Chapter 27
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SHOULD AND WILL
BANKS
Later that morning, as I walk along the Sausalito streets to meet Mom and Emily for lunch, I try not to relive every moment of that conversation with Ripley or the way her finger traced the intricate lines of my tattoos.
Did that already on the drive down. But still, a mixture of longing and guilt rushes through me.
I do my best to shove it aside when I reach the café overlooking the clear blue waters of Richardson Bay.
As I open the door to the café, I try to reset. Best to focus on family today, and when I return to somehow keep my distance from Ripley, who’s become more than a client.
And that’s a big problem.
Especially since I’m sharing a bed with her that isn’t big enough for me and my desire.
But now it’s time for salad and chicken sandwiches, since this place has the best. Walking into Gigi’s Café—named after the owner’s dog, Gigi McDoodle—I find Mom right away, her curly hair framing her face, her smile as warm as ever.
She’s earlier than I am. No surprise since she hates surprises.
She’d had enough of those. After setting down her phone, where no doubt she was texting with her girlfriends, she hops up quickly, and I give her a big hug.
“So good to see you. You need a haircut,” she says, then ruffles my hair.
“Maybe I do.”
“Or maybe your new girlfriend likes it messy?” Mom asks with a lift of an eyebrow when she lets go.
“One, I know that was your not-so-subtle way of asking me if I have a girlfriend. And two, I do not,” I say.
“Can’t fault a mom for trying.”
Emily joins us a few minutes later at the small table on the deck, and after we order, the conversation immediately turns to me again.
“So, spill the tea. I heard the crew arrived yesterday,” Emily says, parking her chin in her hand, her eager eyes ready to eat up any details I can serve.
“They did,” I say.
She huffs. “Tell me something. Anything. What is New Chris like? Is Haven as cool as she seems? And was she buying flowers for him at the grocery store the other day?”
“Emily,” Mom chides.
I shake my head. “No, she wasn’t, and that wasn’t Haven,” I say, a little frustrated. “That was her sister, Ripley.”
“Oh,” Emily says, frowning. Then she seems to refocus. “Still…how’s Chris?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I say, then give her a stern look. “And it’s bad to feed bread to ducks. Like you.”
She rolls her eyes.
“And you think the job will help you get more work?” Mom asks, diverting.
“Definitely,” I say. “Dean and I have some inquiries, and we’re putting together proposals for new jobs. Which means,” I say, nodding toward my troublemaking sister, “we can put more aside in the retirement fund we started for you.”
“Banks,” she says gently. “You don’t need to do that. I do have one, and it’s fine.”
“I know, but we want to,” I say.
“We do, Mom,” Emily seconds.
“You don’t have to,” Mom says, but her throat tightens.
She’s a physical therapist and while she’s had a steady job her whole life, her life and her finances were upended by my father’s lies years ago, when she took time off. Emily and I want to do what we can for her because she did everything for us.
“It’s the least we can do,” I say.
Mom shakes her head, like she’s exonerating us from supporting her. “No, all I want is for you two to be happy and to be good people, so I have everything I could want,” she says, then pats my hand. “Now tell us about your client.”
“And ideally your woman problems,” Emily adds, batting her lashes like the troublemaker she is.
But I love her madly.
And it’s clear Mom is done with the attention. “It’s good. It’s all great,” I say, since it will be. Truly it will be. Even if I have to sleep on the floor.
Which I will.
Probably.
After lunch, we wander through the touristy city, and when Mom pops into a shop selling cute aprons and cooking utensils, coasters, mugs, and little trays with irreverent sayings on them, Emily touches my arm and pulls me aside by a coaster with the words A fun thing to do in the morning is not talk to me.
“Things are going well with Brandon,” she says, a cautious sort of optimism in her tone as she nods toward Mom, who’s checking out the counter displays. “She took him to a co-worker’s birthday party the other night.”
“That’s promising.”
“Seems that way.”
Emily’s eyes dart around, then she says, “You don’t think she’d…”
A throat clears. “Marry again?”
It’s my mom, and she must have heard us talking about her boyfriend.
Emily smiles like oops. “Um, yeah.”
Mom pats Emily’s shoulder. “I’m not sure I want or need to. But Brandon is a nice guy and he’s honest, so that seems enough for now.”
Enough for now.
Sometimes that’s all you can hope for.
I don’t go back to the farm right away. I pop into Mister Fox, the Darling Springs watering hole—the non-fancy-pants one.
It’s a standard-order bar, with pool tables, rock music, and wooden counters that reek of beer and stories.
“What can I get for you?” the guy behind the counter asks. “The usual?”
It’s the owner, a guy named, well, Fox. Met him when I was first in town a year or so ago while passing through on the way to another job.
I shake my head. “Just an iced tea.”
He nods knowingly. “It’s that kind of night?”
“I suppose it is,” I say, feeling a little contemplative after that time with Mom and Emily.
“I got you,” he says, then fills a glass and slides it to me, gesturing to a pool table. “The good doc is in town.”
I turn around, spotting Monroe, the guy I met on my last trip here—and who Ripley evidently knows too. Or she knows his wife, anyhow.
Will everything remind me of her?
I shake the thought away and focus on my friend who’s not here with his wife tonight, but with a friend.
When Monroe catches my gaze, he waves me over and I join the two of them.
Monroe makes a quick intro to the dark-haired guy next to him, who’s wearing a button-down shirt like he had business meetings then came straight here.
“This is Sawyer. He’s maybe moving to town,” Monroe says of his friend.
“That so?” I ask as I shake Sawyer’s hand.
“It’s a definite maybe,” he says dryly.
“Hope that maybe is for all the right reasons,” I say.
“I’ve been checking out property for my business expansion, so we’ll see. It’s not a bad place,” Sawyer adds, then frowns. “I’ve got some stuff to figure out though.”
And the way he says that—heavily, but thoughtfully too—makes me think it’s romantic stuff to figure out.
“Who doesn’t?”
“Truth,” Monroe seconds, then hands me a pool cue.
I take it and issue a warning when it’s my turn. “Be prepared for me to lock this game up.”
Monroe rolls his eyes. “Yeah, right.”
I point my cue at him. “Fighting words from a guy who apparently owns a place called The Horny House.”
Monroe gives a laid-back shrug. “Don’t be jealous.”
But I’m not. His words remind me I’ve got my own horny problems in a cottage less than ten minutes away.
“Let’s just play pool,” I mutter, and I give it my all, sinking every ball, then flashing a cocky smile.
Sawyer looks to Monroe, like what gives. “Thanks for the warning that we’ve got a pool shark in the house. Why the hell are we playing with him?”
Monroe lifts his glass of scotch. “Don’t worry. Banks once told me he only ever comes in here when he’s working through some shit in his head. Which means he’ll be off his game in no time.”
“Hey! I take issue with that,” I say.
Monroe points the cue to me. “Speaking of—what’s the issue?”
I huff.
“There’s definitely an issue then,” Sawyer adds with a smirk.
I sigh, then shrug. “There’s this woman. And I can’t get her out of my head.”
“Talk to us,” Monroe says.
I do, giving them the bare minimum, then I say, “I really should resist her.”
“You should,” Sawyer says. “But should and will are two entirely different things.”
They are, and they’re probably the reason I do lose the next couple games.
When I’m back at the cottage that night, and Ripley’s sliding into bed in a tank top, the difference between the two feels worlds apart.
I don’t bother with my earlier plan to sleep on the floor.
Or the couch. I go straight to the bed and grab a sheet of white paper from the inside of my tablet, which is on the nightstand.
I lie down on the covers, with her under them, then I start folding the paper as her dog curls into a ball at the foot of the bed.
Ripley sets down the thriller she’s reading and nods to the paper in my hand. “Do you need to relax?”
I need to not touch her. I need to resist her. I need to find the line between should and will, so I don’t cross it. This paper is it. “Mostly I need a distraction,” I grit out.
She’s quiet for a beat, then says, “Me too. Teach me origami.”
“Now?”
“Why not? You’re awake. I’m awake. Can’t think of anything else we could be doing at night.”
It’s said dryly. A clear acknowledgment.
For a hot second, I meet her gaze. Bright, glittering, and full of memories of yesterday. Her words from that afternoon echo in my mind. I’ve already forgotten all about it.
They’re a beautiful lie. She hasn’t. I haven’t. So I do the next best thing. I give her the paper so I can show her how to make a dog. “Make a triangle so there’s a crease down the middle,” I tell her.
She makes that move, then waits.
“Now fold the bottom point to the middle crease,” I say.
“Like this?” she asks when she’s done it.
“Yes. Do that till it’s a diamond shape. Now you’re going to turn it and repeat it,” I say, but her brow knits, and she pauses, clearly unsure where to turn it.
With a shrug and a laugh, she says, “Help.”
I slide closer, the distance between us shrinking. But at least there’s a comforter here separating her from me. This blanket is doing a lot of work in this room tonight. “Like this,” I say, then cover her hands.
Her breath hitches. My pulse surges.
We go quiet as I move her fingers, flipping over the shape. “Turn it so the largest diamond is on top and the smallest points toward you,” I say.
She complies, then looks at me with wide eyes that spark with anticipation. She lifts her chin, like she’s waiting for an order. Images flicker temptingly before my eyes in the stretched-out silence till she asks, “What do I do now?”
I swallow roughly, fighting off the desire building strength and steam inside me. Expanding, shoving all the shoulds further away.
But still, I curl my fingers over hers. “Now, open the triangle and fold along the crease to create a new shape. Press down. That’ll help,” I rasp out as she works on a clean, strong fold with my hands guiding hers.
The faint scent of satsuma oranges drifts past my nose. Her lotion? Yeah, I think so. She must have taken a shower tonight. I draw a furtive inhale, catching more of that heady, intoxicating scent. From lavender to oranges, whatever she wears does me in.
“How’s this?”
Focus, man. Focus on the origami dog. She’s showing me the paper, and I have to blink away my thoughts and check her progress.
I stare down at our creation, at the way the paper becomes something new in our hands. Something other than what it was minutes ago.
It was a flat, two-dimensional thing. Now it’s evolved, and sure, it’s chaste enough, making origami. But as I slide my thumb over the space between her thumb and her forefinger, this craft is not so chaste anymore.
Not when a gust of breath crosses her pretty lips.
Not when her chest flushes.
Not when a tremble runs down her body.
And not when my body is made of lava, and it’s melting my will right into the ocean.
“Like that?” she asks, her voice feathery.
I coast my thumb along her finger, slow and sensual, taking my time, then spreading my right hand over hers. All my fingers cover hers, then curl over them.
“Just like that,” I say as our gazes lock.
The air between us crackles. An electric charge sparks and sizzles. Her dog must sense it, too, since he jumps off the bed, settling in on the floor.
What a wingman.
“What do I do next?” she asks, and we’re not looking at the paper in our hands.
I don’t say a word for several, weighty seconds. I just flip through possibilities. Choices. Consequences. Then, fuck origami. “You take the paper, toss it, and tell me to pin you to the bed and kiss you like it’s all I’ve thought about all day long, every single goddamn second.”
She crumples it into a ball and tosses it over her shoulder. “Take me.”