A Bluewater Bay Collection

by Witt, L. A.

  “Scott says he knows someone who’ll hire me as a bartender.” I’d paused. “I have to go. If I stay here, I’m going to lose my mind.”

  She hadn’t argued after that.

  And now here I was.

  Bluewater Bay wasn’t exactly the other side of the world, but it was far enough to give me the change of scenery I desperately needed. No too-familiar skyline to make me cry in traffic. No Seahawks Stadium to take me back to the night we’d gotten engaged. No Mount Rainier in the background to remind me of when he’d still been strong and healthy and we’d taken that long, miserable, but somehow satisfying hike to the peak. Maybe someday I’d go back up there. See if our names were still in the book at the top.

  For now, I was hunkering down on the north end of the Olympic Peninsula for . . . I didn’t know how long. A while. Maybe a year or two. Maybe ten. However long it took to . . . Fuck, I didn’t even know. Get over him? That wasn’t going to happen.

  Breathe again. That would be enough. Stay here until I could breathe again. Because I didn’t think I’d really done that since my husband’s diagnosis.

  Not until . . .

  Until tonight.

  As I leaned against my apartment door, my head spun. Fuck, I was breathing again. I’d connected with someone, if only for a few hours, and . . . Yeah. Breathing.

  I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly, taking a moment to savor this unfamiliar feeling of not being weighed down by grief. Oh, the grief was still there, and depression was still an invisible anvil on my shoulders, but the weight was lighter tonight. Still heavy, still painful, but not as immovable as it had been the past several months.

  And all because a cute blond kid was stood up tonight. Funny how things work out.

  I opened my eyes and pushed myself off the door and farther into my empty apartment.

  Though I was nowhere near unpacked, I had finally finished arranging my furniture, and the place didn’t feel as claustrophobic as it had when I’d moved in. The couch and entertainment center seemed to expand the living room walls, giving me a bit more elbow room, though this apartment could only feel so big, especially after the three-bedroom house I’d lived in before . . .

  Before I’d moved here.

  I slung my jacket over the back of the couch, dropped my wallet and keys on the counter, and continued down the short hallway to the bedroom, all the while trying to ignore how cramped the place still felt. I hadn’t lived in an apartment since my college roommates and I had wedged ourselves into that godawful shithole twenty years ago. It would be different now, though. Once I got used to the place, it would be different. No roommates, for one thing. Plus it was a much nicer complex. A little small, but I wasn’t sure I could deal with more empty space than a two-bedroom apartment had to offer. Not until I’d fully adjusted to being on my own again. Baby steps.

  While I changed out of my work clothes, my mind wandered back to Jesse. How did my evening with him fall into line with the baby steps I’d been taking? Had he strolled into my life, given me a desperately needed breakthrough, and then moved on? Most likely. And that was okay. It was what I needed. What he’d needed too, apparently—Jesse had been lonely and I’d been grateful for the company. Maybe we’d been a little flirtatious here and there, but it didn’t have to mean anything beyond two guys passing an evening together.

  It was a good thing, I told myself. It meant there was hope that my libido might come back. If I could feel attraction, then maybe I could eventually work up whatever it would take—courage? strength?—to act on it. And if I still had the capacity to be attracted to someone, maybe there was a chance I could connect emotionally too. Even if it didn’t happen anytime soon, the possibility of it happening at all was a relief.

  Right now, I didn’t need to do anything except enjoy the fact that tonight had happened. Let the mental image of Jesse make me grin like an idiot. Let the thought of his smile give me goose bumps. Let our evening at the bar wake something up in me that had seemed like it was dead and gone. Everything else would happen in time if it happened at all.

  Baby steps, I reminded myself. Baby steps.

  * * *

  My best friend, Scott Fletcher, lived in Bluewater Bay—that was why I’d picked this town for my new start—and he came over the next night to see how I was settling in. He’d offered a million times to help me unpack, but I insisted on handling it myself. I was still drowning in a sea of boxes, but I’d started making some headway, and I’d finish it all eventually. The bedroom was unpacked. The kitchen was . . . not.

  Fortunately, the good Lord had given us a thing called pizza delivery, and in no time, a couple of medium pepperonis were on their way. When they arrived, we ate like college kids: with paper plates and using boxes as tables. I’d also been to Your Daley Bread—the general store up the street—earlier to get the basics, and there’d been enough room in my basket for a six-pack.

  I handed Scott a cold beer. “So where’s Jeremy tonight?”

  “Working. Any time Anna leaves the house, he’s gotta be there.”

  “That must get tiring for both of them. And you.” Jeremy was the bodyguard for one of the bigwig directors/producers at the Wolf’s Landing set in town, so he was constantly busy.

  “Eh.” Scott shrugged as he took a swallow of beer. “I knew what I was signing up for. And she’s a bit of a homebody these days anyway, so he gets a lot more nights off now.”

  “That’s a plus. Does he still like the job?”

  “Oh yeah.” He chuckled. “I’m pretty sure he and Anna keep each other in line.”

  “Somebody has to, right?”

  “Exactly.”

  I just laughed.

  As we continued shooting the breeze, I propped one foot up on an unopened box, resisting the urge to groan as I rubbed at an ache in my knee. Go figure—I’d spent the day very carefully lifting with my legs so I didn’t fuck up my back, and now my knee was pissed off. When the hell had I gotten old? No telling, but it was going to make tomorrow’s shift loads of fun.

  From the other end of the couch, Scott studied me, and I knew the question was coming before he said it. “How are you doing?” There was no point in pretending he was asking about my knee.

  “I’m . . .” I stared into my beer, “I’m getting out of bed every morning. That’s something, right?”

  “It is. Not a small something, either.”

  From anyone but him, I might’ve taken that as an empty platitude. Except Scott understood. In fact, it hadn’t been just the job and the promise of an escape that had drawn me to Bluewater Bay. If there was anyone on the planet who could understand what I was dealing with, it was Scott. He was a counselor by trade, and he’d spent a lot of time with me in Seattle during my husband’s final months, but he also knew firsthand what it meant to lose a partner.

  Though the deaths of our respective husbands couldn’t have been more different, Scott and I got each other in ways no one else seemed to. Especially since Sean and Nathan had both been much too young. I suspected that in the last year, Scott had seen a lot of his past in my present. His world had dropped out from under him in the blink of an eye, and mine had gone in a slow shatter until the splintering crash at the very end, but we’d both been to that dark, broken place. The fact that he’d made it to the other side had been the only thing to pull me through some of the worst moments.

  After Nathan’s death, Scott had never been the same, but he had finally found some happiness again. First in his life on his own and in his career, then with Jeremy, the man he’d been engaged to for a while now. I just tried not to think about the fact that it had taken him a good twenty years to get there.

  Not that I was in any hurry to find another partner. All I wanted was for the pain to stop. Or lessen. I’d take that.

  Since last night with Jesse, it had been better. And worse. And better. I was hopeful now that there was a light at the end of this long dark tunnel, but I also felt guilty for being attracted to someone. I was asham
ed of how much Jesse had been on my mind since he’d left the bar, but I was encouraged by it too. I felt better, but did I have any right to? I felt worse, but did that make any sense?

  There was really only one thing I was sure of these days, and that was that grief was a roller coaster. The kind of twisting, turning, not-entirely-stable roller coaster no safety commission would ever approve, but somehow got built anyway, and once you were on it, you weren’t getting off until—

  “Garrett?”

  I shook myself and met my friend’s gaze again. “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right.” Scott grimaced sympathetically. “Spacing out sometimes is part of the process too.”

  “Great,” I muttered into my beer. “At least that’s normal.”

  “It will be for a while.” He paused. “So, you got the job down at the Alehouse?”

  I nodded, grateful for the subject change. “Yeah. I started last Monday. Could’ve done it sooner, but I wanted a little time to get a handle on all this shit.” I gestured at the boxes with my beer bottle.

  “Makes sense. Are you absolutely sure you don’t need a hand with what’s left? I’m happy to help, and I know Jeremy would be too.”

  “I think I’ve got most of it.” Gingerly kneading my knee, I added, “I’ll keep it in mind, though. Thanks.”

  While we grazed on the remnants of the pizzas, Scott’s eyes kept darting toward something, and after a moment, I realized he was looking at my left hand. Probably at the third finger. Which was bare. The tan line was hardly visible anymore.

  When he caught me catching him, he cleared his throat. “I’m, uh, surprised you took your ring off.” He paused, then quickly added, “A lot of people hold off. Part of the grieving process, and . . . anyway. I just noticed, that’s all.”

  I thumbed the divot the gold band had left. “I stopped wearing it a couple of months before he died. It, um . . . I lost too much weight, so the ring kept sliding off.”

  Scott gave a slow nod. “Yeah, I noticed you’d dropped a few pounds.” His eyebrows pulled together. “Are you doing okay? Healthwise?”

  I nodded. “Better, yeah. Another couple of months of this”—I held up the half-finished pizza slice—“and I’ll probably be back to my fighting weight.”

  “Good. Good.” Scott smiled faintly. It faded, though, and he quietly said, “You know if you need anything, all you have to do is call, right?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.” I debated telling Scott about Jesse, but ultimately decided against it. Scott would analyze it because that was what he did, and I wasn’t sure I wanted it analyzed. It was probably nothing anyway—just a momentary connection to help me snap out of my funk. Besides, I’d enjoyed it, and I didn’t want it picked apart.

  So I let it go, and we kept working on the beers and pizza.

  * * *

  Scott left a while later, and I was again alone in my new apartment. At least it didn’t feel quite so empty now. I’d put a few more pictures up too, which went a long way toward making the whole place seem less like a sterile void.

  I let my gaze drift to a framed photo of a ferry silhouetted against a purple and orange sunset. Sean had taken it during an outing to Mukilteo Beach when we’d been dating. He’d rarely gone anywhere without his DSLR around his neck and had refused to use his phone for anything other than the odd snapshot or selfie. It hadn’t been good enough for real photography.

  Maybe not, but I had some gorgeous photos on my phone that I’d taken when he wasn’t looking. More and more, I was glad I’d grabbed those stealthy candids.

  There weren’t any photos of him or us on the walls yet. That would come with time. For now, the ferry and sunset were enough. It wasn’t the only picture I’d put up today, but it was like a focal point in the room. A comforting one. Enough of my past that I didn’t feel completely lost, and enough of Sean that I didn’t feel completely alone, but not so much that I cracked under the weight of it all.

  Gazing at it now, I decided I was going to be okay. New place. New town. New job. Plus an old friend nearby I could lean on. The adjustment was going to take time, and there was still plenty of grieving to be done, but yeah, I’d made the right move. This was where I needed to be. It was all right that it would be a long road. I had someone here who’d been down it. Someone who could reassure me—from experience—that things would get better. He’d made it, and so would I.

  And as a bonus, someone else had sauntered into my world, shocked my libido back to life, and given me a ray of hope I hadn’t known I’d needed. Moving on wasn’t just some pipe dream anymore. For the first time, it felt like something that might happen.

  I took a deep swallow of beer, then toasted the photo with the bottle.

  I’m gonna be okay, Sean. Just like I promised.

  Chapter 3

  Jesse

  “Hey, boss lady?” I poked my head in through the open doorway of Lydia’s art room in the back of the comic book shop. “Could you please do something about your husband before I kill him?”

  Lydia looked up from her electronic drawing pad. “Well, if you’re going to, I wouldn’t want to interrupt.”

  I glared at her. “You want to be the one to tell Ian?”

  Her lips quirked, and then she groaned as she pushed her chair back. “What’s he doing this time?”

  “Just being . . .” I flailed my hands in the air and groaned.

  Laughing, she walked past me and called out, “Simon, why are you upsetting the help?”

  “Hey!” I huffed.

  She glanced over her shoulder and winked.

  “Bitch,” I muttered.

  In the shop, she halted with her hands on her hips.

  Simon stood in the middle of the mess he’d been making by the shelves of role-playing games. His eyes flicked from me to her, and then he rolled them before going back to turning my carefully arranged display into an unmitigated disaster. “Oh, come on. It’s not that bad.”

  “Simon. Sweetheart.” She approached him carefully like she would a skittish animal. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m putting the Mars III books and expansions closer to eye level. They’re damn near on the floor, so nobody is seeing them, and if we don’t start moving more, the company’s going to pull our distributor status.”

  I cleared my throat. “So you’re going to drop the D&D packs down below eye level?”

  “People will find D&D,” Simon said. “They come in here looking for it. Mars III?” He pointed at the packages surrounding his feet. “We need those where people can see them because otherwise they don’t even know they exist.”

  Lydia turned to me. “He does have a point.”

  “I know.” I sighed. “I know, and . . . Okay, look. If you want to redo a display, be my guest. But must you do it half an hour before closing time? Because we both know you’re going to fuck it up, and I’m going to have to unfuck it.”

  She smothered a laugh and shifted her gaze to her husband. “And he has a point too.”

  Simon shot her a good-natured glare. “I’m not that bad.”

  “Of course you’re not, sweetheart.” She patted his arm. “But maybe now isn’t a good time. I mean, Jesse’s right—it’s almost closing time, and we’re going to be a madhouse tomorrow, so we can’t afford to have a display all . . .” She gestured at it.

  “Tomorrow?” Simon furrowed his brow. “What’s tomorrow?”

  Lydia and I both groaned. She face-palmed.

  Before I could tell him, he grimaced. “Oh shit. The Space Villager expansion.”

  “Uh-huh,” Lydia said.

  Simon sighed, and when he turned to me, his cheeks colored a little. “Okay. Okay.” He showed his palms. “You were right.”

  “I know.” I scowled at the mess. “But what about all of this?”

  Lydia glanced back and forth between us. “Tell you what.” She faced me, eyes full of Please don’t be mad. “You go ahead and take off for the night, but we’ll still pay you for the full shift. Th
en tomorrow morning we can both set up the Space Villager display before the hordes show up for the launch.”

  I pursed my lips. “So you want me to come in early?”

  Her brow pinched. “Could you? I’ll buy coffee.”

  I shot her my best petulant look. “Good coffee? From Stomping Grounds?”

  “Of course.” She gave a long-suffering sigh. “I’ll even get you one of those blended abominations you like.”

  A grin tried to come to life, but I fought it hard, the corners of my mouth probably visibly twitching. “With whipped cream?”

  “Yes. And chocolate sprinkles.” Her forehead creased. “So, I’ll see you at seven?”

  Seven? God. Even chocolate goddamned sprinkles couldn’t get me out of bed before nine. But Lydia’s pretty please? face could, so with a melodramatic sigh, I nodded. “Fine. Seven.” I wagged a finger at her. “But if they skimp on the sprinkles this time—”

  She laughed. “I’ll make sure they don’t.” Turning a bit more serious, she added, “Thanks, hon. Now get out of here.” She gestured at the display she and Simon would be putting back together tonight. “I don’t want any witnesses.”

  Simon’s eyes widened.

  I just laughed and went in the back to get my jacket and keys. It was a relief, not having to stick around tonight. Coming in tomorrow morning would suck donkey dick, but it was better than me and Simon butting heads after a long shift, especially over something like displays.

  And the fact was, I was a sucker for Lydia. I adored her. All she had to do was bat her eyes and say Pretty please, and . . . fuck my life, but I’d come in at three in the morning if she asked me to. She was like the big sister I’d never had and could never say no to.

  For that matter, I’d pretty much bend over backward for Simon too. As much as we could drive each other crazy, he was a damn good guy, and he generally did have his shit together at the shop. When it came to things like finances, he was always on point. He’d even helped me with my taxes a few times, and when I’d bought my car last year, he’d come with me and strong-armed the dealership into giving me a way better deal. I loved the guy. I really did.