Bliss Brothers (Complete Series), page 53
“I thought I was your best friend,” she says haughtily, in a British accent, and it makes me laugh as hard as I was crying.
When I get myself under control again, Libby sighs. “Is he there right now?”
I wait a beat.
“So, yes.”
“Yes. He’s sleeping in my bed.”
“How the tables have turned,” she says. “From one bed, to the other. From one side of town, to the other. From—”
“I get it. I do.”
“So snarky.”
“That’s the me you know and love.”
“Speaking of love…” There’s a rustling on the other end of the line, and a sleepy male voice rumbling in the background. “I should shut up and let my husband sleep. And you should go upstairs and ask Huck to be your boyfriend. Just do it, Katie. Nike.”
“Just do it, huh?” I watch the streetlight turn on, then off, then back on again. “Is it really that simple?”
“Of course it is. Okay. Love you. Bye.” She makes a terrible kissing noise into the phone and hangs up.
Oh, Libby. I want to believe her—that it is that simple, and that I have nothing to lose. But I can’t.
15
Huck
Charlie runs on the beach, down one stretch, then back in the other direction. He gets so far that he looks fake—a little animatronic robot of a person—and then, just when I think he’ll go out of sight, he comes back. I probably look the same to him, out on my kayak. It’s not lost on me that we’re both out here, one of us running away from his problems, and the other one paddling around like an idiot because it’s better than a treadmill. Or running on the sand. Who runs on the sand?
Who kayaks until his hands blister? The Bliss Brothers, that’s who.
This morning, I’ve made up my mind.
I’m going to ask Katie to be my girlfriend.
It feels like we’re back in fucking middle school, honestly, when saying you were dating someone was this massively big deal. Nobody cared that all it meant was walking to class next to a girl and buying her a giant cookie at lunch. Your “girlfriend” probably couldn’t visit after school, unless your parents were home. It was really racy stuff, and I didn’t care at all about it.
I care now, even though I don’t know what it will mean for us to be in a relationship in that way. God, the thought of being in a relationship with her is so terrifying, and also so normal, that it’s giving me early onset whiplash. The paddle goes into the water. I should have asked her this question years ago. I paddle on the other side. I’m lucky I didn’t.
What’s worse, honestly? Breaking up several times over the course of our young lives, or giving it one big, grand shot before this weird summer interlude is over?
If I were a running man, I’d pull this kayak up onto the shore and run all the way to her house. I’d pound on the door. We’d be late to open the boathouse.
But I’m not a running man, and Katie’s not due for our shift for another forty minutes. I stare down the barrel of each one of them and try to figure out how to do this in a smooth way.
There is no smooth way.
I paddle down the shore, past the boundaries of the resort, and briefly consider going on an expedition. At some point, Ruby Bay has to empty into a stream, which must lead to the ocean. I’ve never tried to find that stream. Maybe I’ll paddle into the sun, leaving her with the memory of me tooling around in this kayak like a doofus.
No. That won’t do.
I turn around again.
When I get back in front of our property Charlie’s there, standing on the edge of the shore, looking out over Ruby Bay.
He watches me bring the kayak as far into the shore as I can, until the waves are rocking it in the shallows. It’s not very dignified, sitting here like this, but he looks like he has something to say.
“Hey.”
“Hey, Charles.”
“How’s the water today?” Charlie has this way of looking at you that’s almost akin to Katie’s staring. It’s like they both want to burn off the top layer of your soul and see what’s underneath. If he means for it to be unnerving, he is succeeding.
“Choppy. Find Asher yet?”
“No.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “Starting to piss me off.”
“I can tell.”
He shoots me a skeptical look. “No, you can’t. You’re out on the docks all day, and I’m in my office, trying my damndest to save the resort.”
“Harsh, man. I’m trying to save the resort too, through excellent customer service.” The skin around my temples tightens, like my head is warning me to prepare for an impending headache. Is this what it would be like if I stayed here at Bliss? Is this what I’d be signing my life away for? Not that I have to sign anything physical, probably. But still. Is Charlie always going to be this single-mindedly focused on the finances?
Yes. The answer to that question is yes.
“You haven’t heard anything from him, have you?”
I point a finger at my chest. “Me?”
He rolls his eyes. “Yes. You’re the only other person in this conversation.”
“I haven’t heard from him.” Asher and I have never been super close. And I know we’re all supposed to be calling him every day, and texting, and generally harassing him out of whatever hidey-hole he’s found for himself, but there are six of us. I’m pretty sure Charlie has it covered all by himself. “Like I said, I’ve been focused on other things. Like our guests. I’m out here on the front lines, Charles. It’s no joke.”
“Are you sure your main concern is guest service?” He arches one eyebrow. “Or is it employee relations?”
I can’t even be shocked that one of my brothers knows what Katie and I have been up to. Bringing her to wait for me after that meeting must have clued them in, but from the look on Charlie’s face, he knows something about the boathouse, too.
I can take this in stride, at least outwardly. “She’s a close friend.”
“Very close, I’d say.”
“Yes, well.” I shove my paddle into the sand. “That’ll be all for now.”
“What I’m trying to say is that you should just date her instead of sneaking around in the boathouse.”
“Pry into people’s personal lives much, Charlie?” The kayak floats away from the shore, and I’m very aware that it’s going to be tough to pull out of indignation from a backward-moving kayak. “Now that you’ve got Leta, it’s like you want to play matchmaker.”
“I like her, you idiot,” he calls, because now I’m going backward even faster, putting the distance between us. “If you just offered her a job—”
“No way. I’m not Roman. Or…Beau. Or any of you,” I shout back at him. “I don’t want to work with my girlfriend. It would be weird if she was under me.”
He makes a joke that sounds curiously like that’s what she said.
“So is she your girlfriend then?” He shouts at the top of his lungs. The breeze warps his voice as it makes its way across the surface of the water.
“I’m working on it, asshole. Go run a hundred more miles.” It’s the worst, lamest insult, but it makes him laugh, and for once the tension in Charlie’s shoulders releases. “You’ll miss me when I’m gone,” I shout back at him.
“Are you leaving?”
“Maybe.”
“We should talk about that,” he shouts, the last word getting buffeted around by the wind.
“I’m a little busy.”
I turn the kayak around—carefully, so I don’t have another incident—and that’s when I see her.
She’s coming down from the main resort building in leggings and a Bliss t-shirt that meets her hips in a way that delights me down to my very fucking soul. Katie’s hair shines in the morning sun, as dark and sleek as ever, and my heart pounds like a cannon. One beat after another. One ball after another. Explosions. It’s the works.
I’m waiting by the dock when she gets there.
“Morning,” she says, and I know something’s off the moment she speaks.
Still. Still. I have sworn not to lose my nerve. I mean—I swear it now, because my heart rattles and my hand is slick around the paddle. This nervousness feels like flirting with the stomach flu, and I’ve had enough of it. Better to throw up and get it over with.
Bad analogy. My brain is going to pieces.
“Hey.” I thump a paddle onto the top of the dock to hold the kayak in place. “I’d like to put in a formal request, from one friend to another.”
Katie runs her hands over her hair and closes her eyes, taking a big breath in. The morning sun plays over her face like a delicate caress. This is the moment I want to save in a bottle. All this sickening, exhilarating anticipation, when nothing has gone wrong yet.
Nothing’s going to go wrong. It’s all going to be fine. Great, even.
She keeps her eyes closed. “What’s your request?”
“I’d like to formally request that you be my girlfriend.”
16
Katie
I open my eyes.
The sun dances off the surface of Ruby Bay, the water blue and deep and lovely, and the waves run gently onto the shore and rush back. The big white palace of the resort perches on top of an expanse of still-green grass. It’s morning in paradise, and Huck has his kayak paddle jammed onto the top of the dock, holding him in place while his question hangs in the air.
There have been moments in my life when I’d pictured him asking this. Mostly, I imagined it would be a joke. Something I’d laugh at until my stomach hurt, and then we’d forget.
But his gray eyes are sincere. His dark hair is windblown, like he’s been out in the boat for hours already, and I bet he probably has. He’s been gearing himself up to ask me about this. I know he has.
Shit.
What do I say?
What do I say?
I don’t want to be here already. Here feels like the end of the summer. It feels like graduation day at college, and that felt like everyone throwing a party to celebrate my impending eviction from the only kind of life I’ve ever known. And fine. Maybe I came back to Ruby Bay because I was afraid of stepping into my new life in Seattle. What if I failed at it? What if I fucked it all up?
I didn’t count on this summer being the disaster before the calm.
I sat up most of the night, thinking about this. I pretended to sleep when Huck left in the wee hours of the morning. He draped a blanket over my shoulders before he went.
He knows how to make toast the way I like it. He knows my favorite table at the library. He cares about me. He really cares. And now he wants to date. No—we’ve already been dating. We’ve been to the library. We’ve been to Bellissimo. We’ve been in my bed. He wants a relationship.
But a relationship will lead to disaster. Even if it doesn’t lead to disaster right now, it will when I have to make a decision and leave.
Because I do have to make a decision and leave.
That’s non-negotiable. I have student debt. I spent college figuring out how to have a career that will support me and one day support my mom, since I’m all she has left in the world. That and her retirement account.
Huck doesn’t have to do that.
Huck has the resort, even if there’s some problem going on that he can’t fully explain. He has his family. Leaving them to take a risk on me wouldn’t do any good. It would make things complicated.
It would make things really, really complicated.
Fuck.
I clear my throat, stalling for time, and Huck slides the paddle off the dock.
“You know what?” He puts a jaunty grin on his face. “I think the timing here is off. Forget I said anything.” My heart separates along a seam and falls into two halves in my chest, pressing against a stomach that’s suddenly sensitive and churning. The breeze blows through his hair, blows through mine, and I want to reach back into the past and yank us bodily into a moment when he hasn’t asked me to be his girlfriend.
When he hasn’t blown everything up completely.
“Huck—”
“No, seriously. Forget about it.” He waves a hand in the air, an exaggerated Jedi gesture, and a hysterical laugh bubbles up in my throat. I gulp it back down before it can escape. “Your mind has been cleansed of that ridiculous suggestion. You don’t have to think of it right now.”
A high-pitched shriek from the beach has us both whipping our heads around to the noise. A little girl tears across the sand in a bright pink life jacket, her mom chasing after her, her dad walking behind, filming the whole thing on his phone. “Boat!” she screams, her voice cracking with delight. “Boat, boat, boat! We’re going to ride a boat!”
She can’t be more than three, this girl, and she still has a kind of toddler roundness to her arms and legs and a bright polka-dotted swimsuit on under her bathing suit cover-up. She has no idea that anything out on the dock has gone terribly wrong.
“Slow down, honey!” The mom calls with a laugh in her voice. If anything, the chunky legs sprinting ahead of her speed up. They’ll be at the dock in a matter of seconds, and it’ll be up to me to open the boathouse, to help them choose a ride, and to send them out into the water together.
A paddle slaps against the water behind me. There goes Huck. His shoulders work underneath his t-shirt as he paddles hard away from me. I reach for a joke—something about how he can’t run from me in his dinky little kayak—but every word on the tip of my tongue seems razor sharp and cruel, given that I’ve turned him down. Come back, I want to shout. I was stupid, we could make it work. But that thought dies along with my dumb joke. Being his girlfriend now will only permanently blow up our friendship. That much is obvious. It’s why I couldn’t sleep last night.
It’s why I didn’t shake him awake and tell him we should be official. Because of this.
Does this count as a self-fulfilling prophecy?
My legs are numb, like a fucked-up version of Pinocchio, but I pick one foot up, and then the other, and I march my way to the end of the dock. The dad shoves his phone into his pocket and scoops up the little girl, and the mom dances around in front of her, making a game out of the wait. “This way first,” she’s saying, “then we’ll ride in the boat.”
It’s not until I get to the end of the boat that I recognize them.
And I don’t just recognize them from being guests at the resort. It’s way bigger than that. One of them is on album covers and concert posters. One of them has a line drawing of his face on official merchandise. I own one of those shirts from when he did a show at my university. I stood in the general seating in a sea of people, jumping up and down and singing my heart out and missing Huck, even then.
The man isn’t just some run-of-the-mill dad at Ruby Bay for the weekend.
It’s Wilder Felix, from Pilot Five.
The front man. The singer. The one whose voice seems like the backbone of popular music these days. Or maybe I just think that because I love Pilot Five. I love them casually. Coolly. So nonchalantly that my hands shake.
He and his wife, Shira, are famous. Not just because he’s the best singer of the century, but because he’s done two albums based on their love story.
I could die. I could just die.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell them, and the mom’s shoulders sag. Shira. Shira’s shoulder drop, her face flashing through disappointment and to a stoic smile. She’s even prettier in person than she is on the band’s website. She opens her mouth, probably to tell her daughter that they can’t ride a boat today, and my brain catches up with my mouth. “Oh, no. No, I didn’t mean about the boats. I mean, I’m sorry, this is awkward, but I recognized you.”
Wilder laughs, and I’d know that voice anywhere. I’ve heard it coming from the radio a thousand times. A million. Can’t sleep at night? Put on Pilot Five. I should have done that last night. Maybe I wouldn’t be such a wreck right now. “Good. Then we don’t have to play any weird games about it. I guess I won’t be James Bond today.”
“James Bond?” I laugh, despite the way my heart squeezes and quakes in my chest. “That’s your fake name?”
“He picks the worst fake names,” says Shira. “But you didn’t hear that from me.”
God, Huck, come back and meet Wilder Felix with me. Come back and stand next to me.
But when I turn my head, he’s a toy figure of a man in a kayak, way out in the lake. And he’s probably met Wilder Felix before. He’s one of the Bliss brothers, and I’m a financial analyst with a weird summer job. I’d never have taken this job if I’d known he was going to come back.
If I’d known all this was going to happen.
I shake it off.
Wilder Felix wants some time on the water.
“So.” I clap my hands and put a big, smile on my face, hoping it comes off as even slightly genuine. “I hear there’s a little girl who’d like to ride on a boat. Let’s head this way, and I’ll get you all set up.”
17
Huck
Katie successfully avoids me for the rest of the day
It’s quite the accomplishment, considering we only have the one dock and the one boathouse. Every time I go into the boathouse, she finds a reason to slip out the back to the dock, and every time I find her on the dock, she looks like she’s ready to dive into the water.
So, that’s cool.
It’s especially cool because it’s one of those perfect September days that seems like a warning. Impress this shit on your memory, it says, because soon the world is going to bury you under dead leaves and drag your foolish heart down with it for the winter.
Every beat of mine is painful. And between every heartbeat, I forget that it’s going to hurt.
We shut down the boathouse at four—well, Katie shuts it down, and I pace the dock to make sure everything’s in its place. She’s fast. By the time I get back to the shore she’s halfway up to the resort.
I didn’t work out for nothing. All that bullshit on the treadmill and the weight room is going to pay off for this sprint, even if it feels like running straight into my own certain doom.
