by L. L. Akers
Grayson stood up in a rush, nearly knocking the chair over. He looked around the little room and hoped she wasn’t coming to try to wrangle him out to the beach to join them. He wouldn’t go.
He hurriedly made up the bed, taking time to fluff the pillows and set the shams back the way they were when he’d arrived. He neatened up the rest of the room.
A small mirror hung on the wall. He rushed over to check his teeth for food. He wished the crofter had a bathroom where he could brush, but no dice. He scrubbed his finger across them, and ran his hands through his hair.
No difference.
He shook his head at himself. What the hell am I doing? I don’t care what she thinks of me.
He stepped away from the door, and stood awkwardly waiting to hear her and Ozzie’s footsteps on the stairs. They should be nearly here by now...he wondered if she’d look in before she knocked. He looked down at himself.
I look like Lurch standing here. He shoved his hands into his pocket and leaned from foot to foot. Maybe I should sit down at the desk? Look natural?
Too late. She might see me scrambling...
When another long moment passed, he risked a peek out the window overlooking the house, just in time to see Olivia set a bag on the golf cart seat, reach into it and pull out a tank-top shirt and shorts, slip them on over her bikini, and slide her long legs into the cart.
Mmmm.
Those legs.
Those shorts.
His blood rushed as he watched her take off.
Ozzie must be in the house.
He let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. Damn.
Well, she wasn’t coming to get him. So, where was she going all alone, and looking like that?
19
Grayson tossed his tablet into a messenger bag, hung it over his shoulder, and slid into his flip-flops. He hurried out the door clutching his map of Bald Head Island. At the bottom of the steps, he stopped to give it a look.
It wasn’t too far to the marina/ferry landing, where there were a few restaurants, shops, and he hoped, Wi-Fi. And maybe he’d run into Olivia.
But I’m not trying to run into her, he thought.
He legitimately needed to get online. She had taken her laptop, so she must know there was Wi-Fi somewhere. So they both needed to get online...there was no crime in going at the same time as her. Probably wouldn’t even see her.
He wandered into the tiny garage area under the beach house and scowled at the ridiculous selection of bikes leaned against the wall.
Beach bikes. Cruisers. Banana seats and baskets. Are you kidding me? I’m going to look like a fucking fool.
It wasn’t that far...but too far to walk.
He considered going back up to the crofter for a nap, but dammit, he really wanted to get online.
He grudgingly chose the least-feminine bike from the bunch and threw his leg over. What he wouldn’t give to have his Harley here now.
As he was rolling out onto the small one-lane road, wobbling and shaking, trying to find his balance, he noticed a horn attached to the handlebars.
A horn. Really?
He pulled over, unscrewed it and tossed it as far as he could into the yard of the beach house. He’d pick it up and reattach later. There was no way he was being caught on a bicycle that had a banana seat, a basket and a silly horn with a red-bulbous nose attached.
***
Olivia took a swipe at her ice cream cone. Double-chocolate. Mmmm.
She chose a table outside Maritime Market & Ice Cream Shoppe, a crowded square surrounded by little island shops. She pulled out her MacBook with one hand, turned it on looked around while she waited for it to power up. She was the only person there alone. Every table was filled with couples, or families, or groups of kids. She felt like she stuck out like a sore thumb.
She sighed. She was tired of always being solo. It had only recently started to bother her—about the time she noticed her interest in FindHerKeepHer. Now it seemed like everywhere she went, she was the only single person there. People probably thought she was weird.
She wished she’d brought Rickey with her. It was even weirder being all grown up and alone while licking an ice cream cone.
The people here were all having a good time. It was a loud bunch. Especially the boys a few tables over. Teenagers...maybe even early-college. If she hadn’t seen the cones in their hands, she’d have thought they were drinking. Their raucous laughs and yelling sure made them seem drunk.
The brochure at the house said Wi-Fi was readily available and free here, and she couldn’t wait another hour. She’d left the beach feeling sneaky because she didn’t want to tell Gabby and Emma that she felt almost panicked and needed to try to reach FindHerKeepHer.
She also hoped Ember might log on. She needed to check on her, too.
After they’d unpacked last night, she and the ladies had ridden here on the golf cart, all armed with their electronic devices to update their social media with statuses and gorgeous pictures of the house and beach—except her—her only goal was to reach FindHerKeepHer and have a few minutes to chat.
But he hadn’t come online at all. It was the first night in months that they hadn’t chatted. Where was he? The first day she’s out of town on a trip and suddenly he’s not there anymore? It gave her a sinking feeling. What if he was done chatting with her—maybe had just been waiting for the perfect time to cut her loose?
Or maybe he’s just busy, Chicken Little? He did say he had his hands full on a new project—or something, she told herself.
Her Mac connected and she logged on to their normal place, but again, he wasn’t there.
She typed a message anyway, hoping to prompt him online with a chime.
“Are you there?”
She worked on her ice cream some more while she worried and waited, twirling it around to catch all the drips before they dropped.
Maybe he’d been wanting to cut her loose for a long time? She tried to remember who started their chats each night. Was it more her? She couldn’t recall. It was just a given that they’d end up talking at some point during the day, sometimes several times. But now, she couldn’t remember who started the conversations.
Maybe he has broken up with me? Maybe he’s glad I’m finally out of town, so he could break it off quick?
Stop, she told herself silently. He was never your boyfriend... stop making this into something it’s not.
But it did sting. It hurt her pride.
She wasn’t in a hurry. She’d just hang out for an hour or so and see if he came on. She killed some time by checking her normal groups—the groups she’d met him in—and offering a bit of encouraging words to fellow survivors, and victims.
A private message popped up.
She quickly clicked it open and was disappointed it wasn’t FindHerKeepHer, but happy to see it was Ember.
Good, maybe she’ll come get her dog, Olivia thought.
But Ember didn’t mention coming to get Ozzie. The message said, “Stay away from us girls! You were right. He pushed me back out on the streets. I left. He brought me back and tried to lock me up! Something much worse going on if it’s for realz. He’s crazy. I got away. I’m hiding. Please keep Ozzie safe for me. I’ll get a phone and call you. I’m dropping out of the groups for a while. Thank you for your kindness to me and my dog.”
Olivia’s eyes widened. Locked up? Surely not for prostitution? That was his bread and butter. He’d never willingly turn in one of his girls. But what could ‘something worse’ be?
She quickly tapped out a response. “Ember, are you safe? Where are you? What do you mean he tried to lock you up? Have you been arrested?”
She waited for a reply. Something worse is going on? What could be worse than be forced to sell your body out on the street for money?
A shiver ran down Olivia’s back. There was worse...
She’d overheard Dusty talking to Emma about a sting operation for human sex-trafficking. Surely, Ember’s manag
er wasn’t involved in that?
No way to know. But at least Ember was away from him, regardless of what he was involved in. She said she’d gotten away again. But maybe it was time to talk to Dusty. She didn’t want to bother him now, before the wedding. But if it was sex-trafficking...that was a few steps below prostitution. Those women and children were nothing more than slaves. Usually against their will. If this was happening right under their noses...in their town, Dusty needed to know about it.
No. She couldn’t do it. If she was wrong, Ember would never forgive her. And she’d lose her reputation out on the street with all the girls. They’d never trust her again.
Ember and the other girls were terrified of the police. They preferred to handle things on their own, or have their managers handle them.
But this was too big for them—too risky. Human trafficking was becoming a huge problem in the United States and most people weren’t even aware it was happening all around them; in their own towns and cities, big or small. Backpage.com and Craigslist ran their ads to sell them right out in the open, but they were a slippery bunch and hard to pin down.
FindHerKeepHer might give her advice. He was good for that. If he agreed that it may bring more trouble for Ember and the other girls to talk to the police, she’d just have to redouble her efforts to get them off the streets—before they became lost to those bastards.
She logged out of the group, but was so deep in thought, staring at her icon and hoping to see FindHerKeepHer’s flash on below it, that she hadn’t noticed the young man who slid in beside her until now.
He couldn’t have been a day over eighteen, with sun-tipped surfer hair and a rock-hard body. Wearing only a pair of swim trunks, his shoulders were red, and she could see thin white horizontal lines across his toned stomach, where it must’ve creased while he was baking in the sun.
His head tilted back and forth as he looked at her through dark glasses. When she blinked several times, waiting for him to speak, he removed them.
He’d obviously been drinking. The whites of his eyes were red, magnified by a layer of glossy wetness. He reeked of beer. Someone must have bought it for him and his friends: there was no way they were old enough to buy it themselves. She wondered where their parents were.
He opened his mouth to speak and instead rudely burped. The other boys at his table laughed loudly.
“Redneck mating call!” One of the other boys yelled out from their table.
Olivia raised her eyebrows and kept a straight face, hoping to show him her disapproval. “What can I do for you?” She tried not to breathe in the smell of his sweat mixed with too much beer.
The boy seemed at a loss for words. He cracked up laughing. The laugh of the too-drunken.
One of the other boys yelled again, “Tell the MILF you’ve got some vanilla to go with her chocolate!”
“Tell her you like the way her tongue moves!” another yelled out.
They all laughed loudly.
Olivia’s face burned. She knew what a MILF was, and although she was realistically old enough to be a mom...she wasn’t. Either way, she didn’t consider it a compliment. She quickly bagged up her laptop, still using only one hand, and struggling a bit, stood to leave.
The boy grabbed the edge of her shirt. “Wait! Don’t go. I hadn’t even got started yet.”
Olivia was so startled she dropped her cone, and gasped as it landed on the front of her tank top.
All the boys laughed again. This time at her.
She stood, flustered for a moment—a moment that seemed to last an eternity—and was shocked when the fresh-faced kid reached up and rubbed her stomach in a slow, suggestive way, pushing the cold ice cream even closer to her skin and making her flinch in fear, and in revulsion. It had been many, many years since a male—of any age—had touched her so intimately.
“I can help with that,” he mumbled through his laughter as he swiped at the brown mess.
“Get your hands off me!” Olivia slapped his hand away and shoved him, then gasped and held her hands out, as though in surrender.
Omigod. Did I just shove a kid?
She was mortified. About the whole thing. He’s not a kid, Olivia, he’s a grown man-child, she thought. He needs to learn to keep his hands to himself.
Maybe not, though. Nowadays, all kids looked older than they actually were. What if he was only sixteen or even younger?
Her heart raced and she could feel the heaviness of the silence all around her. Disapproval. She was afraid to look around—afraid that every eye was on her. What if someone called her out on it? What if he was under eighteen and she was charged with assault?
Gabby and Emma will freak out! And right before Emma’s wedding, too...
She hurried off, trying not to look at anyone. Before she’d made it away from the tables, her embarrassment was complete.
She came face to face with Grayson, who was still standing, having unpacked his messenger-bag and set up a tablet and external mini-keyboard. She saw he had a fresh drink and looked as though he was about to sit down.
But he was frozen in place, apparently after watching the impromptu show she’d been an unwilling participant of.
Olivia fumed. He could have stepped in to help. What an ass. She could feel the tears spring to her eyes at her shame and humiliation. She blew out a frustrated breath and walked away, her shoulders dropping as she slipped into the golf cart and drove off.
20
Grayson ground his teeth together as he watched her leave. It had all happened so fast, he hadn’t had time to do a thing. Just as he’d stood up to go jerk a knot in the kid, Olivia had dropped her ice cream, the boy had tried to wipe it off, and she’d slapped his hand away and shoved him. Good for her. But he was still fuming.
He wished he’d stood up faster.
He had heard the boys’ laughter and joking when he’d arrived, but he’d been so tired from pedaling that damn bike, all he’d wanted to focus on was getting a cold drink and sitting down; and getting online for a while.
By the time he’d looked up and saw it that it was directed at Olivia, and that she was being harassed by those yahoos, it was over. Too late for him to react.
Or maybe not.
He sucked in a huge breath, trying to calm himself. He shoved his stuff back in his bag, zipped it and swung it over his shoulder.
He picked up his drink. He took in another deep breath, let it out slowly, and chugged the Coke. He killed it and then slammed the cup back onto the table.
In only a moment he was at their table, standing over the kid’s shoulder, watching him get high-fives from his buddies.
“She was hawt, dude! I think she liked it. You need to run her down and rub on her some more.”
“Yeah, she liked it,” the kid answered. “Her nipples were so hard they could ‘a cut glass!” He reached across the table to fist bump another buddy, when Grayson stepped out from behind him and jerked his arm up into the air.
The boy turned, coming face to face with Grayson, his eyes blazing. “She liked it, huh? Is that what you think? What gave you that clue? Her slapping your hand away, or her leaving here nearly in tears?”
“Dude!” the boy exclaimed, “She liked it. She was just acting like a cunt, trying to save face. She wanted me.”
Grayson lost control. He cuffed the kid upside the head, as if he were a cub. “I’m going to assume by ‘cunt,’ you mean she was warm and fuzzy... to think anything else would require my knuckles against your nose, which would be much more embarrassing than the bitch-slap I just gave you. You need to learn to respect women, boy.”
The boy rubbed the side of his head in disbelief. “Shit! Dude. You can’t fucking hit me like that.”
“The hell I can’t. Consider it a lesson in manners. First, she’s out of your league. Second, if you’re hoping to score, act like gentlemen. Trust me, it’ll get you a lot further in life with the ladies. There’s a reason why you’re all sitting around with your dicks in your hands, no
girls in sight.”
He looked at all of them, one by one, in disgust.
“And if you run into that lady again, you’d best apologize. I’ll be watching.”
Grayson turned and stalked away. As he reached his bike—cringing that he would have to ride off into the sunset on the ridiculous piece of metal after his attempted life lesson on manhood—he heard someone quietly applaud.
And then someone else, and another, until a dozen people were loudly clapping their hands together.
He turned and gave the crowd a solemn nod, hopped onto his banana seat, and rode off, with his shoulders sitting a little taller.
21
Olivia woke up to an explosion of commotion in the beach house.
Beach bags dropped, coolers slid in on wheels covered in gritty sand, wet towels being dumped in a pile, and Rickey running up the stairs to be the first to get a hot shower.
“Olivia, get up! We’re on vacay,” Emma said as she walked by and slapped her sister on the rump on her way to the kitchen. “You can sleep when you’re dead!”
“Yeah. And why are you inside, taking a nap on our first day full day here? I wondered where you went,” Gabby said.
Olivia sat up on the couch and wrapped her robe tighter around herself. She ran her fingers through her still-wet hair. She’d come straight back from the Marketplace and had jumped into a scorching-hot shower herself, scrubbing the ice cream, and even worse, the lingering feel of strange hands off of her body.
When she’d stepped out, her head had been pounding. She’d meant to only lie down for a few moments, but apparently had fallen fast asleep.
She yawned. “I drove to the ferry landing and got an ice cream. I was trying to get online for a while.”
Gabby put her hand on her hip. “What’s so important online?” She paused. “Oh... you’re still trying to reach your virtual boyfriend? Well, is he coming?”