He cups my jaw, and God, the way he’s taking me in, the way his thumbs rub along my cheeks, is it too much to not want it to end? “Don’t be sorry. I knew when you left you’d be back when you were ready.” His lips tilt into a smoldering grin. “So . . . Bangladesh for eight weeks, huh? Where were you for the other four?”
She didn’t tell him. She just took off, leaving this guy who clearly has feelings for her to wait with no communication for her to return? I should pull his hands off my face, confess everything, but I made my sister a promise. And I don’t want to be the one to make this guy’s handsome face turn sour with my sister’s dismissal.
“Phoenix.” My voice is a high-pitched squeak, not that he seems to care.
“What’s in Phoenix?”
I blink and it takes me a second to register his question. What’s in Phoenix? Only Celia’s entire family! She knows this guy well enough for him to kiss her ’til her toes curl but he knows nothing about her.
“My family.” I bite out the two words and he drops his hands from my face. It’s possible this is how casual relationships work, they kiss and screw and never really dig too far into who the other person is. I suddenly feel na?ve and desperate for a change of subject.
“Do you know where I can find Mr. Hurtado?”
He smiles, and oh my gosh, I feel it in my belly. Dimples, straight teeth, confidence. “Mr. Hurtado. Look at you, did you become a . . .” He looks at me from top to bottom. “Like a lawyer or something since you left?”
I look down at my black Ann Taylor dress. I pulled it from Celia’s closet, but now remember she bought it for our grandfather’s funeral. It’s probably a bit formal for the beach. “I just came from a . . . a funeral.”
He sucks in air through his teeth. “Bummer. After you left, Cal moved back to Ventura to be with his grandkids or something. His nephew watches the place now.”
“I need to talk to him, do you know where he is?”
“He lives down at the marina, only stops by here every few days.”
Shit.
A car horn honks and he waves over my head. “I’m headed out, but . . .” He steps in close and drops a light kiss on my lips, leaving me standing there like a gaping fish. “We’ll catch up later, okay? If you get bored come by the bar, I’ll buy you a welcome home drink.”
It takes everything I have to shake off the effect of his kiss. “Wait, you said ‘the marina.’ Where is that?”
“Intrepid Marina off Scott Street. He’s on Cal’s old boat.”
“Brice, hurry up!” A guy calls from the street behind me.
“I gotta go.” He winks and jogs toward the street where he hops into a mid-sized pickup truck and waves as they pull away.
I snag my phone, hit a button, and press it to my ear.
“Hey, you’ve reached Celia! I’m in astronaut school and currently studying a book on anti-gravity that I just can’t put down, so . . . leave a message!”
“You never mentioned Brice, Cece!” I whisper-yell into the phone. “He kissed me! And wow, but . . .” Instantly my cheeks flame. “It was nothing like James, let’s say that.” I huff out a breath and stare blindly at the horizon. “There wasn’t a key under the red pot and Mr. Hurtado isn’t here anymore so I’m headed to the docks to get a key from his nephew. I can’t believe I agreed to this. I love you . . . jerk.”
I hit END and punch my Uber app and enter the only information I have. Intrepid Marina off Scott Street.
I shove the phone in my purse, then grab my suitcase and make my way to the street to go hunt down Mr. Hurtado’s nephew.
I haven’t even been Celia for a full hour yet and already I’ve been kissed by a strange man. If I’m not careful, I’ll end up married and pregnant by mid-week.
THREE
ADEN
“Ya snag that dorado off the kelp beds?”
I peer up from fileting my catch at the dock’s fish table to see Jenkins staring at me through his one good eye, the other fogged over with cataracts.
“If you think I’m sharing my secret spot with you, old man, you’ve lost your fuckin’ mind.”
He grunts with a gargled chuckle. “My mind’s been gone for longer than you’ve been alive.”
“I believe it.”
It’s true, Jenkins is old enough to be my grandfather, but living on a boat docked in a small marina I don’t have a lot of options as far as company goes, which is for the best. I have a hard enough time being around people in general. Jenkins is just as annoyed with the population as I am and prefers being alone by his craggy ole self. We’re a match made in antisocial hell.
“Mahi-mahi for dinner.” It’s not a question. Presumptuous old fart. “I’ll bring libations.”
It’s the deal we’ve had since he first limped up to my boat bitching about my music being too loud. He loves fishing, but arthritis has attacked his hands and his lack of physical movement has made him weak so I do the catching and he brings over cheap booze that I try not to drink too much of because getting drunk on cheap liquor turns me into an asshole.
I dangle the fish scraps off the dock to our resident sea lion Morpheus who snags it, swallows it, and barks for more. “Greedy little shit.” I toss him more.
“You keep feeding ’em he’ll never leave you alone.” Jenkins drops a handful of entrails into the water to be devoured by a school of surf perch.
“I like Morpheus. He’s mellow, only bitches when he’s hungry.” I tilt my head and glare at the pirate-looking old man. “Kinda like someone else I know.”
He waves me off and hobbles down the dock toward his boat. “Taught him everything he knows and shows me no respect.”
“Don’t bring your homemade rum. Last time I drank that shit I hallucinated for a week!”
“Pussy.” He grumbles and disappears into the cabin of his sailboat named Amelia Lynn after his wife who passed away a couple years before he moved into the vessel permanently. Running away from old memories, he always says.
That I understand.
I wipe my filet knife on my jeans and sheath it, then grab the two thick slabs of meat and head to my boat. The old Rampage, forty-one footer gives me just enough space to sleep and eat. It’s nothing fancy, belonged to my uncle Cal before he signed it over to me as a thank-you for taking on the management of his property over at Sunset Cliffs.
Free place to stay, slip fees are affordable, I make decent money selling my catch to the fish market, plus the small percentage I get for running the cottages, it’s the perfect life for a guy like me.
Quiet.
Secluded.
And the boat provides an easy escape when I need to.
I pull out a small charcoal grill and light the coals, then head inside to see what I have in the fridge. Great thing about selling my catch to the fish market is I can also do a trade. Fresh coleslaw, potato salad, pasta salad, pretty much anything. I grab a cold beer and pop the top, then flip on the radio and head out back to watch the sunset.
Jenkins is wobbling down the dock toward me, a bottle of cheap gin in his hands and a sway like he’s been living on water so long he’s got perpetual sea legs.
I open the back latch door to let him on board but he swats me out of the way, pushing past and mumbling a string of profanity.