Blame It on the Bikini (19 page)

For two hours they stood and served food to the people who’d come to the shelter. Their platters had gone into the mix, and his parents were now fully engaged in dishwashing duty.

‘This was so much better than a strained dinner with them,’ Lauren muttered under her breath.

‘I know,’ Brad agreed. ‘Genius. But are you hungry now?’

‘Yeah, but not for any kind of roast.’ She looked slightly guilty. ‘How bad is that?’

‘Why don’t we go get Chinese?’ he suggested with a half-laugh. ‘The restaurant round the corner from me does really good yum char.’

‘Shouldn’t we have dinner with Mum and Dad?’

‘Nah, let’s leave them to it. We’ve done enough family bonding for the day.’

‘I actually think they’re happy the way they are,’ Lauren said as she pulled a chicken dish towards her, half an hour later.

‘You think?’ Brad asked.

‘Yes.’ Lauren chewed thoughtfully. ‘Surely if they weren’t, they’d have done something about it by now?’

‘I think they’re just used to it.’ He sat back and toyed with the food on his plate. ‘They’re apathetic and simply don’t care enough to do anything to change things.’

‘It’s a waste,’ Lauren said.

‘It is,’ Brad agreed. ‘Maybe they’ll learn something at the shelter.’ He grinned. ‘It might be a Christmas miracle.’

Lauren suddenly looked serious. ‘Have you seen Mya recently?’

Brad’s moment of lightness fled. He shook his head and stuffed rice into his mouth to keep from having to answer.

‘She’s not really a sister to you, is she?’ Lauren said slyly.

The observation caught him by surprise—he half laughed, half choked and shook his head again.

‘Is it going to work out?’

He shook his head again—slower that time.

‘Have you stuffed things up so badly I’m going to lose my best friend?’

He shook his head more vehemently. ‘Be there for her.’

Lauren studied him closely. ‘Why can’t you be?’

‘She doesn’t want me to.’

‘Really?’ Lauren frowned. ‘Mya had a thing for you for years. Even when you never saw her.’

Yeah, but the trouble was Mya had got to know him properly now. And though he’d offered her all he could, she’d turned him down. It hurt.

‘Don’t tell me you’re too apathetic to do anything about it, Brad,’ Lauren said softly. ‘Don’t make the same mistake as Mum and Dad.’

Lauren’s words haunted him over the next week. The memory of Mya positively tortured him. Night after night he replayed their last conversation in his head and he dreamed of the too few nights they’d been together.

She’d been furious with him for not opening up. She claimed he maintained as much of a false façade as his parents did. He’d not realised he did that. But she was right. He had opened up to her, though—a couple of times he had, and she’d been there for him in a way that had made his heart melt. So why was it that when he’d wanted to support her, she’d pushed him away? Until now he’d been too hurt to try to figure it out, but now he had to
know
.

Lauren was right too: he couldn’t be apathetic. He needed courage—Gage’s kind of courage. To run towards what you needed most—the one person you needed most. The one whose love and laughter meant everything.

He went to the bar and pushed forward to the front of the bar section she was serving. Her eyes widened when she saw him and she asked his order ahead of the people he was standing beside. He refused to get a kick out of that—it was probably because she wanted to serve him so he’d leave asap.

He inhaled the sight of her like a man gulping fresh air after a long, deep dive in the abyss. And as she mixed his deliberately complicated cocktail, he tried for conversation. ‘I like your hairclip.’ So lame. But true.

She put her hand to her head where her homemade clip resided and smiled self-consciously. ‘You do?’

‘Absolutely.’

She nodded, looking down to stir some awful collection of liqueurs before speaking quickly. ‘I don’t have the time right now for entire outfits,’ she said. ‘But hair accessories I can do. Pretty clips, small statements. Just a little fun and it keeps my fringe out of my eyes.’

‘That’s great.’

‘It’s enough,’ she said. ‘But you were right. I needed it.’

‘Good for you.’ He wished she needed him too.

For a moment their eyes met, and Brad was too tired to hide anything any more. He was too tired to try to make chit-chat and break the bulletproof wall of ice between them. He just wanted to hold her close—to have her in his arms and by his side and have it all. For ever.

But she moved to serve another person, and it was like having scabs from third-degree body burns ripped off. Coming here was the dumbest thing he’d done. For a guy who was supposed to be smart, he’d picked the world’s worst time to try to talk to her. New Year’s Eve was the busiest night of the year. Jonny was back—there were five bartenders there and all of them run off their feet. And she couldn’t even look him in the eye.

He didn’t even touch the cocktail she’d made for him. He just turned round and walked away.

Mya glanced up from making the next customer’s cocktail—desperate to make sure he was still there. But he wasn’t. She stretched up on tiptoe and just got a glimpse of his back heading towards the exit.

Oh, no. No, no and no. He wasn’t turning up for the first time in a week looking all rough-edged and dangerous and for one heart-stopping moment
vulnerable
—and then leaving again. She had things to say to him. Things she’d been rehearsing in her head for days and days and no matter the outcome she was still determined to say.

She pushed her way out from behind the bar and barged through the throngs. ‘Brad!’ She didn’t care who heard her.

But if he did hear her, he didn’t stop. She ran out onto the footpath and charged after him. ‘Brad!’

This time he stopped.

She looked at him, oblivious to the revellers on the street and the heat in the summer night. And now all those words that she’d been mentally practising just flew out of her head—when he looked at her like
that
?

‘Oh, hell, don’t cry,’ he groaned.

‘I’m not
crying
!’ she denied. And then sniffed. So what was the point in denial? ‘Okay, I’m … crying.’

‘Mya.’ He sounded strangled. ‘Please go back.’

‘Mya! Drew is having a fit.’ Kirk came puffing up beside them. ‘We need you back at the bar.’

‘I don’t give a damn about the bar,’ Mya snapped.

Kirk scuttled away like a dirt bug escaping daylight.

‘Mya, you should go back. You don’t want to lose your job.’

‘I don’t, but—’

‘And you need to focus on your upcoming exam.’

‘I don’t give a damn about that exam either!’ she shouted.

Brad stared at her, waiting.

‘Okay, I do, but …’ She broke off to draw a ragged breath. ‘I don’t care about the bar. But I do. I don’t care about the exam. But I do. I don’t care about anything that much but
you
,’ she admitted softly. ‘And I don’t want you to walk away from me.’ Another fat tear spilt down her cheek.

He sighed and took a step towards her. ‘Mya, I’ve always believed that no one can ever truly put another person first. That ultimately we’re all selfish and do what’s best for ourselves. But I was wrong about that.’ He stopped and breathed out. ‘Because I will do whatever
you
need me to do in order for you to be happy. If that means walking out of your life, then that’s what I’ll do. It’s the last thing I want to do. But I want what’s best for you.’

She shook her head angrily. ‘You might be brilliant but you’re not a mind-reader. What makes you think walking out of my life would be best for me?’

‘It’s what you asked me to do,’ he pointed out.

‘Well, I was an idiot.’

He stared at her. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘I don’t know that you can offer me what I really want from you.’

‘I know you want to hold onto your independence. I respect that. If you want the big corporate law job, then fantastic. I’ll suck up my stupid fears and be right there behind you. If you decide you’d rather make your creations and try selling them, I can afford to support you. You can ask me for anything,’ he said.

She shook her head. She didn’t want any
thing
. ‘I can’t
be dependent on you. I just can’t.’ She couldn’t give herself so completely to a guy who didn’t feel the same for her as she did for him.

‘You want me to give it all away?’ he suddenly exploded. ‘Okay, I’ll give all my money away. I’ll give a guy the shirt on my back and stand here naked and with nothing. I just want to support you,’ he roared at her. ‘And you won’t take it from me!’

‘It’s not your money I want!’ she shouted back. ‘It’s everything else. You have
everything
to give me. Love and
emotional
support, rather than financial. Strength. Humour. Play. Everything that’s so wonderful about you. I love you and all I want is for you to love me back.’

He stared at her. Stunned. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ He gestured wide. ‘You never showed me. You never wanted anyone to know about us. You were embarrassed to want me.’

‘I was never embarrassed about wanting you. What was I supposed to do? You’re the ultimate playboy. Never with any woman more than a week. I had to protect myself somehow. I had to think of it as just a fantasy. If no one else knew then it wasn’t really real.’

He gazed at her, now motionless. ‘What do you think I feel for you?’

‘Lust.’

‘Absolutely. Lust is right up there. Right now so is annoyance.’ He walked towards her. ‘Also admiration. Frustration. But above all, love.’

She bent her head.

He put his fingers under her chin and lifted her face back up to his. ‘Mya, why do you think I want to give you everything I have?’ He gazed into her eyes. ‘I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. Even myself,’ he joked just that little bit.

‘Brad,’ she choked out.

‘Has it not occurred to you that I’m the best person to help you with your studies?’

She laughed, but it was in despair. ‘I failed so badly at concentrating that night you found those cases for me. I had the wickedest thoughts going on that night. I can’t concentrate with you around.’

‘We weren’t sleeping together then. We were both frustrated. Wouldn’t it be different knowing you can have your way with me when your study goal is met? Won’t it be different now you know I love you and that you love me? And that we can be together as much as we want?’

Yeah, she still couldn’t quite believe that.

He muttered something unintelligible and then just swept her close, his lips crashing onto hers as if there were no other way to convince her. And she
ached
to be convinced, desperate to feel the security that should only be a breath away. She burrowed closer, opening for him, wanting to give him everything and get it all in return.

‘Do I really have to give away my money?’ he asked gently. ‘If I was a starving student, you’d share everything with me, right?’

‘Of course. But you’re not a starving student. It feels so unbalanced.’ She sighed.

‘Only in that one aspect and that’s only temporary. In another couple of years you’ll be qualified and raking it in, and I’ll take early retirement and you can keep me in the manner to which I am accustomed.’

She couldn’t help it, laughter bubbled out of her. ‘And in what manner is that?’

‘Restaurant meals every night,’ he said promptly.

‘I can do salads from the café down the street.’

‘Sex every night of the week.’ He waggled his brows.

‘And every morning.’

‘That too.’ He kissed her again. ‘You were right, by the way. I do my job because it makes me feel better about myself as a person. I tell myself I’m okay because I help kids. I make a difference, right? So I can’t be all bad.’ He sighed. ‘But I’m not all that great. I chose not to get too close to anyone and never let anyone see behind the façade. That was because, like you, I don’t like failure. Growing up in that house with my parents, I saw the falseness of their relationship. Swore I’d never have such a marriage. And that I’d never fail kids like that. That I’d never have them.’

‘You don’t want to commit. I know that.’ She’d never try to fence him in. She’d have him for as long as he was hers to have. No way she could walk away from him now.

He laughed. ‘I don’t have the choice, darling,’ he teased. ‘I’m not interested in anyone else. I don’t want to be. I want this to work with you. You inspire me to be more.’

‘I’m not some perfect creature.’ She shook her head.

‘No one is. But you kill yourself
trying
to be perfect and you don’t have to. You don’t have to get the top grade. You don’t have to be the best bartender in town. You don’t have to excel at everything. You can fail at everything and I’ll love you anyway. Do you understand that? I’ll love you no matter what.’

Her eyes filled as she felt the intensity of his words, the full emotion behind them. And finally she did understand that.

‘You’re wonderful and human, and you make mistakes like I do, but you pick yourself up and you fight on,’ he said. ‘You face your failures and you get it together.’

‘I don’t fight on,’ she cried. ‘I gave up on you, on us, before we’d hardly started. I was so scared. I didn’t want to change my priorities only to find out what we had wasn’t anything more than a bit of fun.’

‘It’s a whole lot of fun.’ He smiled. ‘And you don’t have to change your priorities. We can have so much more fun together if you’ll take a chance on me.’

He stood before her, his expression open, no protective façade in place, just pure honesty and an offer she could never, ever refuse.

Now she saw behind his mask to the genuine, loving man he was. While he could act all cocky, come up with the most outrageous statements as if he fully believed he was God’s gift to the female of the species, beneath that bravado was a guy as insecure as any other normal person. Despite that silver spoon, that money, all that success … there was still someone who doubted that another person could love him for just being him. But that was the part of him she loved the most.