“Finally. Jesus. So what is it?”
“I just have to work through it on my own. Everything will be okay.” In January, but she didn’t say that. “Are you still seeing Vince?”
Mercedes waved a dismissive hand. “Not in weeks.”
“Mercy, Halloween was just three weeks ago.”
“So, three weeks, then. He was just amusing.”
“Don’t you want to get serious about someone?”
“Not yet. Not when I may meet Mr. Tall, Rich and Handsome next summer.”
“Mercy, Mr. Tall, Rich and Handsome is not going to be coming to Avalon Island. He’ll be going to the Caribbean or something.”
“Rich enough, then. Don’t worry, I’m careful.”
“I just worry someday you’ll bring home the wrong guy and regret it.” She hugged her friend impulsively. “What would I do without you?” She had to shake herself out of this. “What are you doing for Thanksgiving? We have to plan something fun, since Jess will be here.”
“What day is she getting in?”
“She’ll be here Wednesday.” And Brioney still didn’t know where she’d sleep.
“Are you telling her about Blue?”
Brioney lifted a shoulder. “We decided we’re going to. Or that I’m going to. Not at all sure how that will go over. So what should we do?”
“Let’s take her over to Rockport for a girls’ night. Go dancing, get drunk, pick up guys. She’s not seeing anyone, right?”
“Not the last I’ve heard.” Brioney didn’t want to point out that she was, considering they’d just been talking about it.
Mercedes patted her arm. “You can be the designated driver. It will be so good to see Jess.”
Jess hadn’t been in town for months. She’d come down in the summer for a long weekend, but that seemed ages ago. Brioney could use some sister time, and hoped she wasn’t ruining everything when she revealed her relationship. God, was she ruining her relationship with her sister over a man?
*****
Brioney held Blue’s head to her breast as she stretched out on his mattress. His tongue stroking her nipple before pulling on it, his beard at once tickled and rasped her tender skin. His erection throbbed against her palm, and she squeezed gently, showing him her appreciation. He slid his hand between her thighs and she opened for him. He pressed one finger inside her, then two, thrusting shallowly, then deeper, the edge of his hand pressing against the swollen bundle of nerves at the top of her sex. She gasped and arched at the contact, at the sensation of his callused fingers inside her, scraping just…there.
The orgasm ripped through her with the force of a detonation, pleasure pounding through her, obliterating her before she melted back together.
When she opened her eyes, she was almost surprised not to see pieces of herself clinging to the ceiling and walls, to Blue, who smiled down at her before rolling to his knees to push inside her.
The sensation of him filling her ignited her desire once more, and she gripped his shoulders, rising over him, riding him, stroking his sweaty shoulders and back, pressing into his chest, finding his mouth with hers. He adjusted his grip on her butt, pulling her closer, and this time they both groaned as they found the perfect angle, the perfect rhythm. Her urgency for completion was gone, so she was content to ride out the sensations of every stroke, every brush of skin. Blue was more tense, however. She could feel it in the strain of his muscles as he pressed deeper into her, as he urged her hips to move faster over his, until her need was once more as great as his.
She leaned back, just a bit, to slide her hand down her body between them, to find the center of her pleasure. She held his gaze as she touched herself, and this time, her orgasm took them both out.
Blue folded her in his arms on the mattress and drew her close for a long kiss.
“I like it when you can spend the night,” he said, handing her one of his T-shirts to sleep in, and drawing the covers up over them against the chill of the evening.
“Yeah, well, this is going to have to hold us a few days. Joy is off for the week, so I can’t sneak over.”
“Sneak over. Is that what you do?”
She heard the hurt in his voice. “You know what I mean. I don’t tell Joy I’m coming over here. This is…just ours.”
He stroked her hair back. “Still coming to my folks’ on Tuesday?”
“We’ll be there.”
“My mom has changed the menu three times.”
Brioney laughed. “Why?”
“I haven’t brought a girl home in a while. I think she’s more nervous than you are.”
“What makes you think I’m nervous?”
He smiled and snuggled deeper into the mattress. “Because I haven’t brought a girl home in a while.”
“Are you nervous?”
“Nah, I’ve got faith in both of you.”
*****
Brioney paced the living room, waiting for Cameron to return with Joy. Brandon kept looking over his shoulder from his video game, increasingly annoyed at her inability to relax.
When his car pulled in front of the house, her stomach rebelled and she had to battle back nausea. She unclenched her fingers and glanced down at the imprints her short nails made in her palms. She rubbed her hands on her jeans, as if that could erase the marks, and the stress.
Joy came running up to the door with her usual enthusiasm, which relaxed her a little. Cameron followed more sedately. Brioney opened the door and welcomed her daughter with a tight hug.
“Did you have fun?” she asked, as she always did, but the words sounded strangled to her own ears.
“Everyone was there, Mom, it was so much fun. And then Trish and Chrissy spent the night, so it was like a slumber party.”
Joy had never had a slumber party. One of Brioney’s regrets was that Joy didn’t have friends as close as she’d had growing up. She’d thought maybe she was too young for a slumber party, and now there was just no space. So she was glad she got the experience with her cousins.
“Did you get any actual sleep?” she asked.
Joy laughed. “I did, but they didn’t sleep until way after midnight.”
“And your grandmother?” Brioney smiled at Cam.
“No, I don’t think she slept much, either, but I don’t think she minded having her girls all together under one roof.” He looked past her to Brandon on the couch, who had turned down the volume his video game. “Can we talk outside?”
She frowned and looked at Joy, who’d tossed her bag on the couch and was walking around to sit by her uncle. “Did you eat?”
“Yes, we ate in Victoria.”
She turned back to Cameron, who was giving her the tilted head, I-want-something look. She nodded and motioned him out on the porch. The evening was a little cool, and she dug her toes into the word porch.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about what we talked about yesterday morning.”
So had she, but she waited.
“I was thinking, why don’t you come, too?”
“To your parents’ house, for Christmas?” She was sure they would be so overjoyed to include her, the woman who’d ruined their son’s life.
“Yeah, I mean, Brandon has Fitz here, you could come with us. Maybe, even, you know, we could think about trying again. See if we could make a go of it now.”
She took a step back, seeing the teenaged boy she’d been enamored with, the city boy with his expensive clothes and haircut, grown into a man who’d fulfilled that promise. He’d never even proposed such an idea, the idea of getting back together, not even before she knew she was pregnant. She’d realized, shortly after Joy was born, that he never expected to have a future with her. So, why now?
“I’m with Blue now.”
He angled his head, one corner of his mouth turned down. “I know. Joy told me.”
A-ha. Their daughter had done the same thing to him that she’d done to her. “What else did she tell you?” She wouldn’t have thought Cameron would be v
ulnerable to a request from his daughter, but he did love her more than Brioney ever expected.
“She isn’t crazy about you dating Blue.”
Brioney folded her arms over her chest, defensively, she knew. Cameron had dated plenty of women, and Joy had never said anything about that. “She’s just not used to me seeing anyone.”
“She wants us to try. Don’t you think we owe it to her to try? I mean, your mom left when you were, how old? Fourteen? You know what she’s going through, having one parent.”
“She doesn’t have one parent. She just has us one at a time. And I think the time for us to ‘owe it to her’ was nine years ago,” Brioney said. “We are two completely different people now. We have nothing in common, nothing that would hold us together. Your mother was right all those years ago. I don’t fit in your life. And I doubt you would want to give up your successful business to come back here to Avalon Island.”
“I thought you’d come to Houston. I mean, you can’t love working as a maid, and once you graduate, well, Houston has a lot more to offer in the way of employment. What are you going to do here, manage The Wharf or something?”
He was right about that. She wouldn’t have many options, not until Fitz had bought the motel. “Didn’t Joy tell you about Fitz’s motel? I’ll be managing that.”
He shook his head and looked out over the yard. “Just another way for your family to hold you here.”
“What does that mean?”
“I mean you could have had so much more, been so much more, but first they left you to raise Brandon and now they’re tying you to the island with a family business?”
“I love this island, Cameron. This is my home.”
“Because you’ve never seen the outside world. You don’t know what else there is. You never got to go to college, not really, and you’ve never worked anywhere but the motel. You don’t know what else you could be.”
She shouldn’t take offense at his words, because she knew what he meant, knew he was right, but she chose to be offended anyway. “I know my options have been limited, but I don’t see it as a problem. It’s made me who I am.”
“Someone prepared to settle for a local beach bum and a job at a seaside motel. Don’t you think Joy deserves better than that?”
She had to use every ounce of her self-control to keep herself from knocking him on his ass. “I have done everything to make Joy’s life the best it can be. Yes, you help with your child support, and Fitz, with the money he sent home, but I’ve been the one teaching her the values I want her to know—hard work makes your dreams come true.”
“Dreams? What dreams? Singing in a local restaurant? Taking online college courses? Is that what you think dreams are? Together we can offer her so much more.”
She looked into his brown eyes, so like Joy’s, the eyes she’d drowned in when she was a teenager, the eyes she’d trusted. He was right. Together they could give Joy anything material she would want, but not two parents who loved each other, who followed their hearts—but the idea of changing her life to live his knotted her up.
Her silence must have sent him the message that she was considering it, because he took her elbow and bent to kiss her mouth lightly.
“You know we’ve been good together,” he said, lifting his head but not stepping back. “That’s something we have in common.”
She pushed against his chest and backed away, wondering at the fact that she felt nothing, when his kiss had always sparked a fire in her. Always. But no more. She hid her smile by lifting her hand to her lips.
“Think about it, anyway,” he said, a little awkwardly when she didn’t say anything. “Let me say good night to Joy.”
She followed him into the house, and watched the delight on her daughter’s face when she twisted around to see them walk in together.
“Isn’t it a good idea, Mom? We can all be together on Christmas. You’d have so much fun at Grandma’s. She knows how to make everything fun, and you’d like Aunt Sylvie and Aunt Bridget.”
She didn’t know Sylvie, but knew Bridget, and knew Joy couldn’t be more wrong.
“We haven’t decided anything yet, sweetheart,” Cameron said smoothly, crossing the room to kiss the top of her head. “I’m heading home. You have a good week, all right?”
She popped off the couch to hug him tightly. Brioney watched with a lump in her throat. They clearly loved each other, and part of Brioney felt left out not to be a part of the circle.
Cameron kissed the top of Joy’s head one more time, then released her. He touched Brioney’s cheek and walked out the door.
“What. The. Hell,” Brandon said when the door closed behind Cameron.
“Cameron wants Joy to spend Christmas with him, and she wants me to go, too.”
Brandon set down his controller. “And you’re thinking about it?”
She glanced at her daughter. “He just invited me. I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”
“What about us? What about Blue?”
“I thought you didn’t like Blue.”
“I like him better than Cameron.”
“Brandon.” She gave a warning look in Joy’s direction. “We could celebrate Christmas a different day. That was Cameron’s initial suggestion. It doesn’t matter. Fitz is home, we’ll all be together for a change.”
“So you’re not going?” Joy asked, her voice plaintive.
“I haven’t decided yet. I’ve known about it for ten minutes.” She smiled at her daughter to disguise the frustration she felt. “You need to go take your bath and get ready for bed.” Because she needed to be able to process everything without seeing the hopefulness in her daughter’s face.
Joy glanced once more over her shoulder before she headed into the bathroom. Once she was out of sight, Brioney sank to the couch and covered her face with her hands. Brandon’s hand on her shoulder surprised her.
“You okay, Sis? That what you’ve been sad about all weekend? That Cam wants you to go to Houston for Christmas?”
“He didn’t actually make that offer until just now. No, I was upset that he wanted to take Joy, but now he’s talking about us getting back together. I don’t know why. He never cared about it before.”
“But y’all have been fooling around all this time.”
She turned her head to look at her brother, her face burning. “You knew?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Small house.”
“Jesus. I thought I was being so discreet. But no, even then we knew we wouldn’t get together. But Joy told me she’s been hoping we’d get back together and I guess she told Cam that, too, so now…”
“I think it’s because she told him about you and Blue.”
“What?”
“Makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, he could have you whenever he wanted to before, but if you’re with Blue, well, now he can’t.”
She kind of liked the idea that Cameron was jealous, now that she was in another man’s bed. But while her ego liked that, she was pretty sure it was Joy’s request that had Cameron making his proposition. In any case, it wasn’t about her. She didn’t know how to make Joy understand that she deserved more than that.
*****
“Won’t it be fun?” Joy sat on the bed with the covers pulled up to her lap, literally bouncing with excitement. “Have you ever been to their house? It’s really big, but you and me will probably share a room, because all the cousins stay because they celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and they all go to church, so bring something nice to wear, because they dress nice at Grandma’s church. Grandma bought me clothes to keep at her house just for church.”
Resentment welled up in Brioney’s chest, but she battled it back. All they had to do was ask her to send a Sunday dress, and she would have done it.
“There’s going to be so much food and presents and fun. You will love it, Mom.”
Brioney hated—hated—disappointing her daughter, but maybe it would be best to do it now before she built this up in her he
ad too much. She put her hand over Joy’s wrist.
“I don’t think I’m going to go, sweetheart. It was a really good idea for your dad to invite me, but I don’t feel right going there. We’ll do like your dad said yesterday. You and I will celebrate with Fitz and Brandon another day. That way you’ll have two Christmases.”
Joy’s eyes filled with tears. “But I want you to be with me. Be with us. That can be my Christmas present. You don’t have to get me anything else!”
Ah, God. She wrapped her arms around her daughter, tears sheening her own eyes.
“And what about Blue?”
“You don’t love him yet. You said so. But you love me.”
“Joy, it can’t work that way. I’m sorry, but it can’t.”
Joy tore out of her arms and glared. “Dad is willing to do it. Why aren’t you?”
“My life is here, on Avalon Island, with my family. Not in Houston. I don’t want to leave.”
“It’s because you’re afraid, isn’t it?” Bitterness tinged her daughter’s voice.
“Maybe. Maybe I am.” Right now, mostly afraid she was going to lose her daughter.
Joy flopped over on the bed, her back to her, and gripped her pillow tightly. “I never thought you were a coward, Mom.”
Had she gotten that from her father? Because that didn’t sound like the daughter she knew.
Both of them lay awake a long time, not sleeping.
Chapter Nine
Blue pulled up in front of her house in the tow truck. Brioney opened the door and folded her arms over her chest.
“Are we going in that?”
He shrugged. “This or the bike. I didn’t think the three of us would fit, though.”
“We’ll take my car.”
“Bri, my mom knows I drive a tow truck.”
“I know, but we kind of dressed up, and I don’t want us to get greasy.”
He smiled as he walked up the steps to the porch and kissed her lightly. “You look great. Thank you. Where’s Joy?”
Pouting in their room, but she didn’t want to say so. They’d talk about it another time. “I’ll get her.” She walked into the house and called, “Joy! We’re ready to go.”
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