She didn’t tell her mom to put down the cell phone she clutched, however. Annie only unbolted the back door and stepped onto her tiny patio. She folded her arms and leaned on the fence that blocked off the pool. “Hey, Tim.”
He paused at the table, his wheels balanced in the air over the vert. “Hey, Miss Annie.”
“Dude, haven’t I talked to you about calling before you come by so late?”
He shrugged and squinted across the street. Unless he was examining the cars lining the street, he was avoiding her gaze. They’d had this conversation a hundred times.
It wasn’t as if she’d ever put consequences on breaking the rule. Tim came only when he needed somewhere safe to go. The red hoodie he wore was too thin for the night air, but no one had told him to put on something thicker. No one had stopped him from going out at ten p.m. on a Tuesday either.
Annie wasn’t stupid about her kids. She knew some of them were confrontational, and even if a parent had told them to keep their ass in the house, they’d have stormed out to do exactly what they wanted. Not Tim. He was a different kind of kid.
He was bruised at the edges. Sometimes literally, sometimes not. “Me and the stepasshole got in a fight.”
Annie’s hands clenched on the wood fence. “Physical fight? Because he’s got seventy pounds on you. I really think we could make assault charges stick.”
“And have Mom kick me out?” Tim shook his head. He had shockingly red hair in the daylight, but under the orange-tinted floodlights, it looked almost blond. “It’s cool. Just a lotta shouting this time, anyway.”
“What set it off?”
He shrugged. “The cable went out. He said I was fucking around with it—but I wasn’t, Miss Annie. I swear it.” He scrubbed his fingers through his hair and tugged. “And that made him throw my backpack across the room. Which was fine, except my report card fell out and I have a C minus in English comp.”
“Aw, Tim,” she said. “You know I’ll help you with that. Bring in any assignments you’ve got uncompleted this weekend—” Except she had to cut herself off. She’d be in Fiji by this weekend. Living a life of luxury and doing really inappropriate and naughty things with Sean. Hopefully. “When’s the quarter end?”
“Not for three more weeks.”
“So bring some work by tomorrow and we’ll do what we can. The rest of it’ll be when I get back from a trip.”
Tim gave her a smile she recognized. From him, it meant thank you—and a pretty hefty shot of resentment too. He didn’t like how much help he needed in writing, which was probably why he’d willingly fallen behind rather than come to her for help. She’d had a mental note to ask about his English courses, but she’d forgotten.
She’d forgotten because of Sean. Because of the obsession she was developing for him. This couldn’t go on. She wasn’t going to be able to balance her life between the regular stuff and the places where she took off an afternoon to surf. Where she disappeared to foreign countries because a handsome man with blue eyes asked her to.
It had been four years since she’d gone to sleep without wondering if a teenager would turn up in her backyard. There was that factor. She loved being there for them, being a safe place, but there had to be a limit. That was why she was seeking funding for the new center. Funding for a director who could take care of the two a.m. phone calls too.
She drummed her fingers on the fence. “How long you gonna skate?”
“I dunno. I’m trying to nail a hardflip.” He bit his upper lip, since he was asking a lot of her, considering how late it was.
“Lemme go change. I’ll be back out in a minute.” She was wearing lightweight pajama pants with a drawstring waist. They were inappropriate and too thin for skating, since they’d give her no protection.
Her mom stopped her just inside the back door. “Is he okay?”
“Okay enough for tonight.”
“His mom ought to be strung up.” Denise’s mouth tightened into something flatter than displeasure but not quite as down-turned as when she was about to cry. “She tossed over a good kid for that butthead!”
“She’s doing the best that she can. You should hear Tim talk about his grandfather. He’s lucky his mom isn’t a total heroin addict, really.” Impulsively, she squeezed her mom in a giant hug. “Thanks for worrying about me, Mom. But I’m going to be fine. I’m going to Fiji with Sean, but then I’ll be back and everything will be back to normal. This is . . . just mess-around time. Understand?”
Denise leveled a steady stare at Annie. “I understand. But I’m not sure you mean it.”
Chapter 25
“This is a ten-hour flight?” Annie was folded in the seat of an airline waiting area, her feet tucked under her butt.
“Ten and a half,” Sean said with intentionally lazy inflection. He turned the page in his magazine. Keeping his gaze trained on the glossy pages was difficult.
Annie looked absurdly cute. Sean wasn’t even sure what it was about the outfit that was doing it for him, because it was more than obvious she had dressed for comfort. Her striped pajama pants had a natural cotton drawstring. She’d layered two tank tops that had a stylized spaceship that Sean couldn’t identify with an open zip-up hoodie.
Her tablet was stacked with movies for the flight, but even though she had it balanced across her knees, the headphones dangled to the side. She had the side of her thumb between her teeth. “I’m surprised you don’t charter a jet or something.”
“It’s Fiji. I’m rich, not made of gold.” He coiled his hand around the back of her neck. Soft tendrils fell loose from her ponytail and trailed over his knuckles. “Stuff it and enjoy the first-class lounge.”
She wrinkled her nose at him, which was really fucking cute, so he kissed her briefly. She tasted like sugar and coffee from the iced drink at her side.
When she ended the kiss, she left her fingers framing his cheek as she gave him a teasing smile. “It’s kinda swank.”
“Good.” He liked being able to give her good things. He didn’t know what had prompted him to ask her along on this trip to Fiji, but he felt better with her at his side. The results of his drug testing would come in before the event started, but since he knew he was going to pass it, he might as well get there early.
Having time to assess the waves and the conditions before a competition was vital. Even though there’d been an event in Fiji for the past several years, that didn’t mean the waves would automatically be the same. The ocean was a living, breathing beast. Storms and earthquakes and even the tides themselves could affect the caliber of a break. If a chunk of reef broke away, there could be an entire shift in quality.
He’d been following reports out of Fiji pretty closely, so he didn’t expect any big changes, but that didn’t mean he would go in unprepared. He wanted his toes in the water and his boards wet. As soon as possible. He also needed to spend time working his shoulder out. Annie wasn’t his therapist anymore, but that didn’t mean he was off scott free. His new team had given him a list of daily stretches and parameters he had to work within.
It could be the difference between placing well and winning. And a win would do enormous good for Sean’s ranking.
Having Annie at his side was a distraction. Something to keep the edge off so that he didn’t wind too damn tight. He liked having her under his hand, having her at his side. She’d worn flip-flops, but they were on the floor and she had her bare feet folded into the cushioned chair. She was . . . different. He liked that about her.
“Hi, Sean,” said a soft voice. Gloria stood in front of their seats, a bright yellow tote bag over her shoulder. “You headed out tonight?”
Gloria was a beautiful woman in the classic surfer-girl mold. She had long, tousled blond hair pulled into a low ponytail behind her left ear. Her snug leggings showed off a body that most women would envy, and she had on an oversized T-shirt that hu
ng off one bare shoulder.
Sean and Gloria’s breakup had gone fairly easily, especially since she immediately replaced him with Nate Coker. She was a constant fixture on Nate’s Instagram account. So long as Nate wasn’t on a surfboard, the two were always seen together.
“Yup,” Sean agreed. “This is Annie Baxter.”
Annie slid him a sideways glance, one that obviously noted his lack of descriptor for her. But then again, he wasn’t exactly about to call her the best lay I’ve ever had or coolest chick I know. Both seemed unbearably tacky. She stuck her hand out to Gloria, who took it briefly. “We met at a party a couple weeks ago. Nice to see you again.”
“Same,” Gloria said with the briefest display of a smile that Sean would have thought possible.
“Where’s Nate?” he asked.
She answered Sean, but her gaze was stuck on Annie. “He went yesterday. But I had some business to take care of.”
Sean hoped his surprise didn’t show on his face. Gloria hadn’t had any ambition for her own career when they’d been dating. Now she lived off Nate, pretty much. Not that there was anything wrong with that. She kept Nate energized and focused. Without Gloria encouraging him, Nate would be staked out in a hammock, ready to blow his prize money on mai tais. Then there wouldn’t be much more prize money. Ambitious, the man was not. “What are you into lately?”
She flashed a slightly vacant smile. “Stuff. Some producing, and I had a casting call for a commercial.”
“I didn’t know you wanted into acting.”
“I don’t, really. But it was for a gear company I was kind of hoping Nate could get in with. So I went, because maybe I’d get a chance to talk to marketing or PR about Nate.”
Sean blinked slowly. He hadn’t exactly heard of the industry working like that before, though it was true that it was more about who you knew than how you knew them. “Hope it worked for you, then.”
“Yeah.” She got a little shark-eating-a-salmon sort of smile going. “I think it may go somewhere. Ta-ta,” she said with a twiddle of her fingers over her shoulder. “I’ll catch you in Nadi.”
“She looks like the sort who’d be in commercials,” Annie said with a slightly wistful sigh as Gloria walked away. “What was the accent? It wasn’t quite Australian.”
“Kiwi. She’s from New Zealand.” Sean flipped his magazine closed as first-class boarding was announced. “I was the one who introduced her to Nate, actually. He’s classic Californian. Knew him when I was growing up.”
Annie let that one go until they were tucked in their comfortable leather seats and the flight attendant had offered them complimentary drinks. Annie accepted a fuzzy blanket and tucked it over her lap. “Posh seats,” she said.
“They do all right. It’s the only nonstop from California to Fiji, so I’ve been on it a few times.”
“All right.” She scoffed a little, but then blew it by bouncing in her seat. She wedged up on her knees and clasped the back of the seat, peering down the aisle. “This is supercool.”
He laughed along with her. “Yeah, okay. You win. It’s pretty awesome.”
She twisted in her seat, wedging her back against the bulkhead, which was painted pale purple in keeping with a faintly tropical theme. “How can you be so blasé about this? Look at this seat! I fit in it sideways, for God’s sake.”
“You’d fit in a shoe box sideways.” He slipped his fingers behind her firm calf. “So I’m not sure that counts.”
“Did you grow up rich?”
“Fuck no, don’t be ridiculous,” he blurted. His grip on her leg tightened, but he forced himself to release, finger by finger. He drew in a slow, deep breath. “No, not rich.”
The flight attendant interrupted with the safety briefing at the front of the cabin. Sean took the easy way out, facing her and pretending to listen with rapt attention to her lilting speech. Really, he’d heard a thousand variations of the same gig. Traveling the world for a living meant the downsides too. He could recite the emergency exit location for half a dozen different planes.
He wasn’t sure how much he wanted to tell Annie. Maybe now would be a good time, while the airline supplied her with free wine and he had a captive audience. Still, that didn’t mean she had to hear all of it. No one needed that kind of sob story, and he didn’t want her pity. He only wanted her to stop thinking of him as spoiled.
He liked the results of his hard work. He’d never thought of that as a bad thing. He’d put a metric fuckton of effort into his surfing, and taken on gigs that a few of his compatriots looked down on. He’d caught shit from Tanner Wright for years over pulling the occasional modeling gig for a nonsurf company. Sean had never understood that. It wasn’t as if Tanner hadn’t posed for magazine pictures. He’d just done it holding a surfboard and wearing something that was self-described as “for surfers.” Make it a fancy watch and supposedly it was all different.
Whatever. Sean had worked hard for what he had. Living to suit his means didn’t seem inappropriate.
They’d been in the air a half hour when he leaned over her shoulder. “What are you watching?”
She pulled her headphones out. “The Dexter finale. I’m so behind, I know.”
He twisted the end of her ponytail around his fingertip. “I hated it. You’ll have to tell me what you think.”
“Look, I’m sorry if I overstepped some boundary by asking if you’d grown up rich.” She pushed up the armrest between them and gently bumped his shoulder with hers. “It’s just I feel like an idiot, jumping around in my seat while you’re so cool.”
“It’s hard to explain how I grew up,” he found himself saying. But he pulled her closer. Shoulder to shoulder wasn’t enough for him.
She let him too. She unsnapped her seat belt and nestled closer so that he could put his arm around her. Between the comfortable size of the first-class seats and how small she was, she was able to comfortably lean on him with her feet on the armrest next to the bulkhead. “Start with where you were born.”
“I was a home birth.” He rubbed up and down Annie’s arm, but the sweatshirt numbed out their contact. His fingers delved through her zipper, finding bare skin at her waist where her tank tops twisted up. “Mom didn’t tell anyone in her family that she was pregnant, actually. Just moved out to a little place on her own. She had a little family money, mostly through my granddad, who was a tool and die maker.”
Annie twisted around in his arms, craning her neck to look at him. “How did she keep that secret?”
“Mom was . . .” He sighed, rolling through so many descriptors in his head. Messed up. Strange. Unbalanced. “Damaged. She had a whole series of little shitty things happen to her when she was growing up, and when her mom died, it was like she never came back. No one knew how to cope with her.”
“Sounds rough.”
“Fuck yeah,” he agreed. “It was worse than that. It was my whole life.”
Annie tried to twist again, but he didn’t let her. He kept his forearm across her upper chest, clasping her shoulder and holding her close. Not mean, or hard, but firmly enough that she settled again. The view out the window was a velvety canvas of stars on dark. He focused on it rather than letting the memories of his childhood rise up again.
“She was a hoarder.”
“Like . . .” She paused, and he could practically hear her measuring her words and deliberating exactly how to phrase her question. “Was she just a messy person, or are we talking clinically diagnosed here?”
“Clinical. Her thing was clothing. We had a three-bedroom house, but by the end we were both sleeping in the living room because all the rest of the space was . . . gone.” The words were easier to say than he’d expected, and a hell of a lot harder at the same time. Annie made a soft noise that he didn’t want to hear, so he squeezed her shoulder and kept talking so he wouldn’t get a chance to absorb her sympathy. Sympat
hy led to pity. “So there was family money, but we didn’t exactly live large or anything. Flying like this was new when I first started doing well on the circuit, but the shine wears off when you fly every single month. Sometimes I’d rather be home.”
She didn’t answer for a long, long time. Her head dipped and one hand looped over the arm he had across her. She brushed a soft kiss over his skin, but then patted his wrist. “Well duh. I’ve seen your house. It’s like having first class permanently.”
He sucked in a cool, deep breath, though it was of stale airline air-conditioning. At least he’d said something. That was enough for now.
Maybe enough for forever.
Chapter 26
Sean was even more fucked-up than Annie had assumed he was. She’d realized that he’d been hiding secrets, but she’d kind of figured they were the everyday bullshit kind of secrets that most people dealt with. Maybe his mom and dad divorced when he was six. Maybe he’d fucked around in high school or experimented with pot. Maybe . . .
Well, maybe he’d been squeezed out of his bedroom by the physical manifestation of his mother’s emotional disorder. There ya go.
And he seemed to think it was the end of the story there. For the next three hours, she half expected him to bring it up again . . . but he didn’t. They watched the last two episodes of Dexter together, and he proved himself an excellent rewatching companion. Even though he’d seen the episodes before, he didn’t prewince or ooh or tease that she was going to like some scene that was coming up. Annie considered that the height of manners in television viewing. Afterward, they argued about whether the ending was feasible or even justifiable, considering the entire eight-season show was about a serial killer.
Eventually Annie fell asleep with her head on Sean’s shoulder and his arm around her. The unbearably fluffy blanket she’d been provided by the aircrew was tucked around her knees, but she’d let the pillow fall to the floor. There was nothing better than the firm resilience of Sean’s muscles.
Ahead in the Heat Page 17