Crazy for Loving You Read online

  The sun’s sinking lower in the sky. Dolphins are playing in the bay. The temperature’s dropping, with the heat forecasted to break tomorrow on the heels of thunderstorms overnight. Tiki music hums through the speakers. The scent of homemade French fries wafts through the air and mingles with the salty ocean breeze.

  And tonight, I’m going to ask Becca the question.

  We went to high school together in Chicago a lifetime ago. When I landed here in Miami after retirement this past June, and finally joined social media, I discovered she was living here too, divorced with two kids. I reached out, and we’ve been hanging out these past four months.

  She has a funny laugh, her girls are great, and she’s currently wiping the table with a disinfectant cloth from her stash in her bag.

  Is she perfect?

  No, but what woman is? What person is?

  Thought I found perfection once before, and I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  But I’m pushing forty. Ready to move past the heartbreak—and military commitment—that’s hamstrung me the last several years, settle down, and live the rest of my life with what makes it worthwhile.

  Family.

  I grab extra napkins from the ketchup stand and weave through the beach bums and locals waiting in the rustic shack to the yellow-painted picnic table for two at the window, my heart ticking up a familiar rhythm.

  Anticipation.

  Except this isn’t anticipation for a military mission, which is something that faded over the years too.

  Now, it’s anticipation for my life.

  I set the tray on the table and climb onto the bench seat, my pulse steadily ramping up. Despite the view of the beach sunset, Becca’s bent over her phone, her strawberry blond hair lifting in the light breeze coming off the bay, her delicate fingers scrolling quickly across the screen. “Oh my god, West, did you hear about Judgy Julie?”

  “Who?” I tell my heart to chill. Becca’s a safe choice. Attractive. Stable. Probably doesn’t want any more kids, and that’s okay. Can’t have everything in life.

  “Judgy Julie. Julienne Carter-Roderick. The woman who one-starred you for refusing to take a wall out to put that giant marble fountain in her baby’s nursery?”

  “Ah. Right. Judgy Julie. She one-star her husband or something?” Guy gave me all the dicknugget vibes, even if he did overrule her on the fountain. Mental note: I will not be a dicknugget to Becca.

  “She died.”

  I pause with a burger extended to her and tilt my good ear toward her. “She…died?”

  Well, fuck.

  How am I supposed to pop the question now?

  Forge ahead, Marine! my balls bark at me, because they’ve been feeling neglected since I retired. Don’t pussy out now!

  “They both did. She and her husband. Apparently fairly tragically. Smells like karma. I didn’t follow her—not after that horrible thing she said about your hammering skills not being able to arouse a gender-confused monkey, which was just rude—but I accidentally saw a review she posted of a baby sling last week where she tore it to shreds because it didn’t make her baby feel like he was sleeping on a pillow of clouds and the fabric was a shade too teal for anyone to not want to puke after looking at it. Who says stuff like that?”

  “Unhappy people.”

  She puts her phone down and takes the burger and drink. “I guess. She was just so awful to everyone. How long before she would’ve one-starred her own kid for being a kid, you know?”

  Take charge and get her warmed up for the question, Marine! my nut sack orders. I clear my throat and unwrap my own burger. “Sunset’s pretty.”

  Becca smiles. “Okay. Moving on. Got it. Do you know every time we’ve had burgers here, it’s always been insanely crowded, and there’s always been an open window seat?”

  That’s more like it. “Meant to be. Obviously.”

  Ooh-rah! You got this now! my balls cheer.

  She bites into her burger.

  And then she moans.

  On a scale of my leg just got blown off to porn star orgasm, this moan ranks at a this burger just made my panties wet.

  And I’m intrigued by Becca with wet panties. Let’s be honest here. The thought of regular sex definitely plays into taking the leap back into real relationship waters for the first time in six years.

  It’s time. Time for the question.

  I set my burger down.

  Suck in a heavy breath.

  And wait until she meets my eyes over her hamburger.

  “Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

  She coughs, her brown eyes go wide, and a hunk of cheeseburger flies out of her mouth and lands squarely on one of the extra napkins.

  I quickly wrap it up and hand her the next napkin while she thumps her chest and rasps out a wheezy breath.

  “Gesundheit,” I say while I reach around to pound her—gently—on the back.

  She lunges for her milkshake and sucks the straw, making her cheeks hollow in.

  “Water?” I ask when she comes up for air. I’m already halfway out of my seat to grab a cup from the soda fountain.

  “Jesus, West, warn a girl before you make a joke,” she finally says.

  Aw, hell. My mother’s a comedienne. I know the art of timing. I also know the art of bombing.

  Becca freezes. “You…weren’t joking.”

  And I thought it was hot working on that gym renovation without air conditioning this afternoon. I clear my throat. “About getting you a water? I never joke about water.”

  “About…the, erm, dating thing.” She tries to smile again, but she looks more like she sucked down a raw oyster that’s decided it wants to live and is clawing its way back up her throat while she pretends she’s not going to puke.

  The gentlemanly thing to do would be to brush it off.

  Tell her I’m kidding. Laugh. Move on. That I’m following in my mother’s footsteps.

  Hell, the saving face thing to do is to laugh it off.

  So I nod. Force a laugh. “Yeah. You got me. Sorry. Bad timing.”

  Her high cheekbones are going scarlet. She lifts the Beach Burger milkshake cup to her face like she can cool them off, and I know she doesn’t believe me. “West, I—I don’t know what to say.”

  Flex your muscles! Do a headstand! Save an old lady from choking! my balls bark at me. Send her a dick pic! Show her what she’s missing.

  Clearly, my balls aren’t always that bright.

  “That’s not a yes.” I swallow hard, because fuck, this hurts worse than that time O’Leary dropped a dumbbell on my foot right before a twenty-mile rucksack run.

  This wasn’t supposed to hurt. It’s supposed to be logical.

  We make good friends. I fix leaks under her sink. She cooks me dinner. We’ve both been burned by love before. Who wants that when you can just go for comfort and companionship?

  She’s shaking her head. “I just—I don’t—god, this is so hard.”

  “You don’t see me like that,” I fill in for her. “It’s okay. Bad joke.”

  “I—you—yes.” She slumps back in her chair. “You’re like—”

  “A brother.”

  Her mouth flounders open for a second before she seals her lips shut.

  She was going to say it.

  She was going to say I’m like a brother to her.

  Of fucking course she was. That’s what I’ve been going for, isn’t it?

  “You’re…very comfortable. And nice. And—very funny with jokes,” she finishes lamely.

  She looks like she wants a portal to hell to open up and swallow her, because that would be less awkward than sitting here and telling me that I’m comfortable.

  I could tell her about the time I nearly got blown to smithereens in Mosul. Or the time me and my buddies saved a dude who fell out of his raft on some nasty rapids. Or the time I let my commander talk to my mother.

  But she’s right.

  “After the way you said your divorce went, I thought comfortabl
e might be nice.”

  Her brows wrinkle. “Are you looking for just comfortable?”

  Retreat! Retreat! my nuts yell. “Becca. We’re not kids anymore. We’ve both been burned. And you keep saying you don’t want to be alone the rest of your life. I don’t either, but I can’t see myself dating a twenty-something, and the dating pool isn’t exactly full for people our age.”

  She starts to say something, cuts herself off, glancing sideways, and whispers something that I only catch because I’ve gotten fucking good at reading lips since that mortar round left me with eighty percent hearing loss in my right ear halfway through my career.

  I just started dating someone.

  Someone who isn’t me.

  Because she doesn’t see me like that.

  I have four sisters with zero filter when it comes to relationship advice. My parents taught me manners. The Marines taught me to be a man. And I suddenly feel like that awkward teenager on a string of bad dates again.

  “Who is he?” I have lots of experience being a brother. I’ll be her fucking brother.

  Her cheeks turn into beets. “A dad I met at Mia’s swim meet. He—he was her fourth-grade teacher. That was the year—”

  “You got divorced.”

  “He’s a good guy. Also divorced. We just clicked. He coaches his son’s little league team, which is why I hadn’t seen him at swim meets until this weekend. The games always conflicted with swim practices. We’re all going mini-golfing this weekend. It’s not—I didn’t do it to hurt you. I didn’t realize you…thought this was going somewhere else.”

  “Not your fault. Forget I said anything.”

  Neither one of us will forget I said anything.

  We make it through swallowing down burgers and shakes with stilted conversation that’s making more bad memories surface.

  A blind date to a funeral. The time my buddies put a laxative in my lunch and it kicked in right after I picked up my date for a drive up the California coast. That super fun date where we were playing sand volleyball and I accidentally gave her a black eye when we both dove for the ball at the same time and our heads collided.

  I was thirty years old before I had a decent first date. It was with a single mother who was a couple years older. Just as jaded as I was, her because of her divorce, me because I’d never been good at dating. We traded horror stories, laughed ourselves sick, and I moved in with her and her kids six months later.

  Lived with them for two years, hearing I love you, but I’m never getting married again.

  Turned out, that meant I don’t love you as much as you love me.

  All four of my sisters are married. Living the dream, with kids and laughter and the good times and the bad times. Settled. Happy.

  Is it so wrong to want that kind of life for myself now? I gave twenty years to Uncle Sam. Now I want some years for me.

  Becca and I part in the parking lot. “Call you later,” I tell her, though I think we both know I probably won’t call her later.

  Whoa, hotties in the sand volleyball pit, my nuts offer when I slump down onto the beach.

  I look closer, realize the skimpy bikini crowd is probably just barely legal, and I take off for a walk on the shore while thunderclouds threaten to move in from the south.

  I stroll past the condo I’m housesitting on the beach and break into a jog. My baby brother, who plays pro hockey, knows people. People with money who need nurseries re-done and beach houses babysat, though I have this suspicion he’s actually playing older brother to me right now.

  Arranging a place on the beach for me to chill at for the first six months after my time in the military. Introducing me to people who know people who need renovations done so that my business can take off.

  Maybe he knows rich women who need a lube job, my nuts offer.

  I tell them to shut the fuck up and ramp my jog into a full-on run. Might not be an active Marine anymore, but that doesn’t mean I let myself get soft.

  And I need to work out some feelings.

  Fucking feelings.

  Dating Becca was supposed to be about not having feelings.

  Not feelings that could get hurt, anyway.

  My sisters will undoubtedly tell me that’s why it was doomed, but I like to think there’s a woman out there somewhere who wants a companion with regular sex, but not the all-encompassing, obsessive, rainbows and chocolate flowers love that leads to heartbreak when it’s over.

  After a while, I turn around and head back. I’m almost breathing normally again when I hit my front door. Becca’s long gone.

  Probably off to see whoever it is she’s dating.

  “Mr. Westley Jaeger?” a guy in a suit asks as I trudge up the stairs of my temporary home. “Wonder West Construction?”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Dudes in suits don’t normally track me down. “Yeah?”

  “Stanley Chihuahua. I represent Mrs. Imogen Carter and the Carter family. There’s an issue with Julienne Carter-Roderick’s will, and I need you to please come with me.”

  Julienne Carter-Roderick. Judgy Julie. What the hell? “What kind of issue?”

  “Just a small note. I’m sure we can clear it up quickly.”

  “If she’s saying I still owe her work because of that statue—”

  “No, sir. All’s well. Relatively speaking. You’ve been named as…well. Considering the sensitive nature of a will of this size and the relative fame of the recently deceased, I’d prefer to speak in private.”

  “You couldn’t send a letter?” I don’t know shit about legal stuff beyond what my commander suggested I do for my own will back when I was a gunnery sergeant, but this feels off.

  “There’s a time factor involved. You can follow me in your own vehicle if you wish.”

  “To where?”

  “Daisy Carter-Kincaid’s house in Bluewater on Key Biscayne, sir.”

  Daisy Carter-Kincaid.

  I know that name.

  Why do I—aw, hell.

  Daisy Carter-Kincaid is a rich party girl. Which probably means my baby brother—the hockey star who runs in high-profile social groups—is punking me.

  Or coming through with that rich girl who needs a lube job! my nuts cheer.

  They’re hopeless.

  “Daisy Carter-Kincaid’s house,” I repeat.

  “Yes, sir.”

  I gesture him toward the row of beach houses. My baby brother knows things. And I’m pretty sure he’s tricking me into going to a party.

  Bring it on. “My truck’s parked down the way. Let me get it, and I’ll follow you.”

  Three

  West

  On the drive out to Key Biscayne, all the traffic lights turn green for me, nobody flips me off or cuts me off, the guard at the private Bluewater community entrance gate on Tiki Bar Drive is polite as a butterfly in his tropical floral print shirt, and even the eight-foot carved rooster just beyond the gate seems happy to see me.

  I’m being escorted through a gorgeous private community that billionaires and superstars call home, at twilight, in a part of Miami that most people will never see other than in the spread of a magazine.

  When my brother does something, he goes all in.

  I have a moment of doubt, because sending a dude in a suit to pick me up isn’t Tyler’s style, but after driving past a bunch of pristine lawns with mansions tastefully tucked in beside palm trees, then across another bridge, and past three more mansions, the car in front of me finally pulls into a long, crushed seashell drive lined with Porsches, Teslas, Jaguars, and chromed-out Escalades, which is Ty’s style.

  This is definitely a party.

  Hell, maybe Mr. Chihuahua is the “lawyer”’s stripper name, and Ty’s signed me up to be his sidekick.

  If so, he’s getting mayonnaise in his stocking for Christmas.

  Mr. Chihuahua leads me up to the porte-cochère of the massive, curved-front hacienda mansion and blocks two cars in, then gestures for me to do the same.

&n
bsp; This porte-cochère?

  It’s really freaking cool. I’ve seen pictures of the house, because my sisters are all into the gossip rags and love texting me stuff, especially after Tyler got me set up to do that nursery renovation job for Julienne. Apparently she and Daisy are cousins, if I’m remembering all of my Daisy Carter-Kincaid trivia correctly.

  I ignore most gossip—especially after some of the things Ty’s been quoted as doing in magazines as his hockey career has taken off—but I couldn’t ignore this house and its spread in How The Rich Live magazine.

  Daisy has something like a half-dozen party lounges inside, all with different themes, from Under the Sea to a trampoline bar. Her guest suites are all named after tropical drinks, and rumor has it a certain rock legend and his wife asked if they could stay in the Sex on the Beach suite for an entire month while they tried to get pregnant, and when it didn’t work the first month, they asked to stay another.

  Her home office has a wall of frozen yogurt dispensers. Her bedroom is the stuff of little girl princess dreams. She had her bathtub—a marble basin shaped like a rose—imported from Italy. And the whole house—the entire thing—is in the shape of a D with the copper roof modified to glitter and sparkle where it’s not lined with solar panels, with a shooting star porte-cochère branching off the top.

  Seriously.

  The overhang shoots out to a star-shaped building that I assume is for security, though it’s not manned right now.

  Fuck yeah, we’re partying tonight! my balls cheer.

  I pretend they’re talking to my bad ear. One-night stands were how I got through my last several years in the military, and I don’t want to be that guy forever. I want stability. A home. A family.

  I want what I thought I had before Sierra crushed my heart six years ago.

  And how’s that going for you, sucker? my nuts ask.

  They might have a point. I might not ever get what I really want in life.