Blame it on the Bikini

by Natalie Anderson

  ‘I thought Mother didn’t know,’ Brad scoffed lightly. ‘I thought I was protecting her.’ Brad had kept that bitter secret for months, feeling all kinds of betrayal—for himself, his sister and his mother.

  ‘But she did,’ Mya said.

  He nodded. ‘We have an annual barbecue at home for all Dad’s staff. And that trainee turned up all confidence and Mother greeted her so politely. So knowingly. Coolly making it clear to her that while Dad might screw the secretaries, he’d never leave his wife.’

  His mother was as selfish as his father. She wanted what she wanted and was happy to put up with the inconvenience of having a faithless husband. Money and status mattered more than truth. She was so busy projecting the perfect image. That was the moment that Brad decided not to help her project that image any more. That was when he removed himself from home as much as possible. He’d gone off and found his own fun—with his own rules.

  He looked at Mya. He’d never told anyone that. Not anyone. Had lack of sleep got to him too? And, yeah, he regretted mentioning any of it now he saw what looked like pity in her eyes. He didn’t want pity, thanks very much; he had it all under control. He was more than happy with the way he managed his life.

  ‘I’m never going to marry,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m not going to lie the way they both do.’

  ‘You don’t think a long-term relationship can work?’

  ‘Not for me.’

  ‘You’re not willing to take the risk?’

  ‘Why would I? I can get all I want.’ He smiled, acting up the playboy answer again. And he figured the women in his life got what they wanted too. Which wasn’t really him but the things he could give them—good sex, fancy dinners, a flash lifestyle. And fun. ‘I care about my work. I like to have fun. I like my space. I like it uncomplicated.’

  ‘Easy.’

  ‘Is that so wrong?’

  ‘No,’ she said softly. ‘Not if that’s what both parties want. And understand.’

  He trod on the brake and turned to look at her. ‘I don’t do relationships, Mya. I do fun and flings and nothing more.’

  ‘Message received loud and clear.’ She echoed his words of the night before, calmly meeting his stare.

  He felt sorry, tired, resigned. ‘So this … chemistry between us,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Goes nowhere,’ she answered. ‘It’s just one of those things, you know—the friend’s older brother …’

  ‘The sister’s best friend.’

  ‘We’re such a cliché,’ Mya acknowledged with a lift of her shoulders. He’d have believed she was amused had her laugh not cracked at the end. ‘We’ve seen too many movies. And you know how it is—you always want what you can’t have.’

  ‘We’ll be friends.’ He did want to remain in contact with her.

  She hesitated. Too long for his liking. ‘We’ll do this party for Lauren.’

  And after that? Back to zero contact? It would be for the best. But it wasn’t what he wanted at all. He still wanted her to the point of distraction. He’d just have to get over it. Another woman maybe?

  He gripped the steering wheel with psycho-killer strength. Appalled with her schedule, he dropped her to university for an hour’s lecture knowing she then had to go straight back to the bar for another night’s shift. Despite the scratchy feeling beneath his eyelids, he found himself driving to his parents’ house. He vaguely tried to remember when it was he’d last been there, and failed. But now was a good time. His father would still be at work and his mother would be at some meeting. He avoided both the house and them as much as possible.

  ‘Hello?’ he called out just in case as he opened up the door and disarmed the alarm.

  No answer. He took the stairs. His and Lauren’s rooms were still neat, still as they’d had them when they were growing up. On a separate floor to their parents, at opposite ends of the hallway from each other, with guest rooms and bathrooms in between. The physical distance was nothing on the emotional distance between the entire family. And though he and Lauren had grown a little closer as adults, the gap between parents and children had only widened.

  His mother had read a home-organisation book at some point in one of her obsessive phases, and all their personal things were stored in crates, neatly stacked and labelled in the back of their wardrobes. Schoolwork from decades ago. When was he ever going to go through that? When would anyone? But it wasn’t his room that he’d come to grab stuff from. It was Lauren’s.

  Because that photo of Mya at her parents’ house had reminded Brad that, at one stage in her turbulent teen years, Lauren had taken hundreds of photos. For a long time she’d preferred the magic of the old-style camera before messing around with digital. The old playroom had been converted into a darkroom for her, their parents eager to do anything that might hold Lauren’s interest in a topic that was actually palatable to them—not like boys and underage clubbing. It had long since been converted back into a study but the boxes of prints remained in Lauren’s wardrobe.

  He sat on her bedroom floor and flicked through them, his heart thudding harder and harder as he worked through the piles. Lauren’s best friend, the natural model for Lauren’s photographic phase. It had been the two of them against the world, right? The rebel and the reject—the kid who’d not been included by anyone at the hellish, snobby school they’d gone to. Except for Lauren.

  Though it was subtle, Mya had changed. The planes of her face had sharpened, those high cheekbones, the big green eyes were able to hold secrets now. In her teen years the attitude was obvious. The resentment, the defensiveness. But so was the joy, effortlessly captured in every other photo—that pixie smile, the gleam in her eyes.

  Often she had a battered library book in her hand. Every other photo it seemed Lauren had snapped while Mya was unaware—and she was so pretty. The ones where she was aware were funny. The madness of some of the pictures made him laugh—terrifying teen girls.

  He’d gone to university as soon as he turned seventeen and missed much of this part of Lauren’s life. It had been a relief to get out of the house. At the time he’d been too selfish to think of his sister. He’d thought she hadn’t known but of course she had. He’d discovered that in their tennis sessions. It was the great unacknowledged truth, how unhappy and dysfunctional their perfect family unit really was. The affairs of his father, the obsessive illness of his mother. They all retreated behind the façades they’d chosen for themselves. His father the distant workaholic, his mother the busy do-good wealthy woman, his sister the tearaway who acted out for any kind of attention. What was left for him but the playboy role?

  He paused over one photo. Mya in that prom dress. He should have taken a better look at her in it back then. Then again it was probably better that he hadn’t.

  She was leaning against the wheel of a car, parked on a lawn that looked as if it hadn’t seen a mower in a few months with ratty weeds. With broken headlights and the weeds around the wheel, that car was going absolutely nowhere any time soon. Yeah, that’d be the car she hadn’t learnt to drive in.

  Brad put that picture to the side and shuffled through some more. He thought about taking the whole box home to look through at leisure but that was a step too far into stalker territory. He flicked through the pile more quickly—Mya wearing some mad hat, Mya draped in what looked like an old curtain. Mya in another dress apparently butchered and sewn together. He looked at the commonality in the pictures. Lauren’s pictures of Mya in Mya’s crazy—brilliant—creations. So many different things and so out there.

  He flipped through them, faster and faster. She’d not always worn black. She’d always worn outrageous. Uncaring of what society might think. She’d made them herself, made that massive statement—‘here I am, look at me …’

  Where had that fearless girl gone?

  Why had she turned herself into a shadow? Now in nothing but black, slinking round as if she hoped she couldn’t be seen. Why didn’t she want to be seen? Where had the crazy fun gone? Sh
e’d grown into a pale, worried woman. A woman who worked too damn hard. Brad held the picture and looked at the smiling face, and slowly his own smile returned as it dawned on him.

  It wasn’t Lauren who needed a party. It was Mya.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BRAD was lost in thought when his sister thumped his shoulder.

  ‘What was that for?’ He frowned, rubbing his biceps more from surprise than pain.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Lauren asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean those two women just swished past you with hips and bits wiggling and you didn’t even look at them. Plus I almost beat you today, which has never happened in our whole lives.’

  Seated at the tennis-club lounge, Brad felt more confused than ever. ‘What women?’

  Lauren’s mouth fell open. ‘Are you sick?’

  Okay, he had been somewhat distracted this morning. ‘I’ve got a tough case on.’ He offered a genuine excuse. Gage Simmons was truanting again and still not speaking to his psychologist, and the idea of his parents coping with a mediation conference was a joke.

  ‘Isn’t that even more reason for you to scope out some action?’ Lauren said sarcastically. ‘That’s your usual stress release, isn’t it?’

  Once upon a time it had been, sure. But he hadn’t looked at another woman in days—there was another consuming his brain space. ‘Have you seen much of Mya recently?’

  ‘My Mya?’ Lauren’s pretty nose wrinkled. ‘Not much. Why?’

  ‘I ran into her recently,’ Brad hedged. Seemed Mya hadn’t told Lauren about the mis-sent photo. Good.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At that bar she works at.’

  Lauren nodded and sighed. ‘She works all the time.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Brad knew if he left the space, Lauren would fill it.

  ‘It was her birthday last month and she couldn’t even come for a coffee with me, she was so crunched between work and study,’ Lauren said.

  Bingo.

  ‘Seems a shame for her.’ Brad hesitated, unsure of how to put his idea forward without his sister guessing what it was he’d really wanted. ‘Your birthday is coming up soon and you’ll get your mitts on all your money.’ Her trust fund would be released. ‘We’ll have to have a huge party.’

  Lauren shrugged. ‘I don’t want it.’

  ‘The party or the money?’

  ‘The money,’ said Lauren.

  Brad paid proper attention to his sister for the first time all morning. ‘What do you mean you don’t want it?’

  ‘I’m going to give it away.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  Lauren shrugged and looked self-conscious. ‘I want to make a difference. You make a difference.’

  Brad smothered his groan and at the same time felt affection bubble for his scamp of a kid sister. ‘It’s easier for me to do that when I don’t have to worry about how much I earn in my job. I can afford to take on the pro bono cases, Lauren. I couldn’t do that as easily without the trust fund.’

  ‘That’s what Mya said too.’ Lauren frowned. ‘But look at her, she’s so independent.’

  ‘Yeah, but she’s not having much fun with it. Life should include some fun, don’t you think?’

  ‘We all know what you mean by that.’ Lauren rolled her eyes and giggled.

  ‘Not just that. Some simple fun too, you know—party fun.’ Brad stretched his legs out under the table. ‘What are we Davenports good at?’

  ‘Not that much.’ Lauren sipped her lemonade through her straw.

  Brad raised an eyebrow. ‘But we are. We’re really good at putting on a show, right? Let’s put on a show for Mya.’

  ‘Mya?’ Lauren breathed in so quickly she choked on her drink. Coughing, she asked him the dreaded question. ‘You’re not going to mess with her, are you, Brad?’

  He shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Lauren didn’t look convinced. ‘She’s not as strong as she seems, you know. She’s actually quite vulnerable.’

  ‘Are you telling me to stay away?’ Brad managed a smile.

  ‘Would it make any difference if I did?’ Lauren asked point-blank. ‘I just don’t think it would end well. Things don’t end all that well for your women, and Mya’s had enough of that.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Brad grinned, though his teeth were clenched. ‘She’s like a sister to me.’ What did she mean things didn’t end that well for his women? ‘And this is because I have a venue I need to do something with for a night.’

  ‘A venue?’ Lauren leaned forward, and Brad smiled for real this time. Yeah, his sister had always liked a party. ‘So what were you thinking?’

  ‘How’s this for a plan?’

  Mya got used to the random calls and quickly got in the habit of checking her phone for texts every five minutes. They were short queries about the tiniest details that most people would never think of. One thing to be said for Brad, he was thorough. Very thorough.

  In the mornings now he came to the café and ordered a coffee. He never stayed more than ten minutes or so, always moved away when she got busy and had to serve someone. She spent the rest of the day looking forward to her shift at the bar.

  Because now he turned up there early every night and urged her to do her worst in creating another cocktail or shot before the crowds came in. She loved the challenge and got the giggles over the often awful results. It didn’t matter if she made something that tasted hideous. They laughed about it—with him naming them outrageously. His word play had her in hysterics. He made suggestions; she ran with them. Together they came up with some bizarre mixes that actually worked and many, many failures. But with Brad, failing was more fun than not. And while they worked on it in that calm twenty minutes or so before the crowds appeared, they talked.

  She admitted more about her parents’ troubles and told him about her cousins who lived around the corner. He listened and then, in turn, ‘fessed up more about his parents, and occasionally referenced his work. She knew he was incredibly busy; sometimes he came in looking drained but he always switched ‘on’ as soon as someone spoke to him. But she knew he went back home after their cocktail-mixing session to do more work. It was why he never drank more than a mouthful of whatever they’d mixed. But mostly they laughed—teasing about everything from taste in music and TV shows to sports teams, and swapped stories of wild, fun times with Lauren.

  Mya laughed more in those few minutes each day than she had all year. But fun as it was, it was also slowly killing her because her teen dreams were nothing on the adult fantasies she had now about Brad Davenport. He was so attractive, so much fun and yet so serious about the silliest of things for the party. His concern over the finest of details was so attractive.

  In days he became a constant in her life—the one person she saw most of aside from her workmates. It was only for a few minutes, but they were the highlight. And then there were all those texts and the never-ending playlist suggestions for the DJ.

  Three days before the party, in between her shifts at the café and the bar, Mya was studying at the library. Her phone vibrated with a message from Brad.

  Where are you?

  She chuckled at over-educated Brad’s inability to use any abbreviated text language. She was similarly afflicted. So she texted back her grammatically correct reply and went back to her books.

  She didn’t know how long it was before she glanced up and saw him standing at the end of the nearest row of books. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘It’s my natural home.’ He winked as he walked nearer.

  ‘But you of all people should know you’re not allowed food in the library.’ She gave the paper bags he was carrying a pointed look.

  ‘No one will see us.’ He jerked his head and sneaked down the stacks away from the study tables and well out of range of the librarian’s help desk.

  ‘Brad,’ she whispered. But in the end there was no choice but to follow, and she’d come over all first-year giggly s
tudent in the library in a heartbeat.

  In the narrow space, surrounded by thick, bound books, he opened the bag and pulled out a couple of pottles and put them on a gap in the shelves.

  ‘What is this?’ she asked, intrigued.

  ‘Chocolate mousse.’

  Of course it was; why had she even asked? But she did, and she had to ask the even more obvious. ‘You want me to try them?’

  ‘Yes, they come in these cute little cups, see?’ he whispered. ‘Which do you think, mint or chilli?’

  ‘You are taking this far too seriously.’ She shook her head, but licked her lips at the same time. Yum. She took a tiny bit on two teaspoons and tried them. ‘They’re both really good. I think Lauren would like—’

  ‘Which do you like best?’ he interrupted, his gaze boring into her.

  Mya’s skin goosebumped while her innards seared. She’d missed that look these past couple of days—that full-of-awareness-and-forbidden-desires look. She’d thought he’d gone all friendly and party efficient and had forgotten that kiss altogether—or didn’t think it was worth anything. Now all she could think of was that kiss and how much it had moved her and that maybe, just maybe, he was thinking of it too.

  ‘Why does it matter what I think?’ She didn’t have to try to whisper now. Her voice had gone completely husky. ‘This is for Lauren, not me.’

  ‘She’ll like what you like,’ Brad insisted, stepping closer. ‘Come on, tell me.’

  She’d never had lust-in-the-library fantasies. Until now. And right now, all she wanted was for Brad to kiss her again in this quiet, still space.

  ‘You’ve gone red,’ he said. ‘Was the chilli-chocolate too hot?’

  ‘Must have been,’ she muttered.

  He was looking at her mouth. Could he please stop looking at her mouth? Did she have a huge gob of mousse on her lip? Because he looked as if he wanted to taste, and she wanted him to, very much.