With Strings Attached (14 page)

“I’m sorry you got hurt,” she said. “I heard that too.”

“You did, huh?” He looked down at his booted foot. “I actually just came from the physical therapy clinic down the street. It’s healing well. I don’t even need these any more.” He indicated the crutches.

“Oh. Who did you see there?” She moved away to pour his coffee.

“Mallory.”

“She’s a great therapist.”

Dylan turned as someone else spoke up and saw another girl sitting at a high counter running along the sunny window. In fact, there were a number of women sitting there and at a couple of tables in the small shop, and apparently all of them were listening to his conversation with Neve.

The girl with short spiky blonde hair who’d spoken to him continued. “My sister and I have had lots of injuries over the years and we always go to her. She’ll get you fixed up in no time.”

“Oh. Great.” He paid for his coffee and accepted the cup from Neve.

“How’d you hurt your foot?” the little blonde asked.

“Surfing.” He looked around. Should he take a seat at the counter? Or at a table by himself?

“Oh, hey, no kidding.”

“Dylan, this is Bella Chesley,” Neve introduced them. “She and her sister run a surf shop at the beach. Bella, this is Dylan Schell.”

Bella’s eyes grew round. “Dylan Schell? Holy crap!”

He blinked. He wasn’t that famous. Yet. “Yup, that’s me.”

“Oh, man I can’t believe it!” Bella stood and extended a hand. “So good to meet you! I remember watching you surf when I was a kid.”

“I’m not that old,” he muttered, shaking her hand.

“I didn’t mean you’re old,” Bella said with a wink. “I think you’re only a few years older than me. But I do remember watching you in local surf competitions when I was a teenager. You were really good.”

“I still am.”

She laughed and turned to the woman sitting beside her at the counter. “This is my friend, Mairin Shaw.”

“Hi, Mairin.” He lowered himself to a chair at an empty table only about a foot away from the stools the two women were sitting on.

“Hi.”

Mairin was another redhead, but her curly hair was loose around her face. Unlike her friend, who wore shorts and a tank top, she was dressed in a buttoned-up business suit.

“So you have a surf shop,” he said to Bella. “I guess that means you surf.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “I would have loved to compete, but I wasn’t good enough. So my sister and I opened the shop. Surf Sisters: Swim, Surf, Sun.”

“Cool.” He smiled at the name.

“We give lessons and we sell boards and clothes and all kinds of stuff.” She eyed him. “It would be so cool if you’d come to the store some time. Lots of our kids would love to meet you.”

His gut tightened. “Yeah. Well. Maybe sometime.”

“How about this weekend?”

He’d hoped to get off with a noncommittal answer. “Well…I suppose.”

“Leave the guy alone, Bella,” Mairin said. “He’s injured. He’s recuperating.”

He looked at Mairin. She didn’t seem as impressed to meet him as her friend.

“I don’t mind,” he said to Bella, though he was still looking at Mairin. “I can come. Not much else going on right now.” He sipped his coffee. “Wish I could get back in the water, though.”
Yeah, right.

“Oh just showing up at one of our lessons would give the kids a thrill. That would be awesome! Here’s my card.”

“Maybe I’ll come by too,” Neve said.

“Great,” Dylan said. “I was thinking I’d drag Matt along.”

Her smile vanished. “In that case, never mind.”

“Big brother pissing you off these days?”

“Hasn’t he always?” She sighed dramatically from behind the counter. “He’s such a pain in the ass.”

“He cares about you.”

She made a rude noise and rolled her eyes.

“Seriously,” he said. “He’s always looked out for you.”

“I’m twenty-seven years old. I don’t need big brother butting into my life anymore.”

“He cares about you,” Dylan repeated.

Neve sighed. “Yeah. I know.”

Dylan wasn’t sure why he was jumping into that family feud. What was it about families? Corey’s dad calling out of the blue. Matt’s sister all pissed at him just because he tried to look after her. Matt all bent out of shape because his mom was dating. Dylan didn’t miss his mom and dad and all the drama between them one bit.

“So you earn your living surfing?” Mairin said to him.

“Yep.” He grinned at her, putting all his charm into the smile. She didn’t smile back.

“That seems…” Her voice trailed off.

“What?” His spine stiffened.

“Never mind.”

“No, what?”

“Well, surfing…it’s not very serious.”

“Serious?” He almost laughed. “Well, I guess it depends how you look at it. If you’re someone who thinks professional athletes who play a game for a living aren’t serious, then true enough. On the other hand, most professional athletes work hard at their sport and take it pretty damn seriously.”

He watched Bella look back and forth between him and Mairin with a little crease between her eyebrows. “Surfing’s a serious sport,” she said to Mairin.

“Uh-huh.” Mairin slid off her stool and picked up her purse from the counter. “Well, I have a real job that I have to get back to. Coffee break’s over. See you all later. Nice to meet you, Dylan.” She strode out of the coffee shop in a pair of killer high heels. He couldn’t help but notice that she had awesome legs, the skirt of her suit ending just above her knees. But what a bitch.

He looked at Bella. “Let me guess. She’s a doctor and spends her days saving lives.”

She laughed. “No. She’s a financial planner. She spends her days making buckets of money for rich people. And for herself. Sorry about that. I’m sure she didn’t mean any offense.”

“No worries.” He’d heard it before, for sure. When he was on the tour, the beach bunnies were never critical, but yeah, other times he’d heard it. Maybe surfing wasn’t something that was going to change the world, or save lives. But the truth was, it was the only thing he’d ever been any good at in life. So hell yeah, it was serious. He just hoped he was actually going to be able to do it again.

“So you’re a surfer,” said another girl as she joined him at his table. She swept long blonde hair off her face and gave him a flirty smile. “That’s so cool.”

Okay, there was
one
other thing he was good at. He winked at the blonde.

Chapter Nine

Dylan wasn’t there when Matt got home early that evening. Huh. Dylan had said he was going to try to see a physical therapist, but Matt would’ve thought he’d be back by then. The only reason Matt had come home so early was because Dylan was staying with him. Usually he worked late, hung out at the brew pub, grabbed something to eat there.

Well, he was hungry, anyway, so he opened the fridge and stuck his head in. Man. He needed to do some shopping. He was seriously low on food. Other than beer.

A knock on his back door to the deck almost made him bang his head on a fridge shelf. He started and reared back. Dylan wouldn’t knock…he turned and saw Mrs. Kedding from next door at the window. She held a big covered dish in her hands.

He opened the door. “Hi, Mrs. K.”

“Hello, Matt. How are you?”

“Great. I’m about to make dinner.” The most amazing smell was coming from the dish in her hands, making his stomach rumble. He eyed it with interest.

She held out the dish. “Here. I made lasagna.”

His eyes widened as he took it from her. “Lasagna? Awesome! You make the best lasagna.”

She smiled, her face creasing up into beautiful wrinkles, her white hair as usual standing on end around her head. “Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you for helping me with my tap yesterday. And for fixing my garage door last week. And all the other things you do for me.”

“You didn’t have to do that.” But damn, he was starving and he loved her lasagna.

“I know. But I wanted to.”

“Well, thank you.”

“Enjoy.”

The casserole was still warm and he peeled back the foil covering it to release a small cloud of garlic, basil and tomato-scented steam. He inhaled. “Ah.”

The front door opened and closed and heavy steps came down the short hall. Dylan.

“Hey,” Matt said over his shoulder as he dug a knife out of a drawer. “Where’ve you been?”

“Who’re you, my mother?” Dylan’s voice held an edge, though the words sounded like he meant them to be a joke.

Matt glanced at him, the knife in his hand. “No. Just asking,” he said mildly. “Hungry? I’m just having dinner.”

“What’s this?” Dylan lifted the tinfoil covering Mrs. K’s casserole. “Hey. Lasagna. You made this?”

“Ha. No. Mrs. Kedding brought it over.”

“Nice of her.” Dylan grabbed two plates from the cupboard while Matt cut into the pasta. “I went to see a physical therapist today,” he said. “Going back Wednesday and Friday. Don’t need the crutches any more.”

“Hey, that’s good! Must be healing up.”

“Yeah, she says so. She’s gonna start me working out to get some strength back.”

“That’s great.”

“Yeah. After, I went and checked out the gym she sent me to.” He rolled his shoulders and turned his head. “Decided I might as well work out while I was there.”

They sat at the small table to eat.

“Did she say when you can start surfing again?”

Dylan looked down at his plate. “No. But should only be a couple more weeks. We’ll see how I do with the exercises, I guess. And I have to see a doctor again to get more x-rays taken.”

Matt nodded. Dylan didn’t seem too happy about any of this. Once again, it seemed Dylan wasn’t quite himself. He wouldn’t be keeping bad news to himself, would he? Had the therapist told him something was wrong? “So it’s all good?” he asked Dylan cautiously. “You will get better?”

Dylan laughed. “You worried I’ll stick around longer than I said?”

“No, man.” Matt paused. “I’m worried about you.”

Dylan’s eyebrows rose. “Worried? About me? Aw.”

Matt pressed his lips together. Maybe something else was bugging Dylan. Was it last night? Matt looked down at his plate of pasta. Should he say something? He and Dylan had been friends for years, but they’d never done anything like that before. A sizzling image of fucking Corey up against the wall in her apartment earlier that day flashed into his mind. What was he supposed to say to Dylan about
that
?

“So.” He poked at a noodle with his fork.

“Hey,” Dylan said, breaking the slightly awkward silence. “I saw your sister today.”

“Which one? Jenna or Neve?”

“Neve. I went into a little coffee shop near the physical therapy clinic and she was working there.”

Matt sighed. “Oh yeah. Working in a coffee shop. Christ, she’s twenty-seven years old. She needs to figure out what she’s doing with her life.”

Dylan pursed his lips. “Uh. Yeah. What’s wrong with working in a coffee shop?”

“That’s not a career,” Matt said. “It’s a job. It’s what teenagers do part-time when they’re going to school. She probably makes minimum wage, for Chrissake. She can’t do that for the rest of her life.”

Dylan tipped his head and sat back in his chair. “Some might say my job’s not a career.”

“You’re a pro athlete,” Matt said, frowning. “It’s not the same.”

“Some other chick in the coffee shop tried to tell me surfing’s lame.”

Matt lowered his chin. “Who was that?”

“I don’t know. I got talking with some girl who runs a surf shop. She was having coffee with her. Mairin somebody.”

“Oh, yeah, Mairin Shaw. She’s my investment broker. And that must’ve been one of the surf sisters.” Trust Dylan to hook up with a bunch of girls.

“Yeah.” Dylan grinned briefly, then frowned. “Bella. She wants me to come by her shop on the weekend. She says her students would get a kick out of meeting me.”

“Hey, that’s cool.” He looked at Dylan. “Or…not. What’s going on, man?”

“Nothing.”

Matt studied Dylan. For a guy who’d just ditched crutches and was on his way to recovery, he didn’t seem very happy.

“How was your day?” Dylan asked.

“Good.” Another memory of those hot kisses with Corey sizzled through his mind. “I fixed Corey’s car.”

“Oh yeah. Shiz, I forgot all about that. That’s good.”

Matt nodded. He ate the last bite of lasagna on his plate and leaned back in his chair. “Listen, bud. About last night.”

Dylan lifted an eyebrow. And smiled. “Yeah?”

Now Matt wasn’t sure what to say next. “That was hot.”

“Hell yeah. Listen. I’m gonna call Corey and see if she wants to go out with me sometime.”

Matt’s insides went icy cold. He kept his face bland. “Oh, yeah?”

Dylan grinned. “You heard her last night. She wants us both.”