Page 26 of Sweet Chaos
“I think… if it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have survived,” Remy told me. “You picked me up when I didn’t want to go on anymore. You fought for me. You were my strength and you were always there. You had my back and you kicked me in the ass when I needed it.”
I didn’t deserve that kind of credit. I wasn’t there for her when she needed me most. She lost Shane, and he lost everything—his reputation, his pro surfing career, the time he could have spent with his father who was dying of a brain tumor. Every-fucking-thing. All because I wasn’t there for Remy like I’d promised. If I had taken care of Tristan Hart back in high school when he was bullying Remy, Shane never would have gone to prison for manslaughter, and Remy wouldn’t have had to spend seven years being heartbroken. But like so many other things in my life, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it now.
Bowing my head, I rubbed the back of my neck, so she couldn’t see my face. I didn’t want to talk about any of this.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Remy said. When we were kids, we had twin telepathy. Sometimes, like now, we still had it. She knew exactly what I was thinking about.
“What’s done is done.” I’d always carry that guilt, and there was nothing Remy could say to make it go away, but she didn’t need to be saddled with my mistakes and regrets. Especially not when she was expecting a baby and she and Shane had found their way back to each other.
“You saved me from Russell.”
Another thing I didn’t want to talk about. Another shitty memory to add to the collection. Tripping down memory lane was not my idea of a good time. I’d become a pro at shoving all those memories deep down inside and not shedding any light on them and that’s how I wanted them to stay. Buried. “Like I said, don’t worry about Mom. I don’t tell her shit about your life and she knows not to contact you.”
“Love you.”
“Ditto,” I said gruffly as I heard the front door open. Seconds later, Shane joined us in the kitchen. I tipped my beer at him in greeting before I took a long pull. My words were in short supply, and he was mostly used to it by now.
“Hello lover.” Remy smiled at Shane like he put the moon and stars in the sky. Their love was like nothing I’d ever seen or experienced before. I doubted that anyone would ever love me the way they loved each other. But it made me happy that Remy had found a man who deserved her.
“Hello trouble.” Shane wrapped his arms around her from behind and kissed the side of her neck then pinned his gaze on me. “When were you planning to tell us that you bought a hotel?”
“What?” Remy shouted. “Oh my god, you never tell me anything. You bought a hotel? What the hell, Dylan?”
I shrugged. “Are we putting that baby furniture together or what?” I was halfway out the door when Remy grabbed my arm and hauled me back.
“Pretty quick reflexes for a double-wide.”
She wasn’t amused. When I turned to face them, I was met with matching looks of accusation. Shane and Remy looked nothing alike. He had dirty blond hair and the quintessential surfer dude look. She was dark-haired and exotic-looking. But they were so in sync that even their facial expressions had become mirror images.Synchronicity. “It’s not public knowledge yet. Just keep it to yourselves for now.”
“Since I didn’t even know about it, that shouldn’t be hard,” Remy fumed. She planted her hands on her hips. “Which hotel?”
“The Surf Lodge.”
Remy’s jaw dropped, and she tipped her head back to look up at Shane who was standing behind her, his hand splayed across her pregnant belly. “Isn’t that where your parents were married?”
“Yeah, it is.” He huffed out a laugh. “How did you get Whitaker to sell it to you?”
“No idea. I was just my charming self.”
That made Shane laugh. Har har har. A little louder than necessary. “He sold it to me when I told him I was close with Jimmy,” I admitted. “And when I told him I wanted to turn it into a surf hostel instead of bulldozing it and building an expensive boutique hotel, he was all in.”
“Well, shit. You’d do that?” Shane looked amazed that I’d even consider it.
I shrugged. “I thought you might want to have some input. Since you stayed in a lot of surf hostels. I was thinking of doing team rooms. Get the Firefly Surfboards name out there.”
Shane was silent a beat, processing the information. “Why didn’t you tell us about this? Why did I have to find out from Cal Whitaker?”
I rubbed the back of my neck, not sure what to say, other than I would have told him eventually.
Shane shook his head. “You’re a pain in the ass. Whether you like it or not, we’re family. When are you going to start trusting me?”
I trusted him as much as I trusted Remy which was one hundred percent, but I’d spent the better part of my life not confiding in anyone. Shit like that didn’t change overnight.
“I trust you.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.”
“It’s nothing personal,” Remy said. “He doesn’t tell anyone anything.”
