I practically drooled on myself as I whipped up the rest of our meal. The sesame chicken sat in the microwave, keeping warm as I made up our eggroll soup and crab rangoon dip. And as I heard Josie shuffling around upstairs trying to get settled, I gazed out my kitchen window over the backyard.
That slipped right into the beach.
I got a fucking great deal on this house, too. The previous owners had been an elderly couple who suffered great losses in their lives. Both of their children had passed away after being caught in the early morning riptides that formed in their backyard on occasion. And after burying both of them, they couldn’t stand to be in the house any longer.
So, they gave me a great deal and I took a relic of their pain off their hands.
Still, most of the guys—like Josie—were shocked that I purchased something like this. The rest of the guys lived in apartments, townhomes, or places far out in the middle of nowhere compared to the bustling bullshit of Santa Cruz. But me? Well, I’d always had an affinity toward the water.
It was why I had lived here my entire life.
“Archer!”
The second Josie yelled for me, I dropped what I was doing. My spoon sank to the bottom of the soup and I cracked the oven for the crab rangoon shit and soared through the house.
“Archer, help!”
I rounded the banister of the staircase. “I’m coming! Hold on!”
I took the steps three at a time and sprinted down the hallway. I heard Josie taking in deep breaths through her nose and struggling as she got them out of her mouth. I rushed into the bedroom she claimed for herself and saw her trying to get up out of a chair.
But she had her stomach gripped as if it hurt.
“What’s going on? What is it?” I asked.
I dropped to my knees in front of her and watched her face contort with pain.
“Josie, can you look at me?” I asked.
She cleared her throat. “My stomach is just—whenever it growls, it—”
I slowly moved her hand away. “Let me check. I want to make sure the bruising isn’t getting any worse. Cole told me that might indicate internal bleeding if they get worse. Can you sit up for me?”
It took Josie a while to lean back and get herself comfortable. But when she did, I slowly lifted up her shirt. The bruising on her stomach didn’t seem to be any worse, but then again it looked just about as worse as it could get.
“I’m going to touch it softly, okay? Let me know how badly it hurts,” I said.
Josie nodded, but didn’t say anything. She simply kept drawing in hard breaths through her teeth and focused on the ceiling. So, I placed my hand softly against her bruised gut and pressed.
“How does that feel?” I asked.
Josie grunted. “Not—not terrible.”
I moved my hand and pressed off to the side. “What about that?”
She shook her head. “Not better, but not worse.”
“All right. One more side. How about—”
She hissed. “Shit!”
I slid her shirt down. “Okay. Unfortunately, what you’re experiencing is going to be a new normal for a little while.”
She sighed. “How do you know that? What’s over there that hurts so badly?”
I stood to my feet and walked around to the top of her head. “You have stitches on that side of your body. Do you remember getting them?”
She blinked. “Oh, yeah. The doctor had to put some there, too.”
I grinned. “They’re going to be tender because the stitches are through bruised skin. It’s not going to feel pretty for a few days.”
She rolled her eyes. “Marvelous.”
“But Cole did slip some numbing spray in my hand before I left. Want to see if that helps at all?”
Her eyes slowly opened. “You should’ve led with that.”
I chuckled as I smoothed my hand across her forehead, then backtracked into my room. Truth be told, Cole slipped a great deal of stuff into the small brown bag that held Josie’s pain pills. There was numbing spray for her tender stitches, big bottles of Tylenol and ibuprofen, waterproof slabs of Band-Aids she could put over her stitches if she wanted to take a bath, and plenty of gauze as well as alcohol pads for cleaning the stitches if they oozed with anything.
I grabbed the spray and walked back into Josie’s room and was shocked to see her on her feet.
“Ready?” I asked as I held up the spray.
She nodded and slid her shirt up, to which I bent down and opened up the bottle. She had her eyes squeezed closed and her hands trembled. The sight broke my heart. The girl was so fucking scared even though she tried to put up a front, and I wished with all my might that I had the magical combination to calm her down.
But I settled for the sigh of relief as the numbing spray quickly took over.
“Oh, that’s the stuff right there,” she groaned.
I chuckled as I stood. “You want to eat up here or downstairs?”
Josie turned toward the view. “You didn’t say this bedroom had its own balcony.”
I smiled. “I’ll bring some up to you, then. But only if you promise to eat as much as you can.”
She giggled. “Trust me, that isn’t an issue anymore.”
The word “anymore” made me curious, but I decided against pressing the subject. Instead, I offered my hand to her and led her out onto the private guest balcony. I eased her down into a comfy lounge chair I’d gotten from an auction down the street. One of the houses had been abandoned, and I had snagged a great deal of the shit in my own house from that thing for pennies on the damn dollar.
The lounge chair alone was a two-thousand-dollar chair.
That I got for five hundred bucks.
“I’m still shocked that someone like you lives in a place like this,” she said.
I let go of her hand. “Well, I figured living near a bunch of surfers would’ve been easier than living near the rest of the guys.”
She looked up at me. “Smart man. Can’t put a price on that nowadays.”
I winked down at her. “That’s usually how I feel about girls with good heads on their shoulders.”
Her eyes held mine for a beat longer than I would have figured, electricity slowly sizzling through my veins. She had this aura about her that threatened to pull me closer. Deeper. Until my body was nestled against hers.
“What?” Josie asked.
I cleared my throat and turned away from her. “I’ll be up in a bit with your food. Water to drink?”
“Do I have a choice?”
I peered over my shoulder. “You always have a choice, Josie.”
She nodded slowly as her eyes gazed out over the water. “Water is good, thank you.”
As much as I wanted to hit on her—as much as I wanted to feel her beautiful body pressed against mine—she was in no condition to take part in any kind of activities of that sort. So, I made my way downstairs and stuck my hand down my pants to shift my growing cock around.
Before I washed my hands and dished up the food.
I set her food on a tray and grabbed a big bottle of water out of the fridge. However, I didn’t even make it halfway up the stairs before my phone vibrated. I ignored it until I got Josie’s tray set in her lap, but by the time I left Josie to her own devices, whoever the hell called had hung up and called back three separate times.
Which told me exactly who was trying to get in touch with me.
“Hello Astrid,” I said as I picked up my cell phone.
She paused. “I’m calling from Porter’s phone.”
I chuckled. “No one in my life calls me as much as you just did. And before you ask, she’s just fine. She’s upright, eating, and comfortable out on her balcony.”
She paused. “She’s got her own balcony.”
I walked down the stairs. “That overlooks the ocean.”
“Wow,” she whispered.
I chuckled. “What can I do for you?”
Her voice sounded a bit nervous. “Could I talk to Josie, please?”
I turned and went right back up the stairs. “Did you try calling her phone?”
“I did. She didn’t pick up.”
I eased Josie’s door open. “All right, I’ll see if she wants to talk.”
“She always wants to talk to me.”
“And I’ll see if she’s up for the routine. But if she isn’t, you’ll have to wait. Okay? This isn’t about any of us. This is about her.”
Josie called out. “That Astrid?”
I put my phone to my shoulder as I walked back over to the balcony doors. “She said she tried calling you, but you didn’t answer. You up for talking? She sounds worried.”
And all Josie did was hold up her hand.
When I dropped my cell phone into her palm, I decided to give the two of them some privacy. I went back downstairs and dished up some food for myself and set it on a tray, deciding to ask if Josie wanted any sort of company. While some people wanted to be alone during shit like this, she really didn’t strike me as the kind of girl that wanted that for herself.
Even if her words said something differently.
But I took my time. I cleaned up the leftovers and put them in the oven I had turned off, just in case Josie wanted seconds. Or myself, really. And after wiping everything down, I grabbed another bottle of water and headed back up the steps.
“Josie?” I asked.
I eased her door open with my elbow and heard her say goodbye to Astrid.
“Am I interrupting?” I asked.
She cleared her throat. “You coming to keep me company or something?”
I stepped inside of the room. “I mean, if you want the company, sure. But if not, that’s okay, too.”
She giggled softly. “Come get your phone and have a seat.”
I grinned as I walked out onto the balcony and sat in the other lounge chair. I set my food off to the side and retrieved my phone, then eased my way onto the plush cushions of the chair. I plopped my tray into my lap, picked up my silverware, and then the most bone-crushing question hit my ears.
“So, why do you feel so protective over me?”
My soup spoon stopped halfway to my lips. “Come again?”
She snorted. “You heard me the first time.”
I took a bite of my soup. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She sipped her water. “That juicy, huh?”
“Not really something I wish to talk about.”
“So, you do admit that you’re being weirdly protective of a girl you don’t know, right?”
I shrugged. “You just remind me of my sister.”
She didn’t press the subject, and I was glad for it. Mostly, because it wasn’t something I wanted to talk about. Ever, in fact. The memory of my sister and the last time I saw her was a painful one, at best. And it wasn’t something I wanted to rehash with a woman I barely knew.
But that didn’t stop my lips from flapping anyway. “So, why do you feel the need to strip for money?”
I looked over at her and watched her sesame chicken stop halfway to her mouth. “What?”
I chuckled. “You heard me.”
She slowly looked over at me. “There an issue with women stripping in your eyes?”
I shrugged. “You just seem like an intelligent woman. I’m wondering why you chose that route for your life.”
She put her fork down. “What, intelligent women can’t strip? That some sort of unwritten rule or something?”
“No, I just—”
“Let me tell you something about what I do for a living before you judge me any further for it: I enjoy what I do. Really. I get up on that stage every night in makeup I love and outfits that make me squeal with glee and I get to make men pant over not being able to have me. I get to dance, swing around, and enjoy myself, all the while praising my body and paying my bills. It makes me feel empowered. Strong. Like I can do anything in the world since I bring men to their knees for my career. So, you and your traditional ways can suck my dick.”
And the more I listened to her rattle on, the more amazed I became. She was an incredibly strong woman.
Which reminded me even more of my sister.
