Rebound (7 page)

T
he blender is going on Sunday morning when I step into the kitchen.

Rhett stands beside my brother, dumping protein powder into the glass pitcher by the shovel-full. He wanted ten minutes to go over some changes to this year’s team-building retreat.

We’ve been slammed at the office, and with the Quick Investment team there, I’ve had even less time during the week than normal. Rhett was doing a ten-mile run this morning on Zuma Beach, so I told him to stop by afterward.

Because it’s Rhett, he’s already showered in the guest bath, cleaned up the kitchen and brought in yesterday’s mail and set it on the counter. Brooks—my best friend, ex-roommate, and partner in Blackwood Films—is the same way, totally at home here. Always coming and going. I wonder sometimes why I have locks on the doors.

Rhett shuts the blender off when he sees me.

“Morning, Adam! I thought I’d make you guys some delicious breakfast shakes.”

“Hey, Rhett. Morning.” Grey is leaning on the counter beside him. He has his favorite Union Jack t-shirt on, and he’s in jeans, which he doesn’t wear unless he’s leaving the house or just returning. “Did you just roll in?”

Grey takes down half of his smoothie in two gulps. “About half an hour ago.”

He’s been hitting clubs and bars since he was seventeen. He has a fake ID but, at six foot two, ripped, and inked up, he never gets carded.

“To be young and single again,” Rhett says, but he’s grinning and doesn’t mean a word of it. I’ll be shocked if he and Raylene haven’t tied the knot by this time next year. He grabs glasses for me and him and brings the shakes to the table.

“What are we discussing this morning, gentlemen?” Grey says, in his version of a businessman’s voice. Apparently, in his mind all businessmen have bad British accents.

“The marketing retreat in Jackson Hole,” Rhett replies.

“Which I get to go to this year, correct?” Grey says.

“Wrong,” Rhett and I say together.

“Bloody bollocks!”

“I think ‘bloody hell’ is what you’re going for.”

“Let me bloody hell swear the way I want to, Adam. Okay, please? And all you guys do during that retreat is ski. I’m awesome at that. I should totally go.”

“Believe it or not, it’s a work event,” Rhett says.

“Then that’s the kind of jay-oh-bee I want.”

This could go on all day if I let it. “Guys, I’m on a schedule,” I say, and Rhett shifts right into work gear, filling me in on the location change. Usually, we stay at a resort, but this time we’ll be at a rental home. Still on the resort property, but it’ll give us more privacy
and better common areas. It’s a great idea and I tell him so, but Rhett didn’t need my approval to go forward. He just wanted to talk. The camaraderie retreat in Jackson Hole is his Christmas.

I check my watch, and Grey notices.

“Adam has a boat date with some girl,” he says. “Wait. Rhett—you probably know her. Alison. Is she hot?”

I reach over and smack the back of Grey’s head, which only makes him laugh.

“You’re going boating with Alison Quick?” Rhett asks. He doesn’t sound surprised, which means the office grapevine has been working.

“No,” I say. “I’m going on a social outing with Graham Quick, his wife, and his daughter. It’s relationship-building. So I can earn their trust. So I get the money we need.”

Rhett frowns. “Adam . . . maybe you shouldn’t go.”

“You don’t think I can earn their trust?”

“No. Of course it’s not that. Look, I don’t how to say this but . . .” Rhett casts an anxious glance at Grey. “You don’t exactly
stay
with girls.”

“How is that relevant to boating?”

“It’s relevant to Alison Quick,” he says. “And she’s relevant to Graham Quick. What happens when you move on? What happens to the investment money then?”

“You’re making an awful lot of assumptions, Rhett. Believe it or not, it’s a work event.” As I say this, I think of how many times he walked by my office and saw me and Alison talking—about Boomerang. I spent all day with her last week. But I had to. So what if it turns out I liked it?

“Come on, Adam. I know your type, and she’s—”

“I’m not going to lose this deal. For anything.”

“It’s not that I don’t want you to move on. I do, man. Just pick any other—”

“Did Cookie put you up to this?” I ask before I can stop myself. Rhett and Cookie have never pried this much into my personal life. I mean professional life.

He frowns. “Cookie? No. She didn’t say anything to me. Did she come to you?”

I know I’ve just made him even more nervous about Alison.

“She might have mentioned something. And you’re wrong, Rhett. Alison’s not my type. On the surface, maybe. Other than that, she’s totally different.”

My words hang in the air for a few seconds.

Grey’s eyebrows draw together slightly, a rare seriousness settling in his expression.

“I have to get going,” I say, standing. Mia Galliano is waiting for me. Last night, I asked her to fill in when Julia canceled. Not exactly a date, like I’d told Alison, but Mia will be a great reminder that it’s a work event.

“Okay.” Rhett crosses his arms. “Eye on the prize, Blackwood.”

“Always.” I grab my keys from the hook. Grey gets up and follows me out to the garage. I climb into the Rover and lower the window.

“She’s totally different?” he says, propping his arms on the car.

He wants me to elaborate, but what is there to say? I have no idea what I’m dealing with. I’ve just discovered a new continent. I need some time to get my bearings.

“Okay,” Grey nods. He runs a hand over his forearm. He has full sleeves on both arms. On his left forearm, he has a smaller version of the tattoo on my shoulder. He got it for me. For Chloe. As a tribute.

I know he’s working up the guts to say something else. I wait, hoping he’ll tell me what happened between him and Mom.

“I sang last night.”

“You what?”

“I sang at the club last night. It just happened by accident. I’ve
been hanging out with these guys in a band. Their front man had to go to the hospital yesterday morning for his appendix? It ruptured or something nasty like that, so they called me. They didn’t want to cancel, so I took his place. I only knew a few of their songs, and the rest were covers, but . . .” He shrugs. “I sang.”

It takes me a minute to absorb this. He hasn’t done anything besides surf and party since he moved out here in August, so hearing this stirs something inside me that feels a lot like relief.

I try to imagine it. My little brother with a microphone in his hands. Stage lights. A band behind him. It’s surprisingly easy to
picture,
but I’ve never actually heard him sing. Not even in the car or around the house.

“I didn’t even know you could do that.”

“Neither did I until I got up on stage.” He smiles. “I almost puked I was so nervous.”

“But it was good?”

“Yeah. Adam, it was . . . amazing. They asked me to do it again.”

I hesitate, because I know this is the million-dollar question. Whether he’ll actually lock into it. Grey’s not like me. I go full throttle on everything. No matter what it is, I strive to be the best. But he’s choosy. Few things in this world draw out the best of him. Few things stick. “Will you?”

He pats the car twice and steps back. “You should go.”

I spend half the drive to Mia’s thinking of Grey as a lead singer. The second half, I spend thinking of all the ways Alison is totally different.

How is that possible? I’ve only known the girl a week. Granted, we got a jump on things at the Gallianos, but . . . how?

Man. It’s been such a long time since a girl’s been on my mind like this.

Such a long fucking time since I’ve felt this.

I don’t want it.

I
t’s 11 a.m., and my mom’s on Bloody Mary number three. Which isn’t like her and which does little for her balance as Weston, one of the two people crewing the
Ali Cat,
helps her from dock to deck.

The day is warm, with a light Santa Ana wind blowing in from the northeast to chase away a wispy fog. But my mother’s bundled up as though preparing to spear polar bears in the tundra. Which is funny because Vivian Quick knows how to dress—how to behave—for literally every occasion. It’s like she has a Social Perfection flowchart stored in her brain. Get her on a boat, though, and she’s always a step away from a third-degree sunburn or a first-degree disaster of some kind. It’s a little unnerving, given how placid and even-keeled she usually is.

“I’m going to call Catherine before we’re out of cell phone range,” she tells me.

“Tell her to get her ass here for a visit,” Dad says. But we all know that won’t happen. My sister is busy with her perfect life in Dallas. It’s a miracle if I can get her to return a text.

I find myself wondering what Adam will think of my parents. I shouldn’t care. It doesn’t matter. But watching my mother weave off to the galley makes me feel anxious and vulnerable, like someone’s peeled away a few layers of my skin to expose all my nerves.

I guess that someone is Adam. I shouldn’t want him as much as I do. I shouldn’t want this deal to go through so I’ll have an excuse to see more of him. I should want it for the family, to prove to my father that I’m capable of taking the helm. Not because some fanciful recess of my mind wants a replay of Halloween night, when our bodies fit together like two pieces of a whole, when his body, his strong, warm hands, his smile, and the depth beneath all of it drove me to a place I’d never been before, made me feel wild and so absolutely, perfectly,
right
.

My father leaps aboard and gives Weston a slap on the back that practically sends him into the ocean. “Looking good,” he pronounces after casting a sharp-eyed gaze around the deck. The sleek lines of reddish teak and white fiberglass gleam in the sunlight. Every surface glitters; every cushion and container fits perfectly in place.

As always, I feel the anticipation of movement, the power of the engines rumbling beneath my canvas boat shoes. Right away, I perch on a chair to pull them off so I can run my bare feet over the sun-warmed wooden deck. I love that feeling.

Usually, I’d be in the kitchen, helping Sandra, Weston’s wife, prepare snacks or blend up pitchers of frothy daiquiris. Or I’d be in the tiny cavelike game room, pulling waterlogged paperbacks from
the shelves to curl up with when I get tired of snorkeling. But today, I’m meant to be front and center to await our guests. Adam and some girl. Julia.

I get why he’s bringing her. To remind us both that this is business, a social exchange between two potential partners. I thought of bringing someone too, as I said I might do, but my father nixed that, told me to keep focused on Adam, on business.

God, won’t this be fun?

“Supposed to be choppy out there,” my father says, plopping down next to me. “Can’t wait to watch your mother handle six-foot swells. Especially if she keeps going the way she is.”

“You might not want to go that way yourself,” I say, glancing down at the tumbler filled with ice and bourbon in his hands.

He grins and lifts it to his lips. The ice clinks against his teeth, and the sound makes my shoulders tense.

“Don’t worry. I won’t get sloppy. Trust me.”

That phrase: Trust me. Especially from him. I can’t think about that. I want to trust. And I want to be someone who never damaged another person’s trust.

I get up, needing to expel my nervous energy, and go in search of something to do while I wait. At this point, I’d swim under the boat to scrape barnacles off the hull if it meant fast-forwarding through the awkward face-to-face with Adam’s date, the stilted introductions, the casting off into a day where every hour will feel like it’s made of six thousand minutes.

I’m about to head down the stairs to the accommodations deck in search of sunscreen, when my father gives a sharp whistle.

“They’re here,” he says. “Look alive, Alison.”

My stomach does a hard tumble when I follow his gaze down the long dock to see Adam coming toward us. It’s not him, though, not this time. It’s the girl walking beside him.

Not some mystery date but
Mia
.

He’s brought Mia with him. To join us on my parents’ boat, for an entire day.

Mia with her wild curls. Her famous mother. Her ease with seemingly every single thing.

I know she can’t really be his date, so why is she here? And has she told him about Ethan and me? Is this some kind of weird power play?

That doesn’t seem like Adam. He’s not a game player. He’s direct and goes for what he wants.

And then he’s in front of me, wearing jeans and a slate-colored linen shirt that stirs in the ocean breeze. His smile is open and genuine, so beautiful. Deep crinkles bracket his thoughtful gray eyes as he looks up at us, into the sunlight.

“Beautiful vessel,” he says to my father. His expression is so good-natured and boyish that I know this is just a coincidence, not strategy. I still don’t know what she’s told him. And I still don’t know how I’m going to handle a day at sea with her, but my shoulders drop a fraction of an inch, and I smile at them both.

“Come on aboard,” my dad says.

Adam helps Mia onto the short boarding ladder, and my father rushes forward to help her onto the boat. Vaguely, I’m aware of Adam handing off his gear to Weston, along with a bottle of champagne, which earns a distracted smile of approval from my father as his eyes are elsewhere.

“Who have we here?” he says, taking Mia’s hand.

Adam steps onto the deck. “Graham, I’d like you to meet Mia Galliano.”

“I can see why you’d want to bring her along.” My father doesn’t let go of her hands. I feel my face warm. “I wouldn’t let her out of my sight either.”

“Oh, no,” Mia protests. Pink spreads over her olive skin. “I’m just . . . I’m an employee. Thanks for having me along, Mr. Quick.”
She looks at me, and it’s plain from her discomfort that there’s nothing spiteful about her appearance here today.

Finally, my father lets go. “Glad to have you.”

“Mia’s in marketing now,” Adam says. “But she’s a filmmaker. She’ll bring a lot of great ideas and creative energy to the new studio.”

“Oh, we’re not talking business already, are we?” my mother says, sweeping out into the sunlight. “Why don’t we get comfy at the front of the ship?”

“The bow, Vivian,” my father says and rolls his eyes toward Adam, inviting his participation.

But Adam just smiles. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Mrs. Quick,” he says, and shakes her hand. “I read that you’re chairing a fundraiser over at LACMA. I’d love to get involved in some way.”

“Oh, wonderful,” my mother says. “We’d love your help.” And her besotted expression tells me she’s sold. Of course, she’s easily charmed. Something my father has been banking on for years.

My mother leads the group away, leaving just Adam and me for a moment.

“You look like you belong on a boat,” he says. “Or in the water. Like a mermaid.”

I don’t know why, but this surprises me. Maybe because it feels so personal. Or because it suggests he sees so much.

The sun feels warmer, baking me in my skin. I want to tell him he looks like he belongs everywhere, like he was born to rule the world. But of course I don’t.

If we were only bodies, everything would be simple. I’d drag him off into a cabin and bolt the door, finish what we started on Halloween night.

But we’re not. Our bodies had their moment. Now it’s time to use my head.

I give Adam a smile. “Come on,” I say. “Let’s join the others.”