LUCAS
It had been a shit day out on the waves so I’d called it early and spent the rest of the afternoon just sitting here, planted in the sand—just a boy, his surfboard, and a cooler full of warm beer. Would have been better if I’d remembered the ice, but fuck it, life was too short for regrets.
I cracked another and took several long slugs. It tasted like piss, but hell, a beer was a beer was a beer.
I dug out a spot for the can in the sand and leaned back. Judging by its position, the sun would be setting within the next hour or so, but I didn’t know when for sure. I’d left my phone back at home so real time meant fuck all. I liked it that way, no distractions. No interruptions.
But then I was sucker punched by the heavyweight of all distractions—Emerson, her voice coming out of nowhere. “You got another one’a those in there for me?” She sounded friendly enough, her words a white flag of sorts.
She was exactly the reason I wanted to be left alone. “It’s a free country.” I caught glimpses of her skirt being whipped by the wind as she opened the cooler at my side, and I knew if I let myself, I could examine her long legs beneath it. But none of that would help clear my head.
The top of the can popped and Em giggled as foam dribbled onto the sand. “You probably shook that one up before I got here.”
I refused to laugh. “What do you want, Em?”
She nestled down beside me, making a nest for herself in the sand. It was so much like the way we used to be, she and I. The way we’d pass our days out here on the beach, doing nothing and everything. Then we’d go back to my place or hers and do the same. Nothing . . . and everything.
It was easy. And . . . so damned comfortable.
God, I missed that.
But she hadn’t minced words when she told me those days were over. We were done.
I tried not to breathe now, in case I breathed in too much of her.
“I came to bring you something,” she said.
She was holding out an envelope in front of me. Brown paper, wrapped in a piece of twine. “What’s this?”
“Open it.” She was smiling. I didn’t even have to look at her to know she was smiling.
I undid the string, and found myself staring at an invitation—a ticket.
I read and reread it.
And then did it one more time.
Then I looked over to her, my throat becoming inflexible like steel pipe. God, she was beautiful. She’d always been beautiful, but fuck, right now, she was breathtaking. The wind whipped her blonde hair around her face and her blue eyes sparkled as she waited for my response.
“What . . . what is this?” I repeated.
“Aster and I did it. It’s the gala. We . . .” She closed her eyes for a moment and inhaled deeply before those sapphire eyes melted into mine again. “We wanted to surprise you.”
Surprise? Blindsided was a better word. “And you did all this . . . without me?” I got up and dropped the invitation in the sand. “You didn’t think I’d want to know what was happening? Have any say in it?”
The wind battered me.
The smile disappeared from her face and her gaze landed on the discarded brown paper that was blowing across the top of the sand. “Lucas, we were doing it for you.”
“No, Em,” I bit out. “You were doing it for you.”
I gathered all my shit and threw it in the cooler, not bothering to dump what was left of my unfinished beer, just letting it slosh around in the bottom. I’d clean it up later. Just like everything else in my life.
“Lucas,” she shouted at my back when I was already walking away from her.
I stopped. Not because I wanted to hear what she had to say, but because even if I didn’t want the gala, she’d set her differences with Aster aside and together they’d planned it. She deserved for me to at least listen to her. But I couldn’t. I turned to look at her over my shoulder as I walked away. “What?”
“You’re an ass!”
Emerson was right: I was an ass. A selfish, inconsiderate, egotistical ass.
The gala was always supposed to be about raising money for cystic fibrosis research. About honoring my brother. And somehow I’d managed to turn even that into a pity party for one.
Smooth.
I needed Em to know I appreciated what she was doing. That all her time and hard work hadn’t been wasted. I’d gone over to her place to tell her, but there was no answer.
So this morning I was here, at the rec center, where according to word on the street, she was currently employed. Word on the street being her former roommate Lauren, who I’d run into at The Dunes after I’d stormed away from Emerson on the beach the night before.
I had a hard time picturing my Em working at a place like this.
But my sources’ information was confirmed when I checked in at the front desk and asked if Emerson McLean was in.
“Who wants to know?” asked the giant boy behind the counter. He didn’t look like he worked here, either. He looked like the kind of guy who lurked in back alleys and ate guys like me for breakfast.
I leaned on the counter, trying to be my usual charming self. “Lucas Harper.”
His eyes narrowed on me suspiciously as he got up from his swivel chair, pinning me in place with a surly “stay here.” It definitely wasn’t a request, and if that’s how he greeted everyone who came in, he wouldn’t be winning Employee of the Month anytime soon.
I looked around the place, trying to see its . . . charm.
Aside from the collection of mismatched couches and chairs, the sweaty gymnasium smell, the peeling blue carpet tiles, and the general juvenile detention center vibe the place gave off, I supposed it had potential. Why wouldn’t Emerson want to spend forty hours a week in a dive like this?
I was relieved when I saw the boy coming back around the corner. The sooner I could talk to Em, the better. But when I realized she wasn’t with him, and that he wasn’t alone—he’d brought an entire army of boys his size—I realized I might’ve miscalculated.
When they formed a wall in front of me, I lifted my hands in surrender. “So I’m guessing Emerson didn’t want to see me.”
The first boy, the one from behind the counter, answered. “She said to tell you to . . . ,” his face contorted as he tried to make sense of his message, “ . . . to fink off.”
As soon as he said it all the boys started laughing. Some punched each other and some just bent over, like they thought that was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.
“She told you,” one of ’em said.
Another added, “I guess she don’t wanna see you.”
I deserved that. Especially after the way I’d left things last night when she’d come to see me on the beach.
Not my finest moment.
“Fair enough,” I said. “You fellas take it easy.” I guess I should be glad Em had kids like these watching her back.
But still . . . I’d been hoping to see her today. To have a chance to explain, face-to-face. To tell her she was right, I was an ass.
I let myself out the front doors, trying to decide how to make it up to her. How to get her to give me another chance. I wouldn’t stop trying, just because she’d sicced a bunch of oversized kids on me. I mean, I wasn’t stupid enough to go up against them or anything. But I was too thickheaded to just call it a day.
I didn’t have to think too long though. When I reached the parking lot, Emerson was there, leaning against the hood of my car. I’d never stop thinking she was stunning.
“Looking for this?” she asked, holding a brown envelope between her fingers. Like the one that had blown away yesterday, this one had the same string tied around it.
“I was looking for you, actually. I came to apologize.”
“For being an ass.” She propped one foot on the bumper as she leveled her gaze on me.
I’d almost forgotten how easily my body reacted to her. That simple gesture sent an electric pulse up my spine. In my head I was already parting her long legs like the deviant I was. “Among other things.”
“Well, right now, I’m not interested in other things.” She stepped off the car and nodded toward the invitation in my hands. “But I’d really like you to be at the party.”
I could do that. If that was the first step in repairing what was broken between us, I could accept that. It was a start at least.
This time when I opened it, I really looked at the invitation. The idea seemed out there. Like, really out there. “I don’t know, Em. You really think this’ll work?”
And when she answered, there was so much grit and determination in her voice, she made me a believer. “I know it will. Trust me. It will be perfect.”