Bliss Brothers (Complete Series), page 48
Katie shakes her head, her cheeks going a darker shade of pink. “You don’t have to say it like that, jackass.”
“Hey.” I reach out and pat her on the head, a gesture she swipes away with one hand. “You were drunk. You were, I dare say, wasted.”
She glances down at the tray again. “Accurate assessment.”
“Wasted enough not to remember last night?”
With a tip of her head back against the pillow, Katie gazes up at the ceiling. “The last thing I remember is asking you to dance.”
I laugh out loud, and Katie’s eyes are instantly on mine, a smile on her hungover-yet-still-somehow-gorgeous face. “Asking me to dance might be the biggest understatement of the year.”
“I did ask. I remember it.”
“You said you wanted to dance, and then you practically ripped my shirt off dragging me up to the bar. Mike was laughing his ass off. My shirt looked like a deflated condom.”
“What?”
“You twisted it in your hand, and—” I motion to the front of my shirt. “It was crazy. You lasted about a half an hour, and then it was time to go to bed.” This is putting it mildly. After half an hour, Katie had her arms draped around my neck and her face nestled into my shoulder and was trying to slow dance with me to some electronica atrocity that Mike had the good sense to turn down. Beau had shown up by then, because it’s his gig to plan out parties like that one, and when he saw me, he doubled over with laughter.
I would have punched him if Katie hadn’t been hanging off me. If I hadn’t been treasuring every fucking moment of it.
She picks up the bowl of cereal and takes another bite, this one less sensual and more thoughtful. Was she…trying to get me to pounce on her with that first bite? Seriously? Could that have been a thing.
“You could have just taken me to the suite, you know. There are rooms for us there.”
“I could have,” I say diplomatically. “But that didn’t seem like the best option.”
“Why not? At least you wouldn’t have had to wake up with a train wreck in your bed.”
The moment coils between us, the nonchalant words falling one by one to the blankets stretched over Katie’s leg. I catch the flicker of a glance from underneath her eyelashes.
“The drunk version of you was more interested in staying with me.”
“Oh, yeah?” Her tone is so nonchalant I almost don’t believe it, but then again…maybe Katie knows what a disaster it would be if we got together. She has to. She has to know it at least as well as I do, which is why we never dated in the first place. “What did I say?”
“‘I’m not asking you to marry me, Huck. I just want a place to sleep for the night.’”
“I said that?” Katie snorts. “How incredibly romantic and sweet. I can’t believe you didn’t whisk me off to Vegas and marry me immediately.”
“I thought about it.”
“Ew,” Katie says, but her face…
I’m reading too much into her hungover face. That’s what’s happening here. Because there can’t be a blush, there can’t be a hint of hope.
I won’t ruin what we have for my dick. That’s never going to happen.
So I ignore the ache in my hands that wants me to peel back the sheets and crawl in next to her. I ignore the weights around my shins that try to pin me to the floor, to keep me next to her. And I ignore the urge, like a cartoon lasso around my gut, to lean forward and kiss her temple. “Sleep it off if you need to, okay? I’ll see you down at the boathouse.”
4
Katie
“What exactly do you mean when you say the words I spent the night at Huck’s?” Libby’s voice is gravelly. It sounds just like it did our senior year in college after our once-monthly bar nights. The fact is, both of us loved going out, but both of us also wanted to graduate college. After we moved in together off-campus we made a pact to limit things to once per month, and that weekend usually ended in Libby stumbling out of her bedroom at 2 PM with a voice like a pack-a-day smoker and the hangover of someone with a weak stomach, which she has.
Currently, we are both late for the last wedding event—a sendoff brunch that started ten minutes ago in one of the meeting rooms at Bliss. I’m not at brunch because I’m at my house making myself look presentable, and I have no idea why Libby isn’t at the brunch.
My head throbs, but something in my chest throbs harder. Motrin. I need Motrin, which is why I’m late for the brunch.
“I mean, I woke up in his bed this morning. What happened?”
Libby groans. “Do you think I have any idea what happened last night?”
“Some friend you are,” I huff. “It was part of the bridesmaid vows to keep and eye on each other.”
“Not fair.” Fair curls into a yawn that sends prickles of suspicion tiptoeing down the back of my neck, followed quickly by a wide paintbrush of what feels like nostalgia. “If I let you go anywhere other than the suite, it was because you were with Huck. Nothing could possibly happen to you with Huck.”
Part of me bristles at that, a weird defensiveness rising like a gate in my chest. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Of course. But Libby’s tone was more tentative than anything else—almost a question. “I’m pretty sure nothing did go on between us. I woke up in my slip.” I offer the detail and immediately feel like a side character on Law & Order, all hamfisted and obvious.
“O….kay? So you took off your dress, climbed into his bed, and…nothing happened?”
“I didn’t ask him.” My thoughts jumble up against one another like cheap bumper cars in a too-small arena and heat wraps itself around my neck. I could swear I was wearing a sweater tied over my shoulders, only that kind of thing doesn’t usually give me hot flashes. “He brought me breakfast in bed, and then—”
“Excuse me. What? Breakfast in bed? Are you kidding me, Katie?”
“I’ll still be able to eat brunch,” I grumble into the phone, then pin it between my face and my shoulder so I can dig through my purse. “It was just cereal and toast.”
“And?”
“…and?” My hand closes around a tube of chapstick, an old makeup brush, and a hair tie before I finally find what I’m looking for—the mini-bottle of Motrin. It’s light. Too light. Something rattles around inside, and I pop it open to find a single pill.
“Did he get the toast right?”
The toast, the toast. Barely toasted at all, yet not a hint of butter in solid form on the surface. Blood surges to my cheeks, riding on the whirlpool in my gut. It’s either the hangover or butterflies in my stomach, and the line between them is as thin as it’s ever been. About six people in the world know about my toast preferences. About half of those have ever gone to the effort of making it just so for me. “Yeah, he got it right.”
“So casual,” Libby teases. “That’s a big deal.”
“It’s not.” I blow out a breath and pop the single Motrin into my mouth, then wash it down with a gulp of water. I’ve been carrying the glass around since I got back to the house this morning. I ate the cereal, I ate the toast, and then I walked out of Huck’s place with heavy feet. He lives in a row of employee bungalows on the edge of Bliss property. Everything in my heart and soul screamed that I should be tiptoeing out, walk-of-shame style, but there’s no shame in sleeping over at your best friend’s place. “It’s really just toast.”
It’s not just toast.
“Then why did you call me about it?”
“You called me.” My phone started ringing the moment I stepped out of the shower, like Libs can sense the first available moment I might be free to talk. “Shouldn’t you be at brunch?”
“Yeah.” Another yawn. “I was calling to see if you were already there.”
“You’re the bride, Libs. It’s your brunch.”
“I’m hungover,” she moans into the receiver, and there’s a rustling that sounds curiously like a person turning over underneath sheets on a bed. “It’s my wedding hangover, too. How can I possibly be expected to go to brunch?”
“’Cause you planned this brunch, you beautiful fool. I’m leaving my house now. You’d better be making a fashionably late entrance when I arrive.”
“Wait—I thought you were at Huck’s.”
“I came back to my house to shower, but I’m leaving right now, and—”
“So you’ll sleep with him, but you won’t shower at his place?”
“I did not sleep with him.” In a burst of full-on adulthood, I stop at the front door of my house and chuck the empty Motrin bottle into the box of stuff I’ve been saving for the recycle center.
“But you wanted to.”
“No way. The only thing I wanted to know was how I ended up there, and it’s because you abandoned me.” A bright gratefulness surges through my chest, so intense I put my hand to my heart.
“You know, Jeff is my best friend. It wouldn’t be wrong if you—”
“No. Nope. No.” I pull the front door of the rented cottage shut behind me and take a deep breath of the midmorning air. It’s still dewy, with only a tiny edge, like the fall lost its nerve and we’re retreating back into summer. “I’m heading in to brunch. Do you want me to let everyone know you’re too sexed up from your wedding night to be there?”
“Ugh. No.” A moment’s pause. “Well, maybe.”
“You’re the best. You know that?”
“I really do,” says Libby. “I really do.”
*****
I pull up into a spot behind the resort’s main building five minutes later and check myself in the rearview mirror. My makeup looks good. My hair isn’t crazy. I do need to stop pursing my lips.
The thing is, even if Jeff is Libby’s best friend, that’s no guarantee. They’re the exception to the rule that getting involved with friends is a smart idea. And I get the impression that Jeff is her “best friend” in the sense that she would say that during the wedding vows—she did say that, by the way—but if pressed she could name at least ten women who were also in that tight inner circle. Five of us were in the wedding.
Huck’s not on that level for me. He’s on another level, all by himself. You only get to that level by doing something insane, like putting yourself at risk of ostracism for the girl whose dead dad might be contagious. Honestly, college without him wasn’t the greatest experience of my life. It was still great—don’t get me wrong—but I felt the space where he used to be every day.
I’m going to feel it again, too. That’s a hundred percent guaranteed. Because I’m going to leave, and he’s going to stay, and this was just a nice summer interlude before we move on with the rest of our lives.
Like friends do.
And speak of the devil, there he is, at the back entrance of the resort in his swim trunks and the classic white t-shirt with the Bliss logo embroidered on the front.
He’s talking to a woman.
Petite. Blonde. Probably gorgeous, though she’s facing away so it’s hard to tell. She talks animatedly with her hands and at something she says Huck tips his head back and laughs.
The screws in my knees go loose like I’m a faulty robot in a movie and the same liquid numbness rockets up into my lips, my cheeks. It’s like a dam breaking, submerging everything else in my mind. It’s free now, the feeling I’ve been holding back since I woke up in his bed this morning. Free and on the loose.
I want him.
Like, I want him. I wanted him to climb in bed with me this morning, after a slight delay for me to brush my teeth and look less like an ogre. Some hidden part of me, set free by all the alcohol and the wedding giddiness, wanted to go home with him. The eyes don’t deceive—he’s way hotter than he was in high school, but the toast proves it. The core of him is still there. The good, wholesome core of him that I desperately want to sex me up and put a ring on it.
Somehow, I force my useless knees to cooperate so I can get out of the car and push the door shut. The sound of it gets his attention. He raises a hand, that Bliss smile on his face, and waves.
The ringing tension stretched between my ears loosens and my knees get with the program.
I want him, yes. But I’m still going to play it cool.
For as long as it takes.
5
Huck
I’ve got one foot on the sailboat, my hands full of rope, and three guests uncomfortably close to penis-level when I feel the eyes on my back. It’s like a sunburn in the shape of two laser beams, right between my shoulder blades. The bleached-blonde wife portion of the guests blinks up at me. “Are you okay?”
“I’m awesome. How are you guys doing this morning?” I asked them before, and the couple and their teenaged son overdid it on the enthusiasm. I can tell the dad is the one who wants to go sailing and the other two are along for the ride. Dude is chomping at the bit to get the ropes out of my hands.
“We’re having a wonderful time,” the woman lies, squinting at my face. “You looked pained there for a minute.”
I toss the lines to the guy, who straightens up like I’ve just knighted him. “Bright sun. All that. Have a great sail, and give a shout if you need anything, all right?” His hand is already on the tiller, and I give the boat a shove with my foot. The wind catches in the sail. They’re off. I finish our little transaction with a jaunty wave, then wheel around to face the staring culprit.
“You have to stop doing that.”
She stands on the end of the dock closer to the shore, her arms crossed over her chest, eyes narrowed. “Doing what?”
“Staring at me.”
Katie purses her lips and looks determinedly out at Ruby Bay. “I wasn’t staring.”
“I felt your eyes in my back.” I cross my own arms over my chest and jut out a hip. “You want to talk about it?”
“Talk about what?”
“Talk about why your eyes are boring into my back like you’re a hit man.”
She brandishes a finger. “Hit woman, if anything.” A splash of color moves over her cheeks. “You know, it sucks that we didn’t talk that much when we were in college.”
My heart rocks in my chest like water in a barrel, sloshing against my ribs. Maybe I am getting sunburned. I sure as hell feel it now on the back of my neck. Or maybe Katie actually can burn me with her eyes. “Yeah. It did suck. Are you...pissed off about that?”
Her gaze flicks down to the surface of the dock. “I’m not pissed off about it exactly. I’m just...” She shrugs, and it’s like watching that same shrug reflected in a thousand mirrors. I’ve seen her do it a million times over the years. She might as well be waving a flag that says I need to get something off my chest.
“Look. If you’re going to stare at me all day like you hate me, let’s just have it out.” A screw winds itself tighter in the center of my breastbone. “Gotta be honest, though, Kate—I don’t think I did anything wrong.” I search her face for a hint. This is the third time this morning I’ve caught her looking at me like this, and it’s getting weird. Really weird.
Her green eyes meet mine. “That’s the thing.” Then she trails off into silence.
It’s not a complete silence, because even in the middle of the week, the resort is full of guests. Guests splashing in the shallow, still-warm water. Guests laughing at the pool. How are we getting busier? How is Charlie still running every morning, a half-scowl on his face? I can tell by that expression that he hasn’t found Asher, and he hasn’t been able to access the trust. That shit is a dark cloud over everything. Well, over the horizon, as long as you ignore it. But it’s still there. A little kid chasing a beach ball shrieks.
“Are you mad at Roman?” I say into the silence.
A grin breaks over Katie’s face. “At Roman?”
“Yeah, for not adjusting the schedule.” This is the one thing I can think of. After last Sunday—after the wedding—Roman let the rest of the temporary workers go. He didn’t fire them, but some of the people who work on the docks with us in the busy part of the season transition to other jobs at Bliss in the fall. We have a couple local schoolteachers, too, so they headed out back in August. As it stands, we’re down to the two of us, which means we’re together all day. “If it’s too many hours for you, let me know, and I can take care of it.”
It’s nothing to me if I have to work more. I need to get my mind off of several things, Katie in my bed being one of them and the impending doom of my servitude at Bliss the other.
Servitude is a bit strong. Fine.
“No, it’s not the schedule.” She bites her lip. “It’s you.”
I turn around, making a show of searching the water for another person behind me, then swivel back to her. “Me?”
“You. That’s what I was going to say, and then...I lost my nerve.”
A silvery streak of adrenaline starts at the tips of my fingers and explodes through the rest of my veins, all the way up and over my shoulders and down my back. My heart throws itself pointlessly against the front of my chest. “Hey, friendo...” Every word sticks in my mouth. “If you’ve got something to say to me, just say it.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. That’s what’s wrong.”
I burst into laughter, releasing some of the adrenaline burn. Katie hasn’t even said anything yet. I need to calm down. “Okay. Let’s sit down and you can tell me what that means.”
We go to the end of the dock and settle into two beach chairs, one red, one blue. Katie always sits in the red one, so I take the blue. Once we’re sitting, both facing out at the lake, my lungs come back online.
“All right, Huck,” Katie says softly. “What I mean is...”
I let my head fall back against the built-in pillow on the beach chair. “Don’t do it again. Don’t trail off and leave me hanging.”
“Fine. Okay. What I mean is, you didn’t do...anything wrong. The other night, when I was at your place, it seemed kind of good. It seemed right.” From the corner of my eye, I can see her shifting in her chair. “And when you left, I wished you’d stayed.”
I reach over and press my knuckles into her arm, nudging her. “You’ve been staring at me like a serial killer all day because you wanted a hang sesh?”
