Outside

by Michelle Mankin

  “I’m sorry, Mona.” He spoke softly almost as if he were afraid that if he spoke louder I would bolt. He was probably right. “Sorry that I screwed up with you. You were the best thing that ever happened to me. I miss you. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about you and what we had.” I blinked at him stunned completely silent by his words. “I know we can’t go back. I know it’s over for you. I can’t change the mistakes of the past. But I’m here and you’re here right now. Could you at least give me a chance to get to know you again?”

  I nodded. I couldn’t possibly form words. There were too many random thoughts running through my head and too much emotion clogging my throat.

  “Good.” He tapped the spot beside him. “Stop hugging the wall. You can sit closer. I won’t promise I won’t flirt. You’re a beautiful woman. I’m a man. It goes with the territory. I’m sure you’re used to it by now. Own it. Accept it. You don’t seem to mind when Patrick does it.”

  “What? He doesn’t, and I don’t,” I sputtered. “You’re wrong. He doesn’t think of me that way.” My eyes drifted to Patrick who seemed to be watching the two of us closely. He smiled when he caught me looking, waved and lumbered over with our order and a large shake I didn’t remember requesting.

  “I brought you a vanilla shake. I know how much you love them.” Patrick shrugged as if his observation and thoughtfulness wasn’t a big deal. The casual movement made his toned muscles flex beneath his Hodads’ t-shirt.

  Lincoln lifted a brow as if to say, ‘See, I told you so.’

  “You’re right I do. Thank you, Patrick.” I busied myself taking things off the tray and arranging them on the table. I avoided looking at both of them as I dug into my burger. The extra sauce dribbled down my chin. Lincoln handed me a napkin.

  “I like a woman who can enjoy her food. Who has enough of a figure that there’s something to hold onto besides bones when I’ve got her in my arms. Wouldn’t you agree?” he turned his intense speculative gaze on Patrick.

  “Sure,” Patrick replied readily while looking at me and I caught the definite gleam of interest in his eyes that I had never noticed before. My brow creased. Knowing Patrick had a crush on me was going to make things awkward between us. “But she doesn’t eat enough.”

  “Yeah?” Lincoln popped a French fry into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. “Why’s that do you think?”

  Patrick glanced at me and shrugged keeping my secrets.

  Grateful, I beamed at him.

  His gaze traveling back and forth between us, Lincoln frowned.

  I knew Lincoln didn’t like being shut out but he would just have to deal. Accept the boundaries that I set for him. I had to maintain the barriers between us or else I was afraid I was going to give him whatever he wanted.

  I watched her carefully out of the corner of my eyes while we ate. I caught her watching me every bit as cautiously. I had hoped my words would have made her relax more around me. I guess I’d been wrong. I finished my last bite, crumpled the waxy paper, wiped my mouth with a napkin and set my jaw determined to try harder.

  “How’s your shake?” I asked.

  “Good.” She scooped a spoonful and offered it to me. Her expression was so expectant I couldn’t refuse. I leaned in my eyes on hers and opened my mouth. She seemed to realize her tactical error immediately. If she was trying to maintain a distance between us offering to feed me from her own hand wasn’t the way to go about it.

  She tipped the spoon in and I wrapped my lips around it, my gaze conveying the message that I was imagining them around something infinitely sweeter. She pulled in a sharp breath that she didn’t immediately let back out. I added in a, “mmm,” before sitting back. She got even more flustered turning away and messing with her growing pile of discarded napkins.

  “I didn’t remember you liking sweets.”

  “Not usually,” I replied, “but I could be convinced. Could you give me another bite?”

  “Help yourself.” She slid the shake toward me.

  “Not what I had in mind, babe.”

  “That’s all you’re gonna get, Linc.”

  “Fair enough.” I grinned.

  She tried not to smile. Held it off pretty well but her lips twitched. “Ass,” she muttered with her eyes twinkling beautifully. She wasn’t one to ever hold onto a pique long except understandably at the end of us. I was glad to discover that trait of hers hadn’t changed.

  “You finished?” I gestured toward her empty plate.

  “Yeah.” She pushed back from the table and smoothed a hand over her stomach. “I eat anymore and I’ll pop.”

  “I wouldn’t want that.” I had lots of questions I wanted answered but it wasn’t going to be easy to get them. I had noticed the look that had passed between her and Patrick. She was wary about sharing with me. I understood her reticence. We had carved more than an inch out of each other fifteen years ago. But though I remembered the pain, lately I remembered the love better. I was willing to take on the risk to have her back.

  “Maybe it would help if we walked it off.” I was scooping our trash back onto the tray to throw it away when Patrick suddenly reappeared to take it from me.

  “You heading out?” he asked Simone. She glanced at me then back at him as if she were looking for an excuse to ditch me.

  No way, I thought. She wasn’t going to get away that easily. I played my trump card. “We still have things to discuss,” I reminded her.

  Not looking too happy about that fact, she nodded, slid out of the booth and put her hand on Patrick’s arm. “I’ll see you later at the beach.”

  I gritted my teeth and shoved my fists into my pockets so I wasn’t tempted to go all primal and rip the guy’s arms out of their sockets.

  “Let’s go.” She lifted her chin and headed toward the door. I followed and the spike of anger turned into something else as I watched her sexy ass sway in those linen pants.

  Outside, she drew in a deep breath of air. “I love this time of day. The salt from the ocean smells so good. I don’t know how you stay away.”

  How indeed? I turned away from the vision that was her and started down the hill to the beach. I semi offered her my hand as we strolled but she acted as if she hadn’t noticed. That was ok. I could bide my time. For a little while.

  “So what all is involved with this royalty deal?” she asked, the rise and fall of her tits as she breathed making it extremely difficult for me to concentrate.

  “Not a whole lot,” I hedged. “We’ll draw up a contract. Get the song produced. Split the royalties and residuals fifty-fifty.” I shrugged.

  “Yes but what do I need to do?” She didn’t seem surprised that I hadn’t tried to lower her percentage of the deal. Either she had some measure of trust in me or she didn’t know how underhanded things like that usually went in the entertainment world. An unknown like her versus someone in the business like me? In most cases she’d be lucky to get anything beyond a meager one time payoff.

  We reached the parking lot and for once I got distracted not by her but by my other love, the ocean. The sun had already set but the stars hadn’t yet come out. There was still enough light to see the waves curling in the distance. I pulled in my first deep breath. Moist and salty. My ears feasted on the siren’s roar of the surf. I closed my eyes imagining running into it with my fingers wrapped around the rails of my board.

  “Do you still miss it?” she asked softly.

  I turned away from one temptation and looked at another. Her hair swirled around her beautiful face and slim shoulders. She understood what it had cost me to give up the ocean but I avoided answering that question directly. She and the surf were so intertwined for me. I couldn’t tell her that it had been easier to get over losing it than her because that wasn’t strictly true. I had never gotten over her.

  “Sure. I’ve actually taken it up again just recently.” Short runs. Shallow waves. Safer waters.

  Her eyes brightened. “That’s fantastic.”

  I nodde
d. It was but being with her was better.

  “I’m so glad, Linc.” She touched my arm. “So, so glad.”

  I covered her hand with my own to hold her to me as we strolled along the firmer sand near the water. “How about you, Mona? I can’t believe you have a surf shop. That’s not at all what I pictured you doing. Where is it located?”

  “Here,” she admitted while twisting a wayward strand of her caramel hair. “In OB. It was Karen’s first but she sold it to me. She couldn’t bear to stay in town after…” She trailed off but I didn’t need her to finish. I knew and I understood. Memories had kept me from returning though mine weren’t nearly as devastating. So much had happened to all of us. But I was pleased that Simone seemed to be more comfortable sharing with me now. Had my revelation opened up things a little between us? I certainly hoped it had. “I only went away for a while. It didn’t stick. This is my home now. I live in my parents’ place.”

  I stopped and turned her to face me. I didn’t like the idea of her living there at all. “With your mom and dad?”

  “No.” She pulled away taking a few steps to distance herself before turning back to face me while walking backward. “Just me now. My mom got the house in the divorce. My dad sold the business and moved away. She got sick with stomach cancer five years ago. He didn’t even come to her funeral. Not that I would want him to. I haven’t seen him in years.”

  Holy shit. There was a lot there to assimilate, a lot that she had gone through without me. Guilt and regret churned heavily in my gut. “I’m sorry, Mona.”

  “It’s ok.” But I got the idea that it wasn’t. Far from it. Looking lonely and distracted, she moved toward the water skimming her feet along the bubbles of foam. She’d had an awkward relationship with her mother but the one with her old man had been a twisted hateful thing. It was one of the reasons why I believed she didn’t have as much self-confidence as she should. But even though he wasn’t around anymore, I could tell that he was still hurting her.

  “I’d like to see your shop.” I measured my steps to match hers so I could walk along beside her but didn’t pry anymore. I had issues of my own with my father that made me feel vulnerable. I hated it for her as much as I did for myself.

  “Yeah. Sure. Maybe.” She stopped. “This is probably far enough. I’m going to just walk home from here.” She pointed over my shoulder. I hadn’t realized we had been walking that long. “I should go in. I’m still tired from last night.”

  “Alright,” I allowed though the last thing I wanted to do was say goodbye to her. Spending time with her sharing a meal, walking and talking…it was more than just making love to her that I’d missed. My life was incomplete without her.

  “Is this Blaine thing for real,” she queried out of the blue.

  “Yes, absolutely.” My features tightened with consternation. “Why wouldn’t you think it is?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me. Something you think I won’t like. I don’t understand why you didn’t let your lawyers handle the details in the first place. And I don’t know why you didn’t just ask me to sign something at dinner.” Looking like she wanted to cry, she turned away and tipped her face into the breeze. “What are you doing, Linc? What’s going on? Why are you really here?”

  So smart. So intuitive. So different from all the other women I had known. The ones that followed the band around couldn’t give a flip about me. The last one had tried to snap a nude pic of me with her cell when I turned over to peel off the condom.

  I was going to have to give Simone at least a partial truth.

  “You’re right. There is more. There are papers to sign. Sure.” I finger combed my hair out of my eyes. “But they’ll want you to sign those at the studio. I gave them the video that Zenith recorded of you at Huntington Beach. The Blaine people loved it of course, but they want us to do the song together.”

  “Hey land lubber.” Vassel gave me his usual morning greeting before popping the last bite of his English muffin into his mouth, crumpling the waxy paper and tossing it into the open hatch of Tasha’s Outback.

  "Hey, asshole." The diminutive blonde protested while fastening her purple streaked hair into a ponytail. She retrieved the wrapper and shoved it back at Vassel. "Throw your stinky trash in a trash can."

  "Don't be so testy, Tater Tot." Only Vassel and her other band mates could get away with using that nickname without getting maimed. Tasha was tiny but tough. She held her own with all the guys on and off her surfboard which I admired. But she had always disliked me for some reason.

  She hopped off the tailgate, grabbed her board and threw a ring of car keys at Patrick who had been watching the exchange with an amused smile on his handsome face. "Lock up before you hit the water, Donegal."

  He dipped his chin to acknowledge her command and then smiled at me. "Where's your shadow?"

  For a minute I thought he meant Lincoln. Probably because he had been on my mind constantly. Even more so since his revelation last night. A duet with Lincoln? Could I? We had fallen back to our easy way of just being together. Would it be wise when I was still so susceptible to his charm? I sighed. I didn't know what I was going to do about my former flame but I could answer Patrick's question.

  "Chulo's getting de-fluffed at the groomer." I smiled despite my inner turmoil. "He’ll be depressed. He’s so much smaller without all that fur. He’ll give me a look like I betrayed him. Like how could I let them take away his mojo."

  Patrick laughed sliding my folded blanket out from under my arm. "Here, let me help you get your pallet set up. Princess of the Shore."

  "Thank you, kind Sir." I stood back rubbing the chill bumps from my bare shoulders. It was a little cold to be in a tank and cut offs before the sun came up all the way.

  "You coming, loser?" Dylan, Vassel’s half- brother, asked Patrick pushing away from the wagon where he had been leaning. His thick brown curls were almost as sigh worthy as Patrick’s inky locks. Both the half- brothers were head turners. Their mother had been a fashion model who liked handsome men. Obviously. Vassel’s father a Greek exchange student, Dylan’s the son of a French diplomat. If one were in the business of comparing, it would be hard to pick who was better looking, Dylan with his classical looks like Michelangelo’s David, or Vassel with his shaved head, expressive brows and his always there dark stubble.

  As the only girl in the band Tasha stood out among the exceptionally good looking all male crowd.

  "In a minute." Patrick tossed him the keys. "I need to talk to Simone first."

  "Alright." Dylan threw his friend a knowing look I didn't understand.

  "What do we need to talk about?" I asked, my head tilted to the side. Without thinking about it I reached for a lock of hair that had fallen into Patrick’s eyes and moved it aside. He grabbed my wrist, slid his fingers down my arm and caught my hand.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Something I should have done a long time ago apparently."

  "Hey, Patrick. How’s it going?" Another surfer, a pretty young brunette with her wet suit half unzipped to reveal a sexy bikini top she more than adequately filled, strolled past us tossing him a flirty smile.

  "Hey, Reese." He turned quickly away dismissing her. Looking irritated he tugged on my hand and pulled me toward the concrete pillars beneath the pier mumbling something about too many distractions.

  "I'll tell you what I’m doing,” he said releasing me once we hit the shadows, “when you tell me what's going on with you and that guy you were with last night. You're a helluva lot more than just old friends."

  "Nothing's going on. Not anymore. Lincoln and I were together a long time ago, not that it's any of your business."

  "How long is long exactly?" His eyes narrowed.

  "Fifteen years ago if it’s that important."

  "I figured it was something like. It doesn't seem to me that he got the message that it’s over, though."

  “You’re totally wrong about that.
"

  "That's good to know, Simone.” His gaze dipped to my mouth for a moment before returning to my eyes. “Because I gotta tell you I'm more than a little territorial where you're concerned." His grey eyes glittered fiercely. "In case you haven’t noticed, I'm the one who's been here at your side for the past two years. It’s me who makes you smile whenever that haunted look crosses your eyes. It's me who talks you down whenever you feel overwhelmed. It was me that convinced you to try out for that gig at the Tiki Bar that you love doing so much. Not him. Where the fucking hell was he? Not here. That’s for damn sure. The guy must be a complete idiot to have let you go.”

  He stalked toward me walking me backward till my back hit one of the cold damp pillars. He lifted me, pressed me into it and then moved between my legs. Holy shit. I hadn’t even had a second cup of coffee yet and I was dealing with decisions involving two hot guys. Feeling dazed I just blinked at him.

  "Simone, I don't know what went down between you and him but I can tell he hurt you. Everyone who knows you can see the evidence of that. Any guy who gets close, any guy who shows any interest you shut down.” His piercing gaze cut through all my apparently penetrable defenses. “I hope to God you’re not still in love with him.” I tried to look away so he couldn’t see the truth but he captured my face and framed it in his warm hands. “Fifteen years, Simone. That’s crazy. I can’t even wrap my brain around it. Did he ever call? Ever visit you? Ever attempt to make whatever went wrong right between you?”

  Tears pricked my eyes. I didn’t speak but had nowhere to hide from his cutting but accurate perception. “I didn’t think so.” His eyes softened, his handsome face moving closer to me. “You’re in love with a ghost, Simone. A romantic image of a guy from the past who doesn’t exist. He's old fucking news.” He rocked his body between my legs as if to make sure I remembered he was there, as if I could forget with his breath bathing my lips. “But I'm right here. I’ll always be right here if you’ll let me. It’s time for you to move on. Time to start living again. Get off the shore. Get off your safe little blanket. Stop watching life pass you by and start experiencing it again."