by Emery Rose
“You told that guy he’d be breathing out of a tube if he even looked at me again.”
“Fuck. You shouldn’t have been there.”
It was true. I shouldn’t have been, and Dylan was so angry when he found out I’d taken a bus and walked. The cops busted the fight that night. It was in an auto repair and collisions garage on the outskirts of San Diego—bareknuckle boxing, betting, drugs, underage drinking, it was a den of inequity and there I was, in a place I never should have ventured to. It was my first brush with the law and I’d been so nervous, but Dylan had gotten us out of there. Grabbed my hand and held on tight, dragging me down dark alleys and ducking into a park until we lost the cruiser on our tail. It was the last time I’d been alone with him. The last time I’d really spoken to him until tonight.
He eyed me as he crushed his cigarette under the sole of his high top. It felt like he was seeing me for the first time, his eyes hooded as his gaze lowered to my mouth. I licked my lower lip at the same time he did. Then he shook his head. “Let’s go. I’ve got shit to do.”
And just like that, I was fifteen again.
I jumped off the tailgate and gathered up our trash then jogged across the parking lot to the garbage can where he picked me up a few seconds later.
The ride to my apartment was quick and we rode in silence.
When Dylan turned onto my street, and my apartment came into view, I sat up straighter. A van was parked in front—a van I’d know anywhere. I painted it two summers ago.
Why hadn’t he told me he was coming back?
I slunk lower in my seat and whipped off Ollie’s beanie, tucking it in my bag. “Keep driving.”
To my surprise, Dylan did as I asked. Minutes later, he pulled over and parked on the next street over from mine.
“The fuck is going on?”
“Nothing.” I finger-combed my hair and searched my bag for a hairbrush. Ugh, what was I doing? I slumped in the seat and cleared my throat, feeling like an idiot. Dylan’s gaze was focused on me, waiting for an explanation. “I overreacted. You can take me home now. Sorry about that.”
Dylan, of course, wasn’t buying it. “We’re not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.”
“That was my ex-boyfriend…” I shook my head. “I mean, my friend… back there in the van.” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder.
“Which is it? Ex-boyfriend or friend?”
“Both. I wasn’t expecting him. I just needed a minute to pull myself together. It’s all good now.”
Dylan was quiet for a moment, his car still idling on the side of the street. We were parked on a hill in front of a two-story white stucco house decorated with red and green Christmas lights even though Christmas was two weeks ago. “Are you scared of him?”
“No.”
“Did he ever hurt you? Fuck with you?” His voice was low, and his grip on the steering wheel tightened, the muscles of his forearm flexing.
I knew he was talking about physical harm, not emotional. I shook my head. “It’s nothing like that.”
“But you don’t want to see him,” he concluded. “Why not?”
“How would you like it if you came home and found Sienna waiting for you?” It wasn’t even close to the same thing, so I wasn’t sure why I’d gone there.
“I wouldn’t run scared,” he scoffed.
“Do you still love her?”
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “We’re not talking about me.”
“I know. But do you?”
“No.”
No. Just one word. No hesitation. It had sounded convincing enough but still, I wondered how it could be true.
About a year ago, I had asked Sienna the same question. She said she didn’t think she’d ever get over loving Dylan, but it was time to move on. And she had. She and Chase were living together in Los Feliz. They hooked up at our cousin Phoebe’s wedding sixteen months ago. My parents loved Chase. He was Dylan’s polar opposite—a Stanford graduate, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, with impeccable manners and preppy good looks, Chase said and did all the right things.
“So, just like that… you’re over her? You loved her though. Or you wouldn’t have kept getting back together.”
He didn’t like it when I turned the questions back on him. Without bothering to comment on my observations, Dylan turned the car around and drove back to my apartment. Ollie was still there, waiting for me. Dylan pulled up so his G-Wagen was nose to nose with the van and the headlights illuminated Ollie as he climbed out of the driver’s seat and slid his hands into the pockets of his cargo pants. He looked good. The ends of his blond hair curled up a little, a gray beanie on his head.
“Why did you break up?”
“He cheated on me.” It was true, but that felt like the wrong answer. “I mean, that’s the easy answer but it’s more complicated—”
He cut off the rest of my sentence. “Don’t give him another chance to fuck you over,” he said. “You hear me?”
“Yeah, I hear you. Maybe you should have taken your own advice.”
I shoved my door open and hopped out, sparing one last look at Dylan before I shut the door. Jaw clenched, he was glaring at Ollie. Was he angry? I didn’t have the energy to decipher Dylan’s moods. Besides, to Dylan, I was just his ex-girlfriend’s little sister. Nothing more.
I approached Ollie who was standing next to the van, watching my face like he was searching for a clue on how to handle this situation.
His smile was tentative, mine was genuine. Which was all the reassurance he needed. “Missed you, Smalls.” He pulled me into his arms and I held on tight, remembering how good it used to be before sex ruined everything.
4
Dylan
Money. The root of all evil. That’s what made it so damn sexy.
There were three main players in Costa del Rey. Simon Woods, John Hart, and Cal Whitaker. But John Hart was being pushed out of the picture by Simon Woods. A few months ago, he sold his house. Last I heard, he and his wife were sailing their yacht somewhere in the Caribbean. Bon fucking voyage. Which left Simon Woods as my main competition for The Surf Lodge, an oceanfront hotel circa 1950s.
It had thirty-six rooms, a restaurant and a rooftop bar, all in need of refurbishment. I wanted to restore it and return it to its former glory. Give it a 1950s vintage surf vibe. It was prime SoCal real estate and I wanted it. Badly.
But first, I needed to get Cal Whitaker to sell it to me.
I pulled into the parking lot of the diner where I knew Whitaker ate his breakfast every morning and confirmed that his pickup truck was parked by the door. I beeped the locks as I strode to the door, reminding myself I wasn’t that filthy poor kid anymore with holes in his shoes, sleeping on a shitty sofa. My bank account was healthy, growing every day, and I had the money to buy a piece of the pie. I wanted it so badly I could taste it, but I wasn’t stupid enough to let my hunger show.
I spotted Cal in a back booth, reading a newspaper while he ate his breakfast. Who even read actual newspapers anymore? He had a muddy tan, snow-white hair that brushed the collar of his plaid shirt and a handlebar mustache. He looked like a cowboy in a spaghetti western. I slid into the red vinyl seat across from him, uninvited. He glanced up from his newspaper, his shaggy brows raised in question.
Without preamble or an introduction, I stated the purpose of my visit. “I want to buy The Surf Lodge.”
“Well, that’s one way to cut to the chase. Not much for small talk, are you, kid?”
“Never saw the need.”
“How about manners? Ever see the need for them?”
I shrugged. Proper etiquette had never been my strong suit. There wasn’t anything proper about me.
“It’s not for sale.” Dismissing me, he returned his attention to his breakfast, mopping up the runny egg yolk with his toast.
Bullshit. Everyone knew it was for sale. A brunette waitress with a bright smile stopped at our booth and handed me a laminated menu. “G
ood morning. What can I get you today?”
“Just coffee,” I said, handing back the menu without bothering to look at it. I’d already eaten and had a triple shot of espresso earlier. I wasn’t here for breakfast.
“You sure you don’t want a breakfast special?” she asked. “Or pancakes? The chocolate chip ones are to die for.”
“Just coffee,” I repeated.
“Do you take cream in your coffee?”
I shook my head no, losing patience with the twenty questions. As I drummed my fingers on the table, waiting for her to leave, her eyes roamed over the tattoos on my forearms visible below my cuffed sleeves. Why was she still standing there, staring at me like I was an animal in the zoo and she’d never seen this rare species before? I shot her a look, questioning why she hadn’t left yet without saying a word.
Her smile slipped, and she took a step back. “Okay, I’ll be right back with your coffee. And a refill for you, Cal,” she said brightly.
“Thanks, darlin’.”
“Anytime,” she sing-songed, giving me another smile before she left.
Cal went back to eating and reading his newspaper so I leaned back in my seat, slung an arm over the back and waited. After he cleaned his plate, he pushed it away and eyed me over the rim of his coffee mug. “You still here?”
“Word on the street says you’re looking to sell but only to the right buyer.” That part I was making up. “I hear you want to spend more time in Nicaragua.” That part was true. I’d done my research. Had kept my ear to the ground, gleaning information and storing it away for future reference.
He crossed his arms over his barrel chest and studied my face. I remained silent and I waited. I could sit here without talking until the sun went down and not break a sweat.
“Why don’t you tell me why I should sell you that hotel.”
“I’m not Simon Woods.” I figured he wasn’t a big fan of Woods. Otherwise, he would have already sold him the property.
His brows rose. “You got a beef with Simon Woods?”
“Nope.” I hated Simon Woods, but my reasons were personal, and I wasn’t interested in feeding into any gossip. If it had been up to him, I would have been run out of this town a long time ago. Which was my motive for moving back here after I graduated college. I wanted to make something of myself, and I wanted to do it in Costa del Rey. Not LA. Not New York. Not Silicon Valley. Right here, in the town where the people had treated me and my twin sister Remy like trailer trash.
“You’re the kid from the wrong side of the tracks with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove,” Cal guessed.
“Sounds like you’ve got me all figured out.” Underneath the Tom Ford black button-down, I was still the guy who Simon Woods had called scum of the earth. White trash. The no-good punk who would never be good enough for his precious daughter no matter what I did or how much money I earned. I’d never be ‘one of them.’ Thank fuck for that. I didn’t want to be anything like those rich pricks.
“You remind me of someone I used to know.”
“Who’s that?” I asked, humoring him.
“Myself. And that ain’t necessarily a good thing.”
“I’ve been compared to worse.”
He chuckled. “I’ll bet you have.”
The chirpy server was back with my coffee and set it in front of me with a big smile then poured Cal’s refill and cleared his plate. “If you change your mind or you need anything, just let me know.”
I forced a tight smile and nodded.
“Why should I sell to you? I have two good offers on the table.”
I hadn’t heard about a second offer. Didn’t matter though. I had no intention of entering a bidding war. “It’s time to make some changes in this town. Shake things up.”
“It ain’t the Wild West, kid. Not anymore. And you sure as hell ain’t Wyatt Earp.”
“Dylan St. Clair.” I extended my hand to him across the table. He stared at it for a beat before he shook it with a warm, firm grip. A proper handshake, thank fuck.
“I know who you are. You’re the kid who built his empire app by app. Don’t use ‘em myself. Kids today can’t do anything without consulting their damn cell phones. Not a fan of technology.”
Funny how he kept calling me a kid. I’d be twenty-seven in June and hadn’t felt like a kid in longer than I could remember. “Don’t knock it until you try it.”
He snorted with disgust. “If I want to go somewhere, I read a map. If I want food, I cook it. If I want the news, I read a goddamn newspaper.”
I didn’t mention that it was already old news by the time he read it. He was obviously set in his ways, and I wasn’t here to educate him on the benefits of technology.
“How many apps have you got now?”
“A few.” In the span of five years, I’d built and launched forty-three apps. Fitness apps, food delivery, airport transfers, interior design, medical cannabis, gaming apps, you name it, if there was a market or demand for it, I tapped into it. Building apps wasn’t rocket science. I’d figured out how to reverse engineer a successful app and applied it to the ones I developed. Apps had made me a multi-millionaire.
“How’s Rae?” he asked, doing a one-eighty on this conversation.
I shouldn’t be surprised that he knew my mother. Cal frequented The Last Stand, a dive bar on the fringes of town that my mother used to hang out at when she lived here. I dragged her ass home from there plenty of times when she was too drunk to drive and hadn’t managed to land a man to warm her bed that night. Maybe he had slept with her. Wonder how much she charged him.
“Last I heard, she was alive and well.”
“So it’s like that, is it?” He clucked his tongue and shook his head.
As if I hadn’t done enough to help her. As if I was the heartless bastard who had kicked his poor mother to the curb and walked away without a backward glance.
The bell over the door chimed and I heard the sound of her laughter before I saw her. I glanced to my left as the waitress led her and the ex-boyfriend (obviously, she hadn’t heeded my advice and dumped the asshole) to a booth across from us. A beanie covered her head, a tangled mess of blonde hair cascaded to the small of her back. It was ocean damp and water dripped from the ends, leaving a wet patch on the back of her oversized plaid flannel. My eyes roamed down her ripped jeans to the Vans on her feet, painted a riot of colors in a geometric design. Her handiwork, no doubt. She slid into the seat facing the door and I chuckled soundlessly at the words painted on her T-shirt: I’m A Little Fucking Ray Of Sunshine.
Damn right she was. The whole damn place lit up when she walked in the door. Her skin had a peachy glow like it did after a good surfing session. She looked downright edible.
Baby sister was all grown up. Small and ripe, curvy in all the right places, with pillow-soft lips so fuckable it should be illegal. She looked like the love child of Deborah Harry and Mick Jagger.
When Scarlett caught me watching, her baby blues widened, and she tugged her bottom lip between her teeth before she hid behind a laminated menu.
I spared a glance at the ex with his shaggy blond hair and droopy stoner eyes. Did she have sex with Shaggy Doo last night after I dropped her off? Why should I care?
I returned my attention to Cal, remembering the reason I was here. Which was not to get distracted by Scarlett Woods.
Cal took a sip of his coffee and didn’t comment on my sudden interest in the booth across from us.
“You know, I grew up in this town. Back then, it was all cowboys, surfers, and Marines. I’ve been all three. A bunch of hell-raisers we were. This was back before everything got so built-up and expensive.” He lowered his voice so as not to be overheard. “Back before guys like Simon Woods and John Hart came along and turned this town into some kind of Disneyland. Nicaragua, kid, that’s where it’s at now. Central America is like the Wild West.”
We pondered that for a minute although I had zero interest in heading to Central America and conq
uering new territory. Despite all the shit Remy and I had gone through in this town, I loved Costa del Rey. Had loved it from the minute we rolled into town when me and Remy were sixteen. Unlike any of the places we’d lived in the past, it was a wealthy town. A surfer’s paradise with big fat waves, killer sunsets, and a laidback, chilled-out vibe I envied in others but would never in a million years achieve.
“Why do you want to get into real estate?”
“It’s time to diversify my portfolio.”
“Fancy words. Why do you want to buy this property off me?”
“Because I can.”
He nodded slowly like that made sense to him. “And I guess there was a time not so long ago when nobody thought you’d amount to anything. So you feel like you’ve got something to prove.”
“I like making money. That’s all I ever wanted to do. Make a shitload of money.” That was mostly true, but my reasons went deeper than that. Money didn’t motivate me. What motivated me was the way people treated you differently when you had money. It was poor kid mentality, I was smart enough to recognize that, but nobody had expected a punk like me to make good and that made the victory taste so much sweeter.
“For what? What do you want to do with all this money? You can’t take it with you. The fancy toys and the greenbacks won’t buy you a better seat up there.” He pointed at the ceiling as if heaven was right upstairs. As if there was a heaven and he believed in it. “So what drives you to keep making more money? Ain’t you got enough?”
“It will never be enough.”
“Let me tell you a story,” Cal said. I sat back and listened like I had all the time in the world and was in no rush to close the deal. “After I got out of the Marines, I went to Texas with one of my Marine buddies. Got a job as a ranch hand. I met this girl. A real beauty.
Her daddy owned the cattle ranch. They were loaded. And I thought what’s a girl like that doing with a guy like me? Her daddy wasn’t happy about us, but she knew what she wanted, and she thought that was me. Her old man never did warm to me. Thought I was an upstart. A gold digger who was after the family money. He made her choose. Her family or me. She chose me and got cut off from the family and all that money. For a while, she was happy enough. But pretty soon she got tired of not being able to buy pretty dresses and shit. I wasn’t around much because I was too busy busting my ass trying to get rich. But that day hadn’t come yet, and she was getting tired of struggling to make ends meet. Just be patient, I told her. Trust me. This is all gonna work out. Well, what d’ya know, she ran out of patience and ran back to her daddy.”