On the one hand, the tourists were the reason many of us could live in paradise full-time. They rented our hotel rooms, cars, and boats, ate in the restaurants, shopped at the boutiques along Main Street. But they also crowded our roads with extra traffic, littered our beach with the remnants of their picnics, and sometimes . . . sometimes, they did very bad things. Reckless things that could never be taken back.
It was how Shaw’s wife was killed. A rowdy college kid from Georgia down here on spring break had too much to drink and wasn’t smart enough to call a cab, or hell, just walk home. Instead he’d gotten behind the wheel of his pickup truck and driven south on Highway 12. It was early evening and the sky was most likely painted pink and orange like it so often was that magical time of day.
I had no idea what Samantha was doing in the tourist area that night. Maybe it was just a case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. But when his truck crossed the center line and slammed into her small sedan with enough force to send it end over end, none of that mattered. All that mattered was that she died instantly, and Shaw was left to spiral into a deep depression.
At least, that’s how it seemed from the outside looking in. Maybe it wasn’t even depression. It was more of a dark reverie, one that he couldn’t seem to escape. And despite how close we were physically, that’s still what I was—an outsider being held at a distance. Shaw never let me get close enough to see inside, to understand what he was thinking and feeling.
I’d thought about calling this whole thing off countless times—telling him no the next time he showed up at my door at two a.m. with a wild look in his eyes, his fists clenched at his sides, and whiskey on his breath. But I always saw what was beneath—his broken soul that needed soothing, and a heavy heart that I alone knew how to handle with care.
Who was I kidding? The only way I knew to make him feel better was to reach down and palm his erection, and whisper that I needed him.
I wanted him to heal. I wanted him to be okay. And for those few hours every week, if he could lose himself in me, I was only too happy to oblige.
• • •
“Nice job,” Jason muttered around a bite of roast beef sandwich.
“With what?” I asked, pouring myself a second cup of coffee. It was two in the afternoon, but being thrust into the role of co-business owners, Jason and I now knew what schedule worked best for us. After lunch we were just getting warmed up for the day, and we often worked late into the evening.
“For getting Shaw to take those tourists out on his personal craft.”
“No problem.” I poured a hefty amount of creamer in my mug, turning it a nice honey shade. Just the way I liked it.
“What’d you have to do? Blow him?” he asked.
My eyes jerked over to his and my heart started to pound. Did he suspect something?
Jason smirked at me, then took another bite of his sandwich. I let out the breath I’d been holding. Fuck, that was close. If he only knew.
“Maybe Shaw’s finally starting to get his shit together,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee.
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
“It’s been eight months,” I added. Eight long months of falling deeper and deeper in love lust with my best friend. I couldn’t let myself think about love. Not now. Maybe not ever.
Shaw had been in love just once, as far as I knew, with his wife, Samantha, and look at how tragically that ended for him. I wasn’t about to stomp my foot and make demands for something he couldn’t give me.
“Geez, you’re jumpy today,” Jason said, pulling me out of my daydream.
I looked up at him. He’d set his sandwich down on his plate and was staring at me.
“What’s with you?” he asked.
It was Wednesday. “Nothing. I just have a lot to do. I’ll talk to you later.”
I grabbed my mug off the counter and headed back to the office. I knew I needed to focus as best I could to get through a big chunk of invoices before the inevitable happened, a Wednesday ritual I’d had for the last eight months.
I knew Shaw’s schedule by heart. He ended his workday around five. After dinnertime, he showered, changed, and then spent an hour with his laptop, catching up on the office work he neglected all day when he was out on the dock. Sometimes he had a beer or two, and he always had the game on in the background. Then, at about eight, I’d expect a knock at my door. It was our weekly ritual, and one I looked forward to all week long.
Our rendezvous were somewhat precarious because my cramped one-bedroom apartment was located directly above my family’s inn. Jason lived on the lower floor in the main house that contained the offices too—which were just a couple of converted bedrooms in the back.
But if Jason happened to be paying attention, he could have seen Shaw creeping through the overgrown trees and shrubs and up the stairs to my place. I still didn’t know if he walked or drove. I only knew that his truck was never in sight. And that so far, we hadn’t been caught.
After finishing up a couple of hours of work that afternoon, Jason brought me a bottle of water and a sandwich, which I ate while reconciling last month’s receipts. Then I made my way upstairs since it was already after six.
Inside my place, I entered the bathroom and cranked the shower all the way to hot. It had been a hell of a day, and I needed the release of a steamy encounter. Double entendre implied. I threw my hair up in a messy bun and stripped down as the little room filled with steam. I stepped under the spray of water, careful to keep my long hair from getting wet. It would take hours to dry, and if I didn’t manage it with all sorts of products and flat-ironing, it would be a horrible, frizzy mess. No thank you.