Bachelors In Love

by Jestine Spooner

  Eli nodded, timed it, and took the ride of a pretty decent wave back to shore. Mari followed suit and Jay couldn’t help but grunt at the fearless way she dove into the wave she chose. She wasn’t the most skilled or the most graceful surfer there ever was. But she absolutely shredded. She sliced into the water like she was conquering it. Sometimes it won, but most of the time, Mari won.

  He’d seen her surf a few times in Maryland. Smaller swells and more wetsuits. It was really something to watch her surf out here on these turquoise behemoths, her skin glistening and tossing the sun right back at itself.

  “Since when did you become such a possessive bastard?” Marcus asked Jay.

  Jay just grunted, eyeing the beach rat who’d made Mari laugh. “I don’t know. I’m losing my mind. I’m gonna tell her how I feel tonight. Just lay it all out on the line. I cant’t take this anymore.”

  Marcus cleared his throat. “I dunno, man. I think you should wait.”

  Jay turned and glared at him. “What do you mean, wait?”

  Marcus didn’t say anything.

  “Seriously,” Jay plunged on. “You’re the one who told me to get a move on just the other day. That every minute I waited was another minute she was gonna get sucked on by the douche in a suit.”

  Marcus grinned a little on the side of his mouth that Jay couldn’t see. He had said that. And sometimes he was kind of an asshole. “I’m just saying. He’s not even here. You don’t have to worry about Linc right now. Just chill.”

  Jay narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Do you know something?”

  Marcus looked behind him, saw a good set coming and ignored the question, paddling like hell to catch the wave.

  It wasn’t long before the three of them were standing on the beach in the hot sun, watching Jay surf his way back to shore.

  “Jesus,” Mari murmured in wonder. She’d seen Jay surf before. But never a wave that big and never watching from shore.

  “I know,” Eli chuckled, watching his friend do the thing that he did best. “He’s ruthless.”

  “No,” Mari shook her head. “It’s not ruthless, it’s… effortless.”

  Marcus agreed. “Like he was born to do it.”

  Mari nodded again. “He barely looks human.”

  She watched as he raced the pipe of a humongous wave, the aqua shadows rippling over him as he came bulleting out and into the sun, beating nature all the way back to the shadows. She expected him to whoop or smile or celebrate the amazing run the way almost every surfer might.

  But not Jay. He just kept the peaceful expression on his face. The gratitude and acceptance of what he’d just been given.

  They waited for him on the beach as he jogged through the knee deep water, shook his head like a dog. He couldn’t help but grin at the three people staring at him. His two best friends and the woman he loved best in all the world. Any frustration and anger that had been coursing through him melted away in the course of that run.

  He’d always been able to lose himself in surfing. The concentration-zone out balance that it required. The full body perfection-full body surrender that it required. It was a Zen zone that didn’t have room for your petty shit. Nobody brought their problems to a wave. The wave crushed you if you did.

  Jay’s heart pounded as he jogged after them up the beach. He felt energized and relaxed all at once. He watched Mari’s ass in her bathing suit. The graceful swell of her hips up to her teeny tiny bathing suit. She had the most beautiful back.

  He was grateful to be there with her. That’s all he was going to concentrate on. Not on the pain of being arm’s length from her. He was going to relish the opportunity to be in her sphere. In her orbit.

  And that’s how they found themselves, at lunch in a small beach shack, laughing their asses off.

  Jay couldn’t remember ever seeing her so relaxed. She leaned all the way back in her chair, sipping on a corona and chasing every sip with a suck of a lime she held in her hand. Jay wanted to lean over and suck the lime right off her lips. But for the first time since she’d been back in his life, he didn’t let the reality that he couldn’t do just that bother him at all. He got to sit here next to her and listen to her laugh.

  He got to split half his lunch with her too. He got to laugh when she’d polished off her food and then opened the menu again, unabashedly ordering another sandwich.

  “Where the hell are you putting this food, half pint?” Eli asked in astonishment.

  Mari shrugged. “I surf, I eat.”

  “Fair enough,” Eli murmured but he was already lost to the conversation, grinning at his phone and whatever text he’d just received.

  “So you like, really love Tia, huh?” Mari asked with her mouth full of sandwich.

  “What’s that?” Eli asked, typing for a second before he drew his eyes back up to Mari.

  Jay tipped his chair towards Mari, curious at the line of her questions, and he draped an arm over the back of her chair. Not touching her. But he could still feel the heat off her skin.

  Mari swallowed her bite. “You and your girl. It’s the real deal?”

  Eli grinned. “Realest dealest.”

  Marcus rolled his eyes. “He stole her from me.”

  “Really?” Mari looked back and forth between the two of them.

  “That is an incendiary way of presenting that information,” Jay cut in, for the sake of Eli’s blood pressure, who hated when Marcus said shit like that.

  Eli elbowed Marcus away from the fries his friend had been reaching for and took no small pleasure in the wince of pain it caused them both. That’ll teach him. “Marcus had a big crush on her in high school. But she had a crush on me.”

  Mari eyed the proud set of Eli’s shoulders, the friendly smile, the faraway look in his eyes. Yeah. She wouldn’t mind having somebody talk about her that way. “And who did you have a crush on?”

  Eli blinked. “Nobody really. My mom had just died. It took a while for my heart to kind of…”

  “Restart,” Mari supplied, understanding the feeling 100 percent. “I’ve been there. I lost both my parents when I was 18.” She slid her hand over top of Eli’s and Eli flipped his so that they were palm to palm. He gave her a good hard squeeze before she slid back to her sandwich and took another bite.

  Eli nodded. “Yeah. I guess I had to restart it. But I went on to college, played football, went to the NFL, played more football. Had a lot of, uh, company.”

  Mari smirked. She didn’t know much about sports, other than surfing, but she did know that Eli had had quite the reputation as a player for a long time.

  “And then I got hit by a car.”

  Mari paused with her sandwich halfway to her mouth. “That’s the scar on your stomach?” Mari asked, hoping she wasn’t being too nosy. But it was hard to miss. Especially when he’d been shirtless all afternoon.

  “Yeah. Emergency surgery. I almost died,” Eli continued.

  Mari felt the tension radiate off of Jay and Marcus. She could tell that reliving those moments was hard on them. They really were quite the family unit.

  “Tia was my surgeon,” Eli finished.

  “You’re kidding.” Mari swallowed the bite in her mouth, realized she was full, and absently handed the rest of her sandwich to Jay. She didn’t notice or pay attention to the familiarity of the moment, but both Marcus and Eli did.

  “Yeah. It didn’t take long for me to realize how lucky I was. Not just to have had her as my trauma surgeon—she’s incredibly talented—but also to have had a second chance at having her in my life.”

  “You two engaged?” Mari asked, taking another sip of her corona, grimacing at how warm it’d gotten, and reaching over for Jay’s iced tea instead. This time, all three men noted the intimacy of the gesture.

  Eli shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “Wait,” Jay said and Mari turned to look at him. She hadn’t realized quite how close he was sitting to her. She didn’t say anything or pull away. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
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  “I mean that I asked and she said yes. But we haven’t set a date or anything.”

  “What the fuck?” Marcus and Jay spoke in unison.

  Mari eyed the men, wondering what the hell she’d just stepped in. Marcus and Jay were glaring at Eli.

  “Explain,” Marcus demanded, jabbing a finger at Eli.

  A smile came over Eli’s face. Happy, hopeful, a little shit-eating. “After the Superbowl. Once we finally got home. Once we finally… went to bed. I asked. She said yes. I put the ring on her finger. Bam.”

  Marcus and Jay stared at one another. And then back at Eli. They moved at the same moment, both of them coming around the table to shove Eli around, grab him up into bear hugs.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Marcus exclaimed.

  “About fucking time!” Jay kissed Eli, full on, on the cheek.

  Mari put her hands over her mouth, watching the three men grin and laugh and play with each other.

  Jay came around the table, couldn’t help but hug Mari too, kiss her on the top of her head. She rose, went over to Eli and hugged him around the neck. “Congratulations.”

  Mari furrowed her brow and sat down. “Wait, you just got engaged to the love of your life and then you go on vacation with these two bozos?”

  Eli grinned and shrugged. “She can’t take off time from work on a moment’s notice.”

  Mari’s eyes shot to Jay’s on the phrase a moment’s notice, but neither of them said anything more.

  “I think we need to celebrate your engagement,” Mari said finally.

  “Oh yeah? How?”

  “First of all, you and I are gonna go somewhere and pick out something very nice and very expensive for Tia, since you went on vacation without her,” Mari gave him a stern look. Eli grinned and nodded. “And then we’re gonna get all dolled up and go have a fancy drink someplace. We’ll toast to her, video it, and send it to her.”

  Jay felt his chest practically swelling with the good feelings he allowed to grow within him. It felt good to not let the worry and frustration take up too much real estate. Something about the surfing, the vacation, the distance from Linc, it was allowing Jay to not get bogged down in the bad stuff.

  His feeling grew as the four of them left the restaurant. It grew as he watched Eli and Mari peel off to head to the shops to pick something out for Tia. The feeling grew as he realized that Mari was becoming friends, real friends, with the two people Jay loved the most in the world, besides her.

  His feeling grew when Eli showed back up to the hotel with a grin on his face and his arms full of packages.

  “Your girl sure knows how to work a credit card,” Eli grumbled, but the grin on his face offset his grumpy words. It was obvious he’d had a good time shopping with Mari.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  They’d decided to have their fancy drinks in the rooftop bar at the hotel. It was swanky enough, wasn’t too crowded, and boasted a killer view of the coast line.

  After a round of naps and showers all around, the boys lounged on the balcony of their suite. They’d each changed into khakis and button-ups, dressing up just the way Mari had asked them to. When she knocked on the door of their hotel room, it was Marcus who sprang up to get it.

  Jay wasn’t ready for the moment Mari stepped out onto the balcony. She wore red. And it was all that Jay could see for a minute. The only color in the world was red. He’d gone blind to everything else. It took a few more seconds for him to realize that the dress she wore was made of lace. It was high across her neck and was angular and trim. The dress hugged her body and complemented her graceful lines.

  Jay damn near swallowed his tongue.

  “You guys look handsome,” Mari said lightly, kissing Eli on the cheek and hesitating only slightly before she did the same to Jay.

  “You look—” Eli started.

  “Perfecto,” Jay cut him off.

  He could have sworn that Mari blushed, just a little. But he couldn’t be certain. Rising, Jay swallowed hard. He bit back everything inside him that told him to reach for her. Take her.

  He was in a daze as they made their way up to the restaurant, his eyes glued to her tumbling black hair. To the red of her dress, the line of her golden legs that peeked out.

  “Dude,” Marcus grabbed the back of Jay’s shirt as they filed off the elevator, holding him back for a second. “Breathe.” Marcus clapped him on the back.

  Jay nodded and followed all of them out to the bar. But the night didn’t ease for him. If anything it merely blurred. Mari laughing and toasting. Mari bringing a drink to her lips. Mari leaning one elbow onto the bar to ask the bartender for another napkin. Mari responding to something a smarmy stranger leaned over his bar stool to say to her.

  Mari placing her hand in Marcus’s, letting him lead her out onto the dance floor.

  Wait…

  Hell no.

  Jay snapped himself out of the Mari-induced haze he was currently drowning in. Hell no. Absolutely not. There was no way on this earth he was going to stand by and let Marcus seduce her on the dance floor.

  He strode across the dim dance floor, the tea lights lighting up the lines on his face, and shouldered Marcus aside. He missed the grin that Marcus shot at the back of his head. But he didn’t miss the eyebrow that Mari raised.

  “You really don’t want me to sample the goods, huh? I thought I was finally gonna get to see what all the fuss was about with Marcus’s dance moves.”

  Jay frowned down at her as he pressed his hand to the small of her back, brought her in close. “I don’t care if you’re engaged, I’m serious, Marcus makes women fall to his feet on the dance floor.”

  Mari rolled her eyes and laughed. “Someday I’ll get to see the master at work.”

  Jay, not too shabby on the dance floor himself, didn’t let her think too hard on it, he swept her along, the music slow and dreamy.

  Neither of them thought of it as a mistake. Not even when her head went to his shoulder. Jay kept a requisite inch between their bodies and it almost killed him.

  All of it almost killed him. Her scent, her heat. He thought of the way she’d sliced a wave in half earlier today and he had to keep his hand from fisting in the fabric of her dress.

  The evening drew out, got longer and blurrier. Neither Mari or Jay had had more to drink than the one glass of champagne. But still, each moment bled into the next. There was a hyper awareness between the two of them that made time move strangely in some places, sluggish and soupy, and ultra fast in others.

  Before they knew it, the celebratory evening had come to a close and they were heading back down to the boys’ suite, all tired from their day on the ocean.

  “I think you should sleep here, doll,” Eli said as he let them all into the big living room area that connected all three of their bedrooms. “I don’t want you to have to trek back to that lonely AirBnB all alone. And I’m way too tired to take you.”

  “That’s okay,” Mari yawned. “I’ll grab a cab.”

  “Nah,” Marcus said, deceptively nonchalant. “Stay here.”

  “I’ll take the couch,” Jay agreed, flopping down onto it and stretching his long body out like a jungle cat. “You can stay in my room.”

  It wasn’t the exact way he’d been hoping to get Mari into his bed, but he supposed it would do.

  Mari’s phone beeped and she frowned as she slid it out of her little purse. “Who the hell is calling me right now?” she muttered.

  Jay did the quick time difference calculation between Hawaii and London, realizing it was a perfectly acceptable time for her fiancé to be calling her. “Probably Linc,” he muttered, closing his eyes and ignoring the chalky feel of the words in his mouth.

  Mari frowned at the phone, typing something in. “No, it’s my boss. He’s always texting me about work at the weirdest times.” Mari’s eyes flicked toward Marcus’s for half a second and that’s all the warning she gave. “Besides, Linc isn’t the type to text this soon after a break-up.”
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br />   She felt the room go still even though she kept her eyes on her phone, stubbornly finishing her text back to her boss.

  “What did you just say?” Jay’s voice was quiet and deep. It wasn’t a question.

  “I said Linc and I broke up.” She still kept her eyes on the phone.

  “Hey Marcus, want to get another drink?” Eli’s voice rang out, a little too loud.

  “Ah. Yeah. Like yesterday.” The two big men hustled out of the hotel room, the door clicking shut behind them. And then, and only then, did Mari, standing in the middle of the living room, allow her eyes to drift up to Jay’s. He was still laying on the couch, his posture deceptively casual as his eyes burned into hers.

  She stayed where she was, didn’t move an inch, as Jay unfolded himself from the couch, came to stand with the intensity of a shark.

  “You. And Linc. Broke up.” Each word was punctuated with a predatory step towards her.

  Mari nodded, her chin coming up, she felt that old steel line her spine as she stared him in the face. “Yeah.”

  “And you didn’t tell me.”

  “I’m telling you now.” She spoke to him as if it were obvious.

  He was standing in front of her, dismissing those words as if they were nothing. “This whole time we’ve been in Hawaii? When you came to my house last week?”

  She paused for a second, but held his eyes, nodding gravely.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because,” she said with eyes as bright as a firefly. “I knew you were gonna,” she waved one hand toward his stance, “pounce.”

  A feral smile raced across Jay’s face only to be extinguished a second later. “Mari, when have I ever pounced on you?”

  “Well,” she stroked a hand through her hair, shoving it back off her shoulders. “You don’t exactly pounce, you, you… you lure me in. So that I pounce.”

  His eyes searched hers, his heart racing. He stood a mere two feet in front of her, not close enough to feel the heat of her.

  “And you don’t want to sleep with me?” he asked quietly, trying to get any sort of read on her. All he knew was that she was practically vibrating with energy. Nerves and whatever else had her breaths ragged and her color high and bright on her cheeks.