by Remy Rose
So what happened? I’m mulling over this when there’s a knock on my door—Angie, coming in with a bouquet of blue and white hydrangeas and beaming with delight.
“Someone got flowwers,” she croons in a sing-song voice.
My heart does a little backflip. Jack? Angie is watching me as I open the envelope with eager fingers.
Happy Anniversary...I will never forget that day or how I loved you.
Jesus! I recoil in disgust, hastily stuffing the card back in the envelope.
Angie peers at me anxiously from behind her red glasses. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
I wrinkle up my nose as if I smell something. “They’re from my ex-husband. And it’s our anniversary, which I had totally forgotten until now, and which he shouldn’t even be acknowledging.”
“Ohh, Madeline.” Her expression is a mixture of pity and anger. “I’m sorry. I was thinking they might be from someone else. And how rude and arrogant of Paul to think you’d want these.”
“He is completely oblivious to what I think of him. Why can’t he see that it’s over—that it doesn’t matter what he wants?”
“I don’t know. It’s maddening. What do you want me to do with the flowers?”
“Is there someone you can think of who wouldn’t actually feel like throwing up looking at them?”
Angie stifles a giggle. “I have an elderly neighbor who would love them.” She takes the flowers from me, holding them out at arms’ length in an attempt to make me laugh. It works.
I pick up my phone to send Paul an angry text and then decide against it, not wanting to open up any dialogue between us. I can only hope this fades away on its own.
I want to go home. I check my weather app for the temperature. 91 degrees. I decide that salt water therapy is just what I need, and maybe I’ll catch a glimpse of my contractor which will be equally as refreshing. I neaten up my desk, thank Angie for re-homing the flowers on my way out and head home.
His truck is in my driveway, and my eyes skim over it fondly. I think I even have a crush on his vehicle. Pathetic. I fight the urge to go running into the house and upstairs and instead slip quietly into the downstairs bathroom and take my bikini off the hook on the back of the door. It’s a coral color, with a twist bandeau top and high-cut bottom to make my legs look longer. I have a one-piece hanging up as well, but my slutty self is hoping I’ll see Jack—and that he will see me.
Changing into my bathing suit, I arrange my hair into a messy bun and grab my flip-flops from the entryway before heading down to the beach. No need for a towel; with this heat, I’ll air dry in minutes.
I love how the sea looks in the sun this time of day, like millions of diamonds bobbing on the surface of the water. Coming closer to the shoreline, I see the short stack of gray, flat rocks I built the other day. I’d made sure to place the cairn out of the tide’s reach.
I hear my name being called and turn toward the sound. It’s Kelly, down at her own little beach area with her toddlers. I step across the pewter-colored carpet of rocks, tumbled and smoothed by the ocean. They are strewn with dried seaweed and small, expired crabs and make a satisfying clack-y sound as they meet each other under my feet.
Kelly waves at me from her beach chair as I approach. She’s looking relaxed, happy, and pretty amazing in her tank top and short shorts—not at all like someone who gave birth to twins. Her daughters, Mia and Maura, are crouched on the slick gray sand with their red plastic pails and little white shovels. They are absolutely precious in their polka-dot bathing suits, life vests and sun hats, ringlets of blonde hair curling at their necks. They squint up at me briefly and then go back to the very serious business of scooping sopping sand into their pails.
“Hey, girl! The water feels great. Warmest it’s been yet. We’ve been out here all afternoon.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Is your, um, handyman working today?” Kelly lifts an eyebrow behind her sunglasses.
“As a matter of fact, he is.”
“Then I’m a little surprised you aren’t in the house.”
“I thought I’d take a quick dip first.”
“Oh, I see...maybe flaunt your awesome bod that, unlike mine, has absolutely no stretch marks or droopy boobs?”
“You do not have droopy boobs.”
“A year of breastfeeding twins says otherwise. But enough about my boobs. How are things going with your Renovation Romeo?”
“Fine,” I answer brightly.
Kelly slides her sunglasses down her nose so I can see her eyes and lowers her voice. “Fine, as in he knows his plumbing, or fine, as in he knows yours?” She looks down at her twin girls and sighs. “God, I hope they’re not going to remember this years later when they’re in therapy.”
I shake my head and laugh. “Things are fine. Period.” I crouch down beside Mia and Maura who are now picking up mussel shells and dropping them in their pails, and we find pretty rocks that I shape into an M for our shared first initial, until one of them says she needs to go potty.
“Good girl, Maura!” Kelly praises her. “So good to tell Mommy. Pick up your pails and shovels, and let’s go inside. Maybe Maddie will come, too?”
“Not this time, thank you—I’m going for a quick swim.”
“And maybe you’ll get wet later, too,” she smirks.
“Therapy. Your children. Remember?”
Kelly makes a face at me as she picks up her beach chair, and I grin as I watch her and the girls walk up toward their house.
I’ve learned that the only way to get in the Atlantic Ocean is all at once—none of this taking your time to ease into it and get used to the temperature. I brace myself with a silent ohhh shiiit as I splash in, and then am pleasantly surprised that it’s actually more refreshing than cold.
It’s only about a hundred yards from Kelly’s property to mine, so it’s an easy swim. I settle into the rhythm of a freestyle stroke: reach forward...pivot the body...pull the water...extend arm behind. I should do this more often—I love that swim strokes are smooth and purposeful. I’m a little rusty, but it feels good, and soon I’m back at my place, swimming inland and enjoying the pockets of warm water as I straighten and slosh out of the ocean, approaching the expanse of rocky ledge sprawling across my beach area. Slicking my hair away from my face, I squeeze out the excess water, shift my bikini top back in place and sink down on the flat, black picnic rock, caressed smooth by the water. It’s deliciously warm on my legs, and I lean back on my elbows, closing my eyes and sighing. For the thousandth (millionth?) time, I say a silent thank-you that I live here.
I tip my face toward the late afternoon sun, still beating down with intensity. It is so incredibly gorgeous out here, I’ve been able to ignore the incredibly gorgeous image of Jackson Decker, who should soon be finishing up for the day. Have hardly thought about him at all.
Total. Lies.
And I’m feeling like a needy little high school girl, wanting to go see him but having this (ridiculous) need for him to come to me first.
“Playing hard to get?”
I startle, my eyes flashing open at the sound of his voice. My wish—one of them, at least—has come true: Jack Decker, in the flesh—standing in front of me on the black ledge in a surprisingly spotless white t-shirt and faded jeans. He’s wearing aviator sunglasses, smirking at me like he knows what I’ve been thinking.
I decide to go the coy route, because it’s what a woman does when she wants a man but doesn’t want the man to know, even though he does. “What are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You didn’t come upstairs.”
“I didn’t want to...bother you.”
He snorts. “Bother me, Callaway? I think you know better.”
“Well...” I climb to my feet, hoping I don’t look as awkward as I feel, and fold my arms across my chest. “I just didn’t know if I should go running up there every time. Like maybe you need space.”
“If I needed space, I
’d tell you. Nice bikini, by the way.”
“Thanks. You’re looking good yourself. And very tanned.”
“I’ve been getting a lot of sun shingling a roof at my other job.”
I don’t like the idea of him working up high. “You do roofs? Are you careful?”
He chuckles. I can’t see his eyes, but I can imagine they are crinkling behind his aviators. “Are you worried about me?”
I’m hoping I can pass off the blush in my cheeks as a reaction to the steaming hot day. I know he doesn’t want emotions to snarl our otherwise smooth alliance. “I wouldn’t want you to get hurt and not to be able to finish here,” I answer lightly.
“So it’s purely about my value to you as a handyman.”
“Yes.”
“I see. And yes, Callaway. I’m always careful.” He flashes his teeth at me. “What a view out here. It’s really quite spectacular.”
“Thank you.”
“And the setting isn’t bad, either.” He is smiling and smiling at me, and did someone just turn up the sun, because oh my God.
I am trying to figure out something clever to say back when he tilts his head and points over my shoulder. “Did you make that?”
I turn to see what he’s referring to and then realize it’s the cairn.
“Yes.”
“Very cool. I used to hike quite a bit, and I’d see them sometimes. I like the whole making art from nature thing.”
“It’s called a cairn.”
“It has a name? I always called it a rock stack.”
I smile. “Yes, it has a name. C-a-i-r-n.”
“Oh. Didn’t know that.”
“They’re quite interesting. You should research them.” Immediately, I’m reminded of the Google search I did this afternoon. On him. I do plan to tell him what I found out, but not right now. Because selfishly, I want him to kiss me, and I don’t think kissing is quite conducive to hearing that your client (who isn’t even supposed to be in a relationship with you) went digging for information about your past.
On second thought, maybe I won’t mention it.
Jack takes off his sunglasses, holding me captive in his gaze as he walks closer. The sea breeze flirts with his hair. He is rock, sun, wind and water: hard, hot, restless...and slipping through my fingers. I have this ludicrous, overwhelming urge to fling my arms around him and beg him to stay. For the night, the week…
For forever.
He’s towering over me, the sun behind him, bathing him in a golden, fiery glow. “You wanted to come see me, didn’t you, Madeline?”
Do I respond with a flippant remark? Deny it?
I make the choice of clear honesty. “I always want to see you, Jack.” There’s an unexpected change in his eyes that makes me catch my breath. “I just thought maybe I should keep my distance. I don’t want you to feel like you have to see me every time.”
“What if I want to?”
I feel like an uncorked bottle of champagne about to be popped, because this is not feeling like an alliance anymore. It’s feeling like I’m a girl, and he’s a boy, and we really, really like each other and might even hold hands in the hall on the way to gym class.
“I was watching you, you know.” Jack’s arms drape around my waist, and he leans back a little to lower himself so that his pelvis is more in alignment with mine. I can feel him through his jeans. My bikini bottom is damp, and it’s not just from the Atlantic.
I look into the small pools of ocean that are his eyes. “Watching me? When?”
“When you were swimming. You looked good, smooth. Nice strokes.” He shifts against me in a maneuver dangerously close to a grind.
Strokes. Jesus. “I swam in high school my sophomore and junior year,” I murmur. “I took third in the regional competition.”
Jack slides one warm, big hand up my wet back and grips my hair. “But not your senior year?” He begins to lower his mouth toward mine.
“Didn’t like the coach,” I whisper weakly. “He was too hard on me.”
“Sometimes, hard can be a good thing. Right, Callaway?” Jackson Decker lifts me with ease, holding me against a prime example of how hard can be good. My feet are dangling helplessly a foot off the rock, and all I want to do is for him to unzip his jeans and violate me right here on the beach in front of the seagulls.
I open my mouth to take his delicious tongue, a soft groan deep in my throat. He kisses me like he is thirst and I am water. Even though I can hardly catch my breath and I might possibly die, I don’t want him to stop. But he does, briefly, to tell me something.
“Madeline...you don’t need to worry about giving me space. Not now, not while I’m working for you. As long as I’m here, consider me yours.”
My eyes begin to sting, possibly from the bright sunlight. I blink rapidly, not wanting to make him regret what he just said. “I like that,” I manage, smiling.
His ocean eyes are deep, soft and earnest. “Me too.”
Chapter 21 ~ Jack
August 5
So Callaway must have listened to me yesterday when I said she didn’t need to give me space, because I hear her coming up the stairs. It’s a nice surprise, because it’s around noon. I get this funny little feeling in my gut, listening to her footsteps—like the flutter you get Christmas morning as a kid when you wake up and you know it’s going to be amazing, and you can’t wait to unwrap your presents.
It’s the same with her—I can’t wait to see her. And unwrap her.
Last night we made out down by the water like a couple of horny teenagers. I couldn’t keep my hands off her and started to unfasten her bikini top, but she stopped me, blushing and laughing and pointing out the kayaker gliding by who would get an eyeful if I kept going. It was probably just as well, though—I had to leave (reluctantly) for a softball game. She acted like she was totally fine with that, but I could tell she wasn’t, because she does this thing with her shoulders and her chin when she’s disappointed and trying to hide it. She pushes her shoulders back a little bit when she exhales, and she lifts her chin just the slightest bit. It’s really subtle, but I’ve noticed, and I have to kind of clench myself inside so it doesn’t get to me. I told her I’d make it up to her and we’d have a night very soon.
I’m sponging mortar off the tiles on the shower wall when she walks in the bathroom, looking smoking hot in a sleeveless pink dress and heels with her hair up, a few pieces curling around her face. She’s got a glass of lemonade in her hand and a small plate with cookies.
“You’re spoiling me again, Callaway.”
Her eyebrow lifts. She has this teasing look on her face. “So you don’t want the cookies?”
“Hell, yes, I want the cookies. Not sure I deserve this kind of treatment. But I appreciate it.”
“After how you’ve, um, helped me? Oh, you deserve it, Decker. Believe me.” She’s laughing now, and so am I. It feels good, easy, flirting with her like this.
I help myself to a cookie. It’s awesome—chocolate and peanut butter no-bake. “How did you know this was my favorite kind?”
“It wasn’t hard to guess...kids love no-bakes.” She winks as she hands me the lemonade.
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Maybe.”
“I might have to take you over my knee for that,” I warn.
“That wouldn’t exactly be a punishment.” Her eyes glaze over as she looks at me. My balls tighten. Fuck, she turns me on. Got to watch myself, or I’ll be taking out a very special kind of tool.
“I’m giving you triple points for that one.” I smile at her, and she blushes like crazy. “You home for the day?”
“Just for lunch.”
“Nice. It’s good to be the boss, isn’t it?”
Madeline nods, leaning against the door frame and folding her arms.
I want to kiss her.
“Jack...I’ve got to admit something.”
“You’re an impostor. This isn’t your house. You really can’t cook. The cookies ar
e store-bought.”
She giggles, shaking her head. “Seriously, I need to tell you what I did.”
I set the glass of lemonade on the vanity top and pick up my trowel to start on the next section of tile. “All right. Tell me.”
“I...um...Googled you.”
Okay, so this comes as somewhat of a surprise. “Did you find out what you were looking for?”
“I don’t even know what I was looking for. I was just…looking.” She’s flustered. “I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have done it, but my curiosity got the best of me, and I just wanted—”
“Relax, Callaway. I’m not mad.”
“You’re not?” Relief smooths out the tension in her face.
“Nope. I’m kind of flattered, actually, that you wanted to know more about me.”
“I do.”
“Did you find answers? Or did they lead to more questions?”
“Both, I guess. I found out that New England Home Supply is your family’s company, but you left.”
“Correct.”
“Which does lead to a question...why?”
I dip my trowel in the bucket of Thinset and smear the mortar on the wall, my motions as smooth as my words. I don’t really want to go into gory detail about all of it, but maybe if she hears about my past, she’ll understand how this has shaped my present.
So I tell her, and the words spill out like paint from a can. It’s like telling Ed was a rehearsal for this. “New England Home Supply started out as my father’s little hardware store in Scarborough with squeaky hardwood floors and plywood shelves. He sold nails and screws by the pound and wire by the foot. He did so well he opened up a second store in Yarmouth, and then it just took off from there. He bought out a couple competitors, went state-wide and then expanded into New England. I think they’re up to twenty locations now...I’ve lost track. And interest, honestly.”
I bend over to pick up another tile, back-butter it with my trowel and press it into the fresh mortar. “I worked for my father from the time I was thirteen sweeping up in the old store and stocking shelves. After I graduated from Bowdoin, Dad named me vice-president of sales.”