Satisfaction

by Piper Lawson

“You’re a god,” I replied, only half-joking.

  His jeans encased legs that I knew from having seen him in board shorts—his other apparel of choice—were hard. Same went for the muscles of his chest and arms, either from building boards or riding them.

  He looked past me and into the truck. “You slide those off and pass them to me.”

  I did as he said, and he lifted them like they were nothing and carried them into our loading dock.

  “You shouldn't be doing this alone.”

  “Jason had to take his dog to the vet. Some breeds are prone to sickness. My aunt had this Frenchie, Dover. He used to get sick all the time, and—”

  “What does Jason have?”

  I hesitated. “He’s never said.”

  Kent shot me a look. “You still do that thing where you look for baby birds and nurse them back to health?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’re too sweet, Dal.”

  “You’re the one who brought me coffee, Kent,” I tossed back.

  His grin was like crack. “Haven't seen you in weeks. Got to make sure you're staying out of trouble.”

  “Really?”

  “Nah. More like make sure you get into some.”

  The teasing in his voice warmed me in a different way than the heat.

  Kent was the brother I'd never had. He might've been friends with Lex, Ava, and Dylan since they’d gone to school together—and with Jordan since she'd opened the store in LA—but he looked out for me. Anytime he was in LA, he’d stop by the store. In between he’d text me pictures of boards he was working on, probably as an excuse to check up on me.

  Whatever the reason, I was grateful. I’d had guy friends in high school but had been too busy with work since moving to make many of my own. Mostly my social circle was borrowed from my roommate, Mac, and Jordan.

  We finished unloading in ten minutes when it would’ve taken me an hour or more. I dropped out of the truck and signed for the shipments, and the driver drove away.

  “What brings you to town? Besides house sitting, that is.” I grabbed a bottle of water in the loading area and caught my breath.

  “You know I’ve been building boards for a few years.” I nodded. “Well, I figure I’d better get to selling them. Otherwise my workshop’s going to be full and my bank account’ll be empty.” He lifted his shirt to wipe at his brow, flashing cut abs. I took a long drink. “Dylan gives me shit on the regular. We both graduated from engineering last year but he wears a suit and I wear board shorts.”

  “Sounds like you won.”

  Kent rewarded me with a grin. He held out a hand and I passed him the bottle. “Jordan said you had news. Tell me, Miss Assistant Manager.”

  I looked both ways before stepping closer. “Manager,” I said under my breath. “Lex, Ava, and Jordan want me to run the store.”

  “I knew it.” The water bottle fell to the ground, splashing us both. But I forgot it the second strong arms went around my waist and lifted me off the ground.

  That’s when everything went to hell.

  Friends hug. It’s a perfectly normal expression of affection, or support, or closeness.

  Maybe it was just that we’d never hugged before that had my body responding, my fingers digging into his back. Or the careless way his hands landed under the edge of my tank top, sending shivers down my spine and my heart thudding.

  Either way, Kent smelled like the ocean and something darker. I inhaled, managing to avoid burying my face in his neck in the countless seconds before he set me down.

  “You deserve it, Supergirl. You’ve been working your ass off since the second you got to LA,” he murmured, his face shining like he’d been the one to get promoted, not me. Kent’s words had a flush spreading up my neck. “The boyfriend take you out to celebrate?”

  I bent to pick up the water bottle. The tightness in my chest that came up whenever someone asked lessened each time. “We broke up. Weeks ago.”

  Kent’s brows drew together. “You didn’t text me.”

  I shoved a damp piece of hair off my forehead. “It's an awkward conversation starter. ‘How’s your Saturday night? Great, going out with friends for a beer like a normal human. You? Also great. Except that I got dumped and have binge-watched three seasons of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt while consuming unhealthy amounts of Half Baked.’”

  Kent's blue eyes danced on mine, a mix of sympathy and amusement in their depths.

  Here’s the thing about Kent. He’s the opposite of the kind of man my uncle Joe would’ve called “all hat and no cattle.”

  He’s the real deal, the total package. He knows how to have fun, but if he says he’ll do something, he follows through every time.

  He laughs like someone who does it often and enjoys it.

  Most of all, he doesn’t pretend to be something he’s not. He’s completely comfortable being himself, which makes you completely comfortable being around him.

  Well, almost completely comfortable.

  Truth time.

  Kent isn’t the kind of good-looking you can appreciate objectively. He’s the stuff good girls’ dirty daydreams are made of. The kind that makes you suddenly dying to know how the muscles on a man’s body work. How it would feel to have the firmness of his chest, the roughness of his hands, and the curve of his lips on you at once.

  Which made him the perfect subject, because it would never happen.

  Even if there was a chance in hell of Kent being into me, the next guy I date is going to be someone who wants more than physical satisfaction. Knowing that’s his default setting makes it easy to keep him in a box.

  Or technically, two separate boxes, each occupying a different virtual storage room in my brain.

  Friend-slash-big-brother.

  Daydream-porn.

  The latter was only allowed when he was far away in San Diego, and I was doing accounts or inventory alone in my office.

  “You want these unpacked?” Kent gestured to the boxes.

  “Ah, no. It’s fine. I’ll stack them, then—”

  “I’ll do it,” he interrupted, scratching his flat stomach. “Damn it’s hot.”

  He grasped the hem of his T-shirt and it took me a second to realize what he was doing.

  The first thing I saw was tanned skin.

  Then muscle. His abs, followed by his pecs, as the shirt went over his head.

  I squeezed the bottle, hard enough to make water glug over the top.

  Friend-slash-big-brother, I reminded myself.

  When he’d pulled off the shirt and was tucking it into the back of his jeans I noticed the light trail of hair that started on his lower abs, disappearing to the jeans that just barely hung onto his hips. Every inch of his body looked deliberate. Shaped, sanded, and polished to a golden glow by intentional hands.

  Friend-slash…

  I raised the bottle to my lips, drinking to get rid of the fire that was suddenly burning me from the inside.

  No luck.

  At least no one will ever know.

  The storage room door swung wide, banging against the wall, and I jumped.

  “Everyone knows! It’s all over the internet.” A blur of pale legs and short red hair accompanied the dramatic declaration.

  Mac came to an abrupt stop in front of me. Her lace tank top covered half her chest, and her jean skirt rode up to bunch at the waist. “Did you watch it?” she demanded.

  “Watch what?” I asked, still trying to catch up.

  She pulled up her phone and played the video. My chest tightened. “If it helps, three guys in the comments said you’re seriously fuckable.”

  I groaned as I saw the camera phone video someone in line had captured of me stumbling onto the street and hurling in the gutter.

  “I don’t believe it,” I muttered. Of course it would be too much to hope my humiliation would go unnoticed by people with cellphones.

  “I do. You have a great ass. And your legs in that dress? I bet half of LA’s picturing them wrapp
ed around ‘em this morning.”

  Shame burned through me, consuming me from the inside out. It wasn’t enough to have to live that moment once. No, I had to know it was there, in perpetuity, for anyone with a YouTube or social media account.

  Mac’s head swiveled between me and Kent, the punk half-Mohawk on her head making her look like a bird. “Sidebar. Who’s the beefcake?”

  Indiscretion is Mac’s gift. And she’s generous.

  I winced. “Kent. My friend. From work. Kent, this is my roommate MacKenzie.”

  “Mac,” she corrected, sizing him up before turning back to me. “Shit, Dal. No wonder you spend so much time at the office.”

  I grabbed Mac’s arm, tugging her toward the door. “Thanks for coming to visit. Can you give us five minutes to finish putting this shipment away?”

  “This is good,” she went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “You need to get back on the horse. Though I feel like Chris was more of a Shetland pony than a stallion, especially after what he did…”

  Shit.

  A balloon filled in my chest. Exposing the details of my split with my ex was a degree of humiliation I was unprepared for in front of Kent, the coolest guy I knew who apparently thought I was worth bringing coffee to.

  I seized on her words. “That’s why you need to leave,” I insisted.

  Mac’s mouth fell open and she looked back at Kent. “Oh. OH. You two were knocking it out back here?” Mac’s gaze roamed my sweaty body and disheveled hair before narrowing. “You’re not naked.”

  I tried my best to scoff, which came out more like choking. “As if you need to be naked to have sex. Obviously. Just key parts.” I reached for my jean shorts, flicking open the snap and raising my eyebrows. “Anyway. There was serious rocking of worlds, and we were almost done. With the…you know…rocking.”

  She waggled her eyebrows and thumbs-upped Kent as she backed out of the room. “Five minutes.”

  I slammed the door shut behind her. Then dropped my forehead against the door.

  So much for retaining my ‘cool enough to hang out with’ status. I’d probably never see the guy again. My texting status would be revoked.

  Kent was too classy to say anything to Jordan, but he’d probably always look at me like I was insane.

  I refastened my jean shorts, feeling the flush crawl up my cheeks.

  Noises behind me made me turn. Kent stacked the last of the boxes.

  I cleared my throat. “Sorry about that,” I muttered. “I kind of panicked.”

  “I like where your mind goes under pressure.” His eyes lit in amusement, and a bit of the embarrassment melted away. “Walk me out?”

  “Sure.”

  I reached for a fresh water bottle from the bar fridge and followed him out the back door.

  Maybe he’d let my momentary lapse go. God, I could hope.

  “So what are you doing this week when you aren’t bailing out store managers who have to do inventory?” I asked as we pulled up next to his Jeep in the parking lot.

  “Setting up my boards at the beach. I rented a spot for the week.”

  His body was close again, his chest covered in a light sheen of sweat. I forced my chin up so I didn’t get lost in the ridges of his abs.

  “Well, thank you for stopping to help me out. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

  He opened the driver door and reached into the Jeep for his aviators, sliding them on his head in an easy move that somehow made him even hotter.

  They’re sunglasses, I chastise myself. It’s not like he just launched a rocket into orbit.

  “No worries. Apparently it worked out for me too.”

  “How’s that?”

  Kent slid into the driver’s seat, turning back to me with a wink. “Been a while since someone rocked my world.”

  When he peeled out of the parking lot, I melted into the asphalt.

  4

  Kent

  “This is you.”

  “Seriously?” I glanced toward the beach. Stacks of boards, wax, rash guards, and more were between me and the crowds that would flock here in the coming days. I turned back to the guy still pointing to the eight-foot-square section at the back of the massive retail tent.

  “I thought it was going to be…visible.”

  He motioned me back outside, then squinted into the distance. “There’s the Pier. And Duke’s. Can’t get much more visible.”

  When I’d decided the US Open would be the perfect place to sell my boards, a friend-of-a-friend had offered to rent me part of his pop-up surf store on Huntington Beach.

  I’d said yes without blinking. Paid up front.

  Not the best idea, I admitted as I pulled my Jeep up and parked it next to the tent to unload.

  The guy watched, his eyes running over the longboards as I unpacked them. “You been building boards long?”

  “A few years.” I thought of my workshop in San Diego.

  “Who have you sponsored?”

  “No one.”

  The number of pros who turned down lucrative sponsorships in order to ride whatever they wanted was small. But those were the people I wanted to build for. The ones who wanted quality and performance above everything else, including money.

  I had a meeting lined up this afternoon with one of the riders on tour I’d surfed with as a junior. If Seth agreed to buy a few of my boards, orders would pay rent on my workshop—which also meant my apartment over the workshop—for the next two months.

  If he didn't…

  I tried not to think of it. I was running low on options after investing everything I had in equipment.

  Sure, I don't have the kind of business head Lex or Jordan did. But I’d work twenty hour days until my hands and back ached if that was what it took.

  By the time I finished setting up and went back to my Jeep, my boards established in the jail cell of a retail space and no Seth in sight, a parking ticket decorated my windshield.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  I didn’t have the inclination to try and fight it this week, even though I’d been in a loading zone and I was actually loading. Unloading, at least. I tapped my banking info on my phone to pay the ticket.

  Insufficient funds.

  “What the…”

  I glanced at the time before hitting a contact. “It’s me.”

  “Who’s ‘me’? My son who’s not coming home for his mother's birthday next month?” My dad’s unimpressed voice came down the line.

  I kicked the tire of my Jeep. “The transfer hasn’t come through.”

  “The conditions were that you finished college and got a job.”

  “I finished college this spring, remember? Outdoor reception. Cameras. Mom wore that hat she likes…” I took a breath. “That's why I need that money. For my business.”

  “Business? Is that what last time was, too? Because I’d call that a waste.” I shoved my Ray-Bans up my nose, feeling the fight coming from him. “Maybe if you didn’t spend every second at the beach and partying. I see the pictures. I know what Facebook is, Kent. I won’t watch you piss away your grandfather’s legacy.”

  I jerked open the door of the Jeep and shifted inside. The familiar seat, years old and worn, would have my ass dent in it until it went to car heaven.

  “I’m not asking for a handout. It’s an investment.” I’d already poured every dime I’d made through co-op terms and part-time work into equipment and renting space. “In a few years, I could give him the money back.”

  If he was still here.

  He might not have surfed a day in his life but he knew what it was like to work for himself, to go all in on something. The days I’d spent with him outside on the farm he'd built before turning it over to my dad might’ve been responsible for the surfing bug, at least indirectly. Spending days inside behind a desk made me itch.

  “I don’t care. Your grandfather left this money so you could have opportunities he didn't have in Idaho. It put you through school.
This isn't what he expected you to do. Throw away a good education.”

  I ignored the dull pang in my chest, refusing to rise to the bait. Muffled shouting came over the phone, probably him shouting at one of the farmhands, before his grunt came through crystal clear.

  “When you’re ready to take a real job, we can talk. Until then, you’re on your own.”

  I clicked off, feeling the start of a headache as I glanced at the date on the parking ticket. I had two weeks and nothing to pay it with save my dad’s disappointment.

  I drove up the highway, turning things over in my head on the forty-five minute drive.

  I wished Dylan was around. Since my college friend had married Lex and moved to New York, I saw him at holidays. I missed his dark sense of humor. His ability to figure out anything, no matter how bleak it looked.

  We’d made plans to meet up at the end of the week. I wasn't going to call him while he and Lex were in Napa.

  But my fingers itched, tapping a restless rhythm on my thigh.

  I’d already paired my phone with the Bluetooth in my Jeep—an upgrade Dylan and I had installed the last year of school. I hit a contact on my phone and listened to the ring once, twice.

  “Hey again.” Dal’s voice was bright, like a sunny day at the beach. The tension started to evaporate from between my shoulders.

  “I just realized I’ve never called you.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “It is,” I agreed. “You free after work for a drink? I owe you a congrats on the promotion.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to eat anything, or unpack the boxes yet…”

  “So no drinks. Food.” I glanced in the rearview mirror as I changed lanes. “How about I come by the store. We’ll go to Rori’s.”

  “Ice cream?” Her voice lifted at the end and I grinned. “Deal.”

  In SoCal there are a lot of people out for something. Dal never gave me that vibe.

  I loved showing her what I’d built, itched for the feeling of pleasure that ran through me when she’d smile or coo over my latest board. She’d been deemed the official namer since I’d started building them.

  If it gave me an excuse to stay in touch between the times we ran into each other or hung out when I came to LA?