“Yeah, I’m actually…color blind.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Yeah, it’s no big deal really. When I’m driving I know the bottom of the three lights means go and the top means stop.”
“Red and green?”
“Yeah, red and green give me problems, but I figured why take the chance. I’m a guy. I don’t know anything about designing or decorating or colors or any of that stuff.”
I look at his sandy blonde hair that match the grains right out his back door where I can imagine walking our imaginary dogs together on the beach, and his ocean blue eyes where I can imagine us snorkeling in the calm coves in the area and know that he may not know much about color but whoever or whatever made him sure did because that hair and those eyes are breathtakingly beautiful.
“I’m sure you’re not that bad.”
“I’m worse than bad. And that’s where I was hoping you’d come in.”
I don’t say anything. Yes, please ask me what I hope you’re going to ask me. It will give us a chance to spend more time together and hopefully a whole lot more.
“I want you to be in charge of the design for the interior of my house.”
“Oh,” I say, but I want to jump up and down and pump my fist in the air. Or better yet for him to grab me by the hand and run with me into the ocean as he pulls my wet body into his.
“Yeah, I think I could do that,” I say pretending like my schedule isn’t completely empty right now.
“Good. I want something masculine of course and I can give you ideas, but I trust your expertise.”
Yes! And he’s going to be a dream client not second-guessing me. Woo-hoo!
“Did you have some ideas and a budget in mind?” I ask as my mind goes on autopilot from my training. I want him to know I’m professional and will do a good job, not just that I can’t wait to spend more time with him.
“I have a few pictures I cut out of some architecture magazines. And the budget isn’t a problem. Luckily I invested part of my first signing bonus into some of those Bitcoin things six years ago. The price exploded and I sold them last Christmas.”
“Guess that finance degree really paid off,” I say, complimenting his investing expertise. “Yeah, anytime there’s a new asset class it’s misplaced as we humans go through price discovery.”
“Right,” I say pretending to understand a single word of what he just said.
But none of that matters. I already heard what I wanted to hear, and I sure as heck understood it.
I’m a fresh out of college interior design grad with no clients and no experience and he wants to hire me to work on this incredible summer beach house and he’s willing to invest what it takes to make it perfect.
And all of that is great, but it’s really just icing on the cake…or should I say cookie.
Because all those years of baking him cookies seem to have finally paid off.
And not only that he’s the ultimate dessert. He’s like a fine dark chocolate. Sophisticated on the one hand, but solid, like his muscles, on the other.
And all I can think about is getting my mouth on his, drowning not in the Hershey’s kisses I used to use in those chocolate chip cookies I made for him all those years ago…but drowning in his kisses.
Forever.
CHAPTER 3
Sebastian
Seeing Dave looking at her like that and then trying to talk to her when she arrived at my summer beach house sent me into a rage. I wanted to break him in half with my own two hands. Who in the hell does he think he is trying to get friendly with my woman? I wanted to punch him right in the face so his eyes swelled up so he couldn’t even so much as look at her.
I may have played professional football, but I wasn’t a thickheaded bruiser. I was a quarterback. It’s the most skilled of the skill positions and requires you to keep a cool head at all times, especially under pressure.
But today I’d lost it, and the only “pressure” so to speak was another guy thinking he could look at her and talk to her…and on my property! At the house I bought that will be for us and the one we’re going to work on together making that house a home.
And when it’s done it will be a home…our home.
As much as I want to tell her everything right now and get started on building not only our dream home, but more importantly our family together, I have to keep cool.
I’ve only got one chance at the most important thing ever in my life and I don’t want to mess it up. If I come on too strong too quickly it could cause a big problem between her and her brother. And it might even scare her away.
I felt the connection today and I’d risk everything to know if it was just my imagination being so out of control after seeing her, but I know I have to show some restraint and introduce her to the idea that she’s not just my best friend’s little sister.
I need to show her I see her as so much more now. That I can literally see with my own two eyes that she’s a woman now.
My woman.
My Summer.
And this is the summer that she becomes mine. I would say becomes mine, but that’s not accurate at all. She already is mine. It’s just a matter of time now.
And in that time I’m going to make sure no one even has the slightest thought that she isn’t. Dave learned the lesson the hard way today, but I don’t feel sorry for him.
He’ll be okay. There’s plenty of good work in this area…work that pays well.
Just not anymore from me. He made me so mad, plus firing him like that in front of the other guys sets a precedent. It shows them I’m not messing around here.
I’m not trying to be a jerk, but they have to know what’s off limits…and what’s off limits is her…one hundred percent.
I pull up to the address she gave me not even caring that I’m thirty minutes early.
There’s something different I can’t describe about being close to her, some sort of connection I can feel inside me. It makes no sense, but then again neither does any of this. This is just happening so fast and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. I have to have her. Have to make her mine.
I’m not about to fight this feeling, nor do I want to try.
Most things in life are okay, good enough, or get the job done.
Not this. This is so much more. It’s like she has a magnetic pull on me.
I get out of my truck and walk right up to her front door. I knock hard, wait about half a second, and then knock again.
Where is she? I want to see her. Need to see her.
But I see something totally unexpected.
“Hey man, can I help you?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Summer’s roommate.” He knows better than to ask me the same question, plus I’m sure my face doesn’t look like I’m in a conversational mood.
But how did he even know what I was thinking? He could have just said he lives here, but he can read on my face what I want. What I’m here for.
Am I making it that obvious?
Do I even care? No.
“Sebastian?” I hear from the backroom.
I see her step into view in the back of the house. She’s got an oversized towel wrapped around her body and another on her head.
“What time is it?”
“I’m early. I wanted to get started.”
But what else is early is how quickly I’d finish if I did what’s on my mind right now…grabbing her and taking her straight to the bedroom. I wouldn’t last. No way. My want for her is so strong my body would take over and no amount of mental tricks could stop it. It’s summer. It’s warm. I’m getting tons of sunshine. Not that I need it to get the Vitamin D that makes animals like humans so horny.
I could be hard as a rock for her in an ice bath in Antarctica right now.
“I need a second to get ready,” she says. “You want to come in?”
“I’ll wait outside,” I say and the guy who answered the door gives me a bit of a curious look before he qu
ickly wipes it off his face. He’s smart enough to know he doesn’t want any trouble with me, especially when it comes to her.
“Um…okay,” she says. “I’ll be right out.”
I step away from her apartment door and onto the sidewalk where I begin pacing.
This is driving me crazy…knowing that there’s some guy in there living with her.
I don’t even care if it’s her boyfriend. He won’t be now that I’m here. No way I’m letting anyone have her, even though something tells me this can’t be her boyfriend. She looked so innocent today. So angelic and virginal.
This guy wouldn’t know what to do with a woman like her…a woman more special than any other in the world.
I’m the only one that would. I’m the man who’s been in her life since she was a kid and I’ll be the man that’s there now that she’s all grown up.
I open my door and sit behind the wheel, one leg on the floor mat and another hanging out the side. I get an impatient feeling sitting there waiting and I get up and start pacing again.
A minute seems like an hour and the ten it takes her to get ready seem like an eternity.
“I’m ready,” she says stepping out of the house.
“Let’s go,” I say moving quickly towards her and taking her by the hand immediately feeling a shocking sensation run up my arm and throughout my body.
One single touch and that tiny little feminine hand of hers has got me sprung.
I open the passenger door and help her inside before rushing around to my side where I start up the engine and pull away from the curb.
“Was my house on fire or something?”
“No,” I say.
“It seemed like it. You were in such a hurry to get out of there.”
“Who’s that guy?”
I hear her exhale and out of the corner of her eye I see her turn and look at me. I turn my head right at her in response looking at her deeply letting her know how serious I am about this.
“He’s my roommate…I think.”
“You don’t need a roommate.”
“I don’t need to live on the street either.”
“You don’t have to,” I say.
“Okay then…or live on the beach either. Same thing.”
“What do you mean by ‘I think?’”
“I mean I’m sleeping on his couch until I sign a lease for my own place.”
“How come you aren’t staying with your parents?”
“They moved to Arizona, remember?”
“They sold the house too?”
“What’s gotten into you? You’re all…possessive and acting weird about my living situation. Why do you care?”
“I’m just watching out for you…that’s all.”
“Is it?”
“Is what?”
“Is that all?”
Damn. Now’s the time to tell her, but I can see she’s angry. No way am I going to blow my chance on this. Timing is everything and I’ve got time. I’m not going to rush her and blow my chance.
“All I’m saying is you’re a young woman by herself and you need someone to keep an eye on you.”
“Young woman is right, and being such I can watch out for myself.”
“You’re small. The world is a dangerous place. Even with all the self-defense classes in the world a big guy with a gun is going to present an even bigger problem.”
“Why would anyone want to rob me? I’m broke. I just finished college so if someone even tried to rob me they’d only be practicing. It doesn’t really count as a robbery if you’ve barely got enough to order one thing from the ninety-nine cent menu at McDonald’s.”
“You’re not eating fast food, are you?” I need her to be eating healthy organic stuff so her body is primed when I get her pregnant.
“Sebastian. What in the world is wrong with you? Why are you acting this way.”
“I want what’s best for you. That’s all,” I grumble.
“You’re acting like my dad or something, and even he doesn’t act that way.”
“But I bet he worries about you.”
“Maybe. I mean he’s my dad…it’s what parents do.”
“Well he doesn’t have to anymore.”
“Huh?”
“You’re moving in with me.”
“What? Are you out of your mind?”
“No. It makes complete sense, and it will allow us to work on the house more efficiently.”
“What if I have other clients? You expect me to just give you my undivided attention,” she says as her body betrays her…her legs turning in her seat to face me more directly. She is giving me her undivided attention as I alternate between long looks at her and the road ahead.
“Yes.”
She doesn’t say anything, but I can read her frustration mixed with anticipation.
“Do you have other clients?”
“I…these kinds of things are confidential,” she says.
“You’re not a doctor…or an attorney. I’m just asking if you have other clients.”
“Maybe.”
“And maybe not. So that settles it. You’re living with me now. You can even have the big bedroom.”
“And what if I don’t want to?”
“Then you can have a small bedroom. Take your pick.”
“Sebastian! What…if…I…don’t…want…to…come…live…with…you? Are you listening to me?”
“Do you?”
Silence.
The first rule of sales is never speak first. He who speaks first has lost. And this is the biggest “sales pitch” of my life.
More silence.
“I can’t afford it. You live by the beach…it’s expensive down there.”
“We can include it in your contract.”
“I need all the money I can get from the work to pay off my student loans.”
“There will be money for that too.”
“I don’t know. I mean…”
“You mean it’s a great idea and you’d love to come live with me down by the beach as I make some improvements to the house while you handle all the designs…just like you did when you were a little girl up in your room playing house, but now it’s for real.”
“Who said I played house?”
“I saw you. And I saw that Ken doll you used to play with inside the house.”
“So.”
“And I also saw that Barbie doll…the one whose hair you tried to die with strawberry Kool-Aid.”
“I did not!”
“Oh really?”
“So what. That doesn’t mean anything,” she says.
I reach across the center console and grab the tips of her beautiful red hair letting it fall around my fingertips. I rub it together in-between my first two fingers and thumb, feeling its smoothness as her head leans towards me ever so slightly allowing me to touch it more freely.
I release her hair and grab the rear view mirror, tilting it so it’s pointed right at me. I run my fingers through my blonde hair as if I were a real life Ken doll.
“No!” she says as she leans across grabbing my arm with both hands with a big smile on her face. But I’m too strong for her and I run my hands through my hair again. My goal was to tease her about her dying the hair of that Barbie doll, to match her own, by focusing on her hair and then mine...and it worked.
“Stop!” she says slapping me on the shoulder. “It’s not like that.” I actually spilled Kool-Aid on her. I wasn’t trying too…”
I know what she wants to say...that she wasn’t trying to make the Barbie doll more like her, but when we’re kids we all do things like that. It’s why boys wear uniforms of their favorite athletes and pretend to be James Bond with their cap guns or other toys. I mean I pretended to be the Incredible Hulk once and I flexed my muscles so hard during the opening credits to that show that I fell off the arm of the couch and fractured my arm. A little girl wanting her doll to more closely resemble her is kind of cool if you ask me, but I couldn’t resist the o
pportunity to tease her about it.
Summer Romanced_An Older Man Younger Woman Romance Page 2