32. Shelby
The party hasn’t even started, and the Rusty Dinghy is exploding with people, music, and balloons.
I’ve just finished what feels like my hundredth conversation and need a breather, so I stroll to the standing bar on the patio to look out on the beach. It’s a gorgeous sunny afternoon, and the early summer weather is supposed to continue all weekend. The beach is covered with sunbathers of all ages and configurations, and the happy cries of children intermingle with the music of the bar, but also all the tents and food trucks parked along the boardwalk.
Mac wasn’t kidding that this is the biggest weekend of the year for the business. Stu and Nate are working the door and have had to turn several people away due to fire code limits. Stu wanted to avoid the event altogether, but when Cal got called away overseas for one of his clients last week, he reluctantly agreed. Turns out he makes a great bouncer. He loves telling people to get lost.
We told Nate about us last week. He shrugged, but I saw the little twitch of a smile on his face as he turned away.
Over the past week, I’ve started migrating to Mac’s room upstairs, and he’s taken that in stride too, though he makes a point of showing us he’s putting on his noise-canceling headphones every night, which is slightly awkward.
A broad hand spreads across my back now, and I look up to find Mac looking like an absolute snack in his crisp white T-shirt and matching ball cap, both of which are printed with the new Rusty Dinghy logo.
“Hey!” I exclaim, all the exhaustion I let settle in as I walked out here vanishing at the sight of him.
“Hey, Ponytail,” Mac says, leaning in and kissing me on the temple.
“I thought we were moving on from that nickname,” I say, laughing.
“I can’t help it when you wear one,” he says. “So fuckin’ sexy.”
Despite the crowd all around us—plenty of which are friends and family—heat zings between my legs.
“It’s the same as me calling you ball cap,” I say.
“That sounds vaguely sexual too.”
“Ew.”
He laughs. It’s good to see him laughing again. He’s been so serious the past few days. Nerves, I know, leading up to this event. But sometimes I’ve caught him staring as people have come up to me while I move around his bar with my tablet, answering questions and directing people and materials. I’ve been on cloud nine being in the center of the action again, but each time I met his eye he looked away as if he wasn’t staring. He’s been looking at me the way I thought he would have if we were on our original trajectory. Like after this weekend, I’m heading home.
But now he grins, and damn if my panties don’t burn up and melt away. “Stop,” I plead. “This isn’t fair.” I lower my voice to a whisper. “I tried to get your attention this morning, but you rejected me!” Last night I had a sexy dream about him. The man sleeps next to me—that about sums up my level of attraction for Mac. Twenty-four hours a day.
“You should have called me back,” he says.
“I tried!”
“Remind me what happened again?”
“We were here, at Oysterfest, but nobody showed up. You were devastated, so I made you feel better.”
Mac gives me a wicked grin. “How about a reenactment?”
“What, now?”
He bends down and gives me a slightly too-sexy kiss, one that involves a little suck on my bottom lip. “Yeah. Now.”
Heat flares in my lower half, even as I know we can’t. The place is packed, and this is our night. “Don’t your staff need you?”
“Not right now. Chris told me I was interfering and to get lost.”
I snort with laughter. Then I check my phone. Mac’s dad isn’t coming for another hour. There is actually enough time. Just. “I guess the house is empty,” I say, my pulse picking up speed.
But Mac shakes his head. “Too far.”
“Mac!” I whisper-yell as he takes my hand and weaves us through the crowd. He’s heading toward his office. “Mac, no way! It’s too risky! People will be looking for you.”
He maneuvers me in front of him, gripping my hips from behind. “We’re not going to my office.”
He guides me toward the dark hallway in the back with the restrooms.
I suck in air. “This is even worse.”
“Just trust me.” His warm breath against the shell of my ear is distracting enough for me to let him keep us walking.
When we turn into the hallway, there’s a guy waiting outside the men’s restroom. I can hear voices in the women’s too. But Mac leads us past both doors to the end of the hall. Then he backs me up against the wall.
He rests an arm over my head, taking his hat off before leaning in to kiss my neck.
“Mac, we’re not waiting for a bathroom,” I say. It’s a statement, not a question. “I refuse.”
“I promise, no dirty toilet stall. We’re just waiting for this guy to disappear.”
There’s only one other door in this hallway—the supply closet.
“Seriously?” I whisper. “Is it big enough?”
Mac laughs softly, nipping at my earlobe.
“I mean the closet, you twelve-year-old.”
“Yes, sweetheart, it’s big enough.”
His breath is hot in my ear again, which makes my whole body quiver.
“I don’t need much space to make you scream,” he says.
Well, fuck. I actually feel the gush of dampness between my legs at that. Mac has that power over me. His words are as much of a turn-on as his actions.
“Fuck, Mac,” I breathe.
“I plan on it.” He sets his hat on my head and drags his hand down until it wraps around my throat, tipping my head back. “You going to scream when I fill you with my big cock, Shelby?”
I whimper. “I hope not.”
“I love the sounds you make when you come, though.”
He tightens his fingers on my throat just enough that I let out a little whimper.
“You’re probably wet for me right now, aren’t you?”
“Maybe you should check,” I dare him.
Mac growls. But he’s interrupted by voices behind us. I glance under Mac’s arm to see another guy has joined the first. They must know each other, because they start talking animatedly. Damn it.
But that doesn’t seem to deter Mac. He angles his body so I’m blocked from view and slides his hand down, brushing his palm over the swell of my breast. “Bet they’d love to see me do this to you.”
I’m wearing a thin dress with a built-in bra, cap sleeves, and buttons down the front. My nipple hardens under his palm, and he lets loose another low, rumbling growl from deep in his chest. “Fuck, Shelby.”
I lift my hand up to my other breast and pinch my nipple myself.
Mac sucks in a breath. “Fuck, do that again.”
I do, and he reaches down and pulls up the front of my dress, his rough hand caressing the skin of my inner thigh.
“Mac, can they see?”
“I hope so.”
I laugh softly. He would never, and sure enough, when I look over, his wide torso is fully blocking them from view.
He kneads my thigh. “Keep touching yourself,” he says.
I pinch both my nipples through my dress.
He drags his fingers up, dragging them over my underwear.
“Fuck.” He stretches out the word. “Fucking soaked for me, Shelby.”
“Yes,” I breathe, unbuttoning just the top couple of buttons of my dress so I can reach my bare nipples.
He slips his fingers under the fabric, gliding them over my slick opening.
I moan, but Mac bends down and captures it with his mouth. The hat falls somewhere into the dark.
Mac’s tongue probes my mouth at the same time as his fingers dip inside me. I flatten my hands against the wall, widening my legs to give him more access.
He breaks the kiss. “Such a dirty girl,” he whispers in my ear before biting my earlobe. Shivers skate down my neck after him.
Mac glances over his shoulder.
His fingers are still inside me. I rock my hips on him, coaxing his hand open so his thumb hits my clit.
“Fuck,” he breathes. He quickly removes his hand, reaches out with his other hand, and opens the closet door. Then he ducks inside, pulling me after him. I don’t know if the guys are still there, and I don’t care.
He slams the door behind me and presses my back up against it. I’m pressed against a frosted glass window, and while normally no one would be able to see in from the dark hallway, my back pressed up against the glass is sure to be visible.
But I don’t care. Because Mac’s already opened the rest of the buttons on my dress, flinging it open. He bends down, taking a breast in his hand and fixing his mouth on my nipple. His other hand goes back to work where it was a moment ago while my hands thread through his hair, pressing his face down on me.
I moan, bucking against him as he fills me with his thick fingers.
His other hand leaves my breast, going up to my mouth to cover it as he drops to his knees. I can’t see him, but I feel him as he slides the flat of his tongue along my slit.
I cry out, the sound muffled against his hand. I hook a leg over his shoulder to give him better access to me, completely wanton now.
Mac tugs at my clit with his lips and tongue while his fingers continue plunging in soft beckoning tugs inside me.
It comes fast. In only a few moments, my orgasm rides up like a freight train, and then I’m coming so hard against his face my whole body shakes, pleasure rippling through me in hot, unceasing waves.
I cling to him, pulsing against him.
But he doesn’t let up. He keeps going until I collapse against him.
I pant heavily, still so worked up I can hardly see straight.
When he stands up, my pussy pulses with the absence of his tongue—I’m already ready for more.
“You taste so fucking good,” Mac says in my ear.
When he kisses me, I slip my hand down between my legs. The back of my arm brushes against Mac’s stiff bulge, and he groans into my mouth.
“Are you touching yourself, Shelby?”
“Yes,” I say, already feeling myself rising up that hill again.
He abruptly turns me around. “Don’t come until I’m inside you,” he commands in my ear.
I move my fingers in tight circles over my slippery, swollen clit as I hear his belt clink open.
My moaning comes out in hot pants at the quick zing of his zipper. “I can’t wait.”
He grabs my wrist, pulling my hand away from my body. He wraps his hand around mine and slides us over his length. He’s hot and so hard it must be painful.
He nips at my throat. “I said wait, naughty girl.”
“I don’t want to.” I rise up on my toes and try my best to get up onto him.
But I’m too short. I whimper in frustration. “Please,” I beg.
I hear the crinkle of foil. Then both hands wrap around my waist, his thumbs pressing into the small of my back. Mac lifts me up, and I only feel the soft heat of his tip against me for a moment before he sinks me down onto him.
The feeling of him filling me from this position is so absolute I make a guttural sound I didn’t think I was capable of.
Mac positions me so my knees are resting on his thighs, and like this, we’re in the perfect position. He keeps his hands on me, lifting me up and dropping me so I bounce up and down on his length. The friction is so fucking delicious I’m sure I’m going to come just like this.
But he grunts “touch yourself” in my ear. “Please, Shelby. I need to know you’re going to come. I have to feel you.”
I love it when he gets like this. Demanding but vulnerable. Intense but soft.
I brace myself against the doorframe with one hand and work my clit with the other.
“Oh God, I’m going to come right a—” I cry out, and then it’s too late. I’m coming hard for the second time, my muscles squeezing around him. He makes a low sound I know is a result of my pussy tensing, and a moment later, he holds me down on his pulsing cock, groaning as his balls clench under me. “I love you, Shelby,” he grits out. “Fuck, I love you so fucking much it hurts.”
Eventually both our waves end, and we soften together. His body relaxes enough to separate us.
“I’m not sure how I’m going to walk after this,” he says as he helps me to my feet.
“Are you complaining?” I ask, still blissed out and floating on air.
He helps button my dress in the dim light, showering me with little kisses the whole time. “No. Never.”
I go to open the door, but Mac rests a hand on my shoulder. “I love you, Shelby,” he says into the dark. He kisses me with a kind of desperate need, like he has to have me know.
“I love you too, Mac,” I breathe as we slip out into the hall.
The coast is clear this time, thankfully. Mac’s hat is on the floor.
“It looks better on you,” he says, setting it back on my head. He tightens the back and appraises me, his eyes going serious as he takes me in.
I can’t even with him. How much he makes me laugh. How safe he makes me feel. He’s everything to me, I think.
Everything.
So why has this weekend come with both excitement and dread?
As we kiss goodbye one last time and head into our separate restrooms to wash up, I inspect myself in the mirror. I look flushed, like I’ve just had sex. Happy too, I think.
But something tugs at me, like fingers at a loose thread. I think it was the way he told me he loved me. Like a plea. It’s probably because I have to go to Vancouver next week for the work commitment I promised. Clientzilla’s launch event. I’m planning on spending a couple of weeks there, since I have to pack up my apartment to move.
Maybe that’s why I feel so divided too, now that I have a moment to breathe. Moving sucks.
So will being physically removed from the office where all the fun happens.
But it’s the best thing, I remind myself as I leave the restroom. Because Mac is my best thing now. That blissful moment in the closet was proof: nothing is better than us together.
Right before Angus arrives, Mac and I move around the room, looking at Stu’s portraits. We only just hung them this afternoon, and I was so busy in the lead-up to today, I didn’t get a chance to see them all together like this. I only read a few of Lana’s mini biographies too.
Marie is there, as is Angus. Mac’s mom too.
Mac couldn’t look at that one when Stu finished it. Now he looks, his hand clenching and unclenching over mine.
“She was beautiful when she laughed,” Mac says, his voice tight.
His mother’s head is thrown back, her mouth open. I can almost hear the laughter.
“You have her smile,” I say. Maybe that’s why he was so reticent to show it for so long.
Mac nods. His shoulders give a single shake.
I pull his arm around me, slipping mine around his back as if I could support this massive man. He squeezes my shoulder tight, like he’s hanging on.
“I can’t break down in my own bar,” Mac says. He rubs his face on his shoulder. “Look, there’s Fred.”
Fred’s portrait is incredible. They all are. Fred’s mom Bea. Diane from the inn. The Widow from Widow’s Walk.
I pause at this one. The Widow is a tragic-looking woman with long silver hair.
Abigail Brightley, also known as “the Widow.”
“Mac!” someone calls. Jed, from the kitchen.
“Sorry,” Mac apologizes. He kisses me on the temple and strides away through the crowd where he’s needed.
Stu has painted the Widow in profile, her face tipped down, hair almost like a mourning veil. Abigail suffered from the curse of the house on the mountain, Lana wrote. I haven’t had the chance to read this one yet. She?—
“It’s a striking portrait,” a woman says, interrupting my read.
I look up, ready to plaster on my professional-event smile, but I relax when I see it’s Elizabeth.
“It really is,” I say. I hesitate, then say, “Is it strange that I identify with the tragedy of a widow who lost her husband at sea?” She lived a life with a shadow at her side—her missing half.
Elizabeth smiles sadly, and suddenly I feel terrible—I just erased her.
“It’s fine,” Elizabeth says, reading my mind. “I knew I was never first in her heart.”
An ache pulses in my chest for her. At least she seems to have gotten a second chance at love with the rekindling of her relationship with Bea.
“Plus I got a house out of the deal.”
I laugh. “Elizabeth!”
Her grin is bigger this time. More mirthful. “She wasn’t always like this, you know,” Elizabeth says. “She did laugh on occasion.”
“I’m sure you made her happy.”
“For a little while,” Elizabeth says. The smile fades. “But she made choices about her life she regretted. Died of a broken heart, under the weight of those choices.”
It had to have been hard having a relationship like theirs at a time when the world was less accepting. “I doubt she regretted you, Elizabeth,” I say softly.
Elizabeth glances over at me, giving me a look I can’t interpret. It looks almost like regret. She looks like she wants to say something, but a sudden burst of microphone feedback cuts through the din of voices.
Elizabeth pats my shoulder and slips away through the crowd as Angus takes the stage.
Angus is at the top of his game. Michelle, the receptionist from the care home who insisted on bringing him here so Mac and I could stay at the Dinghy, has tears in her eyes as she listens to the ex-mayor wax on about his son and how this place is the focal point of this community.
I’ve heard the speech already—Angus practiced it for me, Mac, and Nate about three times last week.
“Now if you all have loved the paintings on the wall as much as we have, please take a moment to say hello to the artist, Stu Williams.” Angus peers out into the crowd.
Mac makes a thumb to neck sign and says something to his father.
“Oh. I’m told he’s not here. He’s outside painting.”
The crowd bursts into laughter at that. I really did try to convince Stu to be here, but he flat-out refused. Said he’d deface the paintings if I made him.
Angus moves on smoothly, talking about how every person on the walls forms a thread in this town’s fabric and how we love to keep our arms—clad in the shirt of that fabric—open, both for visitors and for each other. It’s a little treacly, but I find myself tearing up anyway.
“Now this wouldn’t have happened,” Angus says, “if it weren’t for one person.”
I look to Mac, smiling. He got stuck over by the kitchen when the speech started.
He smiles when he sees me looking at him.
But Angus searches the crowd, saying, “Where is she?”
It’s only then I realize he’s talking about me.
“Shelby Jones!” he exclaims when he spots me.
The crowd cheers.
Angus talks at length about how everything about this place, from the menu to the theme of “everyone belongs” is because of me. All the locals, who know what the bar looked like before, cheer at a volume.
“Isn’t she a dynamo?” he asks.
They cheer again, but I look at Mac when I say, “This place was perfect just as it was, and it didn’t need a makeover. All it needed was all of you.”
They all whoop at that, some people shouting my name, and I allow myself a wide grin.
I think I’ve done a pretty good job. I am, actually, very good at this job simply because I love it.
Angus’s just reaching the end of his speech, the part where he cries “Welcome to Oysterfest!” when he glances toward the door at the sound of it opening again, and he falters.
I tense.
“I—I—” Angus stutters, and I have the terrible thought that he’s having a stroke.
I go to make my way to the stage, but Michelle’s already there. Where’s Mac? The Mac I know would be there first. But Mac is staring at the door.
And as Angus grips the podium on the stage, shrugging off Michelle, I see he is too.
Then he utters two syllables that sound more like strangled cry. “Annie!”
I glance to the space just inside the door, where a woman who looks like a petite, female version of Mac stands in jeans and a blazer. She’s beautiful, with thick dark hair and long lashes.
She looks like she wants to slip right back out the door.
But she glances at the other woman beside her, a beautiful tall woman in a black tank top and jeans with a pixie cut, big eyes, and tattoos in sleeves up her bare arms. Her face looks familiar somehow, but I don’t think I’ve ever met her.
I glance to Mac, questioning.
But his back is to me, his eyes on the women. His whole body is stiff.
And for the first time in a very long time, a spike of jealousy and pain twists my stomach. I didn’t feel that when all the women flocked Mac as the restaurant filled up today. I didn’t feel it when one of them asked for his autograph and Cal jumped in before Lana or Chris or I could, telling them he didn’t do that anymore.
No, that dark, ugly feeling spikes because I suddenly understand who the other woman is. I know it because Nate appears beside her, looking scared but so much like her in the cheekbones and lanky frame.
I know it because for the first time in a long time, Mac’s not looking at me.
He’s looking at the woman as she grips Nate’s hand and looks at Mac like a hero.
The woman is Nate’s mother.