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  “I’m glad it helped.”

  We stand there silently for a moment and I hate every second of unease between us. There was a time when we couldn’t stop talking to one another. Of course, that came with touching as well. From her body language, touching is out of the question.

  “I’ll let you get started,” Quinn says. “I’m sure you have other things to do.”

  “Just the medical offices with Marisol. Isa said she’s having some tests today, so I want to get over there before they tell her the results.”

  “I hope she’s okay.” Her lips turn down. “She’s a great woman. You better hurry then.”

  She slides by me and the scent of her perfume overtakes the entire area. Damn, I want her in my bed. I want her under me.

  Then she’s gone, down the stairs with her coffee in her hand.

  I enter her bedroom and that craving for her intensifies. This is her space. Where she gets dressed and sleeps every night. Where she probably masturbates.

  Shit, this is getting a little stalkerish. I push a hand through my hair and will myself to push all thoughts of Quinn masturbating with that vibrator I was assaulted with yesterday from my mind. Not going to lie—that image was front and center in the spank bank last night and this morning when I showered.

  I grab the duster from the bucket and run it over her dresser, examining the pictures of her dad she has there. He looks a bit older than I remember. A few other picture frames dot the surface with pictures of who I assume are her friends. There’s another where Quinn is decked out in a blue sequin dress that lands mid-thigh. My insides constrict with irritation that anyone else had the opportunity to see her looking like that.

  Her bed is neatly made, throw pillows and all. You’d never know she was on her deathbed yesterday—there’s no tissues strewn around, no vomit bowls or water bottles littered.

  Grabbing the supplies, I clean her most personal space without searching out her personal drawer. I wonder if she’s still a cotton bikini briefs girl or if she’s ventured into lace and satin now. I don’t know which I’d prefer.

  Two hours later, I’m done with both of her bathrooms and the floors. The television sounds from downstairs, so I walk to the second door and try the doorknob, curiosity getting the better of me, but it doesn’t budge.

  Quinn peers over the back of the couch when she hears me coming down the stairs. There’s some reality show on the television where a woman is yelling.

  “I’m done.” I thumb to the door. “Do you mind if I grab my clothes and change really quick?”

  She throws the blanket off her lap and stands up, setting her coffee cup on the table. “No, that’s fine.”

  “Thanks.”

  I head to my car, putting the bucket in and grabbing my duffle bag of clothes.

  When I walk back into her house, she’s in the kitchen, pouring another cup of coffee. “Caffeine addict, huh?” I ask.

  She swivels on her feet, the coffee mug tucked between her hands. “Job hazard, I suppose.” The cup touches the edge of her lips and I nod toward the bathroom door.

  My phone rings while I’m in the bathroom changing and I press the green button, then the speaker one right after. “Isa?” I answer.

  “Jag, they’re admitting her.” I don’t miss the quiver in her voice. “They saw something in the scan and they say her potassium levels are high.”

  “I’m just changing, I’ll be right there.” I pull my jeans on and throw my shirt over my head.

  “I don’t understand. I thought this would be routine or that maybe she had an infection of some kind that could be treated with antibiotics,” she carries on.

  “I know. I know. I’ll be right there.”

  “Okay.”

  The lines dies and I thread my fingers through my hair, put on some deodorant and open the door.

  Quinn leans against the back of her couch facing me. “I overheard,” she says, embarrassment tinting her cheeks red.

  “Yeah, I gotta go.” I push my bag over my arm and head to the door to put on my shoes. At the door, the realization that I have no other reason to speak with Quinn again hits me and prevents me from leaving. “Can I have your number?” I take my life in my hands by asking.

  She stands there motionless and mute for what seems like minutes but is only truly seconds. “Can I come with you?”

  “To the hospital?” I clarify.

  “Yeah. I want to be there for Isa. We’ve kept in touch over the years.” She shrugs, slipping on her Converse and grabbing her purse before I even agree.

  “You’ve kept in touch?” What the fuck does she mean they’re friends?

  “Yeah.”

  “You and Isa?” I ask with stunned disbelief.

  She looks up at me, holding her keys in her hand. “Yes. We’re friends.”

  What the fuck does she mean they’re friends?

  A smile forms on her lips.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s enjoying having one up on me.

  I walk into the room and my stomach tightens when I spot Marisol in the bed, her skin ashen, her eyes tired.

  “How are you?” I take her hand in mine at the bedside.

  She pats it with her free hand. “Just watching Judge Judy. She’s really digging in to this guy.” She doesn’t shift her gaze from the television.

  “Hey, I brought your new client with me,” I say.

  Now I have her full attention. Her eyes widen, and she slides up in the bed, her hands immediately moving to her curly black hair. “Jagger, no.”

  Isa’s crinkled forehead smooths when she looks at the door. Her gaze shoots to me, her mouth slightly ajar.

  I nod.

  “Oh, my God.” She runs around the bed, disappearing past the closed curtain.

  “Who? What?” Marisol tries to fix herself up while silently yelling at me with her eyes. She’s always been good at that.

  “Mama.” Isa appears with her arm tight around Quinn. “It’s—”

  “Quinn?” A smile spreads on Marisol’s lips.

  Quinn nods, the shyness I remember resurfacing.

  “Eres tan bella,” Marisol coos, patting the spot beside her on the bed. “Come.”

  Isa lets her go, her gaze laser-focused on me as Quinn slowly lowers herself onto the bed.

  Marisol takes Quinn’s hands in hers, and then one hand moves up, cradling Quinn’s cheek like she’s thirteen again. “So beautiful. Isn’t she, Jagger?” She never looks over to me and neither does Quinn. But Isa’s eyes won’t leave me.

  “Mmhm.”

  Marisol swivels her head in my direction, raising her eyebrows.

  “Yes. She is,” I say.

  The pinkness in Quinn’s cheeks tells me she liked that. I shift my stance to hide the chub trying to make itself known in my pants. It always did turn me on—how easily I could make her blush.

  “What are you doing here?” Marisol asks, and Isa rounds the bed, standing by my side. To look at the two of us you’d think we were a united front against the girl I pushed out of our lives years ago, but Isa has betrayed me, having kept in touch with Quinn this whole time and never spoken of it.

  Traitor.

  “I moved to L.A. a couple months ago to be closer to my dad.”

  Marisol’s lips turn up into a sweet smile. She loves the fact Quinn’s always been a girl who puts family first. Marisol’s philosophy is that if a girl isn’t close to her family, it’s a neon warning sign.

  “Come,” I instruct Isa, nodding my head toward the hallway.

  She rolls her eyes, not looking at all surprised that this was coming.

  I shut the door behind us when we’re both in the hallway and Isa leans her shoulder against the wall, arms crossed over her chest. The nurses’ station is down the hall, so other than a man with a walker and his wife wheeling a pole with bags hanging off it, we’re alone.

  “What is it?” Isa asks sweetly.

  “You’ve been talking to Quinn all these years?”
r />   That smile turns to a smirk and I cross my own arms, widening my stance to show that I’m serious.

  “May I remind you why she left?” Isa widens her stance to match my own. Fucking smartass.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She huffs a laugh. “It’s not like you cared. You acted like if I said her name you’d wash my mouth out with soap.” Her black eyebrows lift, daring me to argue with her.

  I run my hand down my face. She’s right. Quinn, Belle and the entire Ryan name was taboo around me for a long time. “Maybe the first few years, but—”

  She puts her hand in the air. “Jagger, what were you going to do? Apologize? Seek her out to live some fairy-tale happily ever after? You’re not a prince on a white horse. You’re the villain in the black Spyder.”

  I grip my heart, her words cutting me. She’s taking the pseudo-sibling rivalry thing way too far. “Harsh.”

  Her features soften. “Quinn’s not like the girls you…date, Jagger. She’s sweet, innocent…naive. You get what you want when you want it. You’ve never had to fight for anything in your life.”

  “I fight for my clients every day. If I had no fight I wouldn’t have a house on the ocean, five cars that each cost as much as the average Joe’s retirement fund, and a position at the top of my field. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  Rage flares to life in my veins and if Isa was a guy, I’d have hauled off and hit her by now. I hate when people think they know me.

  “Listen.” She places her hand on my chest to calm me. “I know you liked Quinn, probably more than any of the bunnies who hang off you like you’re Hugh Hefner, but you showed her all those years ago that no one is special enough to hold your attention for long. She left because you destroyed her, Jagger.”

  I stare at the old sign posted on the wall about getting a flu shot instead of into her eyes. There are a lot of regrets in my life, but what happened with Quinn is…

  “What did you want me to tell you?” She inches closer, her voice lower. “That she reached out to check on you? To see if you went to college? That the entire year when you were partying it up at Stanford, she was barely holding it together back in Ohio? That when she returned home, she…” She shakes her head. “Let’s just leave it that you went to college and probably fucked half the female population while she pined away for you. You guys felt very different about each other and it was just best—”

  “For her, you mean? That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? That it was best if Quinn was far from my reach?”

  With her eyes still soft and pleading, she nods. “I’m sorry, Jag. I love you like a brother, you know that, but when it comes to romantic feelings, you’re kind of an asshole.”

  My fist slams into the wall. I grab the paper and yank it from the wall. Maybe someone should do their damn job—no one is getting flu shots in the summer.

  “Calm down.” She inches up on her tiptoes, still not coming close to my height. When that fails, she wraps her arms around my waist. “It’s okay, Jagger, everyone is different. So, you’re not the settling-down type.” She shrugs in my arms. “It’s okay. I’m a coward. Too scared to fall for someone. We all have things about us we probably don’t like.”

  “You’re not a coward.” I wrap my arms around her. She only speaks the truth and from the example I’ve set with the rotating door of women coming in and out of my life, she has a point. “Just a mama’s girl.”

  She hits me in the stomach, but I tighten my hold for a second.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  She stares up at me. “For telling you you’re an asshole? Anytime.” That smile reappears on her lips and she slides out of my hold, disappearing into the hospital room.

  Now I have to go back in there with my tail between my legs and apologize. Damn, I fucking hate when this happens.

  6

  Quinn

  “I want to take you somewhere.”

  I’m in Jagger’s expensive car as we drive out of the hospital parking lot, the damn deadline from my editor gnawing at my brain like a zombie on The Walking Dead.

  “I should get home,” I say.

  “Please.” He shifts, and his foot hits the clutch and he revs the gas. He’s such an expert at everything sexy. “It’s just lunch. You have to eat.” He glances over, idling at a stop light now.

  “Where?”

  A mysterious smile wraps around his lips. “A surprise.”

  “Nowhere fancy?”

  He laughs, shaking his head. “No. Nowhere fancy. You never were that type of girl.”

  Rolling down the window, I let the wind blow in my hair, amazed at how much better I’m feeling than I was yesterday morning.

  Half an hour later, we pull up to the same hole in the wall he took me to all the time when we’d surf during my summers in Los Angeles. Well, he surfed—I was one gulp away from either drowning or dehydration.

  “Surfing Tacos?” I question, opening my door of his car and stepping out.

  “Have you been since you returned?”

  And relive memories of you? No way.

  “No.” The sand slides under my Converse, leaking into the small air holes on the sides. Jagger cups my elbow to help me gain my footing. “They really should clean up the sand more.”

  Jagger chuckles under his breath but says nothing.

  “I mean beach access is one thing, but for the customers who don’t surf, there should be a paved path.” I continue with my nervous rambling.

  “Want me to talk to management?” he asks and chuckles.

  “No need. I doubt I’ll be back here.” His hand drops from my skin, and he files in behind me, holding the door open.

  Once we’re inside I see that the one-time shack is a real restaurant and bar now. Must be doing well for itself. They’ve added an outdoor patio extension with tables and umbrellas looking out over the ocean. It’s no longer cheap plywood tables and plastic chairs, but lacquered wood tables and chairs with cushioned seating. There’s still the straw and hula theme, but now there’s a wall of signed pictures featuring the well-known surfers who have landed here after a day in the sun.

  “It’s nice in here.”

  Jagger nods, his hand grazing along my forearm until he secures my hand with his. I try to pull it away, but he only grips it tighter as he leads me to a table in the corner that faces the ocean. “I thought we’d sit outside, but now that I know how you feel about sand…”

  I’m ready to say something just as sharp-tongued, but he’s smiling at me when I look up and the words die in my mouth. I was mad and pissed off at the memories this place brought to the surface. It’s not Surfing Tacos’ fault Jagger’s a dick.

  “Well, who do we have here?” A redhead comes over, the end of her shirt tucked through her breasts, her ass cheeks almost hanging out of her Daisy Dukes. Someone should tell her the theme is surfing, not hillbilly.

  Jagger grabs a menu from the condiment station, handing it to me. “Hey, I’ll have a Corona and…”

  “Just a water,” I mumble, willing myself not to look at the girl whose gaze is glued to Jagger.

  “Sure thing. I’m Cami, by the way.” She tucks her pad and pencil in her back pocket, holding her hand out to me.

  I look to Jagger first. He’s studying the interaction but saying nothing.

  “Quinn.” I shake her hand and then place it back in my lap.

  “How do you know Jagger?” she asks.

  “We’re in a hurry, so can you get the drinks?” Jagger asks.

  Sweet Cami’s face heats and her gaze darts back to him. “Sure thing. Be right back.”

  “Friend of yours?” I ask when she leaves, stomping away on the wooden floor planks like an angry toddler.

  A few surfer girls wearing bikinis with wetsuits hanging from their waists walk in from outside and sit down at a nearby table.

  “I come here a lot.”

  “Hmm.”

  “It’s not what you think.” He put
s his menu back.

  “I think you fuck her.”

  “Maybe it is then.” His gaze darts down to the table for a second before returning to lock eyes with me.

  I nod. Maybe he’s not trying to get in my pants. Only an idiot would bring a girl to a place where he’s banged the help.

  “Would you rather I lie?” he asks, not a trace of guilt on his gorgeous face.

  “I would’ve preferred you took me somewhere that I didn’t have to worry about being poisoned.” The napkin I didn’t realize I’d picked up wraps around my finger until it rips. “Is there even such a place? You know, where you haven’t fucked half the waitstaff?”

  His head rears back as he tilts the chair back on its hind legs. “Jealous much?”

  I throw the napkin on the table and my chair scrapes against the wood, as I stand from the table.

  Redhead Cami slams my water down on the table, the contents sloshing over the rim.

  “Hey.” I reach for her, but she retracts her hand. “I just wanted to tell you I don’t want him. He’s all yours. Good luck though, because that dick sees more action than the army.”

  Her mouth hangs open and I spin on my shoes, storming out of the restaurant. The minute I push open the doors, the ocean air hits my face and all the memories come with it. Coming here from Ohio was hard, but my family needed me and with Mom happy and loving life with my half-siblings and new husband, I needed to find where I fit. But here…I’m starting to think that L.A. couldn’t have been a bigger mistake.

  I hear the door open behind me and a shiver runs down my neck, alerting me he’s near. In fact, I can practically feel his eyes burn a hole into the back of my head. I sit down on the stoop, digging in my purse for my phone.

  “Don’t.” He sits down next to me, taking my phone out of my hands.

  “Give me my phone!”

  “No. I’m sorry, I fucked that up.” He stands, pulls off his shoes and socks, then walks to his car, depositing them into his trunk, before nodding at me. “Come on.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  His shoulders tighten, and he stands ramrod straight in a stance that I’m sure intimidates most people. “You are. We’re going to walk that beach and I’m going to explain shit to you. After that, if you want to tell me to fuck off forever, I’m gone.”