Chapter 23
Chase: I don’t think you should wear that bikini.
Pepper: Why?
Chase: Because you’d look better without it.
PEPPER
If I had balls, they would be blue.
Making out with Chase Walker is sinful, and I’m done pretending that I don’t want that. I stare at him behind the sanctity of my mirrored sunglasses, sucking down a mouthful of the mean cocktail he blended through a long curly straw.
He stands in the water, so tall it laps around his hips, baring every inch of those insanely chiseled abs and the thick muscles that flex in his chest every time he moves his arms. It’s unfair really, no one needs all that sex appeal in one place.
Total overkill. Especially with the masculine smattering of hair across his chest and the memory of how thick and heavy he felt in my hand.
I’m talking post-coital-wheelchair-use-needed big.
“King Arthur himself couldn’t pull that man from me.”
For a mad moment, I think my dirty thoughts have been plucked from my head and come alive.
Both Mia and I look at Chloe in alarm where she lies on a cushioned sun lounger between us, wearing a red swimsuit, her slim sunglasses pushed right down to the tip of her nose so that she can openly ogle her husband.
After a stunned moment, we both burst into laughter.
“What? It’s true!” Chloe grins, pressing her glasses back up but still looking in the direction of the pool where the guys all play water polo.
Sunny joins in too, hitting the ball high into the air using her clasped hands.
It lands right next to Mr. Clay in the shallow end, spraying the grumbling man with water.
Clear blue fills the sky as far as the eye can see, a couple of wide-winged terns coasting above on the warm ocean swell as it drifts up the private beach.
I don’t think I’ve ever been this relaxed in my life.
Mia and Chloe, despite being model worthy, are the nicest people I’ve ever met.
Both of which have graciously not mentioned finding us mauling one another last night.
The sun warms my skin, and I cannot think of even one thing that I have to do today.
This is a life I could get used to. Even Lord Bartholemew is enjoying himself, sleeping in the sun-drenched bay windows at the front of the house.
The only person not having a great time is Chase’s mom. The woman who came downstairs for breakfast this morning was a shell of the one she had been the night before, and she’d retired back to bed not long after that.
“I think we should go into town and get groceries,” Mia announces, taking the last sip of her drink and standing. “Boys! We’re cooking Mexican food tonight.”
Chase, Zeke, Diego, and Sunny totally ignore her, too engrossed in their game. Zeke launches himself sideways, trying to hit the ball Diego just served over the net, missing and crashing into the water so that a tidal wave of pool water drenches Chase.
“You’ve got the agility of a baby panda,” Chase gripes, swiping water out of his eyes and pushing back his hair. Great, now he looks even more Vogue cover shoot. Before he can even catch a breath, Zeke shoves him over roughly so that he ends up underwater.
“Doggy pile!” Diego bellows, splashing as quickly as he can over to him and belly flopping on top.
Zeke laughs, and so does everyone else. I swear I even hear something that sounds like a chuckle from Mr. Clay.
I find myself smiling, but again that ache in my chest resurfaces, and I rub my palm over it in slow circles.
Chloe stands too and I follow, getting as close to the pool edge as I dare, considering the free-for-all that is happening on the other side of the net.
“You coming?” Mia asks, hiking a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the house.
“Sure, one sec. Sunny?” I call out to her where she bobs in the water a few feet away, a large grin on her face and a decidedly more freckled nose than she had this morning. She reluctantly turns away from the play fight. “We’re heading into town, come get yourself dried off.”
The corners of her mouth droop instantly, a torn expression on her face as she looks at Chase, Zeke, and Diego, then back to me. “Can I stay here?”
I open my mouth to respond, but then hesitate.
I’m not sure how I feel about leaving Sunny here alone with these people.
Not because they’ve given me any reason to doubt their character since I arrived—quite the opposite, in fact—but because I don’t really know them.
Even Chase…how well can you really know someone in four weeks?
Something about handing that trust over to someone else, anyone else, to watch Sunny feels terrifying to me.
Like I might come back and find that they’ve lost her, or something.
I’m sure this is a manifestation of the fear I’ve been carrying every day since I found out my trial is around the corner, because that really could tear me and Sunny apart.
A warm hand lands on my shoulder. “The boys will take good care of her, I promise.” Mia smiles, her eyes lit with a knowing sort of kindness.
It’s impossible not to trust this woman.
She has a type of quiet grace and peace that surrounds her, and she’s one of those utterly irritating people that seem like a good person through and through.
I’ll bet she doesn’t have any broken pieces that she hides away in the darkness like I do.
I offer her a small smile in return and shift my focus back to Sunny.
“Okay, but call me if you need anything. Okay?” I cringe when I hear how overbearing I sound—she is fifteen, after all—she’s well adept at surviving a couple of hours on her own.
She must hear it too, because she wiggles her eyebrows at me teasingly. “Will do, Mom.”
“Girl, shut up.” I roll my eyes playfully, turning away from her and waving over my shoulder. “And put some more sunscreen on!”
I see Chloe and Mia waiting, and suddenly realize that my hesitation in leaving Sunny might have been slightly offensive. “Hey, about that back there. I’m sorry if it came across as rude, it’s not—”
“If you think that’s rude, I dread to know what people think of me.” Chloe snorts, pushing her sunglasses up her freckled nose.
Mia chuckles, placing a hand on my arm. “Don’t worry about it, we understand. I know a protective mama bear when I see one.”
“Oh, Sunny isn’t my kid,” I rush to correct her, my cheeks burning. Do I look that friggin’ old, firstly? And secondly, Chase introduced Sunny as my sister when we all arrived.
“Well, no…but from what I’ve heard and seen, she’s as good as.” Mia raises her eyebrows and smiles rather like she’s apologizing for pointing out something I didn’t want to acknowledge. “Just because you didn’t birth her doesn’t mean you’re not her mama.”
“Amen.” Chloe nods her head in vigorous agreement. “Diego isn’t biologically mine, but I love that little squirt more than life itself. He chose me to be his mom and that makes it even more special.”
“Call it whatever you want.” Mia waves a hand at me like the semantics don’t matter. “But just know that feeling you have, underneath it all? It’s the same thing.”
I offer them both a smile that suddenly feels watery, my chest cinching with something foreign.
Is this what it could be like to have girlfriends?
The idea of people standing with you in support on such an emotional level is a totally foreign concept to me.
I’m a lone wolf, always have been, and I thought I always would be, too.
“Aw you guys, look at you all cute over here, bonding and shit.” A shadow appears, along with a warm and very wet arm across the top of my shoulders.
I squeal as the water droplets turn suddenly cold against my sun-warmed skin, tracing a path down the back of my legs. “Chase,” I whine, fighting to get free and failing.
Way to ruin a fucking moment, Walker.
“What? Don’t you want to cool off?” He grins from ear to ear, the sunshine turning his eyes into molten pools of amber momentarily before he dips his head and starts shaking out wet hair all over me.
“Don’t get me, I need to go check on Mason and the kids!” Mia squeaks, rapidly backing away.
“Chase, stop!” I lift my hands to try and protect my face, but it’s no use.
Thick, cold water droplets pepper my skin, and my center of gravity gets swiftly snatched away, air whistling past my ears.
I slam my eyes open, seeing nothing but clear blue sky above and a tanned, muscular shoulder beneath my stomach.
My heart races, my brain taking a moment to catch up to the fact I’m suddenly in a fireman’s hold.
“Don’t you dare!” I yell as we careen toward the pool, the sounds of laughter echoing in my ears, but it’s too late. Chase reaches the lip of the pool and takes a running leap off the edge, sending us both crashing down into the cool water.
***
“You’re in charge of a chopped salad.” Mia points at Chloe as we enter the slick store in town, which has slices of plump, picture-perfect watermelon displayed at the entrance at a sickening twenty-five-dollar price point.
“Thank god for that.” Chloe grins before explaining for me, “She knows Zeke is the cook in our household.”
“Sunny is mostly the cook in ours,” I admit, lifting my shoulder in a sheepish shrug.
“In that case, Pepper, can I assign you the task of making a big bowl of guac?” Mia clasps her tongue between her teeth, seemingly jotting down a list in her phone.
“Guac I can manage,” I agree, casting my eyes around at the wall of brightly colored produce that we stand next to.
“God, I am starving,” Chloe drops one hand to her stomach and bends over to peer at the fruit section. “Oh, that reminds me.” She pops back up with a large banana in her hand. “I also need to get a pregnancy test.”
For me, at this stage in my chronically single life, this would be a commiseration and good-luck-type announcement, but the happily married redhead just grins when Mia yelps, her head snapping up from her phone in surprise. “Why didn’t you tell me?!”
“I have nothing to tell yet! I don’t know if I am or not.” Chloe laughs, peeling open the banana skin.
“Dare I ask what reminded you?” I pluck up the courage to join in with their playful banter, testing the limit of this newfound proximity to other women my age. I mean, sure, I have the paint club, but they’re mostly older than me.
Her ocean-blue eyes slide mischievously back to the now peeled phallic fruit in her hand, and we laugh.
“You shouldn’t eat that until you’ve paid for it.” Mia clicks her tongue, pushing the cart onward.
“I’ll pay for the skin, don’t worry.” Chloe winks at me and takes a bite, her eyes drifting shut for a second as she makes an appreciative sound. “Do you know, I ate about five bananas a day when I was pregnant with Sofia.”
She takes another bite with admirable gusto, again making a small noise as she chews.
“You look like you’re enjoying that banana.” An older man hovers by the cabbages, wearing head-to-toe sports Lycra. “You really are, aren’t you?”
We all stop dead to look at him. That creep antenna every woman has slams into overdrive, weirdo alert blaring over the internal PA system in my brain.
“Well sir, they don’t sell cock at the grocery store so this banana will just have to do, won’t it?” Chloe blurts out loudly, leaning forward to make the most alarming and intense eye contact with the man I’ve ever seen.
Mia snorts into her chest, her long glossy brunette locks falling over her face to hide her laughter—which her shaking shoulders give away.
You can see the steady descent the man makes from thinking himself cleverly suggestive, to realizing he’s bitten off more than he can chew.
His cheeks turn ruddy and he swiftly spins around and rushes off.
“How do you like them apples?” Chloe yells after him, not caring that the whole store now stares at us. She whips back around, shaking her head in disbelief, and then inspiration hits and she spins again, all but shaking her fist at his rapidly retreating back. “Or bananas, if you will!”
A hysterical giggle skips out of my mouth, and I slap a hand over it. Mia looks up with tears in her eyes, her face bright red from laughter. “Chloe’s favorite pastime is terrorizing men, if you didn’t realize.”
“It’s true,” Chloe admits, the smallest smile toying at her lips as she turns back to the salad section and plucks out a package of romaine lettuce. “The other day, a man sat right next to me on a deserted subway carriage, so I made direct eye contact and farted as loudly as I could.”
“Chloe!” Mia wipes at her eyes, the cart abandoned and no pretense of shopping to be had. “Stop, I’ve had three kids, I’m going to pee myself.”
“Funnily enough, he got up and left me alone after that.” Chloe grins, slinging the lettuce into the cart.
The laugh I’ve been holding bursts through my hand, and we all descend into hysterical giggles, Mia hunched over with her legs tightly crossed as she tries not to urinate in the vegetable aisle.