“Oh, Gus. That would be...” She wasn’t sure what it would be. Honestly, she’d gotten so used to her peaceful, carefree life that she hadn’t adequately planned for what she’d do when Gus came back. They’d gone out on one not-so-great date before he left, though she’d agreed to give him another chance.
But the idea of sitting across from him, listening to wave stories all night...
The door opened. Praying for a barrage of customers so she could get out of answering until she was able to choose the best answer from deep in her always-wise subconscious, Chris glanced over.
Oh, my Lord. Her chance to retrieve any calm out of the afternoon was officially gone.
A serious hunk of man filled the doorway, his hazel eyes meeting hers with such blatant sexuality that she felt a thrill all the way down to her...inner calm. Speak of the handsome devil, it was Bodie Banks, Gus’s fellow surfer and mentor. She hadn’t seen him for several weeks. He tended to stop in for coffee, smolder for a while and leave. But oh, that smoldering. He was amazing. In a low-down, predatory kind of way, but amazing nonetheless.
“Bodie! My man!” Gus went over, and oh-so predictably there was the skin-on-skin smack of a freaking high five. She wondered if she could give Gus a palmectomy so he couldn’t participate in the ridiculous ritual anymore.
Wait. Shh. Those uncharitable thoughts belonged to the old Chris. No living creatures were hurt by high fives; there was nothing wrong with it. Acceptance. Love. Kindness. She was badly off track.
“Hey.” Bodie prowled toward the counter, biceps and deltoids popping out of his sleeveless T-shirt, which hung loosely over a pair of bright blue patterned board shorts. “How’s it going, Chris?”
Gus fell back a few steps, disciple making room for his master. Zac and Luke continued to watch the spectacle.
Well.
This wasn’t at all awkward.
“I’m fine, Bodie. Welcome back to Carmia. What can I get you?” She half expected him to order a cup of whole roasted coffee beans and a spoon. He was that primal.
“Double espresso.”
“Coming up.” Grateful for the reprieve, she moved back to the gleaming espresso machine, which worked so much more smoothly than hers back in New York. Eva had dubbed her finicky machine the Beast. “So how have you been?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Busy. Too busy. Nice to have a few weeks off now.”
“Yeah?” She packed the ground espresso into a solid puck and hooked the portafilter into the machine. “What are your plans?”
“Don’t have any. That’s the best way to live. Moment to moment. Know what I mean?”
Finally, someone who spoke her new language. She smiled over her shoulder while the machine buzzed. A few months ago, she would have been horrified, imagining that a lack of planning would automatically equal chaos. Now she embraced the concept wholly. Lately, she’d even been doing crazy-impulsive things, like taking walks when it was dinnertime. Just because she felt like it!
Yeah, okay, she was still a beginner when it came to the whole spontaneous thing.
“So, Chris...”
Something in Bodie’s tone made her body tense and her heart skip a beat. The espresso machine shut off abruptly, thrusting them into silence.
“Yes?” She picked up the cup and turned to find Zac, Luke and Gus still watching.
Argh!
“Since I’m back and free for a while...” He put both hands on the counter and leaned forward. His muscles bulged, his eyes held hers.
Chris swallowed. Holy—
“I’m thinkin’ you and me have something pretty powerful between us.”
The counter?
She couldn’t get the joke out. She was swimming in a sea of hormones and freaking out. In her hands, his espresso cup rattled against its saucer before she could make her hand relax.
“Huh.” That was the best she could do. This mental meltdown was not okay—this was no longer who she was, and this was not where or how she wanted to be.
“So I was wondering—” he reached over and touched her cheek, making her skin tingle and causing her to nearly drop the cup “—if you wanted to have dinner sometime.”
IF ONE MORE guy asked Chris out, Zac was going to get up from his table at Slow Pour and land an uppercut to his jaw. Then he was going to punch Gus and Bodie retroactively, because that was the kind of mood he was in.
What the hell? Before the holidays, he’d left for Connecticut, where he and Luke had grown up, because Luke was in trouble—again. Zac had wanted to try to set his little brother on a straighter path, but he’d also needed to get away from Chris, to get over himself and stop the stupid mooning.
Nice idea. Didn’t work. In Connecticut he’d discovered he could moon long-distance just as easily as he could in California, plus he was reminded of how much he didn’t like winter. He’d gone through that misery annually growing up, and he didn’t want to do it again.
So he’d come back. Luke needed a change of scenery, needed to get away from his substance-abusing East Coast friends to live a cleaner, better life under his brother’s watchful eye.
Luke had been a little surprise package who’d come into the world a week before Zac turned twelve. Three years later, when Luke was a toddler and Zac was in his first year of boarding school, their mother had succumbed to cancer. Their father had done his best to raise Luke on his own since then.
Losing their mother had sucked, to put it mildly. Zac had done most of his grieving on his own while he was away at school. Their already distant father hadn’t been in any shape to be a good parent, so Luke bore the worst of the tragedy. Zac had done what he could to help when he was home, but that wasn’t often. He had two regrets in life: one, that he hadn’t been there more for both Luke and his father, and two, that he hadn’t made a pass at Cynthia Baumgehen in college the night they were alone in his room.
Today, the minute he’d laid eyes on Chris, in spite of her weird haircut and new piercings, all the feelings he’d spent the past months trying to suppress had come roaring back. Standing there, overwhelmed, he’d remembered his regret over the missed opportunity with Cynthia and had experienced a big what-the-hell moment. So he’d asked Chris out to dinner, only to see her falter and hem and haw. And then he’d had to watch her get the same freaking offer from three other guys, including his own brother, for God’s sake. As if Zac was no different from a delinquent kid and brain-dead surfer meat.
Apparently he was smart not to have made a pass at Cynthia all those years ago. She probably would have turned pale and thrown up all over herself.
And while he was ranting, who or what had taken the spark out of Chris? She was like an overdecorated shell of her former self. Eva told him Chris had taken a month of classes at the Peace, Love and Joy Center. That was fine, and he had respect for the practices of yoga and meditation—many of the Eastern philosophies of life made good practical sense—but he didn’t understand why she had to look deflated and blank and suck air before answering a simple question. Chris Meyer was a high-energy, exciting woman. If she was trying to change that about herself, she would only succeed in driving herself crazy.
Well, fine, then, she’d go crazy. He’d stand by and watch. Not his problem.
“Uh,