.”
“What? You weren’t trying to see how far you could push your life before you ended up not having one anymore?” Garrett asked, smirking.
“No, nothing like that. My life wasn’t quite as…”
“Messed up,” Garrett filled in.
“Okay, messed up as yours was. Actually, my family was the polar opposite of yours. My dad worked his ass off my entire life and was beyond strict while I was growing up. Still, there were a lot of things I did that he didn’t approve of—like the dirt biking. Christ, he hated that. By that point, though, I was completely hooked on the rush all that unconventional stuff gave me. I truly loved the surge I got from trying something that hardly anyone else was doing. It became this all-consuming need, so I started looking for that same kind of charge in other areas of my life too.”
Riley reached for her martini. “Areas like?”
“It all goes back to the dirt biking, I suppose. I actually competed in college for a while until it got too expensive. When I was heavy into it, though, I had a few local fans. Female ones. Some of them had boyfriends. And, well… The threesome idea has always given me a different kind of jolt.”
“So we’re more of an adrenaline rush for you?”
There wasn’t any resentment to her words, it was more as if she truly wanted to get a feel for where he was coming from.
“At one time it might’ve been like that. But it’s not now. Now it’s more…” He shrugged. “It’s what I need. This,” he said with another twirl of his glass, “just feels perfectly natural to me. I’m not sure I could ever go back to a conventional type of relationship. Honestly, I’m not sure I’d want to.”
“But you’re not looking for one now. A relationship, I mean.”
Again, there wasn’t any sort of anger in her words. She seemed more sad now than anything else, and that sadness pierced straight through to his gut. Even so, he’d been up front with both of them from the get-go. There didn’t seem to be a point in trying to sugar-coat anything now.
“If you’d asked me that even three months ago, my answer probably would’ve been different. But now? Things are laid out so differently for me. Things I can’t change. I’ve made commitments, Riley. People are counting on me to hold up my end of the bargain. I can’t just walk away from that.”
“I know,” she said. “And I wouldn’t want you to. I just… I don’t know. I’m not the adrenaline freak you guys are, but this is exciting for me. It’s a chance I took, a chance we all took, and I’d be lying if I said that I’m ready to see it end.”
God, he didn’t know what to say to that. “I’m not out to hurt either one of you.”
“You’re not, Evan,” she said.
The look Garrett threw him and the one Evan shot back said they both knew that was a lie.
She laughed softly then. “Seriously, though. Who would’ve ever thought I’d even say something like that? Up until I met Garrett, I wasn’t sure a relationship—with anyone—was something I really wanted.”
“Why was that?” Evan asked as he got up to check on the steaks.
She concentrated on the pink sweetness in her glass for a moment before she answered. “It sounds so cliché to blame your parents for any of the wrong turns your life might take, but this is one case where that happens to be at least semi-true. My mother searched for some mystical kind of love with every man she ever met. She spent her entire adult life hunting for that one perfect person, working it right up until the day she died. What’s sad is that I truly don’t think she ever found what she was looking for. What’s sadder? I grew up thinking love was just a word you said whenever you wanted something. It never really meant anything in our house because she always used it so frivolously. She loved Uncle Tim. Uncle Bob. Uncle Mark. I could go on and on.”
There was one name blatantly missing from
that list. “Did she ever love you?”
Riley practically scrunched down, as though a black rain cloud had popped up directly over her head. Garrett’s hands stilled on her feet.
Fuck, he wasn’t trying to be a dick. But he wanted to know. Jesus, he wanted to understand.
“I know she did, in her own way. But she never really came out and said it to me. I wasn’t the one with the cash or the cars or the fancy high-rise apartments. Me and my sister were just her kids. Little people who always ended up getting in her way.”
His heart snapped like a twig. In two, and just like that. “Ah hell. I’m sorry—”
She shook her head. “Oh God, no. Don’t be. It’s because of the way she was that I’m able to tell the real from the phony now. Garrett loves me. Unconditionally. That’s the one true thing I know. The only true thing I know.”
And damn if Evan wasn’t well on his way to joining him—only to end up a thousand miles away and a heartache apart.
Shit.
“You’re lucky, then,” he said.
She wiggled her toes in Garrett’s grip. “I’m beyond lucky.”
“Do I hear a ‘but’ in there?” he asked, mimicking her.
Her expression turned sheepish. “But is it bad that I want more?”
“More of?”
Her reply was instant. “More love. More laughing. More of Garrett. More of you. Just more of everything.”
Evan flipped the steaks and stirred the grill pan, answering even though he held his back to her. “Not in my book. I say keep going for it until you can’t anymore.”
“My motto exactly,” Garrett said.
When Evan turned around, the sorrow in her eyes made him feel as though he stood about an inch tall.
“You say that, but in the breath right before it you tell me you have to leave.”
Christ. She was right. Fall in love with me, but you can’t have me. He didn’t know which was worse. That, or him falling in love with her and not being able to stay. Both were pretty fucked up.
“Damn,” he murmured. “I’m sorry. But I’m a man of my word, Riley. The choice to stay or go was made the moment I agreed to go into business with my brother. Don’t make me regret a decision I made before I ever met you.”
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