He chuckles. “You’re welcome. Hey, some of us are going out for darts and pool tonight if you want to come. Bailey will be there.”
“Thanks for asking, but I’m taking Brett and Tori out to dinner.”
“Ah, well, I’d say bring them, but I doubt they’d want to be there if I’m there.”
I narrow my gaze at him. “Someday, one of you is going to have to explain to me why you don’t get along with them.”
He steps back with a contrite smile on his face. “I’ll see you Monday. Business Affairs.”
I point at him. “Enter through the business center, right?”
“Yep.”
I smile. “I’ll be there.”
As he walks away, my mind reels with possibility. This is my chance. It may only be a temp job, but if I show them I’m the best damn temp worker they’ve ever hired, maybe I can parlay this into an actual real job.
When I get home to Tori’s unit, I find her on the couch painting her toenails. She’s decked out in a skirt and top that’s super cute on her, and her hair appears to have been pulled straight then curled. She almost always wears it in that bun on top of her head. It looks good that way—her signature style. But she’s practically glamorous with it down.
“Wow. I better up my game,” I say.
“Hey,” she says, focused on her toes. “I’m bailing on the two of you tonight. Hope that’s okay.”
It would have been nice to have had her there, but it may be even nicer to have Brett to myself. “That’s cool,” I say. “What’s up?”
She hesitates, then cuts her eyes at me. “I’ve got a date.”
“Nice. Who with?”
She winces. “This…man.”
“Okay,” I say, taking a seat on the chair next to her.
“He’s actually a dad of one of the kids who spent some time with us about a month ago. He and I talked a few times, and he was cool and all, but I didn’t think anything about it.”
“Clearly he did.” That gets a hint of a smile from her and a blasé lift of her shoulder. But I can see she’s impressed with herself. “Does he live here?” I ask.
“No, he’s in town for business.”
I try to imagine what business would bring someone to this town, because it’s pretty much only a tourist town.
She glances up at me. “He’s not married.”
Is she a mind reader? “Okay,” I say like I hadn’t even thought about it, but I suppose my momentary silence spoke volumes. She inspects her toes, wiggling them. “Nice color,” I say.
“Mmm.”
I’m not sure I’ve seen her in this good of a mood since I’ve known her. “Do you mind if I grab a shower?”
“Knock yourself out. I’m leaving in just a bit. Y’all have fun.”
“You, too.”
I shower, shave, blow-dry, and curl, and then find some dressy shorts and a blouse that ties at my belly, exposing just a hint of skin on my waist. The last time I saw him, I was doing laundry and scrubbing floors, so I’ve got to remind him I’m a girl.
I lock up and head over to his unit, my stomach flipping as I knock on his door. Why am I nervous? He kissed me Monday night, not the other way around. I just wish I would have heard a little more from him this week.
He opens the door and blinks. “Hey,” he says, like he wasn’t expecting me.
“Hey,” I say, giving him a curious look. “Are you still up for dinner?”
“Yeah.” He looks past me. “Where’s Tori?”
Crap. I just assumed she told him. Now this is weird. Should I have canceled the whole thing? “She’s got a date. She bailed on us.”
“Who with?” he asks, more like a curious older brother than a jealous boyfriend, I think.
“A dad, actually, from about a month ago, she said.”
“Really?” he asks.
I wince. “Maybe I wasn’t supposed to say anything.”
“It’s fine.” He looks around his living room like he’s lost for a minute, and then he meets my gaze with a look like he’s given up. “You ready?”
I can never leave well enough alone. “Is everything okay with you?”
“Yeah. Of course it is.”
“Okay, because if this isn’t a good time, we can totally reschedule for a night when Tori can come, too.”
“No,” he says and closes his eyes, shaking his head, and now I know something’s up. He runs his hand through his hair and then steps back and looks me up and down. “I’m sorry. You look really good.”
My belly goes giddy. “Don’t be sorry about that.” I peruse him in his button-down shirt with shorts, looking almost preppy, for him. It’s so cute that he’s made an effort. “You look good, yourself.”
He takes my hand, and my nervous stomach trembles as he rubs his thumb along my knuckle. “I’m just kind of new at this.”
I’m super confused, because I know he’s not new at dating girls. He had a slew of them on him the other night at the beach, and plenty were all over him on Sunday night at his house party, too. “What’s this?”
He lets out a slow breath and then pulls me into his arms. “Just ignore me, okay?”
I make a face. “It’s kind of hard to.” I smile at him, but I’m still pretty confused and not at all confident of what’s happening here. He pulls me toward the door. “Let’s go. I’ve got an idea for tonight.”
18
Kylie
We drive about twenty minutes to a neighboring beach town, where Brett pulls into a parking lot in front of an outdoor marketplace. Vendors and food trucks with everything from oysters to ice cream line the place, with a live band in one corner and kids running through sprinklers in another. “This is pretty cool,” I say as we walk into the fold, Brett taking my hand and smiling at me. It feels like we’ve stepped into another world.
“What do you like to eat? They’ve got pretty much everything,” he says.
“What do you get when you come here?”
He points. “I like these soft pretzels.”
“Brett, I’m getting you something better than a soft pretzel.”
“All right,” he says, and we keep walking. “But it’s what I want,” he mumbles under his breath, loud enough for me to hear.
I stop him. “Seriously? You want a soft pretzel?”
“They butter them and they’re all doughy.”
A woman behind the counter pulls a pan out of the oven and places them in paper sleeves. Brett looks at me like a puppy dog wanting a treat, and it’s too cute to resist.
“They do look pretty good,” I say, walking over to the lady, and I order two. “What do you want to drink?” I ask him.
“Sweet tea,” he says.
“Of course you do,” I say. “You’re a Southerner.”
“You don’t like sweet tea?” he asks.
I face the woman. “Can I do half and half?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the lady says and pours our drinks. She hands us everything and we eat while we walk around.
“This is amazing,” I say, holding up the pretzel.
“I told you,” he says through a mouthful, trying not to smile.
We stand and watch the band while we finish the pretzels. He takes my paper and tosses it away with his, and then he pulls me toward a dock that’s lined with boats. “Come on,” he says. “I’ll show you Robert’s boat.”
Robert’s boat is the very last one of a strip of them. Brett steps onto it and then holds out his hand for me to take. I look around like we’re being hunted by police. “Are we allowed to get on it?”
“Yeah. He’s out of town.”
“Still,” I say.
“Would it make you feel better if I texted him and asked?”
I consider him.
“Seriously, he tells me all the time I can use the boat whenever I want.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“A bunch of times.”
I look him up and down. “With girls?”
He cl
oses his eyes, caught. “Maybe once with a girl, but usually with Tori.”
“She’s not a girl?”
“Tori and other people. Cohen and Logan have been on here with me, too. Come on. Just get on.”
I take his hand and step onto the deck of the boat. We walk around to the other side and peer out into the open water. “Wow. This is awesome,” I say.
“Mmm-hmm,” he says, gripping the railing. He pulls his keys out of his pocket and goes for the door to the cabin. “Want to go inside?”
“You have a key?”
“You really doubt me a lot, don’t you?” Brett opens the door to the cabin, and we step into a tight living space with leather built-in sofas on either side, a small kitchen area with a booth for dining across from it, and a bed on the other side of the kitchen tucked compactly into the nose of the boat.
“Wow,” I say. “This is super nice.”
“Yep.”
I point to the bed. “You and that girl you brought here that time…”
He holds up a hand. “I swear I have not had sex on this or any other boat, come to think of it.”
I roll my eyes at him and walk the perimeter of the small area. “This is really cool.”
He opens the refrigerator, which is full of drinks. “Want anything?”
I hold up my tea. “I’m okay with this, thanks,” I say, feeling like Robert is going to step onto this boat any second and fire me.
He sits on the couch and props his feet up on the table. I sit next to him, and he stretches and puts his arm on the couch behind me, holding back a grin.
“I see your game,” I say.
“I don’t have a game,” he says, trying to appear innocent and failing miserably.
I smile at him, shaking my head. “I’m not gonna be the next in your line of a hundred and fifty-seven girls.” I sound like I’m confident in this statement, but with how cute he’s looking right now and how devastatingly attracted I am to him, I hope I can follow through with that statement.
“I’m serious,” he says. “I didn’t bring you here for that. I just think it’s a cool place to come, and I know Robert’s out of town this weekend and won’t be here. It seemed like an opportunity. We can go?” he says, looking at me with a question on his face.
“We can stay, but only because I love boats, and that’s one thing my family didn’t do often growing up.”
“Did your dad hate the lake, too?” he asks.
“Yeah, he’s not really a fan of the water. What about you? Did you grow up on boats?”
“No, but Robert has taken me out on this one a few times.”
“And he gave you a key to it?”
“Yeah. He has me come check on it from time to time. He’ll have me fill the fridge with drinks, that kind of thing. I think it’s his veiled way of making me try to relax. Sometimes I’ll sit up top and just stare out at the ocean. It’s a decent escape.”
“Definitely,” I say, nodding and looking around. I meet his gaze and he grins at me and then looks away. “What?”
“Nothing,” he says, drumming his fingers on his cup.
I pull back from him. “Seriously, what?”
He drops his posture. “I just really want to kiss you, but now I can’t ’cause you’ll think I brought you here to hook up.”
I point at him. “See, I knew you brought me here for that.”
He laughs. “I did not. I mean, if you wanted to, I wouldn’t argue, but—”
I smash a throw pillow into his face and he snags it from me. “I’m just teasing. I don’t even want to kiss you,” he says. “Gross.”
I feign shock. “Gross?”
“Yeah.” He shudders. “Girls. Yuck.”
I set my cup down in a holder and then pinch at his stomach.
“Quit it,” he says, chuckling.
I hike a leg over his lap so I’m straddling him. “Gross? Really?”
He smooths a lock of my hair over my ear. “Completely.”
I shake my head at him, and as I’m leaning in for a kiss, an alarm sounds in my brain, and I pull away and sit down beside him. “I meant to tell you I got a new job—a temporary one, but still.”
He runs a hand through his hair, letting out a hard breath. “Yeah?”
“At the business office. Something about an outreach initiative.”
“That’s cool,” he says, but his brow is furrowed. “How did that come about?”
This is the part I don’t want to answer, but I need to. “Jack got the gig for me.”
He turns toward me, his relaxed body language gone. “When did you see him?”
“He came to the pool earlier today.”
Brett turns his head away from me, looking out at the ocean through a window.
“I know you’re not a fan, but Jack’s been really helpful to me. If he’s a psycho or he’s a terrible guy who’s going to hurt me professionally, please let me know that and give me specifics. Otherwise, I could really use his help.”
He inhales a sharp breath and then releases it, taking a drink of his tea. He swallows, looking down at the cup. “Just watch your back with him, okay?”
“So to be clear, he’s not a serial killer?”
He rolls his eyes, shaking his head. “That doesn’t mean he’s not an asshole.”
“An asshole, I can deal with. But for the record, he’s been nothing but nice to me.”
“Of course he has. You’re hot.”
I let my head drop to the side. As much as my girl parts do a happy dance at this statement coming from Brett, I’m not apt to buy it a hundred percent. I lift an eyebrow. “He’s being nice. He’s not even hit on me once.”
“Just wait. It’s coming.”
“Is it so hard for you to believe that someone would just want to be helpful with no ulterior motive?”
He points at his own chest. “I thought I did help you.”
“You did, and you’ve been fantastic. But why are you pissed at him for helping me the way he knows how?”
“Because he’s trying to sleep with you.”
“He is not.”
“He is.”
“I’m sure there are plenty of girls who’d be more than happy to sleep with him. There’s nothing so special about me that he needs to go to these kinds of lengths.”
I can see by the look on Brett’s face that I’ve just screwed up epically. He turns away from me, shaking his head. “I knew it,” he says under his breath.
“I don’t know what you think you know, but I’m sure you’re wrong.”
“Go on,” he says, motioning with his cup. “Go out with him. See what all the fuss is about.”
I squeeze his leg, reminded of the fragility of the male ego, even for a guy as handsome and confident as Brett is. “I don’t want to go out with him.”
He looks at me like he’s trying to gauge my honesty.
Because of what I’ve just gone through with Joshua, putting myself out there is tough. But Brett’s vulnerability emboldens me. I may be making a stupid mistake, but there’s something trustworthy about him that makes me want to take that leap. “In case I’ve been too subtle,” I say, “I’m interested in you.”
He gives me a skeptical look. “Yeah?”
I giggle. “Yeah. I’d even like you to kiss me right now.”
He sets his cup down and then takes my hand. “What if I maybe brought you here with the intention of doing just that?”
“I’d say that sounds kind of fun.”
He leans in and our lips meet. My core lights up as his hand rests on my hip, his thumb rubbing on the tiny spot of exposed skin on my stomach. It’s unbelievable that one touch can wake me up so wholly from a nap I feel like I’ve been in for years. His hand grips my hip as our kiss becomes intense, and my body comes alive in that way that’s so exciting but terrifying at the same time. I pull away to get ahold of myself.
He smiles at me, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. “I haven’t met anyone like you in a long time. Ma
ybe ever.”
I think of him on the beach that night, leaned into that girl’s ear, whispering something to her that was probably very close to what he just said to me. “How am I different?” I ask, because I really want to know what separates me from her and all the others.
“I don’t know,” he says, looking down at his hand, which is sliding around my thigh. “You’re genuine. You seem to be your own authentic self at all times. Some girls aren’t like that. They’re on the chase. They’re all about the catch and release. I feel like I’m in a game, not a relationship. Whoever blinks first gets their heart broken.”
“I don’t play that game,” I say, my voice coming out quiet and serious.
He thinks for a moment, staring at the ground. “I’m not playing a game either, but I’m also not in a place to be in a relationship. I’ve got way too much going on in my personal life, and I can’t bring another girl into it.”
I frown. “Another girl?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t have any other girls right now. But I did have one a while back. I got distracted from what was important…my family. When the newness wore off and I put my focus back on where I was needed, she couldn’t hack it, and things ended badly. I can’t lose focus again, not while we’re trying to get through my grandmother’s illness.”
“What does your grandmother have?”
“Alzheimer’s. She can’t be left alone even for a half hour. One of us has to be with her all the time.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, rubbing his knee, taking all this in.
He clasps my hand. “I really like you, Kylie. I feel like I’m in purgatory here. I want to move things forward with you, but I can’t do that right now.”
“What can you do then?”
He considers this. “I can tell you that I’m not looking for a quick hookup and then onto the next girl. I think about you when I wake up, when I’m walking to work, when I’m in between patients, when I’m going to lunch… You’re pretty much on my mind every moment. I don’t know if that makes me sound like a stalker or what. But it’s true. I’ve never been like this before. It’s freaking me out a little.”
I giggle out of nervousness, I guess. I want to believe him, but my defense mechanisms are firmly in place thanks to the years of lies and hurt.
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