Bliss Brothers (Complete Series), page 28
“It is a little weird for me to be standing on my family’s property.” He laughs and the sound sends warmth from the center of my chest to the tips of my fingers. “Really. I’m not here much.”
“I’m not here much either.” I run a hand through my hair, painfully conscious of the way the hem of my sundress moves in the wind. For some reason, I dressed up for the trips to the drugstore this morning, as if to provide the illusion that I have my shit together. “I’m usually inside.”
“You? The midnight beach walker?” Driver scoffs. “I don’t believe it. This is twice now I’ve caught you on my beach.” He doesn’t look at all upset about it. “It must be a sign.”
It’s not a sign, my brain argues. You’re here for a reason. Tell him.
“It’s definitely a sign of something.” Oh, God. Where was I going with that? It’s definitely a sign that I’m pregnant and it’s your baby? Is that what I was going to say to Driver Bliss, who in the lemon sunlight of 11 a.m. in August looks even more like a man-god than he did the night we conceived said baby?
I don’t feel brave enough in broad daylight to say it to him. I feel the opposite of brave. Out here on the wide-open beach, I’m exposed to the world. Anyone with any sense knows the world isn’t always kind.
He’s saying something.
“—a sign of?”
The shallow-water blue of his eyes threatens to knock me out again. Or knock me up again. Oh, Jesus. “Pardon?”
Driver steps closer. “If it’s a sign of something that we’re meeting again, what do you think it’s a sign of?”
He’s close enough that I could reach out and twist my hand into the collar of his shirt, bringing that cut jaw and those perfect lips straight to face level. Do not pass go, do not collect any more sea glass, just kiss me. If I got that out of my system, I could tell him the truth about what happened. If I got that out of my system, I could come up with some kind of plan. Right now I am plan-less. I’m supposed to leave for New York City in three weeks. He said he was usually out on the road, but I don’t know what that means.
I don’t know anything, except that the sand feels treacherous under my feet. My balance is off. No—my stomach is off. No—my stomach is rebelling.
No. No.
I leap backward on the beach, praying for distance. The impact of my feet on the beach is the final straw for my stomach.
There’s a certain relief in retching onto the sand as powerfully as I ever have, with tears stinging my eyes and sweat beading at the back of my neck. It’s over almost as quickly as it started, but not quickly enough to avoid the fact that I just hurled in front of Driver.
Blood rushes to my cheeks, hot and horrible, and I force myself upright.
“I—”
“Come this way.” Driver’s at my side, one hand above my elbow and the other on my back. “No need to stand in that spot. There’s plenty of beach.” We move down the sand and he stops, lifting my chin to look into my face. “I think you should probably sit down.”
“My ass will get sandy,” I blurt out.
“And I would never want your ass to get sandy.” He wraps his arm more firmly around my waist like he’s worried I’ll fall over into the water and float away. “But you’re a bit pale, and my mother always taught me to have a seat if my face got pale.”
“How would you know your own face was pale?”
Driver keeps walking back toward the resort building. My heart stutters against my ribs. There are people there—lots of people. The Bliss Resort is a popular spot. “Never thought of it,” he says with a laugh that’s tinged with concern. “Just thought I’d make conversation while we go up by the pool.”
“By the pool?” I shouldn’t be seen by the pool.
“If pools aren’t your thing, I know of plenty of other places to sit.”
We’re getting closer. “I don’t…need to sit. I’m not sick.”
Driver shoots me a look. “I don’t want to embarrass you, Holiday, but you did throw up on my beach not long ago.”
“Did I? If we both pretend it didn’t happen, then who’s to say?”
“I’m willing to pretend it didn’t happen if you sit with me a while.”
We cross the remaining stretch of sand, go up a low, wooden staircase, and move down the center of a path that leads to a wrought-iron gate. Driver opens it with one hand, keeping a steadying pressure on my lower back.
“After you.”
I hesitate at the gate. There are people around the pool, but it doesn’t seem too crowded.
“First option.” Driver points at a pair of deck chairs in the shade beneath a wide, striped umbrella. In this moment, the walk across the sand catches up with me. Both calves ache, and so do the soles of my feet.
“I’ll take it.”
“Good call.”
Driver leads me over to the deck chairs and helps me into one, which makes me feel strangely like a princess. I lean my head back against it as he takes a seat in the other one, his elbows balanced on his knees. I close my eyes and listen to the water in the pool lap against the tiles. This feels good.
Too good. This is all fleeting, temporary, and Driver…
“Where’d you go?” I hear the rustle of clothing as he shifts in the seat. “For the last month, I mean.”
“Were you looking for me?”
“No.” I’ve said it too quickly, and he laughs. “I mean—no, I wasn’t out on the beach again. Until today. You said you were never here, but you were here, and now you’re back.”
“I do a lot of traveling, all over the country, on behalf of the resort.” A soothing breeze moves across my skin. “I mostly set up sponsorships and other partnerships that bring in extra exposure or revenue for the resort.”
“Do you like it?”
“I love it,” Driver says. “Sometimes, when I’m here…” I open my eyes long enough to see him run a hand through his hair, a faraway look in his eyes. “It feels like the resort runs my entire life. When I’m out on the road, I’m the one with my hands on the wheel.” He cracks a smile. “My mother would tell you that I’m the kind of guy who has to be in control of everything.”
“Cute name, then.”
“Very cute.”
We both laugh, and I think of the way he brought me to this deck chair. It didn’t matter that he looked so at ease, standing there by the water. He was in charge the entire time, his hand on my back…
Tell him.
I gather the words together, and there’s no way to dance around the facts. We had a one-night stand, and now I’m pregnant, and there hasn’t been anyone else. My chest squeezes. A man who loves the sensation of a steering wheel under his hands, who wants to be the driver…oh, God. He’s not going to take this well. I can live with it, I realize suddenly. I can bring a baby home to four solid walls and let the world outside go by.
“Driver…”
“Yeah?”
“Driver.” The voice that cuts in, cutting me off at the pass, is a deeper twin of Driver’s. I shade my eyes, looking up at the man who stands at the edge of the shade. “You’re back. We need to talk.”
“I’m a little busy, Roman.” Driver glances at me, an apologetic smile on his face. “Holiday, this is my brother Roman. He’s…in charge, as long as everyone lets him play the king. Roman, this is…Holiday.” There’s no other way to describe it, other than my name.
“It’s lovely to meet you,” Roman says. He and Driver have the same blue eyes. He bends to offer his hand for me to shake, then straightens up. “Holiday, you’re welcome to stay by the pool. But it can’t wait, Drive. I’ll meet you in my office.”
4
Driver
“WHAT’S THE BIG EMERGENCY?”
Roman sits behind his desk in his office, concern written across his face. “Hey, Driver.”
“Hey, Driver, my ass. What’s going on? The last time you summoned me to your office, it was to ruin a sponsorship or two.”
“Are you ever going to let me forget that?”
“Not likely.”
“I need you back on the road.”
I drop into a seat on the other side of Roman’s desk. “You need me out on the road?” It’s more than a little weird for Roman to rush me out of here, and my gut reaction is that I don’t like it. I want to be the one who decides when I leave and when I come back. Roman saying this sounds an alarm at the back of my head.
“Yeah. Something’s not adding up with the numbers.”
“Sorry, what numbers?” Something’s not adding up with what he’s saying. Back in the beginning of the summer, after Jenny—Roman’s current girlfriend and the resort’s social media goddess—accidentally posted a revealing picture of Roman on the resort’s Instagram, bookings exploded. They didn’t slow down for another month. Roman seemed fine after that. “Roman, if something’s going on with the resort, just tell me.”
“Something’s going on with the resort.”
“What is it, you cryptic asshole?”
He raises his eyebrows. “Such language.”
“Roman…did you see the woman I was with out at the pool? Even a glance?”
“I saw her.”
“I walked away from her to come talk to you. Let’s not play games.”
“This isn’t a game.” He looks up, over my shoulder. “Good. You’re here.”
I twist around in my seat. My twin brothers, Beau and Charlie. Charlie in his classic flat-front shorts and a white button-down, and Beau in a Hawaiian-print swimsuit and white button-down. Twins. Beau is empty-handed, which still looks weird to me.
“I hope this is important,” Beau announces. “I was with Claire.” The scent of chlorine wafts off of his shorts. “She took the morning off.” He drops into the chair next to mine, leaving Charlie to stand behind us both like a lanky bouncer.
Roman fixes Beau with a look. “I didn’t ask you to come here.”
“Yeah, but you asked Charlie, and I saw how harried he looked—”
“I did not look harried,” Charlie interjects. “I looked like I was concentrating on the matters at hand, instead of a woman in a hot tub—”
“You don’t have a woman in a hot tub,” Beau says mildly. “Anyway, I came to offer moral support.”
“Oh, good. I don’t know how I’d have made it without you.” Charlie lets out a huff of a breath through his nose. “Roman. Go on.”
“Is this something you’ve all been talking about without me?” I lean toward Roman as he clicks around on the mouse, eyes on the computer screen. “I hate it when you keep secrets until the last second.”
“This isn’t until the last second, and everyone talks about things when you’re not here. You’re almost never here.” Roman keeps clicking.
“No, Asher is almost never here. I’m here on a semi-regular basis, if we’re keeping track.”
“We’re not, really,” Beau says. He looks so pleased with himself. “Wait. Did you have something to do with how distressed Charlie was looking on the way here?”
“I wasn’t distressed,” Charlie sings. He’s gone over by the window and doesn’t look up from his phone.
“Charlie. Put away the spreadsheet.” Roman hits a button on his keyboard and turns to face us. “Beau—I don’t know why you’re here. And Drive, this is why I need you back on the road. Charlie, did you find anything?”
Charlie turns away from the window and stands at the edge of Roman’s desk. “Nothing that makes any sense. Everything we’re looking at right now is very surface-level. The kinds of reports that would be available to the management staff.”
I don’t know anything about reports, and thinking about that kind of thing—spreadsheets and printouts and God knows what else—makes my skin crawl. I want to climb on the back of a motorcycle and flee from the state of New York. That’s only one of the reasons why Roman’s detailed reporting scheme crashed and burned at the beginning of the summer. “Okay.” I rub my hands over my face. “What are you hunting for then, Charlie?”
“We’re bleeding money,” Roman announces, and I swear I’m having deja vu.
“Weren’t we bleeding money before? And your risky business picture fixed all that up?”
“Uh oh,” Beau says. “Turns out Roman’s dick wasn’t quite enough to raise us up from—”
“Shut it.” Roman glares at Beau. “Yes, Drive. Something’s going on with the finances that I can’t explain.”
Beau gasps. “If you can’t explain it…”
Roman tilts his head back, exasperated. “Why are you here? Go have a fake margarita.”
“It’s too early for a margarita. A mimosa, more like. Want one?” Beau stands up from his seat.
“No,” Roman sighs.
“I do.”
Beau snaps his fingers at me. “Coming right up.” He saunters out, greeting people in the office as he goes.
The instant he’s gone, Roman’s face turns serious. “You’ve started looking, then?” This, to Charlie.
“I’ve started looking. It’s slow going. All the paperwork—”
“I get it,” Roman says. “Drive, I need you to get back out on the road and make up some of the shortfall. Okay? All the good deals you can find.”
HOLIDAY
My phone rings in my boobs.
It jolts me right out of a sound sleep, and I know immediately that it was not an attractive sleep. Mouth open, head flopped over sideways…yikes.
And I’m still sitting in the deck chair by the pool.
The phone rings again, vibrating in my cleavage. It seemed like a good idea at the time to keep it in there. The number looks familiar, but it’s not saved in my phone. A New York City number.
“Hello?” I take in a calming breath, trying to clear my system of the adrenaline.
“Hi there. Is this Holiday Taylor?”
“This is she.” I feel like I’m back in high school, waiting for callbacks on my job applications to the local businesses.
“Hi, Holiday. This is Wendy Limkins calling from Windspire Publishing.”
“Right, of course!” I bleat into the phone. “Of course. Wendy. Hi. How are you?” I try to cover my cringe with my free hand, though it’s utterly pointless.
“I’m doing well,” she says in an even voice, a smile somehow communicating over the line. Wendy is the human resources manager at Windspire. She’s the one who hired me. She sent out all the paperwork and she was so nice, and it made me think I could hack it in a New York City apartment with too many roommates and not enough money. “Holiday, I’m calling because I’ve had a request from Ms. Bower, who’s your—”
“My department head. She’s head of editorial.” Oh, my God.
“That’s right. She had your official start date down as September third, but in light of a ramp-up in acquisitions, she’d like to move that start date forward.”
“Forward?”
“To the last week of August. It would be…” Paper rustles. “August twenty-seventh.”
That would mean getting to the city a week earlier. That would mean leaving here a week earlier.
That would mean making a decision about what to say to Driver a week earlier.
“Oh, that’s—” My throat goes tight. Maybe it’s stupid that I didn’t blurt out the news when I saw him on the beach, but Driver…he’s not the kind of guy who’s going to want to stick around for this. And I’m going to stick around for it.
The certainty hits me like a ton of bricks. Bricks ringing with truth. It’s shaken me so much because, from the moment I saw those words on that test, I knew. Just like I know I’m meant to stay inside, alone. Just like I know that home is where safety is, and the outside world is where things can happen.
Things have happened.
“I just need a minute to…I’m sure I can make it work.” I want to throw the phone into the pool when those words come out of my mouth. “I’m sure I can.”
“Are you?” Why is Wendy Limkins so compassionate? “If you need some time to see if you can rearrange your plans, I can let Ms. Bower know—”
“Don’t. Don’t do that.” There’s too much flying around my head right now to take back the commitment I’ve just made, even though a hollow opens up at the pit of my gut. I can’t go to New York a week early. And I can’t ask Driver to come with me. Can I? No. What was I doing out on the beach if not figuring all this out? “I’ll be there,” I promise, and for the first time in my life, I wish I was like Sophie. She dropped everything and went to Portland. I’m sick to my stomach about moving to New York City.
Oh, please. It’s more than that.
“I’ll let her know,” Wendy says. “If anything changes, give me a call, okay?”
I almost, almost, tell her that I’m pregnant, but swallow back the words like an errant burp. “I sure will.”
The moment I end the call, my stomach growls. “You have to be kidding me,” I grumble at it.
“Sounds serious.” The words come from the edge of the umbrella, and I jump.
“Driver.”
“Me again.” He steps underneath, his expression caught between serious and searching. “I think it’s another sign.”
“What’s another sign?”
“If you’re hungry, I should take you to lunch.”
“Oh—oh, no.” My hackles go up. “I’m not sure if I should sit in a restaurant, in case the ol’ stomach turns on me.” The ‘ol stomach. This is a train wreck. “I should probably head back to my place.”
“Where’s your place?”
“Down the beach, only a little—” I wave in the general direction of my uncle’s place.
Driver nods crisply. “Right. I’ll come with you.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Are you kidding?” He offers me his hand and I reach for it automatically, like I’ve been doing it all my life. “With how this day has gone, I’m not letting you out of my sight again until I have to.” I stand up, the warmth from his hand zinging through my entire body. I want to go with him. I want it so badly, even though I know he’s only going to leave.
