Boyfriend By Mistake

by Elana Johnson

  She’d had a terrible time trying to fall asleep, that moment of gentle pressure from his mouth against hers a constant torment. In the end, she’d caught a few hours of sleep before heading out on Big Blue for the morning catch. Shawn hadn’t put in any crazy baking orders, and now she was here for her regular Wednesday afternoon chats with her mom and grandma.

  “Rummy again?” she asked as she took a semi-stale doughnut out of the box.

  “We’re nothing if not routined,” her mom said with a smile. “You look tired, dear.”

  “I am tired.” Alissa sighed. “I should go home and take a nap.” After all, she worked seven days a week without an end in sight. She had someone she could call if she was too sick to go out fishing, and they had back-up bakers at the restaurant that could fill the cases if necessary.

  Alissa loved her job, though, and she’d have to be one breath away from dying to take a day off.

  “There’s a new fried chicken restaurant going in,” Grandma said. “You want to take me when it opens?”

  Alissa grinned at her grandmother. “Of course I do.”

  “You work too hard, dear,” her mom said as if that conversation was still going.

  “Is Dad fishing?” Alissa asked, though she knew he was.

  “Yes, and he went on a trip,” her mom said, laying down a seven of hearts. “He won’t be home until Saturday.”

  “We should live it up,” Alissa said, standing up. “Let’s make caramel popcorn and watch all the romantic comedies we can.”

  Her mother laughed, but Alissa wasn’t entirely joking. She needed something to get her mind off Shawn, and something to keep her from texting him to find out what he was doing that day. She’d told him last night that she worked until one o’clock, and she’d been half-expecting him to text or call about then and want to get together.

  He hadn’t, and she hated how her mind had automatically gone to something untrustworthy for him. He’d never given her a reason not to trust him, except maybe the sudden disappearance from her life eighteen years ago because another cute blonde had shown interest.

  As far as she knew, he and Marcy hadn’t even lasted until the end of senior year. But he hadn’t come back to her, and Alissa had figured out how to stop thinking about him once. It sure seemed impossible now, though.

  She filled a big bowl with water and set it on the floor for Dodger and Pirate, who’d taken up protective positions around Grandma. She loved dogs, and they loved her, and Alissa’s heart warmed just from looking at the three of them.

  “Do you have popcorn, Mom?”

  “Are you serious?” her mom asked. “You brought a dozen doughnuts with you.”

  “What about dinner?” Alissa asked. “You want me to make you something?”

  “There’s already a casserole in the oven.” Her mother played another card, and Alissa was grateful for the rummy game that kept her mom from focusing on anything but it.

  “Okay,” Alissa said, returning to the table. But she couldn’t sit still. If Shawn was going to only be here for two weeks, she wanted to see him every day.

  Her mind screamed the word traitor! at her, but the need to see him remained. She couldn’t call him, though. Olympia would be livid, and Alissa reminded herself that Shawn was a visitor to Carter’s Cove. He didn’t have unlimited vacation days, and he’d go right on back to Miami.

  And she’d stay here.

  “Deal me in,” she said to her grandmother as her mom squealed gleefully, all the cards coming together in suits from one to twelve.

  “That’s another one for me, mother,” she said, marking it in the notebook.

  “Who’s ahead?” Alissa asked.

  “I am,” Grandma said.

  “But I’m catching up to her one game at a time.”

  “Will I throw you off if I play?” Alissa asked. Because she could not sit here and watch the two them. Not today.

  “Of course not, dear.” Her mom smiled at her. “Now, what’s got you so restless?”

  “Nothing,” Alissa said.

  “Probably that man from Miami,” Grandma said, and Alissa’s gaze flew to her.

  “How do you know about the man from Miami?” she asked.

  “Olympia called the other day,” her mother said as she shuffled the cards. She could do it without looking, which impressed Alissa. She dealt too, never taking her eyes from Alissa’s. “I think it’s definitely a man.”

  “No.” Alissa shook her head. “No man. No boyfriend. Nobody. I’m just tired today. I don’t want to just sit here and watch you two play.”

  “What happened with that guy?” her mom asked. “Olympia said she asked you to take care of him.”

  “I told him we weren’t selling.” Alissa shrugged. “He left the hotel, and now he’s staying with his brother.” She cursed herself and her loose tongue.

  “Oh? He’s still here?” Her mom didn’t miss much. Even when Alissa thought she wasn’t paying attention, she was.

  “It’s Shawn Newman,” Alissa said. “Didn’t Olympia tell you that?”

  “No.” Her mom paused in her play, her eyes zeroing in on Alissa again. “The Shawn Newman you dated in high school?”

  “Yes.”

  “The one who broke your heart?”

  “He didn’t break my heart, Mom.” Alissa added an eyeroll to the statement, because her mom was closer than she knew.

  “Alissa, please.” Her mom shook her head. “You were distraught for months after he broke up with you.”

  “I was?”

  “Don’t you remember? Daddy and I told you if you didn’t pull yourself together, we were going to have you go see someone. You graduated, and moved away to school, and you seemed so much better.”

  “I don’t remember that.” Alissa searched her memory for what that talk would’ve looked like, sounded like. It didn’t exist in her mind, but of course, she couldn’t remember a whole lot from those last few months of high school.

  All at once, she knew why. She had been in a funk. She had been distraught over the break-up. She pushed the thoughts away and focused on the cards in front of her. She never seemed to get what she needed, and she didn’t understand how her mother and grandmother played this game every day. Their boredom had to be higher than hers.

  Thankfully, Grandma went out pretty quickly, and Alissa stood up. “Okay, I’m going to go catch a cat nap with the pups. Come on, guys.” She leaned over and pressed a kiss to Grandma’s forehead and hugged her mother.

  Once free of the house where she’d grown up with four sisters and only one bathroom, Alissa sat behind the wheel, wondering where she could go that wasn’t back to the cottage.

  The ringing of a bell filled the air, and she knew she wasn’t going anywhere. The roads would be jam packed with people, as that bell had just signaled the start of happy hour.

  Carter’s Cove had dozens of little festivals throughout the summer, and this afternoon, all the local restaurants and pubs were hosting a mini food and wine festival. The streets would be packed with people moving from one storefront to another—The Heartwood Inn included.

  She sighed, tired of this internal war and it had only been raging for a couple of days—since Shawn had walked back into her life.

  Without thinking, she picked up her phone and called him. It might have been a mistake, but if he’d been working on the bike today, maybe he could come pick her up and they could navigate the crowds on that motorcycle….

  Chapter Six

  Shawn hadn’t been this dirty in a long, long time. He actually liked it. Liked the way he felt like he’d accomplished something that day. Yes, he’d had to pull apart the motorcycle until dozens of parts were strewn over the dropcloth he’d laid on the ground.

  But the bike started. It needed more than just a tune-up to be rideable in the motorcycle parade, as the locals who participated in that—and the hundreds who came to the island in the days leading up to the Fourth of July—had pristine bikes they spent a year getting r
eady.

  Shawn had nine more days. Thankfully, his father had raised him with a Mr. Fix-It attitude, and Shawn knew he could get the bike looking amazing in time. He couldn’t help thinking about the woman he wanted leaning into him as they cruised down the narrow streets of the island.

  He wondered what Lissa was doing this afternoon. He’d stopped by the bakery in the morning for his day’s carbohydrates, but he hadn’t seen her. He didn’t need to see her to find her in the tasty treats in the bakery case in the lobby of The Heartwood Inn.

  He could taste her in the black forest cupcakes. The woman loved cherries and chocolate together, and he smiled just thinking about the time she’d challenged him to eat a dark chocolate covered cherry. He’d never tasted anything as disgusting in his life, and she’d laughed and laughed.

  Kissed him and kissed him.

  He’d been so stupid, letting her go. Cutting her loose. Truth be told, both of those were nicer than what he’d done to Lissa. One rose and a couple lines from a blonde, and he’d abandoned their eight-month-old relationship.

  Yes, they’d been kids. But he wasn’t that guy. Well, he supposed he had been once, and he’d regretted it ever since.

  His phone rang, and he reached for the blue mechanic rag he’d bought at the automotive store that morning—the second stop after the bakery. “Hey, Liss,” he said. “I was just thinking of you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, I got the bike started. Wondered if you wanted to go for a ride.”

  “You don’t know what today is, do you?”

  “Uh, Wednesday?”

  She giggled, and Shawn’s mind blanked. “It’s the food and wine tasting downtown.”

  He groaned. “So we can’t get out of town. Wait. Where are you?”

  “I’m at my mother’s,” she said. “I was thinking…you’d come get me on that bike and be able to zip us through the crowds and cars to dinner.”

  Surprise lit up his face, his brain now firing with ideas. Possibilities.

  “We could walk the streets from your place,” he said.

  “Exactly,” she said. “And later tonight, when the hype has died down, you can bring me back to get my car.”

  “Sure,” he said, looking at his disgusting hand. It seemed ten times dirtier now that he was thinking about holding Lissa’s hand with it. “I need a few minutes to clean up and find some helmets.”

  “I’ll start walking down the street a little,” she said.

  “You don’t need to do that. I’ll come get you.”

  “I don’t want my mom to know.”

  He almost asked Know what? but he caught himself in time. She didn’t want her mother to know she was seeing him again.

  The call ended, and Shawn went inside Bo’s house to get cleaned up. Gentleman went out to sniff around, and Shawn watched him, wondering what it would be like to not have to worry about a relationship.

  Were he and Lissa seeing each other? Maybe they were just hanging out, like last night when she’d come over. They’d talked about Miami and Carter’s Cove, eaten doughnuts, and looked at an old motorcycle. Was that a date?

  Was walking down a crowded street and sampling short ribs and street tacos? He wouldn’t be kissing her, that much was obvious. Any contact between them would come from her, just like last night.

  And she hadn’t touched him.

  They were definitely not dating. Not seeing each other. They were friends. Friends hanging out, enjoying the summer festivities on the island where they’d both grown up. There was nothing wrong with that.

  With his hands as clean as they were going to get, he strapped a helmet to his head and started for her mom’s house. Lissa was only about three blocks away from her mom’s, walking slowly with her phone up in front of her face.

  She lowered the device when she heard the motorcycle, and a grin split her face. For a moment, Shawn saw the girl he’d crushed on for six months before asking her to ride with him in the motorcycle parade.

  “You got it started,” she said, coming over to the curb. She had more curves now. Her hair only touched just below her shoulders. But her eyes were still the same. Still bright blue and able to see things he didn’t want her to know.

  “Yep,” he said, swinging his leg off the bike and handing her a helmet. “You want to go get your dogs?”

  “They’d love to get out,” she said. “But that means we can’t go inside any of the restaurants or pubs.”

  “That’s okay with me,” he said. “We can sample on the street and still get full.”

  She finished buckling the helmet on, and he climbed back on the bike. She swung her leg over the seat behind him, nearly knocking him off the bike.

  “Sorry,” she said, laughing a moment later. He joined in, because it was so easy to be with her. So carefree. She didn’t get embarrassed if she couldn’t do something, and he liked that she could laugh at herself.

  “All right,” he said. “Ready?” She wasn’t touching him, but her body was so close to his every nerve stood at attention.

  “Ready,” she said, and he eased the motorcycle into motion. It didn’t want to seem to go with their combined weight, and he opened the throttle a little more.

  Suddenly, the bike shot forward. He yelped at the same time Lissa did, and in the next moment, her arms snaked around his torso. “You did that on purpose,” she said, her voice loud and clear in his ear.

  “I did not,” he said. “She wouldn’t go.” But he wasn’t complaining. The way Lissa pressed into him was a sensation he hadn’t experienced in a long time, and he didn’t want to arrive at her house anytime soon.

  Unfortunately, the ride from her mom’s to her house didn’t take long, even though they had to go down the busiest street in town. He just went slow, and people got out of the way, until he could make the turn that would take them back to the beach where her cottage was.

  “Are all your sisters still on the island?” he asked as they got off the bike and de-helmeted themselves.

  “Yes,” she said. “We all have an active part in running Heartwood.”

  “Let me see if I can guess.”

  She grinned at him and gestured for him to go right ahead. He followed her into the house, where her dogs barked and wagged their welcome to her. She got out leashes as he said, “So Gwen’s the youngest…my best guess is she runs the spa in the hotel.”

  “Nope,” Lissa said, obviously enjoying the fact that he was wrong.

  “So Olympia runs the whole empire,” he said. “You run the boat and the bakery.”

  “How did you know about the boat?” she asked.

  “Please,” he said. “You’ve always loved that boat more than life itself. Your parents are retired, so there’s no way your dad’s getting up at three o’clock in the morning to go fishing.”

  She gave him a curious look he couldn’t quite decipher before turning back to her dogs. She clipped their leashes to their collars, and faced him. “You’ll want Dodger. He’s much more obedient.”

  He took the leash she gave him, and sure enough, Dodger sat right down at his feet. The dog looked up at him, his eyes wide and puppied, as if to say, Aren’t I great? Do you have a treat?

  Shawn chuckled at him and scrubbed behind his ears. “This one needs a treat.”

  “Right there.” Lissa pointed to the counter behind him, and he grabbed a handful of the beef and salmon bites. He fed one to Dodger and put the rest in his pocket for later.

  “You haven’t guessed anyone else,” she said.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “You were my friend in high school.”

  Her eyebrows arched, and an electric rush moved through Shawn. Surely she felt that too. Or maybe she was the one doling it out. “I mean, we were more than friends, obviously.”

  She simply looked at him, and he knew a man could get lost in the depths of Lissa’s eyes. He cleared his throat and looked away. “You tell me what they do.”

  “Gwen runs the restaurant.” She soun
ded a bit breathless too. “Celeste does all the marketing and events. All the weddings, anniversaries, stuff like that. And Sheryl does all the grounds. All the interior design. Anything that requires maintenance, she’s your girl.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I love my role,” she said, heading for the front door again. “Should we go?”

  He followed her out, the afternoon sun hot as they walked back the way they’d come on the motorcycle. The cottage was only a couple of blocks from the downtown area, but it sure was quiet out on the beach.

  “Play City is here,” she said, pointing to a bright yellow food truck at the end of the street. “I definitely want to stop there.”

  “I’m not familiar with Play City,” he said, peering down the street.

  “Yes, you are,” she said, bumping him with her hip. “They do the crazy doughnuts. You got the candied pig once.”

  How she remembered that, Shawn had no idea. He honestly didn’t. But he said, “Okay, if you say so,” and veered toward a woman handing out something that smelled like smoked meat.

  They talked and sampled. She laughed at him when he spit out the jalepeno poppers, and he shook his head when she refused to try the catfish jelly.

  About halfway down the block, Lissa got bumped too close to him, and he grabbed onto her arm to steady her.

  “Sorry,” he said quickly, removing his hand from her skin. Their eyes met, and so many things were said between them.

  “It’s okay,” she said, inching away again. “A mistake.”

  Shawn pressed his lips together and took a deep breath, wishing he could turn his brain off. But it was now screaming at him that maybe he could be her boyfriend by mistake. Just for a little while.

  They could hold hands by mistake.

  Watch the clouds make patterns in the sky by mistake.

  Kiss by mistake.

  Wait. He’d already done that, and a slow smile curved his lips. Lissa wasn’t looking at him and didn’t see, but she did turn to him and say, “Shawn, you’ve got to try these prawns. They’re fantastic.”

  And he went right over to her, because she was gorgeous and full of life, and everything he’d been missing in his life.