No, no, no. She wouldn’t assign blame. Inner peace was her own responsibility. “I noticed you were gone. Does that count?”
“Sure.” He looked smug. Smug! She knew he would. And it made her want to smack him harder. “You changed your hair.”
“I did.” That morning she’d put on a short asymmetrical wig, which she particularly loved because it took her out of her comfort zone, made her look a bit wilder and more unpredictable and helped make her feel that way, too. But with Zac looking at her much too carefully, she only felt exposed as a fake.
So? She wasn’t one. Just a beginner at unearthing new feelings and new parts of herself. This was all part of her transformation, freeing herself to explore new potentials. She’d spent too long watching other people really live while she stood sensibly on the sidelines, held there by the weight of her parents’ values and expectations.
She refused to care whether Zac liked the new look or not. In fact, she’d let him think it was permanent.
“Nice,” spoken with no enthusiasm, still studying her. “Something else has changed about—”
“What can I get you?” She wanted to remind him that their relationship was customer and barista, and he had no place giving opinions on her appearance.
No, wait. He did. He had that right, and she accepted it.
Oh, man. She needed to get back to her cliff.
“How about a tall French roast and...” His blue gaze faltered, then focused on her with renewed intensity, unsettling her further. “And the chance to spend time catching up with you.”
Chris blinked. Blinked again. She should be taking cleansing and healing breaths right now.
She wasn’t breathing at all.
Was Zac asking her out? No, no, he couldn’t be. He hadn’t mentioned a place or event. He just wanted to find out what she’d been doing while he was gone. Probably just being polite.
“Well.” She turned away to pour his coffee, finding it much easier not to look at him. “It’s not busy here now. We can talk.”
He didn’t answer. Chris turned back, holding out his mug. His eyes pinned her. She felt as if she’d suddenly started moving in slow motion. “Actually, Chris, I meant I’d like to have dinner sometime.”
Dinner sometime?
“I...we...you...”
He chuckled—of course he did, her discomfort always amused him, the rat—and took the coffee out of her hands. “Think about it.”
Chris stepped back, inhaled long and slow through her nose, blew out the tension between her lips, and relaxed her tongue and her shoulders as she’d learned to do. She was free to accept or reject his offer. She had power in this situation. And if he’d get the hell away from her, she could take some time to examine her feelings before she answered, as she’d also learned to do. “Thank you. That’s a very nice invitation.”
His eyebrow quirked. “Something’s different about you. Besides the hair.”
“Yes.” She did not owe him an explanation.
“Okay, then.” He shot her a grin and started toward his usual table, leaving Chris hopelessly trying to get her Zen back.
The door banged open, making her jump and Zac turn. A young, slightly familiar-looking man walked in. Chris glanced at Zac and then back. Was this his younger brother? He was darker than Zac, one eyebrow pierced with a silver ring, slender where Zac was built, light and quick in contrast to Zac’s powerful, deliberate movements, but there was some resemblance.
“So this is Slow Pour.” The newcomer made the announcement as if he was narrating a movie starring himself. A few patrons paused in midconversation to see who had interrupted the café’s peaceful vibe.
Zac suddenly looked wary and tired. Chris felt a pang of sympathy for him. Whatever trouble this kid had gotten into, it had been hard on his older brother.
The kid who must be Luke ambled toward her, eyes alight with mischief and energy. “And you are therefore Chris.”
“That’s me.” She spoke quietly, not sure what Zac had told him, or what role she’d be assigned in the Luke Arnette show.
“Zac, man, you didn’t tell me she was totally gorgeous.”
Chris suppressed a groan. Luke might look like his brother, but so far he was behaving exactly the opposite. Point in Zac’s favor.
“Didn’t I?” Zac shrugged mildly. “Guess I forgot.”
“Can I get you some coffee? Tea? Suja Juice?” Chris stretched tall, centering herself, trying to radiate kindness and acceptance, and coming up with an attitude closer to dismay. Darn it. She’d thought she was more thoroughly grounded in her new self. Obviously she still had work to do. “Or would you like something else?”
“How about a date?”
Argh, she’d walked right into that one. “How about coffee?”
“You want to have coffee with me? That’d be okay.” He winked at her. Winked! “Though I was hoping for dinner sometime.”
Gee, where had she just heard that phrase?
“Luke, dude, back off.” Zac shook his head.
“What, am I poaching on your turf?”
Zac’s snorted. “Poaching on my turf? Who says things like that?”
Luke’s arrogance dropped as though it had been shattered with a hammer. “Gimme a break, man. This isn’t my world.”
“So? Just be your own effed-up and charming self.” Zac smacked Luke’s shoulder, grinning wryly. “You’ll get a lot further with the babes that way.”
Chris snorted. “Further with the babes? Who says things like that?”
Zac jerked his thumb. “He does.”
“Let me check this out with Chris.” Luke stepped forward, leaning against the counter, his blue eyes so like Zac’s that Chris had to force herself not to drop her gaze. “Would you like me better if I wasn’t trying so hard?”
“Yes. But only about a thousand percent.”
“Okay.” He opened those eyes puppy wide, his voice rising a few notches. “Will you go out with me? I’ll admit I have an arrest record. I beat someone up. He deserved it, though.”
“Why don’t you start by ordering something?”
“Sure.” He scanned the menu written on the surfboard hanging over her head. His lashes were long and dark, eyes shadowed. Some of his mania must be coming from fear and insecurity. She would cut him a break and be kind, though frankly, she wished both Arnette brothers would get out of her store. Life had been so peaceful without Zac around. Though she supposed it was good to realize how far she still had to go before she could confidently return to New York. Her transformation wasn’t worth much if she fell back into her old ways every time something stressful happened.
Luke ordered a mocha latte, which she made with whole milk, and she added a free oatmeal flaxseed raisin cookie to welcome him to Carmia, because he looked as though he hadn’t eaten in weeks. He and Zac took their coffees over to Zac’s regular table while Chris tried to get back to a state of calm, which proved futile because there was a constant buzz inside her, reminding her of Zac’s looming presence.
She wanted to ask him if he’d been accepted into any engineering doctoral programs yet, though Eva probably would have said something if he had. He’d taken a leave from his engineering job at a firm in San Luis Obispo to deal with Luke. Obviously the company he worked for valued him a lot if he was able to come and go like that. Apparently he’d worked at the same company through his master’s program at Cal Poly, as well. She was curious what his life had been like growing up in Connecticut, and whether Luke had always been a troublemaker and whether—
Stop. Chris yanked her mind back to the present where it belonged, pulled a couple of shots of espresso for a husband and wife biking through Carmia on their way down the coast, and packed up some whole-grain fruit bars for them to take with them.
Another few customers straggled in. She served them cinnamon-flavored organic brown-rice pudding and lattes made with almond milk, glad the place was busy so she could work on pretending Zac wasn’t there.
D
uring the next quiet moment, she was about to head back to check on the bathrooms when the front door swished open again.
“I have arrived, victorious!”
Chris swung around, already smiling. Another familiar face had returned. With his tousled dark hair and blue eyes, Gus Banyon was the sexiest surfer dude of all time—except, perhaps, for his equally gorgeous friend Bodie, who had ten more years and twenty more pounds of solid man muscle on him. “Hey, Gus. Welcome back!”
“Whoa, you cut off all your hair. Why’d you do that?” Gus didn’t look any more pleased with her new do than Zac had been. And was even less polite about it.
“It was time for a change. So what did you win this time?” Gus had spent the past few months competing in surfing competitions across the country.
“Better than a win, I got a sponsor!” He raised his muscled arms. “I am the dude!”
“Gus, that is great.” Chris couldn’t say she understood his world, but she was a little smarter about it than when she’d arrived in October. Having a sponsor meant money, which meant bigger and more important competitions, and, most important, it meant someone truly believed in Gus’s talent. “Congratulations! What can I get you? On the house. Suja Juice?”
“Oh, wow, you’re stocking that now?”
“I am.” She laughed at his shocked expression. “Your favorite.”
“Could I have a Berryoxidant?”
“Coming right up.”
“All right!” He lifted his hand for a high five and pulled it back at her withering look. She might have settled into the California vibe, but she was still not going to do that.
From the small refrigerator behind the counter, she pulled out a Berryoxidant and handed over the attractive red bottle.
“Thank you, my dudess.” Gus lifted the bottle reverently. “Apple, orange, strawberry, banana, raspberry, sour cherry, chia seed, flaxseed, baobab and camu camu. Score!”
She watched him chug half of it, then, without having a clue what he was talking about, listened patiently—well, mostly patiently, she was only human—to his description of the individual waves and how he’d handled them. From time to time she was aware of Zac glancing over in her direction. It was hard to block movement in one’s peripheral vision, right?
“So anyway, I’m back in town for a couple of weeks, and I was wondering...” He dropped his eyes to the counter. “Do you want to have dinner sometime?”
His voice must have carried because Zac and Luke stopped their conversation and turned. The color rushed to Chris’s cheeks. Fabulous. Month after month blush-free and now three times in one afternoon? What was in the air today? And what was with the phrase dinner sometime?
“Oh, Gus. That would be...” She wasn’t sure what it would be. Honestly, she’d gotten so used to her peaceful, carefree life that she hadn’t adequately planned for what she’d do when Gus came back. They’d gone out on one not-so-great date before he left, though she’d agreed to give him another chance.
But the idea of sitting across from him, listening to wave stories all night...
The door opened. Praying for a barrage of customers so she could get out of answering until she was able to choose the best answer from deep in her always-wise subconscious, Chris glanced over.
Oh, my Lord. Her chance to retrieve any calm out of the afternoon was officially gone.
A serious hunk of man filled the doorway, his hazel eyes meeting hers with such blatant sexuality that she felt a thrill all the way down to her...inner calm. Speak of the handsome devil, it was Bodie Banks, Gus’s fellow surfer and mentor. She hadn’t seen him for several weeks. He tended to stop in for coffee, smolder for a while and leave. But oh, that smoldering. He was amazing. In a low-down, predatory kind of way, but amazing nonetheless.
“Bodie! My man!” Gus went over, and oh-so predictably there was the skin-on-skin smack of a freaking high five. She wondered if she could give Gus a palmectomy so he couldn’t participate in the ridiculous ritual anymore.
Wait. Shh. Those uncharitable thoughts belonged to the old Chris. No living creatures were hurt by high fives; there was nothing wrong with it. Acceptance. Love. Kindness. She was badly off track.
“Hey.” Bodie prowled toward the counter, biceps and deltoids popping out of his sleeveless T-shirt, which hung loosely over a pair of bright blue patterned board shorts. “How’s it going, Chris?”
Gus fell back a few steps, disciple making room for his master. Zac and Luke continued to watch the spectacle.
Well.
This wasn’t at all awkward.
“I’m fine, Bodie. Welcome back to Carmia. What can I get you?” She half expected him to order a cup of whole roasted coffee beans and a spoon. He was that primal.
“Double espresso.”
“Coming up.” Grateful for the reprieve, she moved back to the gleaming espresso machine, which worked so much more smoothly than hers back in New York. Eva had dubbed her finicky machine the Beast. “So how have you been?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Busy. Too busy. Nice to have a few weeks off now.”
“Yeah?” She packed the ground espresso into a solid puck and hooked the portafilter into the machine. “What are your plans?”
“Don’t have any. That’s the best way to live. Moment to moment. Know what I mean?”
Finally, someone who spoke her new language. She smiled over her shoulder while the machine buzzed. A few months ago, she would have been horrified, imagining that a lack of planning would automatically equal chaos. Now she embraced the concept wholly. Lately, she’d even been doing crazy-impulsive things, like taking walks when it was dinnertime. Just because she felt like it!
Yeah, okay, she was still a beginner when it came to the whole spontaneous thing.
“So, Chris...”
Something in Bodie’s tone made her body tense and her heart skip a beat. The espresso machine shut off abruptly, thrusting them into silence.
“Yes?” She picked up the cup and turned to find Zac, Luke and Gus still watching.
Argh!
“Since I’m back and free for a while...” He put both hands on the counter and leaned forward. His muscles bulged, his eyes held hers.
Chris swallowed. Holy—
“I’m thinkin’ you and me have something pretty powerful between us.”
The counter?
She couldn’t get the joke out. She was swimming in a sea of hormones and freaking out. In her hands, his espresso cup rattled against its saucer before she could make her hand relax.
“Huh.” That was the best she could do. This mental meltdown was not okay—this was no longer who she was, and this was not where or how she wanted to be.
“So I was wondering—” he reached over and touched her cheek, making her skin tingle and causing her to nearly drop the cup “—if you wanted to have dinner sometime.”
2
IF ONE MORE guy asked Chris out, Zac was going to get up from his table at Slow Pour and land an uppercut to his jaw. Then he was going to punch Gus and Bodie retroactively, because that was the kind of mood he was in.
What the hell? Before the holidays, he’d left for Connecticut, where he and Luke had grown up, because Luke was in trouble—again. Zac had wanted to try to set his little brother on a straighter path, but he’d also needed to get away from Chris, to get over himself and stop the stupid mooning.
Nice idea. Didn’t work. In Connecticut he’d discovered he could moon long-distance just as easily as he could in California, plus he was reminded of how much he didn’t like winter. He’d gone through that misery annually growing up, and he didn’t want to do it again.
So he’d come back. Luke needed a change of scenery, needed to get away from his substance-abusing East Coast friends to live a cleaner, better life under his brother’s watchful eye.
Luke had been a little surprise package who’d come into the world a week before Zac turned twelve. Three years later, when Luke was a toddler and Zac was in his first year of b
oarding school, their mother had succumbed to cancer. Their father had done his best to raise Luke on his own since then.
Losing their mother had sucked, to put it mildly. Zac had done most of his grieving on his own while he was away at school. Their already distant father hadn’t been in any shape to be a good parent, so Luke bore the worst of the tragedy. Zac had done what he could to help when he was home, but that wasn’t often. He had two regrets in life: one, that he hadn’t been there more for both Luke and his father, and two, that he hadn’t made a pass at Cynthia Baumgehen in college the night they were alone in his room.
Today, the minute he’d laid eyes on Chris, in spite of her weird haircut and new piercings, all the feelings he’d spent the past months trying to suppress had come roaring back. Standing there, overwhelmed, he’d remembered his regret over the missed opportunity with Cynthia and had experienced a big what-the-hell moment. So he’d asked Chris out to dinner, only to see her falter and hem and haw. And then he’d had to watch her get the same freaking offer from three other guys, including his own brother, for God’s sake. As if Zac was no different from a delinquent kid and brain-dead surfer meat.
Apparently he was smart not to have made a pass at Cynthia all those years ago. She probably would have turned pale and thrown up all over herself.
And while he was ranting, who or what had taken the spark out of Chris? She was like an overdecorated shell of her former self. Eva told him Chris had taken a month of classes at the Peace, Love and Joy Center. That was fine, and he had respect for the practices of yoga and meditation—many of the Eastern philosophies of life made good practical sense—but he didn’t understand why she had to look deflated and blank and suck air before answering a simple question. Chris Meyer was a high-energy, exciting woman. If she was trying to change that about herself, she would only succeed in driving herself crazy.
Well, fine, then, she’d go crazy. He’d stand by and watch. Not his problem.
“Uh, Zac?” Luke sat across the table, Zac’s laptop open in front of him. Supposedly he’d been looking for job opportunities in the area, but Zac was pretty sure his brother had also been taking in the three-ring circus unfolding in front of them nearly as intently as he had been.
The Perfect Indulgence Page 2