Page 88 of Wicked & Wildflower

Save A Wave, Ride A Surfer

“Good morning, my littleflower child.” I smile as my sister flops down into the beach chair next to mine.

“Whoever convinced me it was a good idea to open a business and plan a wedding at the same time needs a swift kick in the ass.” She rubs at her eyes, squinting in the morning sunlight.

“I think that’d be him.” I nod toward the horizon, where her fiancé stands shirtless, leaning against a propped-up surfboard. Leo smiles when he catches sight of my sister, shooting her a wink.

He and Everett are in the middle of their Dawn Patrol photoshoot, and while Leo is a natural behind the camera, Everett looks increasingly uncomfortable. He looks hot as hell—bare skin oiled and tattoos on display—but his demeanor tells me he’d rather be anywhere else. His eyes continue to catch mine, and in those moments, he looks more like he’d rather be all over me again instead. In the two weeks since our initialmeeting with Dawn Patrol, since he dropped to his knees in front of my desk and made me see stars, Everett and I have had approximately twelve office make-out sessions, but I have had zero additional orgasms.

We agreed to sex, but I vetoed any more workplace…incidents. We have coffee in my office between meetings, or some days, I’ll take my lunch down at the auto shop and we eat in his office there. We talk and laugh. We kiss—a lot. But the first time we have sex—well, the second time—I’d like to be in private, with an unlimited time frame. And a bed.

I don’t want Everett over when my daughter is home. I don’t want him in my bed when she’s across the hall. I think she has caught onto the idea that there is something more than friendship going on between us but exposing her to that level of intimacy feels permanent. I don’t want her thinking Everett is more to her—or to me—than what he is now. I don’t want her thinking he’s going to be in our lives forever when it’s quite possible he’ll stumble upon the love of his life on any given day and his priorities will change.

I won’t break my daughter’s heart by allowing her to believe a man is filling the void her father left until I’m confident I’ve found a man committed to being that for her, who’d stay for her even if he left me. I’m not always so sure I deserve love, but I know with certainty that my daughter does.

So, despite finally agreeing to hook up again, Everett and I have yet to do the deed. Darby and Leo have been too busy opening the flower shop, and even though I’m fairly certain Monica and Carlos would babysit for me any time I ask, the idea of saying, “Hey, can you watch my kid while I fuck yours?” seems to be a bit much for me.

Everett has been patient. I’m hopeful now that Honeysuckle Florals is open and Leo finally hired a wedding planner to help them out, I'll be able to convince them to take Lou for a nightso I can stay with Everett. Though, another obstacle I can’t let myself think about is how I’d even go about explaining that to my daughter.

I shake those thoughts away and glance at my sister, who’s rubbing sunscreen into her tanned legs. “The Grand Opening was great, and it appears business is already booming.”

Honeysuckle has been flooded with customers since its opening last weekend. Her store is all shades of pastel, with buckets of flowers lining the entrance and paintings in the windows. Walking inside feels like a warm spring day, like instant peace. She’s exactly what the boardwalk needed. Darby has been dead set on handling things herself, refusing any marketing assistance from me or help from the small business initiative to get things up and running. She was determined to do it all on her own.

I think the flower shop became her way of proving she didn’t just leave our hometown—our parents or her ex-fiancé—because Leo showed up one day and rescued her. She was on a journey to finding herself for a while, and all he gave her was the push she needed to take the leap. Darby’s entire life, she has been taken care of, programmed by our father to believe she wasn’t capable of doing so for herself. By taking care of her, he controlled her, and then he passed that control onto his associate, Jackson, when he essentially arranged their marriage.

The one time in Darby’s life she found the courage and bravery to go against my parents was the summer she spent here in Pacific Shores. With Leo. Then, when she found out I was pregnant and locked in the house by our father, being forced into an abortion I didn’t want to have, she stole our grandmother’s car and attempted to make the drive from California back to Kansas—to rescue me. But not before she experienced her own kind of irreversible trauma, which ended a shattered spirit when my father was the one to ultimately cart her back to Crestwell.

All that courage and bravery—all her wild nature—died that day. I wasn’t there, but I saw it in her eyes when she came home. She’d been broken, and seeing her here—thriving, laughing, living, and dreaming—it’s like she has been put back together.

As much as Leo saved her, I know she wishes she could’ve saved herself first, and I think taking on this business is her way of doing so. Taking on this venture is brave and courageous, and while she might be my younger sister, I often find myself wishing I could be more like her when I grow up.

“I’m proud of you, Darby,” I find myself saying.

She whips her head to the side, surprise in her hazel eyes. Her features soften as she smiles at me, reaching out to take my hand. “I’m proud of you too.”

I squeeze her fingers before pulling away. “Where is my child, by the way?”

My sister laughs, throwing on her sunglasses and leaning back in her chair. She promised Leo she’d try to step away from the shop for a few hours this morning to watch the photoshoot, and Everett demanded I be here too. He said since I was the one who threw a fit about him not being included, it only makes sense that I also suffer through it. Although, I’m laying on the beach watching Everett pose shirtless, so I’m not entirely sure what he meant bysuffering.

“She’s still assembling the little five-dollar bouquets for me.” Darby smiles. “Monica is in there helping her, though. Once they run out of flowers, they’ll probably come down here.”

I nod, settling back in my own chair. It turns out that ten-year-olds aren’t particularly interested in early morning photoshoots, and since they’re doing it in front of the pier, I told Lou she could hang out in the flower shop instead, as long as she stayed with Monica or Darby.

The prospect of my daughter growing up in a town like this makes me smile. Having an aunt and uncle with shops on theboardwalk I picture her growing up running around. Working there in the summers when she’s a teenager. It warms something in my chest. I want her to feel at home here. I want this town to be her home.

My eyes drift to Everett again. The director has both he and Leo knee-deep in the waves, the pier stretching out into the ocean behind them, and the morning sun bright on their faces. The water appears a translucent blue, lapping against Everett’s hips and complimenting the tone of his skin. He stretches his arms over his head, muscles in his stomach and chest flexing with the movement. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth as I watch him move and pose. Despite clearly being unfamiliar and uncomfortable with modeling, he looks flawless.

I study his arms and think about the way they feel holding me up when he wraps me around his hips and kisses me breathless. I watch his hands and think about the way they felt inside me, how they look when they’re grabbing me, running along my skin. I watch his chest move with his breath, reminding me of the way it feels pinned against mine when he presses me into a wall, the way it feels like he’s breathing life into my body when he kisses me. My eyes finally find his face, and I realize he’s watching me too. Smiling wide, he winks.

“You’re drooling again,cara.”

The sound of Monica’s voice has me jumping in my chair, a gasp flying from my throat as my hand flies to my chest. “Fuck, Monica. You scared me.”

“Mom,” Lou drawls from where she stands next to Everett’s mother. “A dollar.”

Monica smirks at me. “I figure you’d have heard us coming, but you were…distracted.” Darby chuckles from next to me. “You’re no better,” she chides my sister.

“I’m allowed to drool.” Darby winks at me, raising her hand to flash her engagement ring.

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