Piper
I was used to clients just doing what they were told, then finding a breakthrough and moving on. But with Braden, it was like he wanted me to be a part of it, in a big way. So when he said he had an idea, I thought, oh cool, he’s gonna take some pictures of his guitar or something.
I didn’t expect that I’d be gallivanting all over his beachfront property while he took pictures of things he wanted to put on his board.
“It’s serene.” Braden snapped a picture of the ocean. “No matter what happens in my life, I want the ocean to be something I come back to, something that represents my music and the way I want to inspire the world around me.”
I gulped. “That’s beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful.” He winked.
I just rolled my eyes. “Flirting with your coach gets you an F.”
He cackled out a dark laugh. “Are you saying you want to F me?”
“Ah, middle-school humor, how refreshing,” I countered, even though my entire body broke out in chills with the way he was looking at me.
Bad, it was so bad. And totally against the rules of client and coach. But damn, he was impossible not to like. Not helpful at the moment when I was starving for more and more of his smiles.
“Admit it, you just won’t laugh because you don’t want to encourage my very obvious advances.”
I frowned. “Obvious advances, huh? You’re a flirt. Trust me, I work with guys like you all the time.” Lies. I’d never worked with anyone who had Braden’s magnetism. It was intimidating and impossible to ignore.
He snapped another picture, this time of my face. “So you work with musically gifted savants who have red hair, mad kissing skills, and big hands? Crazy, and here I thought I was the only one.” He winked.
I opened my mouth to say something when he suddenly held out his hands. “Right there, don’t move.” He lifted the camera and took another shot. His blue eyes were intense, locked onto me so vividly that I forgot to breathe, forgot what I was even there for. Because all I kept thinking about was him. I was here for him, in so many ways.
I’d never been the type of person to make it personal—my job. But with him, it felt that way, and I couldn’t figure out why.
On the outside, I was a professional doing her job.
On the inside, I was counting his smiles.
And wondering what I had to sacrifice to get more.
I was greedy for them.
A few days in and the way he looked at me gave me hope that not all guys were narcissistic jerks.
“One more.” He smirked. “Jump in the air. I want to take a picture of pure joy.”
I burst out laughing. “What makes you think jumping would make me joyful?”
“Oh, you know, just thinking that a life coach very much likes to live for the tiny moments because it reminds her that she’s alive.”
I gaped. “That was deep.”
“Musician.” He pointed at himself. “Now jump.”
It felt like a double entendre. The air felt pregnant with tension and unspoken meaning. I didn’t want to dissect what was happening, so I just listened rather than gave orders.
“Like this?” I jumped into the air, throwing sand while he snapped the picture.
He bent over laughing, and then his eyes got wide.
“What?”
“STOP!” He held out his hands. “Just…don’t move!”
I heard “don’t move,” but the ocean was so loud that I didn’t stop moving until I took another step, directly onto something slimy.
“Ew, gross—oh, shit!” I yelped and then went crashing down next to a jellyfish that, even though it looked dead, could still sting the crap out of my foot.
“Piper!” Braden was at my side in an instant. “Thank God it only got the side.”
Fire raged over my foot then headed up my ankle and kept going. Tears stung the backs of my eyes and then dropped down my wind-stung cheeks as I whimpered in pain. “Are you sure? Because it feels like it got my entire leg!”
He swiped his thumbs under my eyes, wiping my tears away. “I’m sorry, I should have thought it through. It’s jellyfish season. There’s more on the beach than usual.”
I sniffled as the wind picked up, matting my hair to my tear-stained cheeks, and messing up my lip gloss.
“Up you go.” He gently picked me up, cradling me in his arms.
“Oh.” I pressed a hand to his chest and watched him steel his expression as he glanced at my foot and started to walk. “You really don’t have to—”
“This is my fault.” I could feel him limping on his bad leg and hated that I was probably adding to his pain, along with his memory of the incident.
“Brad—”
He shot me a glare. “Let me carry you, Piper.”
“Okay.” Part of me wondered if he was carrying me out of the guilt that still clung to his memory or if he was just worried.
My ex would have probably asked if he needed to pee on me Friends style and then would have documented it for his IG stories because, you know, influencers gotta document it all!
I winced.
“You hanging in there?” Braden asked.
I nodded and then ducked my head against his chest as more tears fell of their own accord.
It was painful, like really painful.
“If that jellyfish wasn’t already dead, I’d kill it dead,” I said through my teeth as I tried to blink away the hot tears. “Stupid stingers.”
Braden smiled down at me as we finally made it back to the boardwalk and then to his massive beach house. “I’m sure you would have put up a killer fight, small-fry.”
“Hey!” I sniffled as the burning sensation pulsed around my foot. “I would have.”
“Methinks you would have most likely slipped on your ass after trying to throw your shoe at it.”
I glared, thankful for the distraction.
He chuckled and then opened the front door and walked me into the living room, setting me on the leather couch and flipping on the fireplace.
Before I knew it, I had a cup full of hot chocolate with a shot of whiskey, and a blanket tucked around my body. Where had he gotten the caretaker skills?
Most guys would be panicking or at the ER.
He walked back into the room his cell pressed to his ear. “Cool, thanks, just drop off the script when you can.”
My foot was still throbbing when Braden came over to the couch and sat on the coffee table. “Good news or bad news?”
“I think this is the bad news.” I pointed at my elevated foot. It had one angry slash across the left part of it and was still hurting, though I wasn’t swelling that much.
Braden let out a chuckle. “All right, good news then. I don’t have to whip out any boy parts.”
“Huh?” I frowned.
“Friends!” He threw his hands up into the air. “And I’d pee on any one of you!” he said in a perfect Joey voice, making me laugh. He winked. “The bad news is that I have to pull out the stinger. I noticed it earlier but wasn’t sure if it was best to take you to the ER or not—”
I opened my mouth to say not when he put up his hand, cutting me off.
“Relax. An old friend from high school works at the local hospital as an ER physician. I called him up, and he said as long as you don’t have an allergic reaction, and we soak your foot in vinegar and remove the stinger, you’ll be good. Though in some pain for the next twenty-four hours, which”—he took a deep breath and winked—“brings me to the good news.” Part of his messy red hair fell over his forehead, giving him this beautiful Jamie from Outlander look that had my jaw nearly dropping to my waist. Damn, he was so nice to look at. “You get happy drugs!”
He held up his hand for a high five.
I weakly hit it and then sighed. “But what about the vision board?”
He shook his head like he was massively disappointed in me. “I just told you that you get happy drugs, and you’re concerned about the vision board?”
“You.” I pouted. “I’m here to help you, not the other way around.”
He stood and took the mug from my hand, smiling. “We all need help at some point. You help me, I help you.”
I sighed. “Does that mean you’ll work on the vision board while I sit here with a throbbing foot?”
His blue eyes narrowed. “That depends, will it distract you from the pain until the pills get here?”
I didn’t tell him that I wouldn’t take the pills anyways, especially when my ex was the sort of guy who stole my painkillers when I had mouth surgery.
It just made me uncomfortable having them anywhere near me now, even though he was out of the picture. I hated what they reminded me of.
“Yes.” I finally said. “Watching you work with glitter will most definitely distract me from the throbbing pain in my foot.”
He let out a dramatic sigh and went to work grabbing a bowl from the kitchen. Within minutes, he brought it over. It smelled like vinegar, and I made a face as he slowly set it in front of the couch and then went over to my foot to examine it. “One stinger, from what I can tell.”
I gulped, suddenly feeling weak. “Thanks, Doc.”
He grinned and then pinched me hard on my thigh as he knelt down and pulled the stinger from my foot. “Done.” He stopped pinching.
I rubbed my soon-to-be bruised thigh. “What was that for?”
“Didn’t want you to feel the stinger removal.” He gave me a lazy smile. “I’m a professional, after all.”
I gulped when his eyes moved to my mouth. “You feeling any…pain anywhere else?”
Here. I wanted to point to my mouth. I wanted to indicate a few other places as well as a shiver ran down my spine. “N-no.”
“Pity.” His voice was low, raspy. My body reacted in a very violent way. I told my heart to stop pounding and my brain to stop thinking of him as available.
I sat up as he gently put my foot in the vinegar water, and then he eyed the table with trepidation. Finally, with a sigh, he walked over to the table and picked up a few of the Polaroids he’d taken at the beach. He also grabbed a glue stick and the blue glitter. “I can’t believe I’m actually doing this.”
I smirked. “It’s going to be freeing, just wait.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what went through my mind when I picked up the exact brand of glue stick I used to lick when I was five—how fucking freeing this is.”
“Ah, it all makes sense now. You ate glue when your brain was still underdeveloped. I’m amazed you can tie your shoes.”
He flipped me off with a laugh and then said, “You’ve only seen me in sandals, I could have a shit ton of Velcro sneakers in my closet.”
I made a face. “No, that takes away the entire sex appeal thing, doesn’t it?”
His head swiveled back in my direction. “I’ll be damned! Did you just call me sexy?”
“No.” My eyes widened while my body betrayed me by pumping blood into all the wrong areas, including my face, which felt as hot as the sun. “I just meant, you know, to other people, Velcro shoes may kill the sex appeal you have to…others…” I gulped. “Humans.” Another gulp and a weak nod.
Braden threw back his head and laughed. “It’s okay, I can keep a secret, Piper.”
I put my hands over my face and groaned. “Braden, this is my job, be serious.”
“Oh.” He jerked off the cap to the glue stick and then blew across it. “I’m very, very serious.” And then he leaned over until his lips were next to my ear. I could smell the spicy cologne on his skin and nearly felt his pulse. “By the way, I think you’re sexy too, in an uptight, wanna-save-the-world sort of way.”
“Thank you, I think?” I frowned.
He patted me on the head. “Welcome. Now, stop distracting me. I have a vision to create!”