Brady flipped the laptop closed and covered his mouth with a hand as his eyes darted around the other travelers waiting for their flights.
Lo was off somewhere. She'd stashed her bag beside him so he knew she'd be coming back, but so far he didn't see her. She'd been weird with him all day and now he knew why. He thought it was because of his more than truthful blog—due to his sleep deprivation and intense attraction to his partner. He wanted to read hers, but he'd had to wait until they had wi-fi again. Which was a layover in Miami—the first of three.
He was mostly flattered by her blog. But he was also very aware of the separate tones that each of them carried. Brady's had been way more... foolish. That was the word. He had let it all hang out there. And Lo, well, Lo's blog stuck to the tone of all of her blogs. It was reserved and yet honest. It definitely wasn't foolish.
What was it about him that made him an idiot when it came to women like this? He was just... stupid.
Wild women and their wild eyes. Speaking of...
“Hey,” Lo returned with a bright smile and a huge cup of Starbucks which she offered to him. “I got you coffee. I imagine you won't be sleeping much. Might as well get caffeine drunk with me.”
He took the cup and couldn't help the smile that easily came with seeing her. “Caffeine drunk?”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “You know, when you're exhausted but you can't sleep, so you just keep drinking coffee until people think you're insane? It's a good time.”
“You're a nut,” he muttered, but drank the coffee anyway.
“Have you talked to your parents about your newest occupation?” she asked, carefully avoiding eye contact with the creeper who sat down right across from them and leered at her. Brady had seen the guy earlier, he'd followed Lo when she'd taken off for the coffee. Her smile changed to one of benign apology. It was something he's noticed women knew how to do instinctively. Born de-escalators. It made him angry. Her brightness should never be diminished, for any reason.
Brady narrowed his eyes at the creep until he had his attention. The creep dropped his gaze to the floor where it belonged. When that was taken care of, he answered her question. “Sort of. They know most of it. They don't know you're a part of it.”
She choked on her coffee as she laughed. “What? Why not?”
Brady grinned down at her. “Because you've already met my dad. I would think the answer is obvious.”
She shook her head, her green eyes examining him in a similar way to how she watched the surf roll in. It unnerved him, yet he liked it. He never wanted her to look away.
“Why does it seem like they're so hard on you?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.
He shrugged. “Maybe because neither one of us wanted to be doctors so they assume we're layabouts.”
“Are you a layabout?” she asked, amused at the thought.
He held her eyes. “What do you think?”
Her head deepened its tilt at the serious turn of his tone. “Are you really asking what I think, or is that rhetorical?”
“I really wanna know.” He did and he didn't. He wished there were a way for him to know what she thought without her knowing he knew. He wanted the secrets without the responsibility. Because if she told him what she really thought, he would become responsible for perpetuating or correcting those beliefs.
“I think you hold yourself back. I think you've done it for so long, you don't even realize you're doing it. I think maybe you're overcompensating for Bo's more rebellious tendencies. Almost as if you think you can save the both of you if at least one of you is being smart about it.” Her eyes narrowed as her words hit true and she saw it. “You have no idea, do you?” she asked quietly.
“Know what?” His voice came out rough and he tried to swallow it away.
Her lips pulled into a knowing smile on one side. “How amazing you actually are. Brady, you take my breath away. When you're out there...” She shook her head as wonder filled her eyes at the memory. “I forget everything when I see you break free. When you hit that sweet spot of letting go and taking control... it's what we're all after. And you've got it.” Her fingers traced the line of his temple. “It's here.” She dropped her hand to his heart and covered it with her palm. “And here.”
He covered her hand with his own because he wasn't ready for her to stop touching him yet.
“But it's just a hobby. Surfing isn't a way of life.”
Her lips twitched again and she saw right to the center of him. “That's your father talking.” She leaned closer, like she was getting ready to tell him a secret. “You and I know better. Surfing is the only life that matters.”
This wasn't innocent anymore. This wasn't just an attraction or a crush or an infatuation that would eventually disintegrate as soon as Brady figured out how to extract his head from his ass.
This was everything he had ever wanted.
No wonder he was so damn scared.
“Now you do me,” she said with a grin, slipping her hand away and using both to hold her coffee.
“Do you?”
“Yeah, what do you think of me?”
Brady sucked in a breath, not having expected her question. Though, he really should have. She approached everything in life with fearless intensity, why not the outside opinions of others? Her over the top reaction to him changing the alarm clock a few days ago made a comeback in his memory. She had been more than mad... she had been scared. Of what, though?
His eyebrows dipped and he started working it through out loud, watching her reactions carefully.
“I think you're really good at making sure the world sees what you want it to see. You're transparent just enough to keep people from looking deeper. But there's a real fear inside of you someone will be able to get to know you and not like you for who you are. So, you only show what you're already comfortable with being rejected. Because you tell yourself they're not actually rejecting you, because they don't even know you.”
Her lips parted and she blinked rapidly, dropping her gaze to his throat.
“Who was it?” he asked, done with sidestepping the issue and ready to make his claim on her heart. Two days ago, he was fighting against all of this. Telling himself she could never be his, and now he was making a different call.
“What do you mean?”
“Who was the guy that taught you to be scared of who you are?”
Her eyes flashed. “I'm not scared of who I am. You missed the mark, Samson.” She angled her body away from his and took a drink of her coffee, signaling the end of their conversation. Except he wasn't done.
“Lo.”
She sighed and crossed one leg over the other.
“Lo.”
“Can't you let me have my huff?” she asked finally.
Brady grinned and hooked his elbow around her neck, pulling her into his side. She pretended to resist, but gave in quickly, melting against him. As if she knew his space was her space and vice versa. He pressed his lips to the top of her head.
“You can huff all you want. But you're not allowed to lock me out.”
“Why not?” she asked quietly.
“Partners, remember? We have each other's backs.”
“So I'm not allowed to huff?”
“Not alone.”
She kicked her leg nervously as she thought about his words, and not just the more immediate ones. The ones he'd said that caused the tiff in the first place. The ones that hit their mark so accurately, she was completely thrown off. He shifted his arm so that it fit snugly across her front, letting her know the only way he could, she was okay. She wasn't over exposed and she wasn't being taken advantage of. He was her friend and he cared for her. He had no intention of throwing the truth at her like a weapon with no way to protect herself.
He would protect her.
Lo
After Miami came London. After London came Dublin. From Dublin they flew into Donegal, where they rented a car.
The entire twenty-two hour trip, Lo made the best of it. Which meant she was mostly on upbeat autopilot while her brain obsessed over what Brady had said. Except she wouldn't actually think about it. It was there—the words, the meaning, the implications—but she couldn't look at it objectively. It was impossible for her to get passed the denial part. The loud she-dragon in her head that burned all of it to the ground before anything could take root.
And yet it was all she could think about.
His words rang clear and true over and over again. Then die a fiery death, leaving a charred imprint on her heart of what he'd actually said. An impression, but not the whole thing. Because the whole thing hurt like crazy.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
She frowned at the tone of Brady's voice and tried to pull herself back into the present.
“What?” she asked, looking around the nearly empty parking lot of rental cars.
“This.” He gestured at the red Ford Ka he was glaring at.
She looked. She still didn't get it.
He turned his glare on her when she hadn't backed him up in time. “Like all of this”—he waved a hand down his body like a game show host's lovely assistant—“is going to fit inside that.”
Lo couldn't help it, she burst out laughing. When she'd recovered, she found Brady grinning at her but with arched eyebrows.
“You think I'm kidding, that's cute. I won't be able to fit behind the steering wheel.”
“I can drive,” she offered with a shrug.
He narrowed his eyes like he didn't believe her. Or maybe he thought she was a bad driver.
“Unless you think I'll get us lost or something.”
“Will you? Is that something you do? Are you a loser?”
“You're a shit,” she muttered, still laughing as she took the keys out of his hand and opened the hatchback. They tossed their bags inside.
“Buckle up, Blondie,” she instructed, pulling the car out of the lot and pointing it south.
He did as she said, and they drove along quietly for several minutes. She was just getting ready to delve back into her obsessive loop of fiery burning words when Brady spoke up.
“You're kind of freaking me out right now.”
“Why?” She glanced over to him quickly and back to the road. He did, in fact, look cramped over there in the passenger seat. This had been a bad choice for a vehicle and Lo had to wonder if Shane did it on purpose to mess with his friend.
“Do you even know where we're going?” he asked. “Because you're acting like you know where we're going.”
She shot him a wink. “I used to live here.”
“But you said you were from Hawaii.”
“No,” she corrected. “I said my parents were hippies who lived on a beach in Hawaii.”
She could feel Brady staring at her so she took a deep breath and plunged ahead.
“I've lived a lot of different places, it's really not a big deal. Mostly coastal towns. We traveled a lot when I was young.” She shrugged, feeling the heat creep up her neck. She really didn't want to talk about it. Her home life had been unconventional at best and disruptive at worst.
“You've never had roots?” he asked, doing that stupid thing he did where he saw more of her than anyone else and making her feel exposed.
“I always felt like I was part fish anyway,” she replied lightly.
“Where else have you lived?” he asked, letting her save face. Again. For which she was immensely grateful.
“Here, California, Hawaii, Virginia, Paris for a year, and New Zealand for a stint.”
“Where did you learn to surf?”
“Here, actually. My parents didn't live here with me at the time. I lived with my grandmother.” She took a deep breath, still missing the woman even ten years later. “But then she passed and I had to go be with my parents.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
“Most kids would want to be with their folks, I would think.”
Lo nodded, the inside of her nose tingling. “Well, that's good for them.”
He wasn't getting any more out of her. She wasn't stupid, she knew he was fishing for more. But she didn't even talk about her family with Spencer and Tessa and they were her closest thing to family. She knew there had been a night that involved a lot of Sangria and she remembered spilling all of it, every ugly childishly clouded detail. But they'd had the sensitivity to never bring it up when she was sober. It didn't need to get talked about. If someday she wanted to talk about it, she would find an overrated therapist and pay him or her an obscene amount of money to hear her talk about her issues. But until then, she would be bearing that burden alone.
Brady
They arrived at their destination and Brady was only marginally surprised to find it was another Surf Lodge. Not as high end as the NSR Beach House, but still bigger than they probably needed. A two bedroom apartment with full kitchen and living room—where a brand new bundle of equipment was waiting for them.
Lo tore into it instantly, going through the contents before she even looked at the rest of the apartment.
It was starting to become obvious the both of them had been awake for too many hours in a row, and she started to slow down and grow quiet.
He left his bag in his room and returned to the kitchen where he took inventory of the food on hand. It was fully stocked, except for a few essential ingredients. He'd never been to Ireland, maybe they didn't have those ingredients.
“What's the frown for?”
He turned in time to see Lo ease onto a stool and blink heavily.
“We don't have the proper toppings for tacos.”
Her tired smile was really the only reward he needed. “You plan on making me tacos every day for the rest of my life, Brady?”
She'd dropped the Samson again. It was good, he preferred the way she said his first name. The last name only put a distance between them he didn't care for.
“I would like to, yes,” he answered her question as he came around the breakfast bar. He slid a hand under her heavy fall of hair and curled it around her neck. “You need sleep.”
“So do you,” she retorted with a snort.
Smiling against his better judgment, he tugged her from the stool and ushered her down the hall. “How about we both take a short nap and try to beat the jet lag. Then we'll get up and you can help me make Irish tacos.”
She didn't turn to go into her own room, instead she kept forward and headed for his. “Isn't your name Bradach? That name is sooo Irish,” she said, tugging her hoodie off and kicking her socks off. She nearly tripped as she climbed onto the bed in her jeans and white tank top. She braced on her knees and Brady thought he was going to pass out when she did the magical thing girls do. She unhooked her bra and took it off without removing her shirt, dropping it on the floor by her hoodie.
Brady closed his eyes.
“Yes, my given name is Bradach,” he answered her. He opened his eyes and crossed over to the window where he closed the blinds, blocking out as much daylight as he could. “But I prefer Brady.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed, still trying to decide if he should sleep on the floor or the couch or if it would even matter. They'd both been awake for thirty some hours and were travel weary. A nap was needed.
His head hit the pillow and Lo's arm wrapped around his middle as she snuggled closer. He adjusted his arm to make more room for her against his side.
“Mmm,” she sighed against his chest. “This is nice.”
“Yeah, it is,” he agreed.
“And you'll make me tacos later?”
“Absolutely.”
“And tell me I'm awesome.”
“You are awesome.”
“Okay, shh, I'm sleeping now.”
Brady grinned and gave her a squeeze. The only reason he was letting her nap with him was because of their mutual exhaustion. And the part earlier in the car when he'd touched a nerve and couldn't get the shattered look in her eyes out of his mind.
At least while she was sleeping in his arms, he would know she was safe.
And that's all he could offer her at the moment.