“Well, whoever he is, he’s a client of Maggie’s now, so maybe you should be nicer next time.” I stood and faced him. “What’s your problem?”
Noah’s expression instantly softened, and when he took my hand his shoulders relaxed. “I don’t know. Maybe I don’t like coming here and finding you alone with an unknown quantity.”
“He’s hardly unknown. Sterling Flores, remember.” I tapped his chest with my finger, then went to find my purse. As I bent behind the counter the door opened. Great. Had Mr. Flores come back? When I shouldered my purse and looked, I was relieved to see it was only Jeb.
“Did I hear someone needs a math tutor?”
* * *
I loved this time of year. It was quiet with most of the tourists gone. The only time it got busy now was on the weekends. The majority of the shops closed early, except for the restaurants, most of which closed at ten. I suspected it would pick up when it got closer to the holidays, but for now it was perfect.
”You don’t have to do this. I’m sure you have better things to do,” I said to Jeb. The three of us walked down the sidewalk, me sandwiched between Noah and Jeb. I wasn’t especially short at five seven, nor was I especially skinny, but Noah and Jeb dwarfed me, making me feel fragile in comparison.
“Actually, I don’t. Didn’t you read my t-shirt?” Jeb pulled the fabric of his t-shirt away from his body, pointing at words that weren’t there. “Will tutor for food,” he pretended to read. “In this case pizza. Noah’s buying.”
“I can’t believe you told him I failed my test,” I said, chagrined. If Noah had a fault, it was his propensity to want to fix things.
“At least he came to me instead of trying to help you himself. He’s dumb as a rock when it comes to numbers.” Jeb grinned down at me and bumped my shoulder, knocking me into Noah.
“I can’t see how it’s hurting me any,” Noah said.
His hand pressed into the small of my back as a group of women met us coming from the other direction. Most of them were middle-aged, though they appeared to be fighting it tooth and nail. Between the five of them, I bet they kept their plastic surgeon living in the lap of luxury. Short skirts, skinny jeans, and plunging necklines. All in heels. Diamonds dripped from ears and necks and flashed on fingers. Not a husband in sight. I’d discovered working in the shop, this was a popular time of year for girlfriend trips. A time to ditch the hubbies and let loose a little.
I didn’t imagine Noah or Jeb were able to go many places that didn’t result in a certain amount of ogling. I’d witnessed it plenty of times. Age wasn’t a factor. Young, old, somewhere and everywhere in between. Everyone wanted a longer look, a second look. I knew a lot of them would touch if given the chance. This group would touch. I practically felt their fingers itching. I thought I saw a glimmer of drool dripping off one pair of glossed lips poised in the perfect “O.”
“Ladies,” Jeb said, flashing that brilliant smile of his. One of them actually put her hand on her chest like she was having trouble breathing. The one closest to Noah grabbed his ass when she passed. He made a little “humph” sound and bit back a grin.
“Did she just grab your ass?” I hissed up at him.
“Nah, it was an accident.” He smiled indulgently. I glared over my shoulder. They were all still watching.
Little Miss Ass Grabber winked at me and asked, “Is he yours?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Lucky girl.” She smiled and winked. I couldn’t help but smile back. Noah was gorgeous. And he was mine. I wanted to jump him right there in front of all those appreciative eyes. Give them something to think about.
“What about you Tall, Blond, and Beautiful? Can we buy you a drink?” One of the others cooed. They were growing bolder.
“I better not. I know trouble when I see it and you ladies are definitely trouble.” Jeb put his hand over his heart like it hurt to turn down her invitation. This was met with a lot of pouty lips and disappointed faces.
We left trouble behind only to run into it again in the form of Derrick Nash. He stood at the front of the line at Pizza by the Sea. It was mostly takeout, as the only place to sit were a few picnic tables. The owners hailed from New York. They sold their franchise in the big city and left the rat race behind to come operate this pastel-painted shack on the beach. It was notably the best pizza on the coast. It was also one of the few places that still served anchovies, Jeb’s favorite.
I hoped once Derrick got his pizza maybe he wouldn’t notice us, but that would have been virtually impossible. Only two people stood between us. And like I said, you didn’t just not notice Noah and Jeb.
“What did you do to make this guy like you so much?” Jeb asked Noah when Derrick’s face lit up when he caught sight of him. It wasn’t until he saw me that he really smiled.
“I exist. That seems to be enough.” Noah dug into his pocket and handed Jeb a wad of cash. “Get the pizza.”
“Jacobs,” Derrick said, and performed that bobblehead move guys used as a greeting. “Listen man, I was a douche today. All that shit with Jax over the summer, it’s in the past. Caris and I are friends. Aren’t we?”
Wait. What? I narrowed my eyes slightly but decided to play along. “Sure Derrick. Whatever you say.” I wanted him to go away. I was hungry. I had homework. I wanted to be alone with Noah.
“Seriously, I mean it.” Derrick held out his fist to Noah, his eyes darting between the two of us. “So, we’re cool?”
“Sure Derrick.” Noah fist bumped him harder than was friendly. “Whatever you say.”
“Caris is a real catch.” Derrick laughed at his own stupid joke. Of course neither Noah nor I did.
“Cause I was worried you know.” Derrick started to backpedal his way up the sidewalk. “That you might be batting for the other team in more ways than one.”
I was tempted to just say, “Sic’em,” and let Noah go all rabid on him.
Derrick flinched when Noah reached out and snatched his pizza boxes from him.
“Hold these,“ Noah said to me then very casually escorted Derrick out of earshot.
Derrick went along without too much of a fuss. With Noah’s hand tight on his elbow, he didn’t really have much of a choice. I knew the strength in those hands. They stopped about twenty yards away. I couldn’t hear what Noah was saying, but I had a good read on Derrick’s face. By the end of Noah’s speech, Derrick was fuming, but he’d also gone belly-up docile, recognizing he was way outmatched. His eyes cut to me once and I heard the growl in Noah’s voice and Derrick’s face paled, then Noah was striding back towards me and Jeb, who was back with the pizza.
“Please tell me he’s about to take a swing at me,” Noah said to Jeb when he made his way back over, Derrick practically crawling in his wake. Whipped but still bristling.
“Nope. Whatever you said worked,” Jeb said, clearly entertained.
Wordlessly, I handed Derrick’s pizza back to him. He had the sense to walk a few steps before he turned around and yelled at me over his shoulder, “See you in class tomorrow, Caris.”
I grabbed Noah’s arm and turned him toward the Bronco before he took off after him. “What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“It didn’t look like nothing.”
“It was nothing, but if he so much as looks in your direction at school I’m going to kick his fat lander ass.”
“Caris needs to be the one to do it.” Jeb opened the passenger side door, and I crawled in the backseat. He and Noah stared at each other across the seat. Neither had made a move to get in yet.
“Don’t look at me like that, Noah. You know I’m right. If he’s messing with her she needs to handle it. It’s like the whole teaching the hungry man how to fish thing. Teach her to handle Derrick and the d-bags of the world and you don’t got to worry about it anymore. He’s just a lander. All it would take is one time.”
Noah blew out a breath, and they both crawled inside.
“One time for what? Are you talki
ng physical violence? I’ve never hit anyone before,” I said.
They both looked at me like I was from Mars. I told Mr. K I wanted to handle Derrick but that didn’t mean I wanted to actually pick a fight with the guy. Like with fists.
“You’ve never been in a fight?” This from Noah. Surprise, surprise, the guy who seemed to look for one around every corner.
“No. Why would I?”
“I don’t know, Caris. Because bullies. Guys like Derrick. Hell, girls like Derrick.”
“Excuse me that my first reaction to everyone that might look at me funny is not to punch them.” I’d felt like punching Sol a few times. Little Miss Grabby Ass, it sure would have felt good to punch her. Speaking of which.
“Just curious,” I said as Noah backed out of the parking space. “What would you have done if some middle-aged man had grabbed my ass while we were walking down the sidewalk?”
He stretched his arm across the back of the seat and turned around to look me right in the eye. “I would have beat the ever lovin’ shit out of him. Why?”
“What do you mean why? You smile and think it’s funny when some cougar grabs your ass and yet if the situation were reversed, you would beat the guy up?”
“It’s not the same,” he said with a straight face before turning back around and putting the Bronco in drive.
“How is it not the same?”
“Because she was just messing around. It was all in fun. She would have totally freaked out if I’d so much as acted like I wanted to take it past harmless flirting, all of them would.” Noah winked at me in the rearview mirror.
“Except for the one in the white bandage skirt,” Jeb interjected. “I could totally be doing that woman right now.”
“What the hell is a bandage skirt?” Noah looked at Jeb, slightly appalled.
“And maybe the one in the black halter dress. Definitely her. She would have needed a little extra gentling, but if I could have gotten as far as getting my shirt off, she would have caved.”
“I’m totally freaked out how you know so much about seducing older women,” I said, staring at the back of Jeb’s head. His hair was almost pretty enough to make me want to grow my own back out.
“I’m freaked out he knows so much about women’s clothes,” Noah added.
“You would be.” Jeb reached over and turned on the radio. It was set to a classic eighties station. A-ha’s Take On Me was playing. “But generally speaking, I agree with Noah. A man grabs your ass, he needs his ass kicked.”
“You guys are giving me a headache,” I said, more or less putting an end to the conversation as far as I was concerned. At least the music provided a good distraction.
When we pulled up to the stop sign and waited our turn, I noticed a limousine parked across the street on the shoulder of the road. Limousines weren’t every day occurrences here, but they weren’t unheard of either. Noah and Jeb had picked back up at the conversation about me taking it to Derrick. I was only half listening. Levi’s name came up, and I tuned them out completely.
My eyes were fixed on the limousine. Sleek and black, it pulled onto the two-lane road, followed closely by a black Range Rover, as if guarding some celebrity or foreign dignitary. I was pretty sure it was neither. I felt the weight of Flores’s stare like an anchor around my neck, knowing those blue eyes watched me through the tinted glass. It was reminiscent of the feeling my dream evoked.
Predators circling. Some harmless, some not so much. I wondered when one of them was going to get brave enough to strike.
Four
“What is he doing?” I bit the end of my pencil as I watched Noah. It was really a rhetorical question. It was obvious what he was doing. The real question was why.
While I’d been doing homework this evening, Noah had been out finding another way to torture himself, this time in the form of a prowler sled. I hadn’t even heard of such a piece of equipment. I’d stared at it dubiously when he unloaded it out of the back of the Bronco. He’d grinned and the gleam in his eyes bordered on fanatical, as if he couldn’t wait for the torture to begin. Like it was the best part of his day. People worked out on the beach regularly. Yoga classes. Bootcamp classes. Runners, like my dad, were a staple. But Noah insisted on taking it to the next level. And pushing a prowler sled loaded with weight through the deep powdery sand was taking it to the next level.
We’d eaten first. The empty pizza boxes still sat on the table, and I’d questioned whether an intense workout was a good idea after consuming a whole large pizza loaded with everything from shrimp to bell peppers to mushrooms. Noah assured me he was used to it. Watching him proved morbidly fascinating. The way his muscles strained under his smooth, sweat-slicked skin. The mental toughness he exhibited as he pushed himself to keep going when he was clearly hurting. Fascinating and sexy as hell.
“Are you just now figuring out his masochistic tendencies? The guy likes to punish himself,” Jeb observed from his side of the patio table. We’d come outside to enjoy the sunset and the view. He sipped his second beer.
“Is that what he’s doing?” I thought about the look on Noah’s face when he’d told me about the fisherman who’d drowned. The one who, through no fault of his own, he couldn’t save.
A mushroom beamed me in the head. “Focus, Caris. This is the last one.” Jeb nodded at the paper in front of me.
I bent my head back to my work, pencil in hand, my fingers cramping from so much writing. When we’d set up outside the sun was just beginning to go down. Now the sky was changing from lavender to gray and it was getting harder to see.
Jeb had been exceedingly patient as we’d gone over my botched test, pointing out where I’d gone wrong on the problems I missed. Fortunately, he had a way of explaining the steps with such clarity I was embarrassed I’d bombed the test. I finished the corrections on the last problem and passed my paper over for Jeb to double check, certain I had it right. His blue eyes scanned the page. His face reminded me of the mountains back in Kentucky. Mountains I would probably never seen again. Rugged and beautiful, harsh if not for the soft fall of his hair. Most of the time he wore it in a tight braid, but today it was in a side ponytail, loosely bound, hanging down the left side of his chest. It was a shade or two darker than Noah’s, the color of wheat, and didn’t have the same highlights. Jeb’s were more gold than platinum. Definitely a face that would earn him lots of propositions from grabby ass older women.
“Good news is you’re not stupid. You obviously understand the basics, you just need to slow down. Most of your mistakes are careless errors.”
I rubbed my eyes. “I know. I think I was just tired today.” And distracted by a dream I couldn’t quite shake. I tucked my corrected test back in my book to keep it from blowing away in the breeze. “Thanks for helping me.”
“No problem.”
“So do we tell him we’re done or let him keep at it?” Noah had made some friends. A couple of guys running down the beach stopped when they saw him and jogged over. I thought he might know them by the way they were exchanging bro handshakes and back slaps.
“He’ll stop when he’s tired. Which could be a while.”
“You know those guys?” I asked. They both had that hard-edged military look about them.
“Yeah. Donovan and Ross. Two of Jamie’s old teammates. Well, almost teammates.”
The two of them jumped right in with Noah, taking turns with the sled. Kindred spirits. Guys he considered friends. At one point, while one of the other guys was bent over the sled, feet pumping for all he was worth, Noah looked toward the house. He looked happy, so in his element.
“You have an interest in all this physical torture?” I asked Jeb as I pulled the hoodie I brought outside with me over my head and sank into its warmth. The fat “UK” on the front set off a nostalgic nerve. Last year I would have said college was my future. I’d always assumed the University of Kentucky would be at the top of my list. Now I didn’t have a list. That twenty-eight on the ACT I’d worked so har
d for meant nothing. Sometimes it was hard not to think about how much everything changed by coming here.
“I’m not as hardcore as Noah. I was never able to keep up with Jamie. But they thrive on this kind of stuff. Marshall knew what he was doing when he recruited them.”
“Well, you’re obviously very smart. Do you share Noah’s aversion to higher education?” I’d noticed a trend amongst the other breathers close to my age of forgoing college, though they’d all seemed to find a niche. Quinn, the only other female breather I’d met and two years older than me, managed a trendy boutique and dabbled in fashion design. Her boyfriend, Daniel, was more or less being groomed to take over his family’s beach service business.
“I’m in my second year of classes at the community college in Ft. Walton. Thought I’d get the basics out of the way, see where I want to go from there.”
“You have anything in mind?” I lay my head on the back of my chair, cutting my eyes so I could see Noah over the dunes. He and his friends were still at it. I’d thought about joining Noah sometime in his workout routine, but this might be a little much for me.
“Something in the medical field. A doctor or medical research. Maybe both.”
“Wow. That sounds ambitious,” I said, feeling wholly inadequate. My big lofty goals at the moment consisted of getting my high school diploma and finding myself.
“You sound surprised.”
“No, I’m impressed.” It was almost fully dark and Noah finally called it quits. He said his goodbyes to Donovan and Ross, a series of back slaps and chest hugs. They jogged back the way they’d come, and Noah lost himself in the gulf.
“Well, my parents both died of bacterial infections when I was younger. So I’m leaning towards research. The healing powers of the Deep only go so far. We need real medicine.”
“I’m sorry, Jeb. I didn’t know about your parents. That’s what happened to my mom.” Did we all have some tragic story to tell?
“There’s no reason for us to be that vulnerable,” he said, his tone bordering on passionate. “Not anymore.”
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