Recovered and a little nervous, but oddly excited to taste him, I take him in my mouth, eliciting a slow groan from deep in his chest. I utilize the techniques that Bristol has shared with me because she can’t keep anything to herself, and hope her narrative is enough to see me through.
Vance holds my head but doesn’t drive. He seems content to let me work at my own pace and manage the depth. I am more than happy to experiment on him.
“Brenna, I’m gonna come.” His warning says a lot about him, and I pull back—my inner porn star showing its limits—and use my hand to finish him off.
“Stay.” Vance, tone serious, strips me of the bag I’ve just shoved my swimsuit into and wraps me up in his arms, his chest pressed against my back, his lips near my ear.
“Stay. I’ll take you to work in the morning.”
“I don’t have clothes.” My excuse is weak, but I can’t give him the real one. I’m scared shitless. I can’t fucking want this. I can’t.
“Then I’ll take you home first. Stay.”
My inner battle for self-preservation loses some ground, and I lean back against him, torn between staying and knowing the sooner I walk away, the easier it will be to take my heart with me. As much as I pride myself on being independent and not being a girly-girl, I have the emotions of one, and I know the longer I stay, the more I’ll want.
He kisses my neck, dragging his teeth along my skin. “Say you’ll stay,” he whispers. I shiver, and my eyes involuntarily close as my skin explodes with a rush of new goose bumps beneath his breath.
I shove all my reservations aside and give in to the consuming and sometimes frightening craving I have for all things Vance. Knowing there’s no way I can walk away now, I turn around in his arms. “Only if we can take a shower and finish what we started in there earlier.” I may as well enjoy the time I have with him today instead of worrying about what I’ll be left with tomorrow. There is something to be said for living in the moment.
He presses me harder against him. “You ask a lot of a guy. Now I’m going to ask something of you.”
I look up, eyes hopeful, heart hammering. “My answer is yes.”
“I haven’t asked yet.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’d still say yes.”
He takes my lips in another kiss that leaves me barely able to stand. “I’ll see you Saturday after my game for another date.”
Okay, wasn’t what I was expecting, but not altogether worse or better than the triple-X scene I’d anticipated him asking for. Somehow, I figured we’d part ways after tonight. I’m not sure if it’s relief or a mild case of uncertainty expanding the spaces between my ribs. “It’s Miracle Days.”
“You can’t take back your yes. I’ll see you at Miracle Days.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
If it wasn’t for Miracle Days and the prep work for the auction, the four days in between my last date with Vance and our next would have been fraught with nervous anticipation. As it was, I barely had time to take on a side job designing a new brochure for a local surf instructor, let alone worrying about what another date might imply. But now that Bristol won’t stop chatting about it, my insecurities flare.
“He’s supposed to be here after his game,” I snap my answer at Bristol. I’m tired of the fifty-question interrogation she’s been putting me through since I told her Vance was hoping to be here in time to for the auction.
Using her shoulder, she slides a skimboard into the holding rack and nearly topples over when it doesn’t give her the typical resistance. “I thought you said you were done with Hollywood after Candid called you ‘the equivalent of a gas station egg salad sandwich.’”
I fume, checking the skimboard in but trying my damnedest not to give her too much rope. “I was pissed, Bristol. They don’t even know me, and who wants to be compared to a sandwich that could potentially give you explosive diarrhea? I survived the shit people said about me when you sucked off half the school. I think I can survive one lousy article.”
“That was a rumor, Brenna. I didn’t blow half the school.”
“Exactly my point. I’m not an egg salad sandwich, either.”
“My point is, if this blows up, it won’t just be you they talk about. They could talk about Dad and Colette and any other offspring we may not be aware of, Mom’s bus terminal of ex-boyfriends, and our slut-shaming. Are you ready for that? If you thought last year was bad with the kegger at Kale’s house, wait until Candid gets ahold of your name and it goes global.”
“I don’t know what I’m ready for, Bristol, which is why I’m nervous. We’re still getting to know each other.” I grab the broom to sweep up the mound of sand forming beneath the racks.
“You should know everything you need to by now. You spent, what, like two hours on the phone with him last night?”
I roll my eyes for the hundredth time over her petty arguments, but I don’t engage her. I’ve spent hours over a few days getting to know him on the phone. And those few hours were in between work, auction preparation, and side jobs I have to pick up because Bristol can’t attend classes like a normal college student on scholarship. “We’re feeling it out. Nothing more.”
She’s given up returning the boards to their slots and stands there looking at me. “It’s Miracle Days, Brenna. Your ‘feeling it out’ won’t be with just the town drunks at The Seam this time. He’s Van Hatfield, womanizing man-whore and Jock Star of the Year. The tabloids are going to follow him here eventually.”
“It’s Milagro Beach, not Hollywood. I think we’re fine.” I groan, not really confident in that statement but standing behind it just the same as I shove a surfboard into the rack with more force than is required. I’m typically not this motivated to put something away that will be out again in five minutes due to the heavier Miracle Days traffic. It’s our busiest day of the year next to the Fourth of July, and inventory doesn’t sit long.
Bristol stretches, moving her arms like they’re sore, and they probably are. She’s moved a lot of product today, but I’m more concerned it’s from the shit she’s shoveling my way. “Suit yourself. Just remember, it’s me you’re dragging down with you.”
“Welcome to my show. I’ve had a supporting role in yours for years. And news flash, you dragged us down years ago.”
Bristol’s glare is deadly. “Go ahead, rewrite history. You weren’t fixing your skirt in Nick’s back seat.” A few bikes arrive, and she’s forced to table her argument.
By the end of our shift, Bristol and I have fought and made up half a dozen times. I’m pretty sure we’re in a stable truce as we wander the boardwalk, sampling the food from one end to the other with the occasional stop to check out the vendors selling everything from watercolor paintings to jewelry.
We pick up fish tacos for my mom and Uncle Rodney, who will be too busy working at the bar to get anything for themselves, and make our way back toward The Seam, detouring occasionally to snap pictures of tourists who didn’t bother looking in a mirror this morning.
The Seam, where Uncle Rodney will be announcing the silent auction winners in less than an hour, is bursting at the seams, which Bristol doesn’t find as funny as I do when I say it to her. She elbows me in the side instead of laughing as we cross in front of the barricade blocking off one section of Ocean Avenue’s traffic.
Motorcycles galore are parked along the next city block not cordoned off with orange barricades, and it looks like Milagro Beach has been taken over by motorcycle gangs. Bristol and I approach cautiously and slowly weave our way through leather pants and patched vests. It’s intimidating at first, but when we realize most are with their women or are old enough to be our dad, we relax and cut through them like we would anyone else.
Inside The Seam, Uncle Rodney has an entire staff working and wearing buttons for Remington General’s Cardiac Wing, which is this year’s beneficiary of the silent auction and near and dear to Uncle Rodney since he had a mild heart attack in his late forties. It was “nothing” according to him, but
it must have been a little something, because he’s never volunteered to host anything community-oriented at The Seam before, much less the biggest event of the year.
“Did you see Vance?” Uncle Rodney shouts over a classic rock song playing through the overhead speaker.
Bristol beams brightly, though I’m not sure why she looks so happy after bitching the last several days about me continuing to see him. “He’s here?” She looks around, eyes scanning a crowd she’ll never find him in.
“He’s out back,” Uncle Rodney yells, “helping your mom with something.”
I hand Uncle Rodney the fish tacos, receiving in return a grateful sigh and a mouthed “thank you.” Bristol disappears somewhere between me catching her beaming and Uncle Rodney’s directions, and I find myself looking for her instead of Vance.
Feeling a little exposed in my white Stray Charlie’s tank top, I hoist the curved neckline up for the tenth time since I left work so I look more disheveled and less like I’m for sale. I turn and make it no further than a face plant into a hard chest.
Hands grip my shoulders. “Going somewhere?”
I look up, rub my nose where it collided with sternum, and see the one face that’s kept my mind occupied during the quiet moments between sleep and work. If I allowed him to, he could destroy my world, but the potential for something real and honest with someone who doesn’t care about my family history is a tempting lure. I already feel the calm of his presence, and despite the unknown, I lean toward it.
Vance blends in wearing a new ball cap that sits low on his forehead, shielding blue eyes that are usually blocked by his sunglasses. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I smile wide, my squashed nose forgotten as the world once again feels level. “You came!”
“I said I would.” He tips his head toward me to hear what the crowd and music stifle.
“I know, but it’s so public and, well . . .” I don’t have to say it. I don’t have to spell out what he already knows.
“I’ll be cautious. Why is your shirt like that?” With two fingers he fixes my bunched scoop-neck tank top, and I once again look like Stray Charlie’s call girl.
I ignore his clothing assist and prattle on without losing my focus. “Cautious would be waiting until dark.” He cups his ear like he can’t hear me, so I drag him toward the storage room but stop short of entering and stand at the closed door.
“I wanted to see you.” He bends to kiss my cheek. “Can you blame a guy?”
I close my eyes, relishing the compliment before I have to respond. In all of our phone conversations, we’ve never talked about the next step, both seemingly content behind closed doors, with no real desire to take it public or ask for a label. He has a piece of my heart whether we call it anything or not. If I could have Vance without the publicity, that would make Bristol happier—me happier too—but that’s not reality, and to pretend that it is won’t serve anyone.
The music stops, saving me from a reply, and Uncle Rodney with a microphone to his lips calls the crowd to order. We move back into the fray, and Vance slips his hand around mine in a brief but open display of affection. I felt it much longer than it lasted and knowing it would cost him if anyone noticed, made it mean that much more.
“The silent bids have been counted by our Miracle Days committee, and our winners will be posted beside each item’s bid sheet. If you bid on anything, folks, you’ll want to check the table to see if you have won,” Uncle Rodney continues, despite the lingering conversations and offshoots of rowdy hoots. “All items can be picked up this evening at the Rec Center or tomorrow morning if you’d prefer. Milagro Beach, we raised a whopping sixteen thousand dollars this year. Sixteen!” he shouts, lifting an arm in the air like he’s celebrating. “Thank you all for your participation.”
“How much did the Hatfield ball go for?” I hear the question from the crowd but can’t pinpoint the body it comes from.
Uncle Rodney hesitates, struggling briefly between his fierce protection of Vance’s privacy inside his bar and his hometown’s curiosity about their baseball hero. It’s still a sore subject with me, and I find myself once again irritated with Bristol. “As much as I’d like to say my bid took it, I’m afraid the ten-thousand-dollar bid was too rich for my blood.”
The crowd hoots, appeased it at least went for a good price and one they couldn’t afford. I look away from the melee to see Vance shifting uncomfortably beside me, too modest to peacock over his involvement. I would still be peacocking over my kindergarten noodle sculpture if my dad hadn’t slammed it against a wall two weeks after its blue-ribbon win.
I scoot closer to him and he grabs my hand, leaning down into my ear to talk to me. “We don’t have to go, but I could use a second—”
Pops of bright light precede a commotion I’m too startled to follow. The crowd in front of me clears, replaced by a hungrier one that wants, it seems, a piece of me. I’m not claustrophobic in the slightest. I once hid in the dryer for two hours while Bristol hunted for me, but this is nothing like that, and a heaviness akin to fear blankets me. I hold out a defensive hand in front of me while my other tangles with Vance’s. The warm grip around my right hand is pulling me in one direction while an unfamiliar hand reaches, snares, and pulls me from above the elbow in the opposite. More flashes of light flare and then diminish, leaving the bar in a sea of melting orbs like you see when you’ve rubbed your eyes too hard or looked too long at the sun.
Voices of all levels and tones vie for Vance’s undivided attention as I realize it’s his name repeatedly being called out while they paw me. I stand between Vance and the photographers, who I’m pretty sure aren’t all that reputable by the parts of me they grab.
“Get the fuck back!” Vance yells, pushing one of the guys with a chunk of my Stray Charlie’s tank top in his fist. The guy, who looks a little bit like Shrek, falls against the woman behind him, and her camera hits the ground, shedding a piece that hits my foot.
With Uncle Rodney’s booming voice on the microphone, his friend John acting as a bouncer, and Vance using his body as a barrier between me and the photographers, I feel a tinge of relief as the crowd thins. Despite Vance’s aggression and my retreat, the occasional flashbulb still pops, and the bastards still fling their questions at Vance faster than he can possibly answer.
“Does this mean you and Amber Dietrich are done? What about Nikki Kline? Is she in the picture?”
“Are you ever going to set the record straight about your leave of absence? Was it due to the fight with McEntire or your fight with Able Howard?”
“After the fight with McEntire, are the Renegades looking to trade you?”
“What’s her name? How did you meet her? Give us your name, sweetheart.”
“How long before...”
It’s nonstop. The questions, like debris in a funnel cloud, shoot out randomly. There is no rhyme or reason, or maybe there is and I’m not grasping the ins and outs. I don’t usually like to mix my gossip with the six o’clock news, but these people don’t care. It’s like People magazine up in here, and by the way they’re firing questions at him, I’m not really sure they give a shit whether Vance answers or not.
“Back off!” I’ve heard Vance say more than once, but they don’t listen and seem to close in tighter. I’ve seen him strong-arm and shove them only to be provoked into more. I’ve seen his anger, understood his frustration, and sensed his fear with the uncontrolled escalations and outright disrespect displayed by the relentless reporters.
When the police arrive like they’re busting an underage house party, Vance gets the distraction he needs to gain the upper hand. He’s still wound tight, and if his grip on my hand is any indication of where we’re at on the Richter scale, we’re barely avoiding complete destruction.
“Are you hurt?” he asks, concern overriding his other emotions.
I shake my head, looking up at him, eyes wide, mind reeling.
“I’m sorry, Brenna. Dammit, I’m sorry.”
“Excuse me.” Deputy Solomon, a somewhat lanky man with a trash ’stache and a God complex, obviously can’t tell that Vance and I are in the middle of something or are about to be. He’s awfully arrogant for a guy who gets from point A to point B on his bicycle. “Mr. Hatfield, we’re going to have to take a statement from you.”
Vance groans, runs his fingers through his hair, and growls out, “Why?”
“The gentleman you shoved is filing a complaint.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I’m still reeling from my first experience with paparazzi when my fifth experience with Milagro Beach’s Finest pulls the rug out from under me with talk of arresting Vance for assault and battery. Now I’m locked in the storage room because Uncle Rodney doesn’t think I’m capable of keeping my mouth shut long enough for them to figure out there is no merit to Shrek’s claim. I can’t say he’s wrong, but frantically pacing between a wall of shelves and a door Uncle Rodney is guarding isn’t helping my mood any.
My pacing comes to an abrupt halt when Bristol flies in, yelling, “What are you going to do, Solomon, peck me to death with your nose? You’re a security guard. You can’t arrest me.” Her hair is a blonde halo of mass discord, and she looks like she may have fought her way out of a burlap sack. I don’t know what she had to do to get in here, but whoever is on the outside wants her to stay, and the door slams shut behind her.
When Bristol finally calms down enough to notice me, she plows into me, hugging me tightly. “You’re okay.” Her smile, slow to form, brightens.
“Solomon is a cop,” I say through strained breaths as she squeezes me to death.
I feel her shrug, but her arms around me don’t loosen. “Then why is he always in the beach parking lot?”
“He’s a bike cop. He patrols the beach, but he has the same authority.”
She laughs, pulls back to let me reclaim some old, dusty, storage room air, but questions me further, face scrunched up in confusion. “What’s he going to do with me after he arrests me? WE can’t both fit on that bike.”
Rumor Has It (Jock Star Book 1) Page 16