Real Kind of Love

by Sara Rider

  He traced the curve of her ear, watching the smile pull at the corner of her lips. “No book today?”

  “Nah. Thanks to you, I think I’ve finally got a handle on the characters.”

  “Glad I could help.”

  “You have. More than you realize. And not just with the book. Having you here has helped me find the confidence to speak up and set boundaries with my family. I forgot how much I actually liked being around them when they aren’t swarming me like mayflies. And I think they’ve finally realized they don’t need to keep setting me up with every single man in our zip code. That’s something that’s going to last long after this trip. And that’s exactly why I want to show you how to fish properly. Give you something that will stick with you after we break up.” Her body stiffened. “I mean, after I tell my family we’ve broken up.”

  “Have you figured out what you’re going say to them?”

  “That you’re not over your ex and not ready for any kind of commitment right now. Sticking close to the truth seems simplest at this point. They might give me a hard time about it, but it’s okay because I think they understand now that I’m capable of finding the right person for me without their help.”

  “Clem—”

  “No, it’s okay. You don’t need to say anything about how I’m a nice girl and if things were different… I already told you I’m not the kind of woman who loses my mind over a guy because of great sex. This week has been wonderful for what it is and you’ve been nothing but honest with me. I don’t expect you to change your stance on relationships after a couple nights. Besides, I’m not even sure I would want you to. We agreed this would only be about sex, and I’m okay with that.”

  The words sounded so wrong, it was like his body tried to put up a shield against them. But what could he say? She was right. Not that he was hung up on Kelly, but that he wasn’t going to be ready for a relationship. Only, the reasons he’d had for feeling that way seemed more distant than the sun rising over the mist-covered hills. It was so much easier to picture himself coming up here year after year with the woman in front of him than to remember the guy who worked too hard and always had an excuse for not taking a holiday.

  The line tugged before he could wander too far down that rabbit hole. “I think we’ve got one.”

  “Reel it in!”

  She sat up and grabbed the small net while he pulled in the line. The silvery fish hooked onto the end of his line was at least a foot long. “Not too bad,” he said, admiring the creature. “I think we could actually get this one on the grill this afternoon.”

  She brushed her hair off her face with a grin. “See? I told you I could make you fall in love with fishing.”

  Not just fishing, he thought to himself. And that was the problem.

  17

  Everything about this trip was unraveling him. A week ago, Jake never would have believed he’d be holding a baby on his lap and enjoying the hell out of it. Until now, the only thing he knew about babies were that they would look you in the eye and smile while they pooped themselves. Kelly had been adamant they would never have any when they’d gotten engaged. It was one of the few things he hadn’t argued about with her. But holding Poppy while her parents helped out with dinner triggered some weird paternal side in him. Hell, did guys even have paternal sides? He’d always assumed procreating was just a way for men to ensure their legacy by stamping their names and genes onto another living thing.

  He was starting to think it was actually to give guys like him a reason to make stupid faces for half an hour straight, because the reward of an elusive smile was the like the ultimate gambler’s high.

  “You’re good with her,” Clem said, taking the seat next to him.

  Her presence distracted him so much, he didn’t notice Poppy’s little fingers jab into his eye until it was too late. Served him right for staring. “Helps when they’re this cute,” he said, blinking away the sting. He lifted the little munchkin into the air like an airplane, earning a sweet little giggle that more than made up for the fact his cornea was burning.

  “How many kids do you want?” Darlene asked, ripping open a bag of marshmallows.

  “Darlene,” Frank growled, prodding at the stubborn, unlit logs in the campfire with a stick. “Leave that man alone or you’ll scare him off.”

  “I’m getting old, Frank. Can you blame me for wanting to know how many more grandkids I can expect?”

  “I haven’t really thought about it,” Jake answered truthfully.

  Poppy removed her fist from her mouth with a splatter of goober and jerked forward to plant a sloppy kiss on his cheek. A week ago, he couldn’t imagine having kids at all, but every minute he’d spent around Clem’s nieces had him questioning that certainty. There was no doubt they were a lot of work, but they were fun and smart and freaking adorable. Of course, he was pretty certain Ellie and Millie’s adorableness was just a ruse to hide the fact they were actually devil spawn sent to the earth to create as much mischief as possible.

  Darlene frowned. “How can you not know how many children you want?”

  His phone vibrated in his pocket before he could respond, making Poppy squeal with laughter. Somehow, that was enough of a distraction for Darlene to forget she’d even asked him a question.

  “Important call?” Clem asked.

  He handed the baby to her as naturally as if they had done it a million times, and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Eli. And it looked like he’d already missed six calls.

  Shit. He’d gotten so caught up in everything this week that he’d forgotten to check his messages. Eli used to joke that the device was surgically attached to Jake’s hand, but the only reason he even had his phone on him at this moment was because it happened to be in the pocket of the jeans he threw on before dinner.

  He snuck away to the driveway behind the cabin and answered the call. “Hey. What’s up?”

  “Not up. Down,” Eli said tersely. “As in the electricity. It went down again, but I got an electrician in before any of the beer was damaged. I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for the last three days to let you know. I had to make a call, so we’re replacing our switchboard and a couple of the old wires.”

  “Thanks for handling it.”

  “Don’t you want to know what it cost?”

  He ran his hand through his hair. “Not if it’s going to stress me out and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  Eli went so silent, for a moment Jake thought the call had dropped. “Who are you and what have you done with my business partner slash roommate slash occasional late night burrito binge buddy?”

  “Still me. Just feeling a whole lot more relaxed than I have in a long time.”

  “Is that the heatstroke talking, or does this newfound relaxation have anything to do with a certain brown-haired beauty?”

  This time it was Jake’s turn to go quiet.

  “I’m going to go ahead and take that as a yes.”

  “Fine. Yes. Now can you go read a celebrity tabloid magazine to satisfy your need for gossip instead of prying into my business?”

  “I pry because I care.” The flippancy was gone from his voice, replaced with a serious tone Jake rarely heard from his friend. “Are things getting serious?”

  He didn’t want to have this conversation. Didn’t want to confront the unwanted reality staring him down like an iceberg set directly in his path. “We agreed it would only be for the week.”

  “Did you get hit with the stupid stick? Clem’s not the kind of woman you toss aside just because you have commitment issues. She’s the kind of woman you work like hell to fix those issues for.”

  “Yeah, but none of that changes the fact I’m not the kind of guy who deserves a woman like her. It’s one thing for me to pretend to be this great boyfriend for a week, but what happens after we go home?”

  “You remember in our senior year when my mom died?”

  “Yeah.” The question caught Jake off guard. It had been ten years, b
ut Eli still didn’t talk about his mom. Ever.

  “I was low after the crash, man. Real low. You remember how I got drunk one night and threw the coffee table through the window?”

  “Hard to forget.” Eli’s mom was an executive assistant for a big tech firm and had been working late that night. She’d skidded off the road and crashed into a tree, dying instantly. No alcohol or anything had been found in her system. She’d just been an exhausted single mom working too hard to put her two kids through college.

  “I know you paid out of pocket for the damage. Just like you booked my flight back to L.A. and came with me, even though it meant missing your finals that semester.”

  “It’s what any friend would do.”

  “No. It’s not. A lot of the guys I grew up with didn’t even have the balls to come to the funeral. But you were there, man. You took care of me, throughout all of it. I’ve never forgotten that.”

  “You’d do the same.”

  “I know. Because I love you. And fuck, yeah. I said it. I’m confident enough in my masculinity to admit that I love my best friend in a purely platonic, fist-bump because we’re too macho to admit we just want a hug kind of way. Because that guy who let me cry for two hours in the back of his rental car after we buried my mom’s casket? That’s the Jake I know. The one who’s been my best friend for more than a decade no matter what kind of stupid shit I’ve pulled. The one that deserves all the happiness in the world.”

  Jake let out his breath in a long exhalation. He could see Clem sitting by the fire with the younger twins, sneaking marshmallows while no one else was looking. It would be so easy to fall into the trap of thinking this idyllic week was real-life, but in a few days they would be back home. Here, they were playing characters. Pretending to be perfect for each other. What would happen if they tried to make it work for real? Would it be just as easy? Or would he just turn back into a selfish bastard and break her heart? “How’s Julia doing? Everything running smoothly with the wedding?”

  “My sister is kicking ass just like she said she would, so stop trying to change the subject. You can’t let the rest of your life be defined by who you were with Kelly. You brought out the worst in each other, and maybe you’re gonna hate me for saying this, but she’s been a whole lot nicer this week than I expected. Like I can almost see what it was you saw in her way back then, even though I still haven’t forgotten how she liked to call me Count Von Fuckface.”

  “I don’t hate you for saying it. It’s good. I want her to be happy.” He was surprised at how much he actually meant it. Getting a little distance from the situation diffused all of the emotions he’d expected to have about it. He wasn’t angry or bitter. Just glad Kelly might get her dream wedding after all, and that the Holy Grale would benefit in the process.

  “It’s time to let go of this purgatory you’ve been keeping yourself in.”

  Ellie and Millie jumped up and waved at him to come back. He’d promised he’d help them roast marshmallows for the s’mores tonight. “I’ll think about it, okay?”

  “Good. Look, I gotta run. It’s Friday night book club and Little Miss Sunshine is setting up appetizers on her back porch, which means it’s time for me to take off my shirt and mow the lawn.”

  “If you don’t stop giving her a hard time, that neighbor of yours is going to use that mower to give you a haircut.” The running feud between Eli and the woman next door had been going on since she moved in a few months ago and left a note in his mailbox asking him to refrain from blasting his music late in the evening. Little did she know that curt directive would cause Eli to make it his life’s mission to find new ways to annoy her.

  “Nah, she’s too uptight to get her hands dirty like that. Besides, I overheard some of her guests saying the only reason they even come to her book club is for the man candy. It would be downright cruel of me to disappoint them.”

  Jake shook his head, holding back the rumbling laughter in his chest. “Try not to get yourself killed or arrested. I’ll be back Sunday.”

  He hung up and headed back toward the fire pit, watching Clem whittle down the end of a branch into a sharp point with a pocketknife. It was hard to believe just a few days ago she’d been coiled tighter than a spring. In all the years he’d known her, he’d never seen her smile or laugh so much. Maybe it made him arrogant to think that he was partly responsible for her mood, but he was pretty damn sure it was true. Just like being with her these last few days had made him happier than he’d been in a long time.

  For the first time, he was starting to think that maybe Eli was right. Maybe he owed it to himself to try to make something work with Clem. If only for the chance to see her smile at him the way she was doing right now as he walked toward her.

  “Not so fast.” Chastity stepped in front of him before he made it back to the fire and grabbed his arm, dragging him back to the far end of the cabin where they were out of view from everyone else.

  “Something can I help you with?” He asked cautiously, taking in Chastity’s pinched mouth and eyebrows. Clem’s family had welcomed him in a way he never expected, but her oldest sister still hadn’t completely warmed up to him.

  “Do you have any siblings?”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m eight years older than Clem. I changed her diapers. Read her bedtime stories. Sometimes I feel more like a mom than a sister to her.”

  “She’s lucky you care so much.”

  She crossed her arms and blew out a breath. “Yeah, maybe a little too much sometimes. When you first showed up, I was convinced something was off about your relationship. But now I realize the only thing wrong was me. I don’t know her as well as I thought I did. You make her happy, and I was wrong to doubt that.”

  He started to speak but she raised her hand, cutting off his words with the gesture.

  “I don’t admit to being wrong often, and I don’t like it, so don’t make me regret this.”

  He swallowed the guilt rising in his throat. “I won’t.”

  “Good. Then you won’t mind helping me plan Clem’s birthday next week.”

  Somehow, he managed not to say anything to give away his surprise, but he wasn’t sure he’d kept it from his expression. He had no idea her birthday was coming up. “Of course. What were you thinking?”

  “Well, we had bought tickets for the new Disney dinner cruise.”

  He shook his head. “She’d hate that.”

  “Fine. You’re probably right. So what do we do?”

  “Honestly? Clem would be happiest with a nice quiet dinner with her family at a restaurant that doesn’t have a mascot or waiters who come out and sing Happy Birthday. She just wants a big slice of cake and quality time with her family. No cardboard birthday hats, no banners, and no presents unless it’s a gift certificate to her favorite bookstore.”

  “Can you organize that? I know it’s probably rude for me to ask, but you seem to get her on a level the rest of us don’t. I just want it to be a special day for her.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Guilt trickled into his stomach. He didn’t even know what day her birthday was. Hell, Clem was going to announce their breakup before he would even have a chance to plan something anyway.

  Unless they didn’t break up at all.

  Fuck. He couldn’t think about the future without seeing Clem in it. There was no way he could go back to serving her drinks and watching her read on those lazy afternoons, pretending that she wasn’t the newly discovered sun in his dark universe.

  “Fantastic! We’ll talk about the details later. I don’t want her to get suspicious.”

  He nodded and turned to head back, but stopped when she called his name once more.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m glad I was wrong about you.”

  He forced a tight smile onto his face. Chastity wasn’t wrong about him. He’d been deceiving them from the moment he got here. But the lies he’d been telling Clem and himself had been so much worse. It was time for him to come clean.r />
  18

  “You’ve been working for hours. Time for another break.”

  Jake shook his head. “Your dad said this competition was to prove I’m smart enough to win his daughter’s heart, and right now I’m pretty sure I’m going to lose to two men with more neck muscles than brains. I don’t have time for a break.”

  He caught the plastic pipe Mike chucked at him before it beaned him in the head.

  “Just so you know,” Mike yelled, “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

  “It was meant as one,” he called back.

  “I knew you were starting to like me,” Mike answered with a wink.

  “Men,” Clem sighed. “We leave tomorrow. I’d like to spend the next twenty-four hours doing something other than watching you fumble around with explosives.”

  Yeah, he’d be more than happy to drag her back to their bed and strip her naked, but he was determined to show her there could be more than sex between them. Words wouldn’t cut it. He needed to prove it to her, which is why he’d gotten so invested in the stupid challenge her family had set out for him. Add in the fact Darlene and Frank had taken the kids for a boat ride, and this was one of the few chances he got to safely work on the cannon without worrying about overly curious little hands getting in the way. “I need all the time I can get. Not all of us have fancy engineering degrees and a lifetime’s experience making these damn things. I don’t know the tricks like you do—” He scrubbed his jaw, taking in the full effect of the twinkle in her eyes. He was officially an idiot. “Shit. You know exactly how to make one of these. You’ve probably made them hundreds of times.”

  “Yup.”

  There was no magic screw or explosive or anything else that would help him win this damn game. She was the secret trick, and all this time he’d been too stubborn to realize it.