Page 79 of Tulips and Lost Time

TOO MUCH DAMAGE

“It hurts!” Jess presses her palm to her chest and swipes beneath her eye with the other hand. “Oh my gosh, Luc! I asked for an air conditioner that day. Not a broken heart.”

“Lucky for you,” I chuckle, soft and sad and still, so filled with regret all these years later. “You didn’t know about all this back then. Your biggest concern at the time was getting a job, getting your degree, and not melting into the carpet.”

“It was bad carpet,” she snickers. “Pretty sure we all caught fleas from that place.”

Surprised, Kane pulls back and re-examines the high maintenance, Louboutin wearing, Lawyer-Barbie he married through fresh eyes. “Fleas, Blondie? Really?”

“You made gross assumptions about me,” she giggles. “Horrible, judgy assumptions about my economic stance. And you wouldn’t have believed the flea thing even if I told you.”

“No shit, Ms. Fancy! You were white girl broke, huh?”

She curls back into his chest and laughs. “Rich with personality.”

“And sass,” he adds. “Then you went ahead and birthed two more sass-butts who cost me a fortune.”

“Can we talk about me and Kari now?” I firm my lips and wait for the pair to focus on me once more. “This is my story, not yours.”

“Yours hurts,” Jess grumbles. “And it’s taking a really long time.”

I look straight past her to Kane, eyeing him in that, ‘see the shit I have to deal with?’ kind of way. In response, he wraps his arm around her neck and presses his tatted hand over her mouth.

It would be kind of funny, if not for the way she grunts and the lance of ick that races through my stomach.

“So Kari was still in love with you?” he prompts. “She basically admitted it. But she was hurt because of what you and Britt did.”

“In a nutshell, yeah. That’s about everything.”

“And setting the obvious aside,” he drops his gaze to the sleeping baby in my arms, “since we know you eventually end up together, where did you go next? What did you do to convince her to give you guys a go?”

“I annoyed her until she cracked.”

“Oh, hey there, Bear.” I wander along the rotting dock stretching across the lake, making sure to lift my feet, since dragging them would result with a splinter the size of a tree branch and tetanus threatening the future of my limb… and my life.

I beam when Kari’s mind registers my voice. And thrill when she sits up from her lounging posture in an itty bitty orange bikini. Her skin is reddening, and her freckles are on fire. But who am I to preach sun safety when it’s a hundred degrees out?

“You could give yourself melanoma, dummy.”

Oops. Nope. There it goes.

“You’re gonna hate your life when you go home tonight, lobster-red and in pain.”

“I’ve been out here about thirty-three seconds.” She flops back again with a huff, dropping to her towel with a grunt and draping her arm over her face to shield it from the sun. With her free hand, she blindly searches, searches, searches until she finds a tube of sun lotion. “And I’m wearing SPF 50. You can leave now.”

“I would,” I tsk in the side of my mouth, “but it’s hot out, and I could really do with a swim. I only have today and tomorrow off work, then I’m on afternoon shift, and after that, nights. Which is never all that much fun. As a result,” I chuckle when she lowers her shielding arm and glares at me through the gap, “I really value my downtime. It’s a happy coincidence that you’re here, too. And in such a…” I purse my lips, “lovely outfit.”

“Good to see you value consent and general decency.” She drags the end of her towel up and over the top of her head, using the fabric to cover her eyes. “I asked you to leave me alone, and yet, here you are, not only bothering me, but you’re commenting on my clothes as though the fabric I wear somehow invites a man into my personal space. I feel as though I was exceptionally prodigious in recent conversations in convincing you that your presence was not desired.”

“Cute.” I set my hands on my hips and stand over her lithe body, shielding her from the sun. “Did you study the entire thesaurus while you were at school, or do you receive word of the day emails like the rest of us?”

She purses her lips. Pissed, and trying with every scrap of willpower she possesses to not cause a scene. She’s good at what she does. Gifted and practiced in shutting her mouth and locking shit down. So I toss my towel and keys to the dock, the latter landing with a racket. Then I kick my flip-flops off and drag my shirt up.

Because I guess I’m okay with the world burning if Marcus finds us out here together, hardly dressed.

“I feel like you forget I’m the kid who practically adopted the Turners and had two homes. It’s almost as though your extensive absence these past few years has meddled with your memories. I assure you, Bear, I’m gonna squat until you pay attention to me. Then I’ll eat your bread and chips too. Just show me the kitchen.”

“No thanks.” She exhales a heady sigh, her chest shrinking and her stomach emptying until the waistband of her bathing suit lifts off her hipbones. But then she inhales again, her chest and belly growing. “Are you seriously insisting on being here, Luc?” She shifts her towel and peeks up at me. “You’re refusing to leave?”

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