Bliss Brothers (Complete Series), page 24
This is so unfair that I can’t even joke about it. “I reined in the situation at the beach party while you stood there looking as white as a ghost.”
“I was pretty sure I was going to be fired. And I can’t afford to be fired. Now or in the future. I can’t afford to be fired because everybody knows that the Bliss Brothers can’t stop screwing up.”
“We are, in fact, human. I’m sorry if that wasn’t made clear upfront.”
“I can’t be with you, Beau.” Claire stands up and gathers her things. “I can’t be with you in the office, and I can’t be with you outside the office. Because if one more thing goes wrong, I don’t have a fallback plan. I don’t have brothers, like you, and my mother….”
“What about her?” Her mother?
“My mother is the last person on earth who will ever help me with anything. Not that I expect it. But that’s why I have to succeed. I can’t have anyone holding me back. Even you.”
17
Beau
I proceed directly to the bar by the pool, where Rob awaits.
“The usual?”
“No, Rob. Not the usual.” I lean across the bar toward him. “Make it full-throttle. Double-throttle.” I laugh, and it sounds bitter and terrible and totally unlike me.
He frowns. “You okay, boss?”
“Yes.” I straighten up, straighten my collar, try to straighten out my life. It’s not that easy. “Yes, I’m fine. Make the drink fruity and strong, okay? And put it in the biggest glass you have.”
He does it, but I can feel his eyes on me when I go take a seat by the pool.
Is this freedom?
Claire doesn’t want anything to do with me, and I’m having a hard time believing that it’s because there was nothing there. I’ve had a lot of women throw themselves at me during my tenure as a Bliss Brother, and not one of them has been like her. The vast majority of them are only interested in using me as an all-access pass to the resort and an endless supply of free drinks. They want to be in the spotlight, and the spotlight here is usually on me. Add money into the mix, and you have a recipe for soulless relationships with plenty of heat and no spark.
Do I drink that first drink too fast?
Hell yes I do.
Because I’ve been so meticulous about my alcohol consumption since…well, since about my first year on the job, I react to it like a lightweight. I guess I am a lightweight, even if the world sees me as a champion holder of alcohol. That doesn’t stop me from going back for a second.
I’m halfway through my third when the women approach. One wears a pink bikini and one wears a blue one, and both of them have matching sarongs tied around their waists. One gives me a shy smile. “Are you Beau Bliss?”
“That’s me.” I give her my best Bliss grin and watch the excitement between the two of them grow.
“We heard you throw the best parties. Are you throwing one tonight?”
I sit up in the chair, the world tilting slightly on its axis. “I’ll tell you a secret.” They both lean in. “I’m starting the party right now. Do you want to be the first guests?”
The squeals. Oh, my God, the squeals. They’re so high-pitched that my eardrums threaten to burst, but I get to my feet anyway and treat them to a drink at the bar. Rob switches mine out for another one that I know instantly is a fake, and I give him a tiny salute. Good man.
It’s a good effort, but I’m Beau Bliss, so all it takes for me to circumvent Rob is grabbing one of the staff by the elbow and telling him to have someone set up at the smaller bar at the secondary pool.
That pool has a bigger hot tub, but it’s a bit of a walk down the beach, so it’s almost always deserted.
It’s not deserted when I’ve had my way with it.
Between the third drink and my trip to the new bar—the staff member had the good sense not to send Rob—we’ve added six people to the party. Maybe seven. More people keep showing up, and I rattle off an order to the bartender to keep a close watch. “If you have to call other people in, call ‘em.” There are plenty of security staff at Bliss to go around, and before long I catch one of them in his undercover clothes hovering at the edge of the gathering. There. All my bases are covered.
With that out of my hands, I lose count of my drinks. The sun wheels overhead and sinks into the west. Do I wade into the pool? Probably, because my swim trunks and the bottom few inches of my shirt are wet. Then they dry out. I wade back in again. It’s hot today, but not as hot as the day—not as hot as the day I met the real Claire Cashmore.
Not as hot as the day I’m pretty sure I fell in love with her.
I stop moving with the party, but it keeps moving around me as dusk falls. The noise ebbs and flows, and I keep looking into different people’s faces, hoping to find hers.
The last light is gone from the sky when my brother’s big face blocks out a big chunk of it.
“You’re in my light,” I tell him. Drunk as I am, I can still tell that I sound like an idiot. It doesn’t matter.
“It’s nighttime,” Driver says.
“You’re blocking the moon, then.”
“The moon’s not out.”
“Why are you f-fighting with me about this?”
“You’re drunk. You’re about to fall into the pool and drown.”
“That’s what everybody wants.”
Driver narrows his eyes. “Nobody wants you to drown in the pool.”
“Everybody wants me to be drunk. Everybody wants me to be the big party guy. Well, here I am. I’m the big party guy. Be careful what you wish for, Driver.”
“That’s not my wish. But really—you’re going to fall in. Do you know how close to the edge you are?” A strange blur in the sky distorts edge you are into something nearly recognizable.
I’m flat on my back on the tile surrounding the pool, and I stick my left hand out to find nothing but more tile. “No edge.”
“It’s on the other side of you.”
“Nope.” Just to prove it, I stretch my hands over my head and turn from one side to the other.
This has the effect of dumping me face-first into the pool.
The water’s warm, but the shock of it knocks me into some closer semblance of sobriety. Closer than it was before, and with it comes a stab of pain.
I’m in love with Claire Cashmore.
But being in love doesn’t matter, just like being honest doesn’t matter if nobody wants to hear it from you.
I flail myself to the surface and then a pair of strong hands seizes the front of my shirt and hauls me up onto the edge. Driver thwacks me on the back a few times. Nobody else at the party seems to have noticed. See? Parties are dangerous. You have to have your wits about you. I need another drink.
“I told you,” Driver says mildly, without even laughing. Much.
“You saved me,” I gasp theatrically, clapping my hands to my chest. “You really saved me. Thank you, Driver. How can I ever repay you? And what are you still doing in Ruby Bay? Did you fall in love and get your heart broken? Did you run out of gas? I’ll buy you a tank of gas, if that’s what you need. Brother to brother.”
“I didn’t fall in love,” Driver says. “But clearly you did.”
“What’s clear about that? What’s clear about anything?” I start to tip backward, because lying down seems like the best idea, but Driver hauls me up to my feet.
“Come on. Let’s take a walk.”
“Walking is bullshit,” I tell him. I’m not entirely sure I am walking, but we make slow progress back across the beach. “Swimming is bullshit, too.”
“We’re not going swimming.”
“Why not? I’m dripping wet.”
The progress is so slow that Driver turns and walks backward all the way to the main pool. It must be later than I thought. There’s a single couple in the hot tub, and nobody else. Even the bar is shut down.
“I said I didn’t want to swim.”
“And I said we’re not swimming.” Driver leads me around the side of the pool, staying well away from the edge, to the gate that leads to the courtyard. When he pushes it open, I stop dead.
“Oh, no. No. I don’t want to talk to them.”
Charlie and Roman wait on the other side of the gate.
“How close was he to drowning himself, Drive?” Roman asks, arms crossed over his chest.
“Pretty close. He owes me his life now.”
“Come on. We’ll give you a ride home.”
“I don’t need a ride home,” I sneer. “I live in the club at this resort. I can walk.”
“Trust me. Nobody wants to see you walking home. It would be…so sad.” Driver pats me on the back and pushes me forward so I have no choice but to walk through the gate.
“It doesn’t take three people to walk me home.”
“I’m going that way,” Roman says.
“Well, good. But I’m not coming back this way.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s trashed,” Roman says to Charlie.
Charlie agrees.
“I didn’t think he could get this drunk,” Roman comments, like I’m not even there.
“He doesn’t drink that often,” Charlie says, as if this has been an obvious fact for years. To him, it probably has been, but he’s never said a word about it to me.
“Don’t bullshit me, Charlie.” We make our way through the courtyard, then through a side hallway in the main building that leads out to the parking lot.
“I’m not. He doesn’t drink very much. Maybe one or two a day?”
Driver laughs. “You’re kidding, right?”
“He’s not kidding,” I say, too loud. My voice bounces off the side of the building and comes back to hit me in the face. “I have one alcoholic drink for every five virgin drinks just so I can do my job super good.”
All my brothers turn to look.
“Yeah. That’s obvious,” Charlie says.
“Obvious to you. Also, where have you been?” I’m pissed at him. He is my twin brother. And yes, we normally work opposite schedules, but so what? He abandoned me in my time of need. “You’re never around.”
“I’ve been trying to organize the records,” Charlie says. “You know that. The financial records.”
“Well, you’re just going to have to organize them without me.”
Roman claps a hand on my back. “Get in the car, buddy.”
“Don’t buddy me. I’m done, Charlie.”
“You don’t work in my department.”
“No, I’m done. I’m done.” I spin to face Roman, which is a mistake. I lose my balance and overcorrect, stomping down hard to keep myself upright. “I’ve been the Bliss Resort’s bitch for way too long.”
Driver makes a weird noise—a barely disguised laugh—but I can’t turn around to face him. My head is spinning.
“That’s it. Laugh it up, Driver. See if you’re so happy driving across the country looking for the thing missing in your soul in five years. You won’t have found it.”
“What’s this about, Beau?” Roman’s watching me with what looks like genuine concern. “If this is about the fact that you served alcohol to children—”
“God. You act like I took the bottle of vodka and poured it into their little bird mouths myself. I didn’t. It was a staffing mistake. And the reason I missed it is because I was in bed with Claire. Yeah. Yeah,” I shout. “We had a good thing happening, and now she thinks of me the same way you do. As a useless piece of shit who can only get drunk. Congratulations. I’m drunk. You got exactly what you wanted.”
“You should believe him,” Charlie puts in. “This guy’s been spending all his spare time working out at the gym. He texted me the other day to say he ate an egg-white omelet.”
“That’s right.” I stab a finger in Charlie’s general direction. “He’s right. I’m playing this great part for you, so there’s never a dull moment at the resort. And I don’t even want to do it. I’d be happier if I could create personalized experiences for the guesses. I mean the guests. If I didn’t always have to be the life of the fucking party. But you’d all die without that. Guess what? Party’s over.”
This is not coming out the way I’d planned.
“Party’s over, because I quit. Give my job to Claire. She can have it. She wants it, and she can’t be successful when I’m near her, so give it to her. It’s what she wants more than anything.”
I turn on my heel and start walking back toward the main hotel.
“The car is this way, Beau.”
I turn around, grudgingly, head pounding. “Don’t say anything else.”
Nobody says a word as they drive me back to my house.
18
Claire
Roman is already sitting at his desk when I get to the doorway.
I was up early this morning because sleeping last night was a lost cause. The conversation with Beau in the lobby—the exact conversation I’d been trying to avoid by hiding in plain sight in the lobby, like a fool—replays over and over in my mind, overlaid with unhelpful criticisms from the voice in my head. What were you thinking? His family has money. You’d be set for life with a man like that, and he’d be the perfect accessory to add some flair to your events. Oh, you didn’t think you needed flair? You do, honey. You do.
At five I got out of bed, put on workout clothes, and ran.
Ruby Bay is a small town, and this late in the summer it’s hardly pitch-dark at five. Six miles. One hour. By the time I got back to my hotel, spent and sweaty, the email was waiting for me in my inbox.
FROM: Roman Bliss
TO: Claire Cashmore
Hi, Claire—
Can you come in for a few minutes early this morning? There’s something I’d like to discuss.
—Roman
TO: Roman Bliss
FROM: Claire Cashmore
Be there at 7:45!
—C
That exclamation point almost killed me to write with my hands shaking so badly.
This can only mean he’s going to fire me.
This can only mean he’s going to cut the contract short by a week.
It should come as no surprise, given that I’m partially responsible for the beach party debacle. Even if it was a staff mix-up with the drinks, I should have been there to check. I’m not sure how I’ll get around this at bigger gatherings. There would be a lot of drinks to sample, and I can’t afford to get tipsy.
I laughed at myself in the shower. So premature, to be thinking of future gatherings when I’m not even sure I’ll get a reference from this one. And if I don’t get a reference from this one—if I only get half the contracted amount—then the house will be a problem. I need that money.
But what’s done is done. What alcohol went to the kids’ table has already gone there. There’s no going back in time.
I knock on the doorframe of Roman’s office. He looks up from the papers on his desk, eyes weary. Even so, with the natural light from the skylight, I can see why his girlfriend fell hard for him. “Come on in, Claire.”
I grip my purse as tight as my knuckles will allow and take the seat across from him, my stomach sour and also inexplicably cold. “I know I’ve said this before, but I take full responsibility for what happened at the beach. I don’t want things to end on an unpleasant note between us.” I reach into my purse and take out the carefully placed envelope, then slide it across the table toward Roman. “This is my letter of resignation, and I hope you’ll accept it while still acknowledging that the majority of events under my watch were—”
“Oh, God.” Roman runs a hand through his hair. “You’re not seriously quitting, are you?”
...what?
“I’m...I’m not quitting, I’m resigning. I thought—” I shake my head. “I thought that’s what this meeting was about. I’ve been over the event a hundred times, and it comes down to my negligence.”
“I wouldn’t call it negligence.” Roman looks up and away from me, as if we’re approaching an uncomfortable topic. “Maybe some misguided thinking on the day of an event, but you can’t be blamed for my brother’s charms.”
“Oh, I can be blamed for your brother’s charms.” My face must be beet red, and my hands are trembling again. Why. Why? “I can be blamed for not taking the appropriate measures to—”
Roman holds up a hand. “You don’t have to explain the—the finer details of what happened. But please, Claire. Don’t quit. That would be more disastrous than a couple of kids having a sip of a cocktail.”
I don’t understand. “Would it, though?”
“I need an event planner.” Roman looks me in the eye. His eyes are the same color as Beau’s. I wonder whose eyes he has—their mother’s or their father’s? Irrelevant. What is he asking me?
“You need an event planner,” I repeat, as if that will force this into making sense. “You have an event planner. Beau is the resort’s event planner.”
“Beau has also...resigned his position.” He grimaces. “I’m not sure there’s any convincing him to step back into the role, after....” He trails off, and my pulse races. After what? “I need someone to be on hand for at least the next three months, while we figure out what to do. I know that’s a longer-term contract than the one you originally agreed to, and we can absolutely renegotiate your salary. I should also let you know that positions like this come with employee housing on the resort grounds, so if you...have need of that, that would be available to you.”
It’s too much. It’s so overwhelming that I lean back until my back is pressed against the chair, a huge no-no in a professional setting. “You’re offering me a better job with housing?”
“Yes, I am. But you’d also be doing us a favor. I need to keep this resort running at the level that guests expect, and with all the news coverage from this summer, I need—we need someone like you.”
This is it. This is the solution to every one of the problems that’s kept me awake at night since I moved to Ruby Bay. This is the solution to fixing the pipes in the house. This is the solution to saving a ton of money on hotel rent, which would free up my finances to...take a breath. To take a single, solitary breath for the first time since I cut things off with my mother and moved here. Tears gather at the corner of my eyes. The relief stings.
