Chapter Nine
“You guys have been gone for hours; did you have a nice date?” Kai snarkily asks me as soon as he spies me slinking back inside my house.
I have to gulp before I can form words for an answer.
Not because I’m nervous about owing him an explanation about where I’ve been—out chatting and watching the sunset at the town boat launch with Evan—but because Kai’s just stepped out of Morgan’s downstairs bathroom and is wearing nothing but a towel.
Still damp from apparently just having gotten out of the shower.
Kai notices my speechlessness and is quick to flex his pecs for show.
All bronzed skin and covered in his black and gray tribal tattoos.
The sight, up until recently, made me go weak in the knees.
Now, having gotten the distinct pleasure of seeing Evan working around here without his shirt on, I can appreciate a more naturally honed body.
His chest is covered in just a smattering of salt and pepper hair.
His slight farmer’s tan comes from days spent working out in the sun.
Evan isn’t chiseled from spending hours at the gym with a tailor-made workout regime prescribed by a personal trainer, as is how Kai has come to acquire his physique.
It comes from what appears to be years of an assortment of odd jobs and hard labor. All to avoid becoming a carbon copy of his ancestors, from what he confessed to me tonight.
My heart feels heavy for Evan, honestly. He feels stuck in a rut. He feels like he’s failing Colton, and that he already failed his late wife. He feels uneasy about trying to navigate the dating scene again. All told, Evan is a hurting man who feels lost at sea.
“If you have to think that hard about it, I’d say the date was a flop.” Kai chuckles. “Did you at least bring me back anything, since you used my card to pay for ice cream?”
“It wasn’t a date, and no, I didn’t bring you back one. I wouldn’t have been able to hold it on the back of his motorcycle anyway,” I explain, handing him back his card.
“Then where’d you put an entire car battery?” Kai quizzes me.
“Behind the backrest. Should I have strapped you down a sundae there, and see how it fared?”
He rolls his eyes, then asks, “How’s Daddy’s lumbar spine?”
I give Kai a confused look.
“I imagine you stabbed him in the back with your woody the entire time,” Kai teases. “I mean, I would have, after all. Bad boy biker babe, woo-ee!”
I roll my eyes. “Kai, seriously. Stop. He’s straight. He’s straight, and he’s an employee. Objectifying him like that is wrong on so many levels. He’s a nice guy, and I don’t want to make him uncomfortable and leave. I need him. Also, can you go put some clothes on?”
“Brooks Uriah Gallagher! I cannot believe you just asked me that.”
“Believe it.”
“But… but….” He pouts. “I see what this is. Now I’m getting told to put on my clothes—to cover this beautiful canvas—because you’ve got it bad for Evan. Mr. ‘aww, waa, don’t hit on him because he’s an employee’ just wants Daddy to himself!”
I puff out a beleaguered sigh, gesturing towards the front door. “Nope, it’s because I’ve got a bunch of children all under the age of fourteen here, who don’t need to see you one ill-timed gust of wind away from flashing your goods. I’m trying to be a professional.”
“Oh please, you’ve hired a team of high schoolers to do that work for you. Kick back, relax, and enjoy the show.”
“No.” I point up the stairs. “Go. Put on. Your clothes.” Placing my palms on his chest, I attempt to spin him in that direction and urge him to get a move on.
That action causes three things to then happen, all in rapid succession: my harried efforts cause him to stutter-step backwards slightly, he reaches out to grab my upper arms to steady himself, and the towel falls from his waist. Well, so actually four things happen, because the next thing I know, I’m hearing a deep voice say, “Shit, sorry…” from behind me. “I should have knocked. Fuck.”
I whip my head around quickly to find that the voice belongs to Evan, who has one hand on the doorknob of my front door, his body facing inward, but his face embarrassedly turned outward.
A visible red flush is creeping up his neck, and he makes a move to back out of the doorway.
I twist my neck back around and really take in the sight I’m an active participant in.
Kai is completely naked. I’m planted mere inches from his body with my palms pressing to his pecs.
Kai’s hands are gripping my biceps and pulling me towards him.
It looks—well, it looks compromising. It looks like Kai and I were about to take care of some unresolved sexual urges, and that is definitely not what I want Evan thinking.
Back at the ice cream stand, I saw the way he regarded me as I told him about my and Kai’s history.
I know Evan thinks I’m a fool for sticking up for Kai’s decision to leave.
Now, he must really be thinking I’m a mega-fool for continuing to have a sexual relationship with Kai.
I’m just a big, dumb, heartbroken moron, who keeps trying to domesticate someone who is the human equivalent of a wild mustang.
It doesn’t matter that the thought would have been correct up until recently; Evan doesn’t need to know that, however.
Thing is, I don’t even think I want to be a horse wrangler—or whatever they call themselves—anymore.
Not since Kai came around, trying to be all big and bad with his ‘I’m an active partner in this business’ spiel.
Working with him the three days Evan was gone has been absolutely insufferable.
He scrutinizes every decision I make, and everything is about the money, not the kids who need help healing.
Kai doesn’t understand the mission at all, though. All he understands is finances. Kai’s primarily spoken languages are English, Hawaiian, lewdity, and dollar signs.
“It’s okay, Daddy. You can take a peek if you want,” Kai snarks over my shoulder.
“It only looks big and scary. I swear, it doesn’t bite.
” He sways his hips a little, before releasing his grip on my arms and making a show of bending to pick up his towel.
He bites the tip of his index finger. “Golly gee, did I drop this here towel? Whoopsie!”
I swear I hear a growl from the entryway, as Evan steps in and quickly shuts the door behind him.
“Kai!” I thwap him upside the back of his head. “I’m so sorry, Evan. Kai was just going upstairs to get dressed,” I grit out with annoyance over Kai’s alarmingly worse-than-normal behavior.
“That’s not how I remember it,” Kai rebuts. “I distinctly recall you trying to tell me to do that, but I don’t ever remember thinking that was my actual plan.”
“Kai, listen to Brooks. Go put your clothes on, and stop acting fucking petty,” Evan snaps, still facing away. “Christ, I already scold my teenage son enough. How old are you?”
Kai’s expression morphs from playful to scowling. “Thirty-two.”
“Act like it. Brooks tells you what to do in his house, you listen,” Evan grumbles.
That statement does nothing but send Kai stomping up the stairs.
The imagery makes me chuckle. He’s storming off like a toddler, yet he’s a grown adult, ass muscles flexing underneath the bobbling globes of his cheeks.
It’s not that sight that has my blood running south towards my khaki cargo shorts, though.
It’s the tone in which Evan delivered the command.
Ooh-la-la. Does setting boundaries turn me on?
“Thank you,” I tell Evan. “Sorry, it’s not what it look—”
“You don’t have to explain yourself,” he cuts me off. “What you do in your own home is your business. What I don’t take kindly to is him continuing to undermine you.”
“He doesn’t mean it like that—” I try to get out, but he stops me short again.
“Brooks,” he sighs, “I’ve only been here a few days, and I’ve already watched that man walk all over you. He’s a condescending bully.”
“Did you need to do some more laundry or something?” I ask Evan, wanting to change the topic. The more I try to defend Kai, the more I see it falling on deaf ears anyway.
“No, I just came up here to let you know that, apparently, someone decided to play a prank in the staff cabin. My bunk, specifically. I don’t have your number though, so I couldn’t text you.”
Huh, it’s almost like I purposely never gave him my number, so he’d have to come seek me out in person, if he needed anything. Didn’t expect him to need me for this, though.
“What happened?” My brows knit with confusion.
Evan gestures to the view out my living room window. The campers and counselors are getting a campfire lit. The sun is setting, casting a yellow-orange glow over the rippling water, and a few hundred yards beyond the last of the swim docks, something rectangular is bobbing on the lake.
“That’d be the mattress to my bunk,” Evan replies with annoyance.
“Ugh,” I groan, scrubbing my palm down my face, “it’s far too early in the year for this pranking business. Maybe the campers are taking advantage of the younger counselors this year.”
“Doubt it was the kids at all. It probably was one of the counselors, if I had to guess. I’m trying to respect your wishes that I not address this with my son, though. You wanted me to treat him like a coworker, so here I am, coming to you as his boss. That way you can reprimand him.”
“Do you have proof it was Colton?”
He rolls his eyes at me. “Who else would it be? My kid’s a punk with a taste for vandalism…”
My eyes narrow back out to the bobbing rectangle in the lake. “Then why does it appear he and his friend are currently swimming out to retrieve it?”
Evan spins quickly and leans in to squint out the window.
“Please don’t be so quick to judge him,” I ask of Evan. “Colton’s past behavior doesn’t have to define who he’d like to be.”