8. Derrick
8
DERRICK
With a sigh, I honk for a third time.
I’m a patient man, but after twenty minutes, that patience is slipping. Izzy swore she’d be right out, so I loaded up. Yet here I sit, still waiting.
The front door opens, but before I can exhale in relief, she’s sticking her hand out and waggling one finger in the air.
I cover my face with my hands to stifle my annoyance.
I thought I was doing a good thing when I offered to take her out on the boat, but if she can’t even make it out the door on time, I can’t imagine the day will go well.
Finally, the door opens again, and she descends the front steps with a tote bag so big slung over her shoulder that I have to wonder if she’s hiding a toddler in there.
I can’t help but survey her, taking in the teeny tiny jean shorts and the loose sweater falling off her shoulder that reveals a pair of thin straps tied around the back of her neck.
Bright yellow flip-flops slap against the brick walkway as she makes her way to the truck.
She hops in wearing a cheery smile, like she hasn’t made me wait out here for nearly half an hour.
I arch a brow as she puts the tote bag between her feet. “Do you have everything?”
She twists her lips in thought. “ChapStick, sunscreen”—she ticks the two items off while reaching for the seat belt—“a book, iPad, cell phone, magazine, snacks.” With a click of the buckle, she nods once. “Yep, that’s everything. What about you? You look…” She takes me in, then shifts in her seat and peers into the back seat. “Unprepared.”
“All I need is my hat.” I hook my thumb over my shoulder to the fishing hat on the bench seat.
Lips lifting in amusement, Izzy shakes her head. “Such a simple man. Just a hat. Would you like a round of applause for your lack of needs?”
“Your sarcasm is unappreciated,” I gripe as I put the truck in reverse.
Izzy laughs, the sound bright, airy. But quickly, she sobers and asks, “Do you mind if I roll down the window?”
“Go for it.”
Eagerly, she presses the button that lowers the window, and when her dark hair whips around her face, her expression softens into one of contentment. It might be the most relaxed she’s been since she arrived.
Some of my anger dissipates as she melts into the seat and lets out a small sigh. I don’t know what drove her from LA, what’s plaguing her this way. But if the simplicity of an open window and wind in her hair can make her feel better, then who am I to rain on that parade?
Angling forward, she turns the volume on the radio up. “Your country music is beginning to grow on me.”
“Is it now?” Fighting a smile, I rub my hand over my mouth.
One side of her lips is turned up sardonically. “It’s not so bad. I’m open-minded.”
“Are you?”
She scoffs. “I am . My mom always emphasized the importance of giving new things a chance. She was mostly referring to vegetables, and I still hate brussels sprouts, but the sentiment applies to many things.”
We’re quiet for the rest of the short drive, letting the music fill the silence. It’s surprising just how comfortable I’ve become in her presence.
I’m almost to my friend’s house, where I park my boat during the warm months, when she says, “Sorry for making you wait. I didn’t want to forget anything.”
Still gripping the wheel one-handed, I lift a shoulder. “It’s fine.”
She straightens, turns my way, and stares me down, practically boring a hole in the side of my head. “You honked the horn three times. I know you were pissed. Don’t even try to deny it.”
I chuckle, amused. “I thought maybe you fell asleep.”
“Mhm,” she hums. “Sure.”
I turn down the street, and as I approach the driveway, I slow the truck.
“Uh, Derrick,” Izzy says, scanning our surroundings, “I hate to break it to you, but we’re at someone’s house. Not a dock. ”
“Dock’s in the back,” I explain, pushing the button to roll up her window.
Lips pursed, she looks around again. “I thought you had your own boat.”
As I park the truck off to the side, I give her a slow nod. “I do, but my buddy Brooks doesn’t, so he lets me store it here. He takes it out on occasion. Someone might as well use it, since I don’t get it out often.”
She gathers her hair behind her head and secures it with a light blue elastic from around her wrist. “I’m glad we’re getting out today. You should get to enjoy it.”
I hop out of my truck and snag my hat from the back. Izzy follows suit, then trails me to the backyard and down to the dock.
Before we board, I check the exterior of the boat for damage. When I find nothing, I step on, then hold a hand out to Izzy to help her aboard. Once I’m sure everything is in working order, I crank the engine. In the seat beside me, Izzy turns my way, hair blowing in the breeze, and grins.
In response, my stomach makes a weird cartwheeling, somersault-type motion.
A sensation I haven’t felt since I was a teenager.
The sun reflects off her dark hair, making the freckles sprinkled across her nose stand out even more.
I’m attracted to her because she’s a beautiful woman, that’s all. It ends there.
If I tell myself this enough, maybe I’ll eventually believe it.
As I guide the boat through the inlet and out to the ocean, I find myself constantly looking over at Izzy. Her joy is infectious. Her ponytail whips behind her, and little wisps of hair float around her face. Big, bug-eyed sunglasses hide part of her face. On anyone else, they’d look ridiculous, but it’s hard to deny that they suit her.
I drive around for a while before I lower the anchor and come to a stop in a calm part of the water. I took my shirt off a bit ago, the heat getting to me, and when I turn around and face Izzy fully, her brows lift above the frame of her glasses, and she takes a long, slow look.
Fuck.
I might be out of practice, but I know what that look means.
I avert my gaze, pretending not to notice the way she’s checking me out.
I can’t say the same thing for my dick, though. That’s one body part that thoroughly appreciates the attention. With a sharp breath in, I snatch my shirt off the floor and quickly sit down with it in my lap, feeling like a horny teenager, having to hide my boner.
Ridiculous.
Thankfully, Izzy is too busy rifling through the toddler-sized bag to notice.
With an “aha,” she yanks out a tube of sunscreen, then begins slathering it on her body. “I put some on before I left the house, but I better reapply.” At my speculative expression, she adds, “I have a friend who got skin cancer, and it’s made me a wee bit paranoid.”
“A wee bit?” I mimic as she works the creamy white lotion into her skin.
“Okay, more than that, but sunscreen is important. Do you have any on?”
“No.”
Her eyes widen in horror, and her jaw goes slack. “Derrick,” she scolds .
Dammit. The way she says my name does nothing to help my dick settle down. I frown down at my lap in annoyance.
“When I’m done, you can use this.” She holds the bottle up.
“I’m good.”
Eyes narrowed, she huffs at me. “No, you’re not.”
I sigh. There’s no arguing with this woman.
She finishes with her legs, then stands and takes her oversized sweater off.
Fuck me .
The tight, tiny hot pink bikini top hugs her perfect tits, and the jean shorts sit low on her hips. As I take her in, it’s impossible not to imagine what it would feel like to put my hands there. How soft and warm the skin above her waistline would be against my rough fingers.
Clearing my throat, I look away, my face heating.
Her laughter floats over to me. “It’s just a little skin, Derrick. No need to be embarrassed.”
With a scoff, I roll my eyes. “I’m not embarrassed.”
“Sure you’re not,” she drawls, holding the tube of sunscreen out to me. “Can I trust you to apply it yourself, or do I need to put it on you?”
Heart jumping at the idea, I snatch it from her, making her giggle, the sound light enough to float on the breeze.
I only put the sunscreen on because that threat wasn’t an empty one. Izzy will certainly do it herself if I don’t cooperate.
She turns her back to me, and for a moment, I think maybe I’ll be safe, at least for a bit. But clearly, the universe hates me, because before I can look away and continue with my task, she wiggles out of her shorts, revealing cheeky bikini bottoms in the same bright pink as her top.
“I can feel you staring at my ass. ”
My stomach plummets, and I drop my eyes and the sunscreen bottle.
“Fuck,” I curse, scooping it up.
Izzy laughs again, this time more heartily. I want to be annoyed with her, but it’s impossible when I like the sound this much.
I focus my attention on the sunscreen again while she goes back to messing with her tote. This time she pulls out a book from her bag of wonders, the cover bright purple and illustrated.
“That a kids’ book or what?”
Brows jumping, she shakes her head and lets out a sigh. “Definitely not. I guess that makes it above your reading level. Sorry about that.”
“Touché.” Lowering my head, I get back to applying sunscreen on my chest, but it doesn’t soak in the way it should. “What kind of stuff is this? It won’t go away.”
She stretches out on the built-in bench and bends her knees so she can prop her book against her thighs. “It’s the good kind of sunscreen. Don’t be such a baby.”
Lip curled in annoyance, I survey the white layer coating my skin, holding my greasy hands out at my sides.
With a sigh, she sets her book down. Then she hauls herself up and comes over to me. “Want some help?” she asks as she shuffles closer.
“Uh—”
Without waiting for my response, she grasps my bicep where I’ve missed a massive spot and goes to work, using her thumbs to massage the sunscreen into my skin.
“Fuck,” I bite out, my eyes threatening to shut. “That feels good. ”
“You work too hard. Your muscles are probably due for a good massage.”
I grunt in response, noncommittal. As much as I don’t need her hands on me right now—thanks to my dick that still hasn’t settled down—I can’t find the words to tell her to stop.
In fact, words fail me entirely when she comes around in front of me and crouches, hands on my chest to work it into my skin.
Her proximity makes my brain short circuit. Her eyes are a unique shade of green with gray and specks of gold. I’ve never seen anything like them.
“Your eyes are pretty,” I blurt like a teenage boy who doesn’t think before he speaks.
Her hands still on my chest, and she meets my gaze. “Thanks.”
I clear my throat, hands on my knees in a death grip. “You’re welcome.”
What the hell is wrong with me? I’m forty-four years old and I’m getting tongue tied over a twenty-seven-year-old. She’s the same age as my daughter. Yes, I was only eighteen when I became a parent, but that doesn’t make it okay to lust over a woman so young.
I stand abruptly, causing her to wobble and nearly fall back on her ass. Before she can tumble, though, she catches herself with a squeak.
“Sorry, thought I heard my phone,” I lie.
“It’s okay,” she says, popping up and capping the sunscreen, shaking her head and wearing a wry smile. When she looks up, she scans my face, then moves lower until…
In my haste to get away, I’d forgotten why I was sitting and covering myself .
Izzy breaks out in a wide smile. “Aw, at least some part of you is happy to see me. Hi.”
And then she waves. At my dick.
Head dropped back, I groan. “Can you not?”
“He’s waving at me. Why shouldn’t I return the greeting?”
I press the pads of my fingers into my eyes, wishing I could disappear. Instead, all the move does is make my eyes burn. Because of course they’re still covered in a layer of sunscreen.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I curse. “That burns.”
“Hold on.” Izzy’s hands are cool on my heated skin as she guides me to sit back down. “I’m going to pour water in your eyes. It’ll be cold, but it’ll help.”
I appreciate the warning, because it’s frigid . There’s no stopping the way I jolt when my senses register the temperature.
“It was in the freezer,” she explains when goosebumps pimple my skin. “It’s all I have, sorry.”
On the plus side, the ice-cold water does wonders for calming my boner.
When she’s done with the water, she fetches a towel from her bag of wonders and dabs carefully at my eyes, then urges me to open them slowly.
“They’re a little red,” she explains, biting her lip as she assesses me in concern. “But I think you’ll survive.”
“Thanks,” I mumble, saying a silent prayer that she never brings up this incident again.
She moves away, blessedly giving me space. Not that there’s much of it. It isn’t like my boat is huge.
Once she’s settled on the bench again, she repositions her book. But a moment after she plucks her bookmark out, she slides it back in and closes it. “What are the odds of seeing any whales today? ”
My instinct is to rub at my eyes again, because the amount of skin on display is driving me mad, but I resist the urge. “Your odds are about the same any day, but we’ll come out again if we don’t see any.”
Her eyes light up in a way that has my stomach twisting. “Really?”
“Yeah. You’ve gotta see your whales, right?”
Her answering smile feels like a kick to the gut. It’s bright and pure and genuine.
“Right.”
Hours later, I’m tired and my stomach is growling in protest. Izzy offered to share her snacks with me, but I can’t in good conscience eat her food.
Once we dock and the boat is secured, we head back up to the driveway. We’ve just reached the truck when Brooks pulls in.
“Hey, man,” I call out as he hauls himself out of his truck.
Brooks owns the local plumbing company, and he’s one of my go-to subcontractors, so we work together often.
“Hey. Took the boat out? How was it?”
“Yeah.” I thumb over my shoulder at Izzy, who’s getting settled in the passenger seat. “Izzy was hoping to see whales. No luck today.”
Brooks arches a brow and peers around me. “Izzy? You got a girlfriend I haven’t heard about?”
With a bark of laughter, I shake my head. “No, she’s my daughter’s friend. Kind of her boss, I guess. She needed a place to stay while she’s in town.” I open the vehicle door and step to one side. “Izzy, this is Brooks. ”
She’s frowning at her phone, but when she looks up, she forces a pleasant smile. “Hi,” she says. “Nice to meet you.”
He dips his chin and waves, and after I’ve closed the door again, he lets out a whistle. “She’s pretty.”
“And young,” I growl.
He smirks, his chest shaking with barely contained laughter. “Oh, Derrick.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
For years my friends have been urging me to move on. To date. Fall in love. Get married again.
But it’s easier said than done. I lost the person I loved once. What’s to say it won’t happen again?
Not wanting to get into it with him, I open the back door and toss my hat in, then grasp the handle of the driver’s door and throw an “I’ll see you soon” over my shoulder.
“Mhm,” he says, his tone far too smug for my liking. “Bye.”
By the time I’m buckled in and the engine is running, Izzy has tucked her phone away. The happiness she emanated earlier has vanished, and there’s a heaviness to her posture.
I hesitate to ask, but I can’t just ignore the sadness rolling off her. “What’s wrong?”
With a shake of her head, she looks out the window. She doesn’t ask to roll it down, nor does she make any move to do it herself. I lower it for her anyway, earning myself the tiniest tip of her lips. The move is almost imperceptible, but I feel like I’ve won something. I’m not sure what exactly, but it feels good. “You can talk to me, you know,” I tell her as I pull out onto the road.
With a sigh, she faces me. “I posted a photo from today on my story and… I don’t know what I thought, but I didn’t expect to get so many nasty messages. ”
“What’s a story?”
She exhales loudly. “You don’t do any social media, do you?”
I shake my head. “Nah, sorry.”
“It’s a post that’s only available for a limited time, like twenty-four hours. Typically, you post something you want to share but that you don’t necessarily want to remain out there for the world to see forever.”
“Okay?” I ask. “I feel like I’m missing something.”
She taps the button on her door to roll up the window, quieting the truck cab so it’ll be easier to hear each other. “I don’t know how to explain this in a way you’ll understand, but long story short, a lot of people on social media hate me right now. It’s why I’m here, to get away from it all.”
“Hold on.” I ease the truck to a stop at a red light. “So that miserable look on your face when I got in the truck was there because people who exist in that stupid box”—I point at her phone—“hurt your feelings?”
“I…” She slumps further. “When you put it that way, it sounds pathetic.”
“Those people aren’t even real . Not to you, anyway. You don’t know them. They don’t know you. Anything they say is bullshit. You realize that, right?”
Absentmindedly, she rubs at her chin. “Logically, I know you’re right, but mean words are still mean words.”
“Explain what they’re pissed about,” I say, and when she grimaces, I add, “If you want.” I don’t want to make her rehash the issue if it bothers her that much.
“I interviewed Lux a few months back.” At my blank expression, she sighs. “She’s a pop singer— the it girl of the moment. Anyway, I was working for The Tea. They’d given me a list of questions to ask, but they were pretty invasive and…” She trails off with a shrug. “Here we are.”
I lower my head and give it a firm shake. When I look back up at her, I have to bite back a smirk. “Do you realize how dumb all of this sounds?”
She regards me with misty eyes, rubbing beneath her nose. “That’s usually how it goes when an influencer gets canceled. Sometimes it’s legit, but more often than not, it’s silly. And no one ever really gets canceled. People get bored and move on eventually, but since Lux is so huge, the animosity is hanging over me longer than it should.”
“Maybe there’s a reason for that,” I suggest as I turn onto my street.
“Huh?” In my periphery, her face falls. “You think I deserve this?”
My stomach twists. Shit. “No. I just mean that maybe you were meant to slow down. Live life a little without a camera in your face. The last time you were here, I saw you at the coffee shop. Did you know that?”
Brow furrowed, she shakes her head.
“You didn’t even notice me because you were too busy talking to a screen.”
“I…” Her cheeks redden. “I didn’t?”
“I was going to say hi, but you were pretty engrossed. So I figured whatever you were doing must be important.”
I put the truck into park in the driveway and cut the engine.
Izzy gapes at me. “I’ll always say hi to you, Derrick. I’m sorry I didn’t see you.”
Shrugging, I pull the keys from the ignition. “Your work is important. ”
With her lip caught between her teeth, she turns from me and surveys the yard out the window. “It was . Now, I’m not so sure.” With that, she hops out and tosses that gigantic bag over her shoulder like it weighs nothing. Then she heads for the door without looking back.
After a moment to gather my wits, I follow.