Sweet Forty-Two Page 6

  “No,” she scoffed in the most irritatingly sarcastic exhale, “some of us are forced to live in La Jolla instead.”

  I stopped in my tracks, my hand resting on the doorknob as I exhaled slowly through my nose. I scanned three sets of eyes before resting on Ember’s perfectly green irises.

  “It must get tiring, huh? Strutting around like you know everything?” With the tension in the room dialed all the way to Exit, I did just that, finally getting to slam the door behind me.

  As I wiped down the tables at the end of my shift, anger seeped into every muscle of my body. Thankfully, Lissa and the rest of the staff left me the hell alone so I could finish out my shift without hassle. But I was still pissed at CJ and intended to track him down to tell him just that.

  “Night, Liss,” I called over my shoulder as I adjusted the straps on my backpack.

  “Night, girl. You good?” She tried to sound casual, but CJ’s outburst clearly had her shaken.

  “Yep.” My tone was clipped as I pulled the thick wooden door open and walked into the starlit night.

  My heart pole-vaulted into my throat at the sight of a broad shadow leaning against my car.

  “It’s just me, G.” CJ’s voice rumbled through the parking lot.

  “You mother fucker!” I yelled as I sped toward him, reaching for his face with my hand, but only making it as far as his shoulder.

  He grabbed my shoulders and held me at arm’s length. Just far enough that I couldn’t hit him.

  “Georgia, calm down.” He sounded bored.

  “Do you have any idea what the hell you did in there tonight?

  He ducked his head to meet my eye line. “Yeah, kept you from getting hit.”

  “Yeah?” I stepped back and crossed my arms. CJ let go, but didn’t put his hands in his pockets. “And what do you think you’re keeping me from now that you’ve pissed him off and embarrassed him in front of a bar full of his friends?”

  CJ ran a hand over his over-gelled hair. “He doesn’t know where you live, though, right?”

  I shrugged.

  “For fuck’s sake, G, you take them back to your place, still? I thought we talked about that.”

  “I...” My shoulders sank under my tears. “I did flirt with Dex last night and left the bar with him. But, only to walk him to a cab. You know, make sure his drunk ass didn’t try to drive home. The bruise wasn’t from him, CJ.”

  CJ held me at arms length. “Who is it from?”

  I shook my head, looking to the stars in an effort to stop the stream down my cheeks.

  “G...”

  Looking back at CJ, I found the only person left in my life who knew everything. I swallowed hard and tucked some hair behind my ear.

  Immediately he knew. I know he knew because he whipped me back into his body and tried to wring the pain from me with a tight hug. It was deep in my bones, though.

  “I didn’t realize it had gotten bad again, G. You should have told me.”

  As I sniffled into his shoulder, I tried to come up with something defensive to say. There was nothing. I should have called him. Told him in the back room, instead of letting him construct an outlandish story in his head about Dex and me that was cemented far from reality.

  “Stay with me tonight,” he whispered into my hair.

  “I can’t. I have to go to the—”

  “Not tonight, G. You know how she is after a rough night. It’s still the same, isn’t it? She’ll be too medicated to know you’re there.”

  I wanted to say yes. That I’d spend the night with my old best friend. “I can’t, CJ.”

  “Georgia.”

  I was too tired to deny him a third time. So, I just sighed.

  CJ growled. “God. Whatever. You’re not going back to your place tonight.”

  “You’re not the boss of me.”

  The second it spilled out of my mouth I knew he’d laugh. And he did. So did I.

  “You’re insufferable.” He grabbed me into a hug.

  “Insufferable? Word of the day calendar?” I smiled into his chest.

  He laughed, bumping my head against his chest. “Screw off.”

  “Where are you staying?” I pressed my chin into his pecs as I looked up, smiling as he looked back down.

  “With some friends in North Cove.”

  “Mission Bay? Classy.”

  “Not as classy as La Jolla.”

  “Hey now,” I teased, “that was all my dad’s choice. Not mine.”

  CJ opened his driver’s side door. “Ride with me. We’ll come back for your car tomorrow. How is your dad, by the way?”

  “Dead.” I yawned and plunked into his car.

  “What the hell? When?” He eyed me like I was insane.

  Not yet, I wanted to tell him.

  “What?” I shrugged. “Last year. Don’t act so surprised. He was an alcoholic, CJ. His liver ran out of motivation. The house in La Jolla was his, though.”

  “Scumbag...” CJ mumbled and shook his head.

  I shrugged. I knew he didn’t totally mean it. CJ knew the full story, but that meant he also knew every dirty detail. My dad had been a schemer his whole life: shaking your hand with one hand, and tying your shoelaces together with the other. But there was something about him that women loved—a charisma woven through his gap-toothed smile. It’d done my mother in, which is why I’m here.

  When she left, though, he did the best he could for me. Even if it wasn’t enough, it was his best. When I’d tossed a fistful of loose earth over his final bed, I’d taken comfort in that.

  CJ merged onto the highway and reached over the center console, silently grabbing my hand. I held it all the way back to his friends’ place, shoving my guilt down for one night. Relieved not to be in the driver’s seat for once.

  Georgia

  CJ and I didn’t get to bed until well past four in the morning. Once we got to his friends’ place, we sat on the beach and talked until our words got lost in yawns. He took the floor and gave me the pull-out couch in the office where he was staying. I’d assumed that Regan was in the house as well, but I didn’t know whose house it was, and everyone was asleep, anyway.

  While it was Monday, and I technically had the day off, I wanted to get some coffee in me and get back to the bar to pick up my car before I had to show Regan the apartment in La Jolla. The house was quiet and the sound of waves, like crinkling paper, swept through the windows.

  I tiptoed to the kitchen and found the coffee pot already on and full. Looking around for a moment, I didn’t see or hear anyone. Gazing out the window over the sink, I spotted someone’s feet in the air. Like, straight in the air. As they appeared to stand on their head.

  “G? You all right? It’s fuckin’ early.” CJ’s morning voice always sounded like a polar bear on valium. I don’t know why he even bothered with the AM half of the day.

  As he clomped into the kitchen behind me, I leaned my head forward, squinting to make out why that person in the sand looked familiar. Dawn didn’t provide excellent contrast, though. Just as CJ shouldered up next to me, I figured it out.

  Then smacked him.

  “You bastard, you brought me back to her house?” I pressed my finger against the glass.

  “What?” His eyebrows drew together, eyes barely open as he followed my finger. “Oh ... yeah...”

  “She’s a bitch, CJ!” I whispered as loudly as I could.

  “You’re still mad about her thinking you and I hooked up? Christ, Georgia, half the Cape thought that for years.” He cracked his neck and pulled down two coffee mugs.

  “No, it’s not that. It’s that she took pride in judging the hell out of me last night. And the night before, though it didn’t bother me as much then because I didn’t think I’d ever see her again. Plus, you got pissed at her too, remember?”

  “Yeah.” He yawned. “And since when do you give a flying fuck what people think?”

  “Besides, she’s not a bitch.” Regan stepped down into the kitchen, rubb
ing his eyes, interrupting my poor attempt at answering CJ.

  “You coulda fooled me.”

  I didn’t care what people thought.

  I thought.

  Regan was wearing black board shorts and ... that was it. All except for the elastic that held his deep copper hair away from his face. I stepped aside so he could reach the coffee, and as he did, I caught the muscles in his back move as he poured the coffee and put the pot away. Eyeing his back from his neck to the tops of his hips, I didn’t see any tattoos. No references to his beloved violin or his renegade appearance. Nothing on his freckled back to display who he was. Or who he wanted people to think he was.

  Interesting.

  “All right, maybe Ember isn’t a bitch,” CJ raised his eyebrow to Regan, “but even you have to admit she was being kind of snatchy last night.”

  Regan slurped his first slip of coffee, hazel eyes settling on me for a moment before he responded to CJ. “Snatchy?”

  “Where’s your accent?” I blurted out. CJ told me he’d teased Regan about it. I don’t know why I even asked him.

  CJ laughed. “Boarding school boy here doesn’t have an accent. His must be hiding the same place yours is.” He playfully smacked my ass, and I squealed.

  I felt myself blush as Regan caught me eyeing the v-shaped crevices barely holding up his shorts.

  With a grin, he leaned in and whispered, “It’s okay.”

  I’m sure I had the same mortified look on my face as he’d had when I said the same thing to him just two days before, but he didn’t laugh. He winked and poured more coffee into his mug.

  He fucking winked.

  “Anyway,” I cleared my throat and gestured to the window with my hand, “what the hell is she doing?”

  “Sirsasana.” We all turned slowly toward Bo who was walking into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes.

  “What?” CJ sounded drunk on confusion.

  “Sirsasana,” Bo repeated. “A headstand.”

  “I’m going back to bed.” CJ set his mug on the counter and disappeared down the hallway.

  Momentarily ignoring that I had to leave soon, and my ride just went back to bed, I looked back out the window. “How ... long does she stay like that?”

  Bo reached above me, in all his shirtless glory, and took down a coffee mug. “Usually five or ten minutes, I guess. Probably a little longer today. She’s thinking.”

  “What’s going on with you two?” I sipped steaming coffee and watched Regan’s eyes widen. I pursed my lips at him. “Like you’re not wondering, too? They were a disaster last night.”

  Regan looked like he wanted out of there, fast.

  Bo stared out the window for a second, lightness coming into his face. “It’s okay, Regan. She’s right. We were off balance. Ember thought she was pregnant.”

  Regan and I formed a duet of choking on our coffee.

  “Precisely.” Bo chuckled. “Don’t say anything, though.”

  “Your secret’s safe with me, man.”

  Looking at Regan as he spoke, I was filled with the sensation that his words held exactly their weight.

  I shook my head. “You said thought, right? So what’s with the broody headstand?”

  Bo sighed. “It just freaked her out, is all. Not being ready for kids. We haven’t been back together that long, we’re not married...” He shrugged, but didn’t seem to buy his own spiel. Good Dad glittered in his eyes. That man wanted children, and I had a hunch he’d rock it. I hoped that Ember chick wouldn’t screw it up.

  “Back together?” I hadn’t intended on being so nosey.

  Regan chuckled. “That’s not a story you want to hear at six in the morning. Trust me. I haven’t even pieced it all together.”

  “Funny.” Bo playfully punched Regan’s lean shoulder. “I’m heading out there to check how long she’s been like that. She loses track of time, sometimes.”

  “Godspeed, bro.” Regan mocked a military salute as Bo headed onto the sand to his Nature Valley girlfriend.

  As the door slid shut, I became hyperaware of my proximity to Regan, which was no longer necessary given we were the only two left in the kitchen. All I had to do was step to the right, just to get to the other side of the island. And, I couldn’t do it. Next defense? Sarcasm.

  “Going surfing?” I pointedly stared at his shorts, which, if I’m not mistaken, had slid down an extra inch when he’d retrieved his coffee mug from the cabinet. Though the coast was loaded with surfers, it was more densely populated with those who dressed as if they were.

  “Yep.” He rinsed out his mug and placed it in the dishwasher.

  “Seriously?” I let out a suspicious laugh.

  “Seriously.” Regan turned around and leaned against the counter, curling his hands around the edges. He was a little more tense and quiet than I’d have expected for someone who could do what he did with that violin on stage. Suddenly the lack of tattoos wasn’t a surprise.

  “Well ... be safe. I’m gonna go wake up CJ to take me to get my car.”

  “Yeah,” Regan drew out, “you know as well as I do that that’s not gonna happen. When he’s out. He’s out.”

  I knew he was right, but there was no way I was going to hang out in Barbie and Ken’s Bayside Bungalow all day.

  “I’ll take you. Let me get my shirt.” His triceps flexed as he pushed himself away from the counter.

  “No, that’s okay, you’ve got plans. Hanging ten and all of that.”

  Regan let out a hearty laugh. “More like choke-on-saltwater. I suck. Brilliantly. Plus, you’ve got to show me that apartment today.”

  “Oh, right. Yeah...” I stammered.

  “That’s today, right? You said Monday.”

  “No. Yes. I did. Um ... can we jet now, though? I know it’s early, but that’s fine.” I shook the tingling sensation from my fingers, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

  “We can go now.” Regan’s eyebrows drew inward as his voice softened. In a blink, his long, slender fingers were on my cheekbone. “Are you okay? You look pale all of a sudden.”

  “I’m okay.” It came out as a whisper. It was getting harder for me to tell the difference between panic attacks and something more serious. But in the kitchen with a stranger was no place to start that conversation.

  There was no place to start that conversation. It just kind of happened. Mid-sentence and I’d be floating fast and slowly all at once with Alice down that hole.

  “Okay. Let’s go.” Looking up, I found Regan with a grey tank and his black Converses, and no recollection of the amount of time that had passed.

  Looking out the window in an attempt to reorient myself, I found Bo and Ember sitting in the sand, staring at the water. They were never leaving each other. That was the message scrawled across the scene of her head on his shoulder while his fingers glided up and down her arm. I hated that it was so obvious.

  I hated that I’d never have that.

  I cleared my throat. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  Regan

  “Do you want to just swing up to La Jolla right now and then I can take you back to get your car?” I glanced at Georgia out of the corner of my eye, who seemed to have glued herself to the door of my car. Her arm was pressed against the door, and if she had moved her head a fraction of an inch, it would have rested on the glass.

  “No, I have to go a little further north later today, so bring me to my car at E’s and you can follow me back.” She looked out the window as she spoke. Not at the cars passing by, though. Further out. Like into another time, or something.

  I took a deep breath and struggled to form the next words. “Sorry things got so crazy last night. How are you?” Georgia didn’t seem to be the kind of girl who liked to be asked if she was okay.

  I was right.

  She arched her eyebrow as she whipped her head around. “I’m fine.”

  “Is Dex your boyfriend?”

  “Are you deaf to social cues, or something? What about my tone makes you think I want
to talk about Dex at all?” She leaned her head against the window.

  Ok, then.

  I twisted my lips and focused on the road, grateful that the drive back to E’s would be twenty minutes, tops. On second thought, that seemed like a really long time.

  At a red light I turned toward her. She was in faded jean shorts, but they weren’t as short as the ones I’d seen her in behind the bar. They were rolled up to her mid-thigh, the part where the inner thigh curves in just slightly. She was wearing one of those tank tops with the way oversized armholes. The kind designed to let lookers-on view the side of the bra.

  Hers was red. Bright red. That wasn’t the most interesting part. Okay, it was, but what caught my eye after three seconds was a tattoo just below the lacy red fabric.

  “What does your tattoo say?” The driver in the car behind me laid on her horn, kindly letting me know I’d been sitting at a green light for who knows how long. I moved forward as Georgia gestured kindly back to the driver with her hand out the window.

  “You lookin’?” She smirked as she looked back at me, her eyes simmering.

  “Seems you made sure I would with that shirt.” I bit my lip to keep from smiling too big.

  “It is far better to be feared than loved.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My tattoo. It says it is far better to be feared than loved.”

  “Ah,” I nodded, swallowing once to keep the heaviness away. “Not true, though...”

  Georgia snorted. “Clearly you’ve never been in love.”

  My head started to float a little, just like it had last night. I shifted in my seat, stretching my head side to side in hopes of stopping it.

  “Am I wrong?” she pressed, teasingly.

  “You’re wrong.” I felt cold sweat sprout along my hairline. Two deep breaths later and I felt regulated again.

  “Then,” Georgia sighed, “you’ve never been feared.” All jest drained from her voice as she rooted her elbow on the armrest and shook her hand through her hair.

  With a quick glance, I could see that CJ was right when he teased her about dying her hair. Deep, black roots shown between her fingers. She’d look excellent with black hair. I was relieved to see our exit coming up.