Bliss Brothers (Complete Series), page 33
“Ready!” shouts the kid, his fists balled up by his sides. He looks like he could explode.
“One, two, three…” Driver picks up him up and stands on the first step, then throws the kid back into the water, positioned just above one of the toys on the bottom. The kid dives down and comes back up, yelling triumphantly.
“Nice!” shouts Driver. “Over here. Over here!”
The kid scrambles up the steps and goes to open the toy. A gold coin. I don’t know what that means, but by the look on his face, it’s a good thing.
Driver swims back out into the center of the pool as Beau makes his rounds and Roman calls for round four.
As if he can feel me looking, he turns around and flashes me a grin. He’s got this.
13
Driver
“YOU MADE IT LOOK EASY.”
I’m toweling off over by the bar when Holiday sneaks up behind me, coming around in time to watch me rub the last of the pool water from my hair. “You make trespassing look easy.”
She laughs. “Sophie made me. It’s not my fault.”
Sophie, for her part, is nowhere to be found. “Where’d she go? She was with you at the pool, wasn’t she?”
“Some kind of pie emergency,” Holiday says, brushing the hair back from her face. I’m jealous of her hands. Her own hands. Ridiculous. To hide my jealousy, I flex, turning back and forth in my swim trunks.
“So you decided to come over and check this out.”
“I’ve been richly rewarded,” she says, giggling. “Why didn’t you tell me about your new pool gig?”
“Beau roped me into it. He caught me trying to go back to your place this morning and insisted. Hey, Rob—can you spare me my shirt?” Rob, the bartender, pretends for a minute that he’s lost it, then whips it at me over the surface of the bar.
“One shirt, straight up,” he says. “Are you going to introduce me?”
“Rob, this is Holiday. My…” My love. I’m on the verge of saying my love, even though that makes the least amount of sense of anything I’ve ever thought. “She’s mine. Keep your hands off.”
Holiday blushes deeply. “Don’t listen to him.” She shakes Rob’s hand, giving him a wide, pretty grin. “I’m an independent woman.”
“Come see me any time before you check out for a free drink,” Rob says.
“She’s not a guest, buddy,” I tell Rob, who raises his both hands in apology. “I don’t sleep with the guests.”
“You don’t sleep here, period. What are you doing, hanging around my bar so much lately?”
“Shirking his duties.” A hand comes down on my shoulder. Roman.
“I’m not shirking,” I tell him, rolling my eyes. “I’m setting things up. I know it seems like I ride off into the sunset without a plan, but I do plan. You should know that. You’ve ruined at least one of said plans.”
Roman leans around me. “Hi, Holiday. Nice to see you again.”
Holiday studies her fingernails. “Nice to see you, too.”
“Anyway, we were just leaving. No need to follow along, Roman.”
He lets go of my shoulder. “Get going, Driver.” His tone is light, but I know well enough that the phrase has a double meaning. He wants me off this resort and bringing in cash. Guilt arcs through me. I should be out there, doing my part to keep our livelihood running. And in light of what Charlie said…
“I’m on it.”
I put my arm around Holiday’s waist and lead her away from the bar. “So. You’re here.”
“I’m here,” she says.
“Do you have plans for the rest of the afternoon?”
“I had plans.”
“What happened?”
“I saw you in that pool.” She looks up at me, cheeks pink, and my heart ratchets up its rhythm to match the pulse fluttering at the side of her neck. “Now I can’t remember what I wanted to do.”
“If I didn’t know better, I might think you were into me.” I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. I’ll probably never be able to express to her how much being near her like this tears me in two. My heart—and other parts of my body—scream for me to take her back to my place and lock out the rest of the world. My head rages against the horrible uncertainty of trusting her—of trusting the plans we might make together. How can something so abstract and formless as hypothetical plans feel so much like a cage?
“I’m pretty into you,” she answers. Then she shakes her head. “But I can’t spend the rest of the day in bed with you, Driver. Don’t ask me again.”
I laugh out loud. “They were important plans, then.”
“I was thinking of a safety net.”
This is a woman who doesn’t deal in nets—she deals in walls. “What do you mean by that?”
“Look.”
I let her stare at me for as long as I can stand it. “I’m…looking?”
“I think you should take me for a ride.”
* * *
HOLIDAY
“I think you’d make a great dad.” I raise my voice to compete with the roar of the wind.
Driver leapt into action when I suggested driving, hustling back through the resort to a small parking lot away from the guest section. “Take your pick.” He made an expansive gesture at the six cars in the lot.
I don’t know anything about cars, but they looked…expensive. Paint shining. Sleek curves. Powerful engines, I’m sure.
“Are all these yours?”
“These belong to the resort. I’d take you in my personal vehicle, but I wanted to impress you.” His eyes sparkle.
I chose a red convertible.
“Wow,” Driver said. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for the convertible type.”
“I’m feeling wild today. What can I say?”
Now we’re out on the winding highway outside Ruby Bay, and Driver blinks. “You do?”
“I wasn’t only looking at your body at the pool today.”
He grins. “Could’ve fooled me.” Driver takes one hand off the wheel and reaches for mine. He rubs his thumb over the back of my hand and and lets it go again.
“Both hands on the wheel. See? That’s what I like about you.”
His grip tightens, then relaxes. “Sometimes I think it’d be nice to be one of those guys who can drive one-handed. But I like to be in control.” He cuts a glance toward me. “Of the car.”
Of everything.
“Why’d you want to come driving with me, Hol?” It sends a thrill down my spine, the familiarity of that nickname. On Driver’s lips it sounds like we’ve known each other forever.
“Because I have things I want to say to you, and I thought it would be better if we were driving.”
“Say ’em.”
“Okay.” I focus on the road ahead of us. “I don’t know what to do, and I’m hoping you can help me.”
“About the baby?”
“No. That’s decided. I’m having the baby,” I say firmly.
Driver laughs. “That’s the impression I got.” His expression sobers. “You’re wondering about me, then. About what we’re going to do.”
He guides the car around a gentle curve in the road, his body utterly relaxed. This isn’t so bad. Letting him steer…it’s not so bad.
But it is. Of course it is. If I let Driver have his way, I’ll lose my only chance to get out of the routine I’ve been in for so many years. I don’t want to let it go, but if I stay…
Not that staying is an option. I’m seized by the bright hope that he’ll ask me to move into his house on the club side of the resort right now and make everything easier, but what would I be giving up if I did that?
My job at Windspire. The chance to make tons of industry contacts. The chance to be published.
I can’t let all that go.
“How are we going to do this from two different places?” I ask him, knowing in my heart that it’ll always be two different places. Looking at him right now tells me what I need to know—that being on the go, that being behind the wheel and cruising down the highway—that’s as much a part of Driver as anything else. Settling down in New York City would be like cutting off an arm. He’d feel it every day.
“We’ll figure it out.” I don’t look at him. “Hey.” He waits until he has my attention. “We’ll have to figure it out. We’ve got a few months.”
“We’ve got a few days. You have to get back on the road, or else you’re going to get fired.”
Driver smirks. “Who told you that?”
“Beau.”
The smirk on his face fades away. “Roman’s under stress,” he tells me. “He can’t kick me out of the family, even if he doesn’t like how much I’m in town right now.”
“But he also can’t make you want to stay,” I point out, and Driver sets his jaw. “Nobody can make you want to stay here.” It would be easy—it would be so easy—if Driver was the kind of man who slotted himself neatly into new roles, but he’s not.
My heart aches, because if he were that kind of man, I’m not sure I’d be falling for him like this.
And I shouldn’t fall. I should never, ever allow myself to fall for someone who’s so different, who needs such different things from life. It’s a recipe for heartbreak.
“You could come on the road with me,” Driver offers. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing, having you in the passenger seat next to me.”
“It wouldn’t,” I agree, but it’s a lie, and it curdles on my tongue.
14
Holiday
THE PIE EMERGENCY, it turned out, wasn’t so much an emergency as it was an opportunity.
I get back to the cottage in time to find Sophie stuffing her clothes into her rolling suitcase, everything strewn across the living room, and dancing to Sia. She has the music cranked so loud on the house’s speaker system that it’s rattling the windows.
“I’m not abandoning you,” she shouts as soon as she sees me. “I have a thing.”
“What’s the thing?” Sia belts about chandeliers.
“There’s a diner over in Lakewood that sells homemade pies, and the lady who normally supplies them skipped town for Florida.”
“The Short Stack?” I shout back.
“The what?”
“The Short Stack.” My family liked taking the drive to Lakewood when we’d visit on summer vacation because my dad was in love with the sign on the door. A big ol’ stack of love, it read, and he got a knee-slapping laugh out of it every single time. “Is that the diner?”
“It’s in a house,” she shouts back. “That seems wrong but that’s what the guy on the phone said. They want me to stay for a few days and make some pieces, which is good, because I shut down the pie stand to come here.”
“It used to be a house.”
“What?”
I go over to the switch on the wall and lower the volume, sadly cutting off Sia’s big crescendo in the song. Sophie laughs. “Sorry. I was into it.”
“No apologies. The Short Stack diner did used to be a house. It still looks kind of like one, so don’t be surprised when you go over there. We used to eat there all the time.”
Her eyes wide, Sophie shakes her head. “Worlds colliding.”
“Our worlds have already collided, but I still think it’s cool.”
She looks me up and down. “Are you still going to be here when I get back?”
“Are you staying there for…” I check my phone. “Ten days? That’s how long I’ll be here for.” My heart shudders up into my throat. “Then I’m out of here. I’m hitting the road and headed for the big city.”
“Okay.” She doesn’t sound like she believes me. “I’ll be back before then. In the meantime…how was your date?”
“It was a drive. And it was good. He said I should come out on the road with him.” I snort with laughter—I can’t help it.
“You should.” Sophie’s serious. “You absolutely should do that. Can you imagine? Out on the road, falling in love…”
“In a different place every night? With who the hell knows around? No. No way. And anyway, my job starts too soon to start flirting with that idea.”
Sophie cocks her head to the side. “Has it ever occurred to you that this was meant to happen? Maybe your uterus released an egg at that moment to stop you from doing the wrong thing with your life.”
“You’re saying I got accidentally knocked up from a one-night stand in order to…save myself from New York City and the one job I’ve ever been able to picture myself doing?”
“You are such a liar.” Sophie crosses her arms over her chest. “You want to write. Publishing is just a side gig on the way to the top for you. It’s networking. And by the way, you hate networking. You’re in this for the books.”
“I was in it for the books. Now my brain…” I don’t know how to explain it to her. When I sit down in front of my computer, there are no words to add to my book. None whatsoever. “The writing dream is on an indefinite hold.”
“Right.” She looks me in the eye. “You’re willing to put off your writing dream, but you won’t accept fact that your true soul-dream is to be at home with your family?”
“Soul-dream,” I scoff, but the words have struck deep.
“I have to go.” She comes across the living room, pulling the suitcase behind her, and throws her arms around me. When she steps back she jabs a finger into my face. “If you need anything, you text me. Or you call, and you keep calling. Do not disappear off the face of the earth again. You’re always home. It’s terrifying when you do that.”
“Got it.”
I give her one last hug and see her out the front door.
Sophie’s been here long enough that as soon as she pulls out of the driveway, I feel the silence in the house as viscerally as I ever have in my entire life.
It’s so quiet.
I go out to the back deck. The deck chairs call to me, but I go past them in favor of the beach. The moment my feet hit the sand, it’s right there again—that homesick ache in my throat that makes me feel completely pathetic.
I love it here.
I love the way the water is always rolling onto the shore, and the way the sand heats up as the afternoon progresses. Ruby Bay itself isn’t massive but it’s wide enough that the other side is a distant green haze. Nothing bad happens here. Surprising things, yes—but nothing I can’t learn to live with.
For the first time, I let myself drop a hand to my belly.
It’s flat as a pancake. There’s not the slightest hint of a bump. I would never do this if anyone else were around to see.
It’s okay to indulge if it’s just me and the lake, though.
I look down past my hand to my feet in the damp sand and spot a piece of pink sea glass, its edges round and smooth, two inches from my right pinky toe. When I bend to pick it up I’m struck by the fact that nine months from now, if everything goes according to plan, I will absolutely not be able to bend down and pick up a piece of sea glass.
Will anybody be around to do it for me?
Will Driver?
I shake the thought out of my head. I won’t be here in nine months, if everything goes according to plan. I’ll be taking the subway to work in New York City. Or walking, if I can still hack it. I’ve never been pregnant before, so I don’t know how it’ll all shake out. I press the sea glass against the front of my sundress. In nine months, I’ll be able to rest it on top of my belly.
And Driver will be able to rest his hand there, too.
I want it so badly my knees threaten to give out.
He’s everything that should scare me to death. He’s a man who likes what he does and does what he likes. He’s a man who can’t be tethered to one spot. He’s not afraid of anything, and me?
I can still hear that asshole laughing.
It’s been years since high school. Years since the stupid incident that ended with my picture plastered all over social media. Years and years and years, and still…
I’d rather be at home, where there are no cameras and there are no assholes, even at the cost of everything else.
But not at the cost of Driver.
I turn my head at the crunch of the footsteps in the sand. It’s not Driver—it’s one of his other brothers. The one who looks like Beau. He rolls to a stop a few feet away. “You must be Holiday.”
“If all of you weren’t so clearly Driver’s brothers, it would be creepy how often people say that.”
With a serious smile, the kind that would have melted my panties clean off back in college, he extends his hand. “Charlie Bliss. My twin brother’s Beau.”
“King of the parties.”
“Yes, though he’s…pulled it back in recent weeks.” Charlie takes a look up the beach at my uncle’s cottage. “Nice place.”
“It’s only mine for a little while,” I tell him, and something in his eyes makes me think…he knows. “Then I’m headed to the city.”
Charlie runs a hand through his hair. “What do you do in the city?”
“I’ll be an editor for a publishing house.” I’ll be pregnant, and I’ll be alone, and I’ll miss him so much it hurts. I open my mouth to elaborate, maybe to name the company, but instead what comes out is: “I’m not sure it’s going to work out.”
“Driver would probably say that if it doesn’t, you can always take an alternate route. He’s obsessed with the GPS apps they have out now. You can avoid almost any traffic jam, according to that guy.” Charlie checks his watch. “It was good to meet you, Holiday.” He hesitates. “I don’t make it a habit of getting into other people’s business, but for what it’s worth…I’ve never seen Driver stick around here so long. You must mean something to him.” He gives me a nod and jogs away, disappearing down the beach in a matter of moments.
Charlie might be right, but I’m rendered speechless by a cascade of images, flickering one by one through my mind. Driver in the bed at his house, looking down at me with soft eyes. Driver standing in my kitchen, preparing elaborate pancakes for a one-night stand. Driver’s hands on the wheel of that convertible.
Driver in the pool, helping out a little kid so he wouldn’t get left behind.
