Bliss Brothers: The Complete Series Boxed Set, page 20
“Absolutely not.”
“I’m serious, Claire.”
“I’m serious, too.”
“Every time you talk about him, your voice does a…thing. I can’t describe it. You keep saying you can’t stand the way he is, the way he acts, but when you talk about him it’s like a monologue from a rom-com.”
That makes me laugh, only I’m slightly out of breath from powering up the hill, so I have to stop and wheeze a little bit. But not before checking to make sure nobody from the Bliss Resort can see. Unsurprisingly, they’re nowhere to be found, since this is the other side of town from the sprawling resort and I have no idea why any of the brothers would want to be here. “A rom-com?” This sets off another round of wheezing. “I thought I was complaining bitterly.”
“Yeah, well, with you, complaining bitterly is the equivalent of a mild scolding.”
“I’m not sure what that means.”
“It means you never let your real voice through. Everything’s so careful. Maybe you need someone in your life who isn’t careful. I would be that person—” She pauses for long enough that I think she’s probably taken another bite of whatever she’s eating. “I would be that person, but the shooting schedule right now is crazy.”
“It’s only two weeks.” I go down the next slope, then up another one. This neighborhood is cute. Why didn’t I buy here, instead of purchasing the greatest money pit known to man? Oh, that’s right—money. “Then I’ll never have to think about him again.”
“Doubt that.”
“I don’t. He’s honestly the worst.”
“Oh, yes. The worst. The man who got you your own sweetheart table at a dinner party so you could join in without really joining in—like you love—must have a black, rotted heart and a terrible personality.”
“He does. He has a terrible personality. It’s the kind of personality that—”
I can’t finish the sentence.
Britt finishes it for me. “That your mother wouldn’t approve of?”
She’s so right that I have no response. Instead, I walk faster, huffing into the phone so she knows I’m working out too hard to speak and not blowing her off.
“I know you’re faking it, by the way. You’re in too good of shape to get truly winded walking up a little hill.”
“Fine,” I burst out. “He is exactly the kind of person who would drive my mom insane.”
“Your mom is already insane. I say that with so much love, girl.” There’s a pause where something wrapper-like rustles against the mouthpiece of her phone, drowning out everything. Or maybe it’s just bad service from walking next to a skyscraper. Hard to say. “But she’s bitter. She can find a reason not to like anyone, and honestly, you’d do yourself a favor if you let that kind of thing go.”
“I have let it go. I’ve totally let it go.”
“We both know why you moved to Ruby Bay. You don’t have to pretend.” She starts to sing. “You’ve got a friend in me. You’ve got a friend in me. And I was there when the whole situation with—”
“Don’t say it.” I am over what happened, no matter what Britt thinks, but remembering it still makes my heart ache. And I hate that. “Don’t.”
“Fine. All I’m saying is, don’t let that happen again.”
“How could I? We’re not even speaking.”
“Good.” The noise in the background picks up in volume.
“It is good.”
“I know. Listen. I’m almost to the set. Don’t let her get in your head about this guy, okay?”
“It’s unprofessional,” I argue back, even though I know there’s no time for this. “I can’t be unprofessional. It’s a slippery slope into—”
“Oh, God, no—not a slippery slope into happiness! I love you. Gotta go. Bye.”
BEAU
Roman thinks I spend all my time falling-down drunk, but when Claire left the office today, I did not pass go. I went directly to the gym on the club side. It’s a separate building on the corner that’s dressed up to look like another one of the houses, and most people who live on the club side never use it. They have their own home gyms, obviously. I have a set of free weights. I like that gym atmosphere. Plus, Charlie once said that replacing gym equipment counted as a tax write-off for the resort. I understand fuck-all about taxes, but I know what a write-off is, and someone has to make sure all the cardio equipment wears out and needs to be replaced.
That heavy responsibility falls to me.
After a workout and a quick dinner, it’s time to make more rounds at the resort. I spent most of the afternoon at an honest-to-God tea party with Claire, which meant I had to neglect my usual post at the pool bar.
Her cheeks were pink the entire time.
All that, because I sat at a small table with her at a dinner party and paid attention to her.
Things I learned: being in the spotlight is the devil; Claire doesn’t like olives; the ice queen act is fake.
Yes.
It’s fake.
Nobody who actually suffered from a lack of feelings would have held their napkin so tightly to their lap and said I’m stricken. And she hesitated for most of the bread bowl until she admitted that maybe, under the right circumstances, she’d like people to be watching her. She would not elaborate on what those circumstances are.
It’s weird, because she’s an event planner. And I know—not every event planner spends half of her days in swim trunks, putting together grassroots beach parties and intimate hot tub hangs. Still, I’ve always found visibility to be an asset. Everybody at our resort knows who I am, and it’s not just because my last name is Bliss. It’s because I spend all of my time being visible.
Stricken.
Claire wants to blend into the background, but she can’t. She’s physically incapable of it. For one, take that dress at the dinner party.
Don’t get me started.
“There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
The voice is familiar, but it’s not one of my brothers.
“Holy shit, man. What are you doing here?” The words are hardly out of my mouth before one Dave Hawkins, a buddy from all the way back in high school, collides with me in a crush of man-hug and muscle. None of us Bliss brothers are particularly short, but Dave—he’s tall. He’s tall and blonde and disgustingly handsome in a Norwegian kind of way, and last time we talked, he was in Seattle. “I thought you lived on the other side of the country.”
“I moved.”
“Where to?”
“Ruby Bay.”
I push him back and pretend to look him up and down like someone’s grandfather. “Son, you don’t belong in Ruby Bay.”
He laughs. “The startup life was a grind. I need a slower pace for a while.”
“I have to warn you—the internet service here blows.”
“It does not. The resort has great internet. I’ve been connected since I parked my car.”
“Yeah, the resort has great internet, but Ruby Bay as a whole does not.”
“Good thing I’m staying on property for a while.”
Seeing Dave is making me feel…centered, almost like I’m in a yoga class. I would do a yoga class as a joke, but I probably wouldn’t take it seriously, so I don’t really know what I’m talking about. A friend. An old friend.
“You are? I thought we were booked out.”
This makes him laugh more than anything. “I bet you guys got a ton of press after Roman put his dick on the internet.”
Putting it that way makes me laugh, too. “Don’t say that in front of him. Or his girlfriend.”
Dave leans in. “Did she really post that picture and stick around afterward?”
“True love,” I joke, but it’s not a joke. It’s real, and anyone who looks at Roman and Jenny can see that. “True love conquers all.” That—I don’t know. That might be less real.
“You are booked, but I’m staying at my grandma’s old place on the club side.”
That’s right. His grandmother owned one of the smallest “cottages” available in the club, but the place has been meticulously maintained and it’s stayed in the family. “Nice. I’ll have to bring you a pie.”
He arches an eyebrow. “A pie?”
“A housewarming gift.”
“Place is fully furnished.” Then Dave narrows his eyes. “Man, I’m glad to see you here, but I’m surprised.”
“Surprised about what?”
“That you’re still in town, after all this time. You didn’t want to start a business in any other town? Or anywhere else?”
I shrug it off. “It’s the family business.”
“Yeah, but you could have a business anywhere. I’ve never seen somebody make friends as fast as you.”
It puts a sour knot at the base of my stomach, because I haven’t made that many friends. I have my brothers, obviously, and a tight-knit group of guys from high school and college, but we’re scattered across the country now. “Maybe I will.” I give him the Cliffs Notes version of the story with Claire, getting him up to speed in under five minutes. By the time I finish talking, Dave’s eyes are sparkling.
“That sounds amazing.”
“It does? Because it sounds like I’m fighting an impossible battle. She does not like me.”
“Please. Everybody likes you. She just hasn’t let her guard down yet.” He rubs his hands together like the mildest sort of super villain. “Will she succumb to the Beau Bliss charm?”
“I hope so.”
It’s news to me, but once the words are out in the open, I know it’s true. I just can’t believe it’s true. Not when she’s poised to take over my job if I make one more false move.
“I have to hear more about this. Are you headed to the pool?”
“What?” I’m so busy processing what I’ve just essentially told myself that I have no idea what Dave’s talking about.
“You’re wearing trunks.”
“Right. Yes.” I look down at my swimsuit. Claire would probably rather see me in slacks, and for once in my life, I wish I was wearing them, too. “I am. And technically, you’re our guest here. Come with, and we can have some drinks and collect some people to impress.”
“You’re just the same as ever.”
I’m not. I’m really not.
But I don’t tell him that.
11
Beau
The hottest day of the summer so far comes on a Sunday, and nobody wants to do anything. Anything.
Thank God it’s nominally our day off. Not that any of the Bliss Brothers ever have a true day off. When you run a resort, you have to be ready for anything. But the heat seems heavy from the moment I wake up. I can feel it pressing against the walls of my house, fighting against the air conditioning.
The gym’s air conditioning is struggling even more, and after I force myself through my workout, I text Roman about it.
Roman: I’ll have someone out to take a look.
Beau: For the love of God, tell me you’re not going to call any meetings today. It’s miserable—have you been outside?
Roman: Have you? Or are you just stumbling back home?
Please. I’ve been up longer than he has—I can almost guarantee it. I type up a text telling him exactly where he can shove his stumbling back home and delete it again, resolving not to text him back until the afternoon.
Yes. In the past, I have maintained insane hours, because that’s what the guests want from me. They want parties that go late into the night. They want to feel like they’re getting away with something. Luckily, they do most of that with me, so it never goes too far.
Fine. It’s gone too far a couple of times, but I wasn’t there. I’m not even sure my brothers know that I was the third one to arrive down at the beach. Roman and Charlie were already there, Asher is never around, Huck is doing some victory tour to celebrate graduation from college, and Driver was on the road.
After my shower, I step into clean swim trunks. The heat is not fucking around. The weather app on my phone says it’s already in the high seventies, and we just crested nine a.m. It feels hotter. It’s stickier. It’s humid.
It’s a pool day.
As soon as I walk into the courtyard, I know that the resort is still asleep. There are no sounds echoing from the pool, other than the faint clink of glasses from behind the bar. Rob must be setting up for the day. If it gets any worse, I’ll tell him to hang up the back in fifteen sign and call it a day. Anyone who really needs a drink can find me.
He waves when I cross onto the tile, but I don’t go over to him yet.
Something else has caught my eye.
Two things, actually. Two people.
No—three.
Way down in the distance, almost to the Bliss property line, Charlie’s walking in the opposite direction. I don’t have to be able to see his features to know it’s him. He’s my twin brother. I’d know him in pitch darkness. I’d text him to find out where he’s going, but I can tell, even from here, that he doesn’t want to be bothered. He only walks like that when he’s got his boxers in a twist over something.
I pull my phone from my pocket. Why not send one little text?
But then my brain snaps back into action. There’s more than one person on the beach.
In the opposite direction, Driver paces slowly back and forth down by the lake, looking down. He’s probably hunting for sea glass, which is a thing he also used to do when we were younger. I just can’t figure out why he’s doing it here, in Ruby Bay. He has as much of a right to the resort as anyone, but this stopover is taking an unusually long time.
It would be the brotherly thing to do—to go out there and ask him what the hell he’s still doing here and maybe, if the stars align, tackle him into the shallow water to shake him out of whatever this melancholy thing he’s doing, all while wearing a pair of sunglasses that make him look like he’s just stepped out of a fashion magazine.
It would, if it wasn’t for the third person on the beach.
Claire.
I have dreamed about seeing her in the pool in her bathing suit. Who knows? Maybe it wasn’t her suit. Maybe it was a suit from the gift shop in the main building. The point is, even a dream was enough to send me into overdrive.
The real thing, even from this distance—which seems both extremely short and very long—is enough to cause a tenting incident with my swim shorts.
I adjust it and head for the gate. I’m not much for second-guessing, and my shorts—as well as my penis—cannot withstand a lot of waffling in this moment. I have to see her. More than that, I have to be next to her, or at least close enough to find out what she’s doing on Bliss property on her day off.
Claire sits in a solitary beach chair, so in order to keep her company, I pick one up on the way. It’s awkward as fuck to carry it and my towel, but she doesn’t look up. She’s reading, I can see as I get closer, totally absorbed.
When I drop the chair into the sand next to hers, she leaps upward, her body jerking off the seat, but doesn’t make a sound. It’s either the funniest or the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.
“Surprise,” I say, and it sounds ridiculous because I’m trying my damnedest not to laugh.
Claire looks up at me from beneath the floppy white hat she’s wearing to shade her face from the sun, her hand on her chest and her legs folded strangely up on the chair like she was blown there by a strong gust of wind. “Surprise,” she says, the word breathy in a way that I find more than a little delightful. “Jesus, Beau. You couldn’t have said that from a little farther away? Give a girl some warning?”
It takes me several beats to respond because at first it seems like I’ve stumbled upon her identical twin sister with a totally different personality. “It’s breezy,” I offer. “It wouldn’t have made a difference.”
It happens before my eyes. Claire takes one last big breath and unfolds her legs, crossing them demurely at the ankle. She adjusts her hat, gives a little shake of her head—and that girl is gone. Jesus, Beau has left the building.
“Oh, no. Don’t do that.”
She looks up at me again, a hand pressed to the top of her hat like it could blow away at any moment. “Don’t do what?”
“Don’t…transform back into Office Claire. Not when I’ve seen the real thing.”
She sniffs, leaning down to pick up her book from where it landed in the sand. “You’re looking at the real thing.”
“No, I’m not. But I’m willing to set that aside.” I step around to the front of my beach chair and settle in. It takes a few adjustments to be comfortable. I persevere.
“Set that aside for what?” Claire says, after she waits several additional heartbeats to answer.
“For other answers. To more pressing questions.”
“I don’t know if don’t transform back into Office Claire counts as a question.”
“It was more of a request.” I lift my sunglasses so she can see my eyes and look over at her. “What are you doing here?”
Claire shrugs her shoulders, shaking off some tension she’s clearly feeling but that doesn’t show on her face. “Reading.”
“At the Bliss beach?”
She tips her head down so her hat obscures most of her face and says something too softly to hear.
“What was that?”
Claire throws her head back against her beach chair. “I said, Roman said it was fine to use the beach or the pool on off days.”
“He’s very generous.”
“Yes. Yes, he is.”
“And you took him up on it?”
She frowns at me. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“I just—” I can only look at her for short periods of time, because taking her in—taking all of her in—is like staring into the sun. So far, I’ve caught momentary glimpses of long, lean legs, breasts that make the bikini top she’s wearing an affront to human decency, and a pierced belly button.
She has a piercing. Claire Cashmore has a piercing. And a killer, killer body. But more than that, a piercing.
