Birdie’s stride hitches. “Yeah?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We go back to running in silence for a few minutes. “I don’t care about things like cheekbones. I just want the best chance of winning for Nat’s sake.”
“Noted.” My lips wrestle with a smile. “You’ve got them all the same. A little contouring and you’ll be the envy of Florida!”
“Are you always this upbeat?”
I have to think about it. “I don’t know. When it comes to my mouth, yes. In my head, I’m a whole other story sometimes.” Birdie is about to respond when she catches sight of something in the distance, her eyes glazing with horror. Before I can ask what’s wrong, she snags my arm and drags me behind a palm tree. “What’s is it? What’s wrong?”
“Pastel hell in heels.” She peeks around the jagged trunk of the tree. “Just loitering in the sun with stupid gelato cones. Jesus, they’re like a fucking Aeropostale ad.”
I grab my own quick glance, deciding they look like a group of normal, everyday teenagers. A lot like my friends in high school. Is this the kind of reaction we inspired in everyone else? “Do you want to go talk to them?”
“I’d rather get Heimlich’d by someone holding scissors.”
“Are they mean or—”
“No.” Birdie seems annoyed by that fact. “They were just…they were friends with my sister. Some of them do pageants and Nat would go to cheer them on.” She falls back against the trunk and crosses her arms. “Every time I run into them at school, there’s this split second of disappointment on their faces.”
“Why would they ever be disappointed?”
“Because I’m not her.” She pushes off the tree. “We all used to be friendly, even though I didn’t really fit in with that circle. Now we’re just acquaintances. Natalie was the one who brought everyone together. With friends and family. Both. She’d put on a silly play or throw a board game on the floor and whine until everyone picked a talisman. She was the glue. Everything…everyone is apart now because there’s no glue.” She huffs a breath. “Anyway, if they knew I was doing this pageant shit for Nat, they would probably pity me, and I’d rather be set on fire.”
“You know…” I power walk to keep up with her, back in the direction we came. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t use the S-H word in reference to my life’s best work. Instead I’m going to make a suggestion, if you’re open to it.”
“We’re a mile from my house and I have nowhere to hide. Was that your plan all along?”
“I’m going to let you think so.” We fall into step together. “They’re going to find out sooner or later. Why not face it head on? Tell them what you’re doing. That way you can control the how and when.”
“Sorry, I didn’t hear you. I was too busy mapping different routes for tomorrow’s jog.”
“Already planning our next run?” I take a mid-stride leap. “You’re having fun. I knew it.”
A corner of her mouth ticks up. “I’m going to let you think so.”
It takes us just under fifteen minutes to reach Birdie’s street. We’re both huffing and puffing a little as we turn onto Charlotte Place. Up ahead, I hear the drone of an engine and the scratchy bass of rock music. I want to say Metallica is playing, although I have no idea how or where I learned that information. Probably during one of my mother’s cautionary tales about what happens to good girls who let Satan infiltrate their minds. In this one instance, I have to admit she might be right. The music is loud enough to rattle my molars.
“Where is that noise coming from?”
Birdie laughs. “Jason is home.”
Don’t ask me why I skid to a halt on the sidewalk. It’s an involuntary reaction. I simply didn’t anticipate being seen while sweating. I would feel the same way no matter who I was approaching, man or woman. Yesterday morning, I was preparing to marry a man I’d spent years dating. I still plan on being loyal to Elijah, physically and mentally. Even if there was a moment in the kitchen last night, I swore Jason was thinking no-good man thoughts about me. And I am ashamed to admit that I spent an inordinate amount of time last night remembering the way he looked at me. I’m not sure a man has ever looked at me in such a manner. As if he wants to see me in my birthday suit—and was good and mad about it.
I let my recalled irritation at him bubble up, although it doesn’t exactly feel like irritation. I’m a wary cat approaching the house on the balls of its feet, ready to take a polite warning swipe if needed. When we hit the driveway, I search the front yard—which is littered with engine parts, lifejackets and oxygen tanks—and I see Jason.
Retreat. Retreat.
Before I can stop myself, I’m actually backpedaling on the sidewalk and I have no idea why. It might be the fact that Jason is now visible in the parked, elevated boat. Shirtless.
Not merely shirtless, however. He’s indecently shirtless.
There’s a lit cigar in the corner of his clamped together lips. Dangerous, considering there’s enough black hair on his chest to start a forest fire if one single ember should escape. Lord, I thought men his size only existed in the Bible. Built for fighting lions in dens or carrying giant stone tablets down from the mountaintop. Jason is a modern version of a Bible warrior in a peeled down wetsuit that wraps far, far too low on his hips for decent company. And the tattoos. They’re everywhere. Poking in and sneaking out of places they shouldn’t. No. No, sir. I’m not getting any closer to that.
To my utter horror, I realize my mouth is open wide enough to catch a battalion of bees. No honey required. Stop looking at the unruly line of dark hair below his belly button. I know where it leads. I’m a grown woman. Old enough to know I do not want that zipper to come down any lower. Old enough to know my toes should not be curled in my sneakers right now, too.
Why is he looking at me like that? Is he smirking at me through all that cigar smoke?
“I-I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say, patting Birdie awkwardly on the shoulder.
“Wait, what?”
I pull my ponytail as tight as it will go, continuing my backward journey on the sidewalk, away from the sight of Jason. “Um. Tomorrow we’ll outline the competition and get a better idea of what we need to work on. I’m going to make some phone calls and try to get us some affordable indoor space. We’ll need to perfect your pageant walk and—”
“Why can’t we do it now?”
“It’s a school night.”
Birdie looks at me like I’m nuts. Maybe I am. “It’s four thirty.”
“That is true, isn’t it?” Over Birdie’s shoulder, I see Jason jump down from the boat and land on bare feet, like some huge, nimble king of the jungle. He starts in our direction, that cigar glowing red between his teeth, and I back up another several yards, horrified to realize my belly is tingling. Nerves. Just nerves. For some reason, he inspires them in me like no one in my experience. “You should speak to your brother about proper running shoes.”
“Okay.” Birdie looks over her shoulder, coming back with a knowing look I don’t care to interpret. “Do you want me to ask Jason to put on a shirt?”
“What? No. Why would you…what?”
Jason’s low chuckle snaps my spine straight.
“I was just about to head home,” I say to them both, pretending to be fascinated by a palm tree as I cross the street toward my car. “I’ll be back the same time tomorrow.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay for dinner?”
Birdie asks the question, and one glance at her expression tells me she’s enjoying my suffering. Maybe if I ask nicely, she’ll explain the source of it. Sure, I’ve never been around such a rough and tumble man, but I don’t understand why his appearance should distress me like this. “Thank you so much for the invitation, but I’ll have to decline until another time.”
Jason plucks the cigar out of his mouth, flicking ashes onto the sidewalk. “See you at six thirty, beauty queen.”
I grind my teeth behind a smile. “I have plans.”
He’s smirking again. He doesn’t believe me. “You do now.”
With that, he saunters back to the boat, leaving me with a view of his back, which is equivalent to the broad side of a barn. If barns were made of muscle and such. Such being…scars and interestingly shadowed valleys. Running straight down his spine is the tattoo of a dagger, and stretching across ridges of muscle from one shoulder to the other is a pair of crossed arrows, bisecting the dagger. I refuse to let my gaze go any lower.
“He can be a little scary,” Birdie says, nudging me. “But he’s only killed, like, two out of my last five pageant coaches. The odds are in your favor.”
I can only stare as she jogs off toward the house.
“See you tonight, coach number six!”
CHAPTER FIVE
EndoftheInternet.net
Username: IGotAnswerz9
Let me be plain. The only one with a motive to kill Naomi was the mother.
Bridezilla? Ha! Try Momzilla. She wasn’t about to let her daughter ruin HER perfect day. Tale as old as time.
Jason
Naomi arrives at six thirty on the dot with a chipper smile and a bottle of white wine. My military nature likes the on-time arrival. My male nature likes the white shorts she’s wearing even more, but I’m not going to dwell on my chemical reaction to her. After the way she ran off like a scared bunny rabbit at the sight of me in no shirt this afternoon, I’m even more positive that getting physical with this woman just ain’t going to happen. She’s not my type. I’m even further from hers. And the way I’d like to get down in bed with her would probably give her the fucking vapors.
This afternoon in the driveway, I thought I saw a spark of reluctant interest in Naomi, but I was definitely mistaken. She’s holding that bottle of wine in front of her like an exorcist presenting a cross to fend off the evil spirits. Fine enough—it’s better this way. Birdie came back from their run this afternoon…excited. I haven’t seen her that way since I got home.
Before Naomi arrived on our doorstep, Birdie seemed determined to compete in the pageant for Natalie, but winning wasn’t a possibility. I had to sign off on the paperwork, so I know she wrote for shits and giggles under the question, “Why do you want to compete in the Miss St. John’s County Pageant?” Yet an hour ago, I walked past her room and saw her practicing a runway walk. Maybe having someone in her corner who knows what the hell they’re doing is making all the difference. Hell, it’s more than she had going for her yesterday when she only had me.
Bottom line. Naomi is giving Birdie a fighting chance and I’m not going to fuck that up. It’s all I know how to give my sister. I’ve failed at protecting the person she was closest to in this world. And thanks to my working hours and lack of warm fuzzies, I’ve been unable to give her a healthy, welcoming home. On the rare nights we manage to have dinner together, we eat silently in front of the television and part ways with an abrupt goodnight.
I don’t have a clue how she’s supposed to deal with her grief. I’ve lost so many brothers, I’ve stopped taking the time to process the horror of it. Pick up and keep moving. There is always the next job to perform. Prisoners to be liberated. Firefights to win. Intel to gather. It’s what I should be doing now. It’s what I’m built for—not comforting a teenage girl.
Maybe this is it. Maybe this pageant is Birdie’s version of pick up and keep moving. If that’s the case, I’m keeping my hands off of this beauty queen from Charleston. I’m just going to jerk off thinking about peeling those prim white shorts down Naomi’s legs and giving her the business while she sends me stern, disapproving looks over her shoulder. Again. I’ve already given in to that fantasy twice since we shook hands in my kitchen last night. The fact that she’s made me surrender to a physical weakness twice, while clearly finding me off-putting, makes me want to rattle her the only way I know how. Being an asshole.
I nod at the wine beneath her arm. “Who the hell is going to drink that?”
Somehow she manages to make an eye twitch look graceful. “As a host, the proper protocol is to invite me into your house, then offer me a glass. Are we going to have a sparring match on your porch every single time I arrive, Mr. Bristow?”
“Jason.”
“I’ll start calling you Jason when we’re on friendly terms.”
“Is that the protocol?”
“As a matter of fact, it is.”
That censorious pout is the exact one she gives me in my fantasy, which is making things pretty confusing and inconvenient for the man downstairs. “Come in. We’re having fish.”
“Oh, yay.” She looks down at the bottle and does a little dance. “I picked the right wine.”
“Fish tastes just fine with beer. Better, even.”
“Have you ever tried it with wine?”
“Hell no.”
“Then how would you know?” She presses her lips together, and I find myself doing the same, so I won’t smile. Why does she suddenly look so excited? Why do I like it? “I have a great idea. Why don’t you try a glass of wine and I’ll try your beer?”
I’d rather drink piss, but I can’t bring myself to say it out loud. One, it’s a friendly game, and friendly is where I need to be so she’ll call me Jason. Why I give a shit is beyond me. Two, I really want to see this Southern belle drink a Budweiser straight from the bottle. “Done.”
Naomi bends a little at the knees and pops back up. “Fun.” She blinks those blue eyes at me, and I have to command myself not to lean closer. “Technically, this is a beer drinking contest. Of a sort. Isn’t it?” She adds under her breath, “That is definitely not boring.”
I feel a frown drag my eyebrows together. “Who told you—”
“Jason,” Birdie groans behind me. “Let her in.”
Until my sister’s interruption, I completely forget Naomi is still standing outside. And as she bypasses me into the house, careful as hell not to touch me with so much as a scrap of fabric, my pulse starts to tick faster. I’m probably just irritated over having to drink wine.
Birdie and Naomi sit in the dining room, while I grab the baked halibut out of the oven and separate portions onto plates, alongside carrots and roasted potatoes. When everything is plated, I squeeze lemon over the top of basically everything and add some salt. I’m definitely no chef. I’m complete shit at cooking, actually. Most nights, I pick up food on the way home from the marina—Italian, sushi, sandwiches. Right now, I might as well be blindfolded with both hands tied behind my back.
Moments later, I search for a reaction when I set the food down in front of Naomi. There’s nothing but positivity radiating from her every pore when I know it’s probably garbage compared to what she’s used to eating. Why am I making that assumption, though? On my return to the kitchen to retrieve a beer, a wine glass and a corkscrew, I remind myself I know next to nothing about Naomi. Maybe I should stop making assumptions.
Naomi eyes the open Bud when I set it down in front of her. “Ladies first.”
She flicks me a pointed look. “So you do have manners when it’s convenient.”
I dig into my dinner instead of answering, noticing Naomi has carefully separated the potatoes from the rest of her meal. “That’s your first beer?” Birdie asks, her attention swinging back and forth between me and her coach. “No way.”
“Way.” Naomi tilts the bottle to her lips, and I stop chewing, watching her throat move as she swallows. Her eyes squeeze shut and she traps the liquid inside her mouth with a napkin. “Oh Lord, that’s terrible.” A laugh sneaks out of me, and Birdie almost falls off her chair. “You drink the wine now.”
“Will it help you recover if I hate it?”
“Yes.”
I sigh through the process of opening the wine and pouring half a glass, then I toss it back in one gulp. Cool, crisp, fruity. Not that I would ever admit this out loud, but apparently people haven’t been bullshitting when they claimed white wine goes better with fish. “Want to switch now?”
“You didn�
��t even tell us if you liked it,” Naomi sputters as I trade her beer for my refilled wine glass, remaining silent as I perform the task. “You did like it,” she gasps, turning to Birdie. “He did, didn’t he?”
Birdie laughs into a bite. “Good luck getting him to admit it.”
“Oh, I will.” She takes a dainty bite of fish. “I’ve set my mind to it now.”
I pick up a potato and toss it into my mouth. “What’s this about new sneakers?”
“Subtle subject change by Bristow,” laughs my sister, edging her hand toward my beer. I catch her wrist, moving it away, and she continues without missing a beat. “Coach number six is making me exercise.”
“Coach number six.”
“Right. Because you killed or fired the other five. Just play along.”
I take a swig of beer and plop the bottle back down. “They had it coming.”
Naomi still hasn’t touched her potatoes. “I suppose your boat makes it easy to hide the bodies out at sea.” When we just stare at her, she stabs her fork into a carrot. “What? You two can be morbid, but I can’t?” She doesn’t wait for us to answer. “I noticed your equipment today. Are you a scuba diver, Mr. Bristow?”
Her emphasis on Mr. Bristow is impossible to ignore. If she only knew how hot that teasing formality makes me. “I have a company. We do private, guided dives in St. Augustine. Corporate team building. Vacationing retirees.” Naomi sets down her fork, clearly finished, so I drag her plate closer and start eating her potatoes. “I was a master diver with the Army, placed with Special Forces. When I was discharged, I wanted to stay in practice for…”
“For when he goes back,” Birdie finishes.
My sister won’t look at me, so I’m not sure if she was simply being matter-of-fact or if the numbness I picked up in her tone was real. It has always been the plan for me to redeploy, and she’s never expressed discontent over it. Overseas is where I belong. In the end, I just nod and continue. “For when I go back, yeah. After Birdie graduates. My vessel is the one I use for dives. I license the Bristow Diving name out to several instructors in the area, though. About seventeen altogether in the fleet.”
Runaway Girl Page 4