by Carrie Elks
Ember sat up, pulling her ear buds out. “Just some Spotify playlist. Where’s Nick?” She looked around expectantly. “And you missed Ally. Her break ended five minutes ago.”
“I saw her leaving. She took Nick with her to grab a soda.” Brooke laid the cooler in the shade of Ember’s umbrella, and grabbed two towels from her backpack. “How are you doing? Ally said something about Lucas’s birthday gift.”
Ember tipped her head to the side. “Ugh, I don’t want to talk about that any more. I have no idea what to get him. I thought about a new surfboard, but he went and bought himself one. What do you buy the guy who has everything?” She sounded frustrated.
Brooke bit down a laugh. “Is he surfing right now?”
“Surprisingly not. He’s out with Jackson and Griff on the boat. Afterward they’re going shopping for tonight’s cook out. You guys are coming, aren’t you?”
“Of course. We wouldn’t miss it. You know how Nick likes hanging around with the guys.”
Ember caught her eye. “They like hanging with him, too.”
It was funny how much of a thing Nick had for Ember’s boyfriend, Lucas. Since he’d arrived in town last year, the two of them had a bromance going on. It warmed Brooke’s heart. One of the worst things about being a single mom was the way she couldn’t give her son the masculine influence all the psychology books said he needed. Lucas and Nate filled the role nicel, and it warmed her heart.
“Oh, and there’s a new guy in town. Lucas’s old friend is working on the Silver Sands Resort. He’s coming tonight.” Ember wiggled her eyebrows. “He’s hot and he’s single if you’re interested.”
The mention of the Silver Sands Resort was enough to make Brooke’s chest feel tight. And of course her thoughts slid to Aiden Black – the way they had all week since their encounter on Monday. She hadn’t mentioned it to her friends – what would she say? The guy she thought she’d never see again – the one who’d broken her so badly she’d never been the same – was back?
“What’s his name?”
“Who?”
“The new guy. Lucas’s friend?”
“Oh, Brecken Miller. He runs the construction company that’s renovating the resort.”
Brooke’s stomach churned. She wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved that it wasn’t Aiden who would turn up at Ember’s cook out. From the corner of her eye she saw Nick sitting opposite Ally, drinking a milkshake through a straw and relief coursed through her. She couldn’t let Aiden see him – he’d know as soon as he did. And there were some secrets she never wanted to share.
“So are you interested?” Ember asked her, smiling. Brooke breathed out a mouthful of air. Her friend had no idea what she was going through. Maybe it was time to fill her in.
“No. He’s a nice guy but not my type.”
“Wait. You’ve met him?” Ember frowned. “Where? When?”
“I went to the resort on Monday to rescue a dog. He was the one who showed me around.”
“I didn’t know that. Why didn’t you tell me? We’ve spoken at least three times since.” There was an edge of hurt to her voice that Brooke could detect, even if her friend tried to hide it. They always told each other everything – Ember, Ally, and Brooke. They’d been friends ever since the first day of kindergarten and been together through thick and thin.
“I was afraid to talk about it,” Brooke admitted. “Something happened there and I don’t know what to think about it.”
Ember leaned forward, her eyes wide. “What? Was it something to do with Brecken? Did he do something to you?”
“No. It wasn’t Brecken Miller at all. It was Aiden.”
Ember frowned. “Aiden?” It took a moment, but realization washed over her face. “Aiden?” she said again, this time her eyes wide. “Aiden Black? You saw him at Silver Sands?” She reached out for Brooke’s hand, folding it between her own. “Oh my God, Brooke, I didn’t know he’s back.”
“Nor did I before I came face to face with him at the resort.”
“What’s he doing here? Has he come back for you?”
Ember always had been a romantic. And it had worked for her, after all. She’d fallen for a guy who’d whisked her off her feet, and was the boyfriend of her dreams.
Brooke knew better. Fairytales belonged in the old tattered books she read to Nick at night time. She’d learned the hard way dreams didn’t come true.
“He’s in charge of the new resort,” Brooke said, her voice thin.
“So he’s back for good?” Ember leaned closer, as though Brooke was whispering. “Did he say anything to you? Did he ask about Nick?”
“I don’t know how long he’s here for,” Brooke admitted. The fact was, she knew very little about him at all. “And he didn’t mention Nick at all and nor did I. He didn’t ask me anything.”
“So maybe he doesn’t know.” Ember rubbed her chin. “He’s going to find out though, isn’t he? If he stays here long enough.”
The two of them looked at each other for a moment, connected by a mutual fear. Right as Brooke was about to voice her concern, her phone started to buzz. She picked it up, seeing her mom’s name on the screen.
“Ugh. I should take this. She’s been trying to get ahold of me all morning. Hold that thought, okay?” She swiped her finger across the screen and lifted it to her ear. “Hi, Mom.”
“Where are you? I tried knocking at your door but you weren’t there.”
“We’re at the beach.”
“You are? Why didn’t you say anything? I would have come with you. I haven’t been to the club for ages.”
Brooke swallowed down a smile. “We’re not at the club. We’re at the public beach.”
“Why would you go there?” Her mom’s voice held a note of distaste. “It’s full of… people. You should have used our pool instead. It’s much cleaner.”
“I’m with Ember,” Brooke said. Luckily, her mom liked Ember. One less battle to fight.
“Well what time will you be home? Daddy’s invited some friends over for supper this evening, and one of them is single.”
“I’m busy this evening.”
“Not that working thing again. It’s only a couple of hours, Brooke. Your father does a lot for you. You really should show him some appreciation.” Her mother cleared her throat. “And now that you’re almost at the end of your degree, you should start thinking about your next steps in life. Isn’t it time you thought about settling down? For Nick’s sake at least.”
She could feel her pulse drumming through her ears, drowning out the sound of children laughing, and the sea lapping gently on the sand. “I really am busy,” Brooke said again, looking straight at Ember. “Nick and I are going to Ember’s tonight. Otherwise I’d have loved to come over.”
Ember shot her a sympathetic look.
“Can you cancel?” her mom asked.
“No, it would be rude.” She decided to appeal to her mom’s sense of propriety. “Maybe next time, okay?”
They said goodbye and hung up, then Brooke slid her phone back into her bag.
“I thought you were going to give in for a minute,” Ember said. “I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Yeah, well I’m not afraid of my mom.”
“You know, if you keep telling lies you’re going to end up with a long nose.”
“It’s okay,” Brooke said, catching Ember’s eye. “If I do Mom’ll insist I have a nose job.”
This time Ember burst out laughing, and Brooke joined in, despite herself. Yes, things weren’t as easy as they could be, and it felt like she had a hundred different things pulling her in every direction, but with friends like hers she could face anything.
Well, almost anything.
5
Ally and Ember appeared on the sidewalk as Brooke parked her car on the street behind Ember’s cottage. She looked up, a frown creasing her face, as she opened the door.
Before Brooke could open her mouth, Ally beat her to it.
“
Nick!” she said, her voice unusually high. “You wanna come with me? I need to walk down to the coffee shop to pick up some supplies.” Ally pulled open the back door and helped him out. Whereas Ember hung around the driver’s door, wringing her hands as though they were dripping wet.
“What’s up?” Brooke asked as she climbed out of the car, grabbing her purse and the grocery bag full of soda and chips. “You two look as though you’ve seen a ghost.
Ally and Nick had already walked around the corner of the beach cottage, his hand safely in Ally’s as she talked to him.
Ember’s poker face was nowhere near as good as Ally’s. Her eyes were wide and her chest was rising rapidly, as though she couldn’t quite catch her breath. “Aiden’s here,” she said quietly.
“What?” A warm breeze gusted around the corner of the cottage, carrying the smell of salt water up from the ocean. “Aiden?” she repeated. “Here?”
Ember nodded rapidly. “Breck asked if he could bring a friend to the cookout.” She bit the corner of her bottom lip. “Lucas had no idea who the friend was. Just said the more the merrier, the way he always does. I’m so sorry. He doesn’t know about who he is to you, or Nick.”
Brooke took in a mouthful of air, the saline coating her tongue. She could hear low voices carrying up from the beach. No doubt all the guys were clustered around the grill the way they always were, talking cooking time and heat levels the way they did when the cooking was happening outside. “He doesn’t know about Nick,” she whispered, trying to ignore the way her heart was pounding against her chest. “He has no idea at all.”
“I know.” Ember nodded, her eyes catching Brooke’s. “That’s why Ally’s taken him down to the café for a while. I thought we should talk before…” her voice trailed off.
Before Aiden laid eyes on him.
“Damn it.” Brooke shook her head. It felt as though her brain was full of mush. “What the hell should I do now?”
“Take a breath,” Ember advised, though her own breathing was as ragged as Brooke’s. “We can make a plan. We’re good at those, remember? And he doesn’t need to know a thing.”
“What if somebody tells him?” Brooke whispered.
“Who would tell him? Only the three of us know the truth. You know Ally and I will guard it with our life. We’d never let Nick get hurt.”
Brooke’s mind flashed back to nine years ago. To the three of them – Ember, Ally, and Brooke – huddled in a tiny bathroom, their eyes fixed on a white stick as it slowly revealed her future.
She felt the same sense of panic she did then, when she’d discovered there was a tiny human growing inside her. As though her life was a runaway train, it was all she could do to cling on for dear life.
“Does Lucas know about Nick?” she asked Ember.
Her friend slowly shook her head. “He’s never asked and I’ve never told. We made a promise, remember?”
Brooke closed her eyes, seeing three teenage girls behind them, all clustered around a plastic white stick. None of them had said a word until the two lines appeared clearly across it.
What a mess.
“Should I go home? Take Nick with me?” It was hard to think clearly. “But Aiden’s going to see him eventually, right? And it will look suspicious as hell if we leave. People will notice I’m not here.”
Ember took her free hand, the one that wasn’t clutching onto the grocery bag. “Honey, you do whatever you need to do. But you’re right. He’s going to either see Nick or hear about him before too long. This town is way too small for him not to.”
“Okay.” Brooke took another deep breath in, letting the air fill her lungs as she paused for a moment, trying to get her head in the game. It was okay. She wasn’t eighteen any more. She was a grown woman, a mother. She could do this. “Give me a minute and I’ll follow you around.”
Ember gave her the smallest of smiles. “You can take as long as you want. Ally’s not going to bring Nick back until we message her that we’re ready. He’s probably drinking a giant milkshake.”
He was safe. He was okay. Nothing else mattered. “Please don’t tell anybody about him,” Brooke said, even though she knew she didn’t have to. She trusted Ember and Ally more than anybody in the world.
“Never. I promise.” Ember squeezed her hand. “I’m going to go back around before Lucas hunts me down, okay? Take a minute and get your breath back.” She kissed Brooke’s cheek. “You’ve got this, honey. You’re an awesome person and a perfect mother. You do what you need to do.” Taking the bag of groceries from Brooke, she disappeared around the corner, her dark hair swinging.
Locking the car, Brooke shoved the key into her purse, her fingers shaking as she pushed it into the inside pocket. It was okay. She could do this. Strange how even meeting Aiden again at the Silver Sands Resort hadn’t freaked her out, not the way the thought of him meeting Nick was itching at her skin. They were two different parts of her life. Unconnected and yet so completely related. She was afraid the two of them coming into contact would light a fuse she had no control over.
The resulting explosion could decimate everything.
And yet what choice did she have? Aiden was here – maybe twenty yards away from where she was standing, talking to her friends, immersing himself in her world, even if he didn’t realize it. There was nowhere to run, and hiding was impossible. She was going to have to face it.
Aiden took a sip of the beer Lucas had given him and smiled as Brecken Miller introduced him to all his friends, reaching out his hand to shake theirs as they greeted him one by one.
“So you’ve already met Lucas,” Breck said, “And this is our old friend, Griff. He runs the whale boats out of Paxton’s Pier.”
Griff grinned at him from beneath his shaggy beard. “It’s good to meet you.”
“And this is Jackson, he’s a wizard at technology.” Breck smiled. “I’m hoping he might be able to help us bring the resort into the twenty-first century.”
“Always happy to help,” Jackson said, nodding at Aiden. “Once you’ve scoped out what you’re looking for, I’ll come down and give you some suggestions.”
“What did you say your last name was again?” Griff asked him. “You look kind of familiar.”
“Black.”
“Any relation to Jamie Black?”
“He’s my brother.” Aiden felt the smile die on his lips. He could see Jackson doing the rough calculations. The only reason any of them would know of Jamie was because of his notoriety. Even among the good kids in Angel Sands – and Aiden could tell from the way they were acting that Griff, Lucas, and Jackson had been good kids – Aiden’s brother was well known.
“I haven’t heard his name around in years. Where is he now?”
It was the second time that day he’d been asked that. It’d been easier to answer Paul – after all, they were all cut from the same cloth on that side of town. Which side of the law you ended up on was more a matter of luck than design. But in front of these guys – the ones who never knew poverty or envy or the way your stomach started eating itself when you hadn’t eaten for days – it felt so much worse. As though he was being judged. “He’s in jail.”
Griff didn’t look surprised at his answer. He didn’t look judgemental either, much to Aiden’s surprise. Instead he shrugged.
Maybe it wasn’t going to be so bad after all. That gave him some relief.
“Another beer?” Griff asked, grabbing a handful of bottles from the cooler. He passed them over, and twisted his own bottle lid off. “Man, the surf is looking awesome right now.”
It was as though he’d noticed Aiden’s awkwardness about his brother, and decided to change the subject. Whatever the reason, Aiden felt himself relax as Lucas and his friends ribbed each other about missing out on surfing to cook food instead.
A petite brunette walked around the side of the house, a smile curving at her lips as Lucas slid his arm around her waist. “Hey, baby,” he said, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “Aiden, this
is my girlfriend, Ember.”
Aiden shook Ember’s hand. “I think we’ve met before,” he said. He didn’t need to look twice to know who she was. He’d heard her name enough times back when he was living here in Angel Sands.
Her smile faltered. “Um, yeah. I was thinking you look familiar.”
“You were friends with Brooke Newton, weren’t you? My mom used to be the housekeeper at her house when I was a kid.”
“You know Brooke?” Lucas asked, smiling. “Damn, this really is a small town. She’ll be here in a minute. You’ll be able to catch up on old times. And you’ll get to meet Nick, of course.”
“Nick?” Aiden asked. He was immediately annoyed at himself. So Brooke had a boyfriend. What did he care? He took another sip of beer and ignored the way his stomach turned at the thought of another man in her life.
Coming back to his home town didn’t seem like a good idea after all.
“Actually, we’ve already ran into Brooke,” Breck said. “She came and saved a dog at the site last week.”
Lucas laughed. “That sounds like Brooke.”
“She seems like a really nice girl.”
“And here she is,” Lucas said, staring over Aiden’s shoulder. He felt his skin prickle, knowing she was behind him. Reaching back, he rubbed the back of his neck, refusing to turn around to look, even though every muscle in his body was poised to do so.
“Where’s Nick?” Lucas asked. “Don’t tell me you left him at home.”
A small laugh. Aiden instantly recognized it as hers. “He’s with Ally. They should be hear any minute,” Brooke said. “In fact, there they are now.”
“Nick, get over here. I need your help,” Lucas shouted out, grinning. From the expression on all the guys’ faces, they were delighted to see this man. Aiden felt another wave of something wash over him. It tasted acrid to his tongue. Whoever this Nick was, he was clearly popular.
And he was Brooke’s boyfriend. No doubt, one her parents approved of.
Aiden turned his head slowly to see Brooke standing behind him, the strangest of expressions on her face. Her chest was high, as though she was holding her breath, her eyes wide as his gaze caught hers.