Perfectly Charming (A Morning Glory Novel Book 2) (4 page)

Jess shook her head. “You’re in no condition to drive . . . you’re barely in enough condition to walk. I’m worried about the stairs.”

“Hey, Morgan, there he is,” someone shouted from above.

Glancing up she saw a guy hanging his head over the railing. Seconds later, Morgan’s long brown hair swung over. “Ryan, where in the hell have you been?”

“The beach,” Ryan said, his concentration on lifting his legs.

“Why?” she asked, scooting around to the opening of the stairs and trotting down. “Someone come help Ry.”

A handsome guy jumped to attention and leaped down the steps, moving Jess out of the way so he could support Ryan.

“Oh, hey,” Morgan said, pausing a few steps from the top, her gaze landing on Jess. “You made it to the party. Come on up and grab a beer or whatever.”

Jess pressed her hands to Ryan’s broad back as he stumbled back. “Uh, not really. Look, I knocked on the front door.”

“Yeah, I locked that. My mom’s all paranoid about the painted wood floor in the foyer. She had it done to look like a bingo card and it’s, like, not something she wants all scuffed up. Everyone came through the back. What do you want to drink?”

The woman was so friendly, Jess almost acquiesced. But it was now way after 2:00 a.m. The first slivers of dawn would sneak up on her like a ninja. “Nothing. I actually came over to ask you to turn down the music. I start a new job in the morning, and it’s hard to sleep with the music blaring.”

A flash of irritation swept Morgan’s face, but she quickly covered it with a smile. “Sorry. I didn’t think you’d mind. You didn’t seem . . .” She hesitated for a moment, letting the implication that Jess was a whiny bitch sit there. Then she turned and screeched, “Tanner, turn down the music.”

The guy who’d jumped to help Ryan had managed to get him to the top of the stairs. Morgan looped her arm around Ryan’s shoulders and gave a shake of her head. “You’re such a lightweight.”

The music shut off, and several people made their way out onto the deck.

“It’s okay,” Morgan said to the people peering out at Jess standing in her Morning Glory Fun Run T-shirt and bleach-stained shorts. “Ryan got lost.”

“I’m gonna head out,” one girl said, looking at her watch. “Didn’t realize how late it was.”

“No, don’t go yet. We still have to have the championship round of the beer pong tourney,” Morgan said as Ryan stumbled against her.

It was time to go. Jess started creeping down the last five steps. Party looked to be winding down, so maybe she could finally get some sleep.

“Me, too. I got class tomorrow morning,” someone else said. Several others affirmed they had to leave, calling out happy birthday to Ryan, who looked to be falling asleep where he stood.

“Come on, y’all,” Morgan called, trying to steady Ryan. “Ryan wants to play spin the bottle. Seven minutes in heaven. Or naked twister.”

Ryan straightened up and opened his eyes, glancing down to where Jess stood poised to make her escape. “Thanks for getting me this . . . whoops,” he said, grabbing the towel at his waist. “Almost lost it.”

Morgan jerked her gaze to Ryan’s waist. “If everyone’s leaving, you can let it fall, darlin’.” She sounded like she was joking . . . a little.

Ryan frowned, his glazed eyes never leaving Jess. “Thank you.”

Jess waved. “Sure. Good night.”

“’Night, Jess,” Ryan said, stumbling away. Morgan watched him with a look of longing, and Jess could definitely see the lay of the land. Morgan was into Ryan, but he wasn’t into her. Or perhaps he was merely too drunk to appreciate the suggestion.

Jess lifted her hand lamely and then headed back to her house. Out front she could hear car doors opening and closing and people calling out good nights. Of course, they should have called out, “Good morning.” She walked back to her rental and knew she wouldn’t sleep. She was too awake, and after the exertion of helping the birthday boy up half the steps, her heart was pumping. Slipping back into her now blessedly quiet condo, she put on a kettle and found the tea bags she’d purchased earlier. Minutes later she folded her long legs into one of the chairs on the deck and stared out at the bay gently lapping at the sand surrounding it. Almost three miles away, the bay bridge stretched out, lights lining the way to the mainland full of grocery stores and modern conveniences. On the side where her rental sat there were beach shops, small boutiques, and restaurants specializing in shrimp and crab. The bay had its own particular charm.

Lacy would have loved it.

Lacy.

Jess rubbed her face, thinking about her late friend. The woman had been so full of life. She would have gone to that party and made tons of friends within the first hour. With her chubby dimpled cheeks and wholesome charm, she’d automatically seemed like a person’s best friend. Everyone loved Lacy.

Jess missed her friend.

Since junior high Jess, Lacy, Rosemary, and Eden had been the best of friends. They’d gone through the whole bra-fitting thing, getting periods, and crushing on Benton . . . yes, they’d all liked Benton in the eighth grade. They’d struggled through geometry and physics together, traded prom magazines and cheered for the Morning Glory Mavericks, except for Rosemary, who was the editor of
The Bloom
, MGHS’s yearbook. They’d been sisters, linked arm in arm, bound by innocence, wrapped in self-involvement, fresh-scrubbed faces ready to conquer the world. And then life happened. Eden couldn’t go to college, Rosemary opened a store, Jess got married, and Lacy got cancer.

At first they’d thought it would be okay. Lacy was eternally optimistic. They made T-shirts and held races and fund-raisers. There were late-night hospital pajama parties and wig-shopping trips. Lacy smiled through it all, so sure it would be a story she could tell her grandchildren one day, about that time their grammy had cervical cancer and wore blue wigs to embarrass her parents. But it hadn’t happened that way. Lacy’s cancer spread. All over. And nothing worked. Not chemo, not radiation, not the experimental drugs. Finally, Lacy accepted hospice care and waited to die. It broke Jess’s heart, especially since she stood next to a surgeon day in and day out helping to save people.

But this time, Jess could do nothing but watch Lacy waste away.

“Don’t look at me that way, Jess,” Lacy would say. “Like I’m dying.”

“I’m not,” Jess would say, though both she and Lacy knew she lied. Because Lacy was dying. But they wouldn’t talk about it. So as she sat with Lacy, they’d talk about the tramp Benton was dating or about spring fashions or the frickin’ weather. But never about how hollow Lacy’s eyes looked or how gaunt she grew. Somehow it was easier for Jess to be a friend and not a nurse in those moments.

On the day of Lacy’s funeral, she, Rosemary, and Eden had slipped away from the somber reception held at Fulbright’s Funeral Parlor, grief weary and empty of tears, and gathered at their table at the Lazy Frog coffee shop, the place where they’d met almost every day for over ten years. There behind the counter, Lacy had left them a gift—a cheerfully wrapped box containing Lacy’s treasured travel charm bracelet along with letters and money for each friend. In each letter she encouraged her friends to do what she could no longer do—live out a dream, have an adventure, be bold—and then buy a charm to represent what they’d done. Once the bracelet was complete, they were to gift it to someone who needed hope. Something about the hokey gesture struck Jess.

One of Lacy’s favorite movies had been
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
, so it didn’t surprise Jess that her late friend would do something similar, directing it from, as she called it, “the great beyond.” She knew they wouldn’t refuse her request. In fact, Rosemary had already attached her charm. The Empire State Building charm was a fresh reminder that good things could happen. Rosemary was now engaged to Sal, who was set to open Sal’s New York Pizza in Morning Glory the last week in September. Lacy’s first mission had been accomplished.

The charm bracelet sat in its paisley ditty bag in Jess’s makeup case, waiting for Jess’s turn. Jess hoped renting a house on the beach counted. It had been something she’d always dreamed about but never had a hope of accomplishing. Benton had been set on staying in Morning Glory and professed to hate the beach. But Jess loved the waves washing over her feet and the splendid sunsets sinking into the waters.

Somehow she didn’t think using the money to rent a beach house would be enough. Lacy would want her to find more, discover a strength she’d never known, heal . . . move on. In the letter she’d written, Lacy had reminded her friend that she was her own person, strong and courageous. Her failed marriage didn’t define her, and Benton being an asshole (yes, Lacy had actually said a bad word) hadn’t anything to do with any shortcomings of Jess. Her friend’s last words had brought fresh tears and somehow a conviction that Jess wouldn’t be content to be a victim. She’d find a bigger purpose, starting with living where the ocean could splash on her legs.

Staring out at the dark water and sipping the warm tea, Jess wondered what that purpose could possibly be. If Rosemary had found love, would Jess find herself again? Because love seemed unlikely at this point. She wasn’t ready to risk her heart. But she did want more than existing in Morning Glory.

Question was, did life care what she was ready for?

Chapter Four

Ryan woke with a foul taste in his mouth and a strange towel wrapped about his waist. Beneath the pink flamingos and bright-green palm trees, he was naked. Blinking, he looked around. He was on Morgan’s couch, and if the streaming sunlight was any indication, it was midmorning. Maybe close to noon.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Morgan said from the galley kitchen. “Thought you’d never wake up. Coffee?”

He clutched the towel and sat up, wiping the sleep from his eyes. His stomach rolled from the colossal amount of booze he’d consumed, and an army of hammers tapped away inside his skull. “Ugh.”

“Tell me about it,” Morgan said, wearing a T-shirt that barely covered her silk-clad rump. The bright-blue panties left little to the imagination, and he figured she’d designed it that way. She looked like the girl next door with naughtiness on her agenda, which was usually irresistible to him, but he’d drawn that line two months ago. A pair of blue undies wouldn’t make him change his mind. When he settled on friendship, he settled on friendship. Done deal.

Ryan grunted and made sure his junk wasn’t hanging out.

“I made some cheesy eggs because it was the only thing that sounded good to me. You’re welcome to some.” She lifted onto her toes and snagged a ceramic mug, setting it on the counter.

Ryan scratched his head, feeling the grit of sand against his scalp, and the antics from last night came roaring back. He’d thrown his clothes in the surf and howled at the moon. And a girl had been there. Black hair and big tits. She’d called him crazy and kissed him in the spray of the surf. There had been dancing and more tequila shots and talk of constellations. And then . . . Jess?

Jess Culpepper.

He’d not thought about her in forever, but somehow she’d been in his dreams last night. Or maybe she’d been real. But that couldn’t be right. Jess was in Morning Glory, married to Super Jock. The last time he’d talked to his mother, she’d said Jess was painting a nursery, but, of course, that had been a while ago. Still, she had to be a figment of his imagination. Except she’d been so real. And she’d kicked him in the ribs. Had he tried to kiss her? He couldn’t remember. It was like watermarks smudging his memory, running everything together.

He probably shouldn’t have funneled the beer.

“I’m going to take a rain check, Morgan. I feel like something vomited me up. I need a shower and my own bed,” he said, rising from the couch, his neck stiff from an unnatural position.

“You sure?” she said, turning toward him. She held her shoulders back so the snug T-shirt stretched across her breasts. Dark hair spilled around her pretty face, and damned if her lips didn’t look freshly glossed. “I make good eggs.”

“Uh, yeah, I need a shower.” He stood, clutching the towel, wondering how he’d get home without his clothes. He could wear the towel home, he supposed.

“We do have a shower here,” she teased, her gaze running down to where he likely still sported a slight morning erection.

He’d wear the towel. “No worries. But thanks for the party. It, obviously, was too much fun.”

Morgan shrugged. “There’s no such thing, Ry. I’ll see you later?”

“Sure. Salty Gull?”

“Maybe. Though I do owe Luke Simmons a game.”

Ryan knew what she was trying to do—use Luke to make him jealous. Luke was a bud of Ryan’s, and the golf pro had been after Morgan ever since Ryan had introduced him to her at Peg Leg Pete’s. Luke was a good guy, not necessarily ready to settle down with anyone, but definitely looking for a relationship. Or at least that’s what he’d told Ryan one night when they’d sipped too much scotch. Luke had said he was lonely.

Ryan had scoffed at the thought, mostly because he liked being by himself. Having been raised by two parents who abhorred pedantic small talk or excessive noise, he relished the solitude of his own place, being alone in his boat on the water and—note to Morgan—showering by himself. Case in point, he moved toward the door that would take him back to his own condo. “I’ll look for you.”

Morgan stared at him, twisting her lips. “Where’d you get that towel? It’s cute but not mine.”

He looked down at it. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, it’s probably my new neighbor’s. She helped you up the steps . . . before she totally shut the party down.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes.

“I’ll take it back to her later. Thanks.” He slipped out the double doors into the hot Florida sunshine. It was midmorning, according to the sun’s position, and the world bustled around him. Plenty of vacationers frolicking on the bay side, screeching kids and a yellow lab galloping over the sand, tennis ball in mouth. The units in Del Luna were at the end of the busy beach highway near the national seashore, so it was a relatively peaceful area, but in the summer it was still moving. When Ryan had first bought the condo, he thought he’d hate summer here, with its minivan loads of tourists. But something about the brightly colored beach balls rolling past with sun-kissed kids chasing them, parents strolling with frosty drinks in hand was . . . homey? Or something like that.

He made it to his deck and stomped up the steps, shaking the sand from his feet. No one had looked askance at him, strolling with a towel about his waist, even if it was a girly beach towel. Morgan had said her neighbor had helped him up the steps. He squinted his eyes and tried to remember. Curly dark hair? Wide mouth like Julia Roberts? Maybe that’s why he’d thought of Jess, his former Morning Glory High chemistry lab partner.

He ran a hand along his ribs. The woman had kicked him. But not hard. No bruise. What had he done to deserve it?

Ryan knew he hadn’t tried to take advantage. His parents might have been weird, but they were moral and had instilled manners in him. Her scent came back to him. She’d smelled soft, like baby powder, and her skin had been silky. Oh God, had he sniffed her or something?

He couldn’t remember, but he probably owed her an apology and a thank-you for loaning him a towel.

Pulling the key from its hiding spot within the old iron sea bell, he unlocked his French doors and stepped inside the dim coolness of his place. He’d gone with gray and black, which seemed contrary to the beach outside his window but suited his personal aesthetics of cool, modern, and acceptable to women who might come home with him. His decorator had tried like hell to bring pops of color—whatever that meant—to his world, but he’d waved the red pillows and blue rug away. Yeah, he’d never thought he’d do something as asinine as hiring a decorator, but before he’d moved to Florida, he’d papered his California apartment with posters of
Star Trek
and whiteboards full of notes on cellular membrane attachment. His unmatching furniture and action figure collection weren’t exactly screaming
hot, young, available dude
, so he’d written the check to Helen Fabrizzo, interior decorator, to make the new place in Del Luna more socially acceptable.

Sometimes he missed his nerdy world.

But not enough to give up the boat, the gym, the casual sex, and the new man he was. Maybe it was shallow, but he didn’t care. He’d missed his entire self-involved adolescence. No groping in dark movie theaters with a bubble-gummed fourteen-year-old girl trying to score a first kiss. No homecoming . . . or prom . . . or graduation party. No hanging with his buds. Or drinking and puking up his first six-pack. No warm, fuzzy memories of high school.

Or college.

Or anything other than lab coats, graphing calculators, and copious note taking through mind-numbing lectures. His world had been white, austere, unpainted for years upon years. And then, one day, he said enough.

And he quit his world and traded it for the life he had now.

Shutting the door, he dropped the towel. Then turned and looked at it. Because he wanted to pick it up and not leave it lying on the floor. He made himself walk away, padding naked into the kitchen. Then he forced himself to unscrew the lid of the 2 percent milk and drink from the carton. He even scratched his balls while doing so. Because he was a man. A regular dude. Not a genius. Just a dude.

Shutting the fridge, he looked over at the pink-and-green towel. It looked like a tourist casualty against the black-and-charcoal rug. Too out of place. He picked it up and took it to the laundry room. Choosing unscented detergent, he tossed it in with the soft gray towels he’d placed in the laundry basket yesterday. He didn’t like doing laundry naked, but he did it. Because a regular guy didn’t care. They liked being unclothed and wearing things like flannel shirts untucked. They farted, belched, and did disgusting things like trim their toenails on the bathroom rug, not bothering to pick up the trimmings. He knew this only because his freshman year at Stanford, he’d ended up misplaced in the athletic dorm for a week and had lived with Sherman Hilliard, an all-American running back who could have used some instruction on personal hygiene. Ryan had existed in a corner of the room, breathing through his mouth most the time, until the dean of engineering (personal friend of his parents) could get things straight with housing. Ryan had been suitably traumatized by Big Sherm and his profusely sweaty bros. But the upside was he’d learned how guys rolled. A bit disgusting but now useful for his new role as a dude.

He was a dude. Not a nerd. Or a dweeb. Or a geek.

Dude.

Gym time assured his body was similar to those guys modeling underwear and cologne in magazines. Owning a big boat and hooking big fish gave him street cred. Or was that marina cred? Drinking beer and shooting pool ensured he seemed normal . . . even if he kept a mental tab of pocket accuracy, which, by the way, was up to 83 percent thanks to watching YouTube videos posted by pool sharks. His collection of
Mystery Science Theater 3000
and
Dr. Who
videos were well hidden beneath titles like
Bull Durham
and
Rocky
. Although to be honest, he’d never made it all the way through
Bull Durham
, probably because of the trauma he’d suffered at the hands of Morning Glory High School’s all-district catcher Bruce “The Goose” Mahoney and his all-state pitcher bud Benton Mason. Everyone loved Goose and Benton because they could crush beer cans with their heads, charm teachers with Jim Carrey impressions, and lock dorks in the storage closet. ’Cause that was cute. Except when Goose and Benton forgot to let the dweeb out of the gym storage closet. Ryan had spent five hours inside hyperventilating because he was seriously claustrophobic before he pissed on himself and passed out. Yeah. Good reason not to like baseball movies. But
Rocky
was okay.

Some would call him a poser, but he wasn’t. Not really. He liked his boat and fishing. Loved beer. And the women? Well, he really liked them. When he’d left his old life in the lab at Caltech, he’d slept with only one woman. The results had been disastrous, because for male virgins the amount of time actually spent in the vagina is usually infinitesimal. And Sarah, who had proposed having sex as a way to alleviate the stress of waiting for the results of the variable test group, hadn’t seemed too impressed. He’d half expected her to fetch a notebook from the pocket of her lab coat and plug in the minute amount of time it had taken Ryan to achieve orgasm. So once he’d decided to leave nerddom behind, he’d purchased every book on tantric sex he could find, along with the
Kama Sutra
, not to mention books that relayed what women really wanted in a man outside the bedroom—confidence, charm, and decisiveness. He had to be the whole package.

And it had worked.

Ryan pressed the button on the washer and walked toward his bathroom and the massaging shower he needed after a night on Morgan’s couch. He had no charters today and would need to run some errands. And he needed to return the freshly laundered towel and give an apology to the woman who’d rented the Dirty Heron. Since she had the Julia Roberts thing going, maybe he’d take some apology flowers. Or maybe that would be too trite. Wine? No, too forward. Maybe something clever like a bottle of sunscreen or some funny sunglasses to welcome her to the beach community. Or not. Maybe just a clean towel and a sincere apology.

Turning on the shower, Ryan stepped inside. After hydrating himself and popping some aspirin, he’d be good to go. Another day in paradise being a regular guy.