Seaside Nights Read online

  “It’s the little things,” Sky teased.

  The heavy metal chain clanked against the gate, and they all shushed Bella.

  “I’m trying,” Bella snapped. “The lock is being fussy. Hold the chain so it doesn’t wake up Theresa. She’s got supersonic hearing.” The pool was closed after eight o’clock, and Theresa took her job as the property manager seriously. She was a stickler for rules.

  “How long did it take strummer boy to fall asleep?” Jenna whispered to Sky.

  “I don’t know! I was too nervous to pay attention. I kept thinking that you guys were going to show up at the window right in the middle of…you know. And then I got too into it to care.”

  The lock clicked open and they scrambled through the gate.

  “I didn’t think Caden was ever going to fall asleep,” Bella said, closing the gate quietly behind them.

  Jenna dropped her towel and ran naked across the pool deck toward the steps at the far end.

  “I swear I’m going to tie your towel around your body so you stop doing that,” Amy said. “You need to either tweak your OCD so you can keep your towel on until you get to the steps, or climb in at the far side. You’re like a rebellious, naked, pregnant teenager, and I’m always worried you’re going to fall.”

  “I’ll never change!” Jenna giggled as she stepped into the water. “Brr. Hurry up and get in. It’s freezing.”

  “I still don’t understand why you run across the deck naked,” Sky said as she draped her towel over a chair and walked into the chilly water.

  “Because!” Jenna rolled her eyes like it was the stupidest question on earth and sank down so her shoulders were beneath the surface. “I did that the very first time we ever went chunky-dunking. I can’t change it now.”

  “That would drive me crazy,” Sky said to Jenna. Bella and Amy walked hand in hand down the steps and sank under the water. “Your bellies really do make you even more beautiful.”

  “Hey, what about me?” Jenna splashed Sky.

  “You, too, of course. But your belly is still little. Look at them. Pregnant nudity really is attractive.” Sky swam to the side of the pool, grabbed four foam noodles, and gave one to each of the girls.

  “All I know is that being pregnant is awesome,” Bella said. “I can eat as much as I want and not worry that it’ll show.” She hung her arms over the noodle, and they all came together in a tight circle, kicking their feet to stay afloat.

  “I can’t believe we’re going to have babies. We’ll have to ask our hubbies to be on baby duty so we can chunky-dunk,” Amy said as she reached for Jenna’s hand. “Do you think it’ll take the fun out of it?”

  “No,” Bella answered. “As long as they don’t tell Theresa, we’ll still have fun.”

  “I’m around to babysit,” Sky offered.

  “Babysit? You’ll be chunky-dunking with us,” Amy reminded her.

  “Not after I move,” she said sadly. She’d miss being so close to her friends when she moved, having breakfast with them and spur-of-the-moment barbecues.

  “We’ll text you to come down and give you enough warning that you can join us.” Jenna shook Sky’s noodle.

  “Yeah, like the sound of a car won’t wake Theresa? You can park on the road and walk into the complex.” Bella kicked away from the group. “I’m hungry.”

  “We just got down here,” Jenna said.

  “Well, the baby has to eat when the baby has to eat.” Bella swam to the stairs and climbed out of the pool, shivering. She grabbed the cookie dough and hurried back into the water, holding it above her head.

  “That baby is going to weigh ten pounds,” Amy teased.

  “So what?” Bella tore open the cookie dough, and each of the girls held her hand out. “See? You guys wanted it just as badly as I did.” She bit off a hunk and handed the package to Amy. “Sky, is this the weekend you’re going out on Pete’s boat with Sawyer?”

  Sky smiled. “Yup. My brother came through for us. He’s letting us take the boat out overnight, and Sawyer said he can take two days off of training, which surprised me.”

  “I told you love makes people do all sorts of things.” Amy floated onto her back with her big belly protruding out of the water.

  “Love,” Sky said dreamily. She shifted onto her back and floated, gazing up at the starry sky.

  “Love?” Amy swam over to Sky. “Love?”

  “Sky’s in love!” Jenna threw her noodle in the air.

  Bella caught Jenna’s noodle and shushed her.

  Sky held on to the noodle and dropped her feet back under the water. “I didn’t say I was in love. Although Sawyer is everything I could want in a man. Seriously, he’s a great listener, and he really gets me. And he loves his family, and he’s hands down the best lover I’ve ever had, and—”

  “Oh my God. You are in love. Our little Sky is in love!” Bella said so loudly that all the other girls shushed her.

  “Stop it.” Sky laughed. “I’ve never been in love. I’m trying it on for size.”

  “Okay, so you’re not in love yet,” Jenna said with an emphasis on yet. “Would you be if he wasn’t a fighter?”

  She shrugged. “It’s not his fighting. This is his last fight, and he’s fighting for his dad, so I have to be okay with it, right? I’ve just never been in love before, and it’s such a big feeling. Sometimes I feel like my heart is going to jump out of my chest, or I want to huddle away with him for hours. Isn’t that weird?”

  The girls exchanged a look that told her they knew everything there was to know about love and she was the only one left in the dark.

  “Honey,” Amy said softly, “can you imagine a future without him?”

  Could she? Would she want to? She was already used to falling asleep next to him and waking up in his arms, even though it had been only a few days. She looked forward to his flirty and poetic texts, and every single time she saw him, her heart went crazy and she wanted him to stay right there with her.

  “Not willingly,” she finally admitted.

  Jenna and Amy smiled, and Bella said, “You’re definitely falling. Ten bucks says you marry the guy.”

  “I’m not betting on my future.” Sky laughed, but inside she was shivering with delight just thinking about a lifetime with Sawyer. “Lizzie says life is that easy and that complicated. I think I’m sitting in the center of easy and complicated and I don’t know where I’ll end up—but it sure feels like I’m in the right place regardless of if it’s easy or complicated.”

  “That’s because you’re falling in love. That’s how it happens, so you’ll tip over right in the middle where easy and complicated intersect,” Amy said.

  “And Sawyer will catch you,” Jenna added.

  “With a poem at the ready.” Bella reached for Sky’s hand. “Take it from the girl who never thought she’d find the right guy. The only man who is right for you is the one you don’t want to live without.”

  All this talk about forever and Sawyer was getting Sky hot and excited all over again. She dunked under the water to cool off. When she broke the surface, she said, “Wow, my heart is going a mile a minute. You guys…I love love! And I think I love Sawyer, too!”

  The girls squealed and immediately shushed one another and laughed.

  Sky snagged the cookie dough from Bella and bit a hunk off. “Did I tell you that he is the P-town poet? He just had no idea that there was a real P-town poet.”

  “That’s because there’s not. You made him up, remember?” Amy pointed out.

  Sky looked up at the stars and exhaled loudly. “What a night. I feel so much for Sawyer that I swear I almost told him that I loved him the other night, and I didn’t. Thanks for making me feel like I’m not moving too fast. That it’s normal to fall this hard this fast.” She floated on her back again and rested the tube of cookie dough on her stomach as she gazed up at the stars, feeling like she’d cleared the fog from her head.

  Jenna floated on her back, too, and Amy said, “I can’t l
ie on my back again. My baby will squash me.”

  They all laughed.

  “I was looking forward to our boat trip before, but now? I feel even more excited now, like it’s okay to feel so much after such a short period of time—and I’m going to enjoy it.”

  “Two days alone with Sawyer? You’ll be so deeply in love when you return you’ll be in the ring fighting for him.” Jenna reached for the cookie dough.

  Bella turned her head from side to side. “Shh. Do you hear that? What is that noise?”

  “What?” Amy lifted her chin, listening.

  “Shh!” Bella snapped. “It sounds like…cicadas?”

  “I hear it,” Jenna said, whipping her head from right to left.

  “It doesn’t sound like cicadas to me,” Sky said, tipping her ear toward the sound. “It’s coming from all around us. And it sounds different, not like bugs at all.”

  Bella shushed them again, and they all swam toward the edge of the pool.

  “I can’t see a damn thing—can you guys?” Bella asked.

  “No.” Amy walked between Bella and Jenna, holding on to them both.

  Bella motioned for Sky to hurry up. Sky swam to Bella and linked arms with her.

  “What is it?”

  “It sounds familiar.” Jenna gasped, pointed at the fence, and shouted, “There’s something moving against the fence.”

  “Shh!” the three others chided her.

  “Do you want Theresa running out here?” Bella squinted into the darkness. “What is th—”

  Suddenly a string of holiday lights lit up around the pool, illuminating a plethora of vibrating sex toys, handcuffs, and other sex paraphernalia hanging on the fence. Vibrant yellow, bright pink, and shimmering blue vibrators shivered and shook. Some flashed, and others remained like steady beacons in the night.

  “Oh my God!” Jenna yelled, then cackled loudly, hanging on to Bella so tight she nearly pulled her under the water.

  Amy and Sky burst out laughing, while Bella’s face was a mask of shock—eyes wide, mouth agape.

  “Look!” Jenna pointed to the gate, where Theresa stood with her arms crossed and a smirk on her lips.

  “Oh, I will get her back for this,” Bella promised as laughter finally burst from her lips. “I will get her back so good!”

  Jenna crossed her arms over her boobs and sank under the water up to her chin. “Get down!”

  They all sank under the water up to their chins, laughing and holding on to one another.

  “The cookie dough!” Amy yelled, which only made them laugh harder.

  “Can we keep the toys?” Jenna hollered between laughs.

  Sky roared with laughter and lost her balance, falling beneath the water. When she broke through the surface, her finger shot toward the sky, and she yelled, “I call the blue one!”

  “Hear that, Sawyer?” Tony’s deep voice cut through their laughter. Pete and Caden rose to their feet from beach chairs they’d set out on the lawn and clapped and whistled. Sawyer stood off to the side with a hand over his mouth, and Sky knew he was stuck between wanting to laugh and not knowing if he should.

  “Ohmygod,” Amy said. “Did our men help her?”

  “They are so dead,” Jenna said, stomping toward the stairs.

  All three girls dove after her, holding her in the pool.

  “You’re naked!” Bella yelled.

  “Pete is dead meat,” Jenna said with a scowl. “Naked or not, he’s a traitor and he’s gonna pay.” She squinted in the direction of a pair of fuzzy green handcuffs hanging on the fence. “I just need those handcuffs!”

  ***

  WHEN TONY CAME by Sky’s cottage and woke Sawyer up, telling him, Time for your initiation, he had no idea what to expect—and he was shocked to find that he was alone in Sky’s bed. He heard the girls giggling as soon as he and the others snuck down by the pool, but still they hadn’t filled him in on what was going on. Now, as the girls hollered for the men to turn around and Theresa walked toward her house snickering, he could barely contain his laughter. But as he stood with his back to the pool, giving Sky and the girls privacy to cover themselves up, it was what he’d heard while sitting in the dark that was replaying in his head like a rerun—Sky’s voice, filled with happiness: I love love! And I think I love Sawyer, too!

  He’d spent his entire adult life training for fights, but nothing could have prepared him for the way his heart nearly exploded inside his chest at hearing Sky say those words, even if only to her friends.

  “Hey,” Sky said as she came to his side, shivering in a towel. Her hair was wet and her cheeks pink, and she had an adorable smile on her lips.

  He wrapped her in his arms and pulled her in close, while a few feet away Bella and Jenna gave Caden and Pete hell for helping Theresa.

  “What happens now?” he asked.

  She shrugged with a soft laugh. “According to Bella, Theresa just upped the ante. I guess next summer will bring a whole new level of pranking.”

  Amy and Tony talked quietly as they walked past Sawyer and Sky.

  Tony lifted his chin to Sawyer. His smile reached his eyes, and as Amy gazed up at her man, her smile was just as broad. “Welcome to Seaside.”

  Sawyer looked down at Sky and said, “I can’t think of anyplace I’d rather be.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  SAWYER TRAINED HARDER than he ever had for the next week. He decreased his running, increased sparring times, and Roach brought in incrementally harder sparring partners, all leading up to next week’s heavyweight sparring match, which Sky’s friends were coming to watch.

  Sawyer had been spending nights at Sky’s cottage since the night of the sex-toy prank, which her friends were still laughing over—and Bella was still stewing over. The more time he spent with Sky and her friends, the more he felt like part of their group. He and the guys had gone for several morning runs together, and he’d gotten to know Tony, Pete, and Caden well. They were all so in love with their wives that they talked about them even while they ran. That had made Sawyer feel even more at ease, as Sky was always on his mind, and it would have been hell trying to cover that up.

  He’d come back to his house this afternoon to oversee the final painting of the interior and to pack for their overnight on Pete’s boat. The ramp to the skycap had finally been installed. He assessed the wheelchair ramp that ran up the center of the house. The ramp led up to a landing on the second floor, where there was enough room to turn a wheelchair around safely, and then continued up to the skycap. The painters had left an hour ago, and once the paint dried, the house would be presentable before his father’s return after Sawyer’s title fight—to celebrate Sawyer’s win. He had no doubt that he’d win his title fight. He was ready.

  Sawyer went up to the bedroom and packed a duffel bag with enough clothes for the week, knowing that he and Sky would rather spend time at Seaside than here, and there was no longer a question of if they would stay together. Their coupledom was a given, and that was something he’d not only never had before, but he’d never imagined wanting. And now he couldn’t imagine a life without Sky.

  He set his duffel bag out in the hall and went up to the skycap one last time before heading over to pick up Sky. It was a clear afternoon, and from the third-floor room he had a clear view of Provincetown curling out to sea, like a protective arm around the bay. He remembered the stories his father had told him about the walks he’d taken along the shore with Sawyer’s great-grandfather and the bike paths they’d ridden on, and how they would always return to the skycap and drink iced tea as they admired the distance they’d gone. Sawyer had taken numerous walks with his father before they’d sold the house. As he looked out over the land his family had called their own for so many generations, he thought about one day taking those walks with his own son or daughter. He chewed on that thought for a few minutes, having never gone there before. It had always been just Sawyer, and then his thoughts had become about him and caring for his father, and in turn, car
ing for his mother’s emotional well-being, too.

  Now there was Sky.

  Now there was us.

  He glanced back at the pillows on the floor where he and Sky had first made love in the room his great-grandfather built, and he realized that she was the first and only woman he’d ever made love to in that house. He glanced up at the rafters, smiling as his parents’ initials came into view, and when he crossed the floor and found his grandparents’ initials, a whole new warmth filled him. He wanted that permanence. He wanted to look back thirty years from now and see his and Sky’s initials and remember the very first time they made love.

  He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and read a text from Sky he must have missed earlier. Can’t wait until tonight!

  They still hadn’t said the three sacred words that felt like they’d been kept behind bars since the night at the pool, when he’d heard her admit that she thought she loved him. He was waiting for the right moment to tell Sky how he felt.

  He typed in a response. Every second we’re apart feels like a lifetime. Having 48 hours together will feel like an eternity. One I never want to end. Xox. He sent it off, then sank down to the pillows on the floor, thinking about the text he’d just sent.

  A lifetime with Sky was exactly what he wanted, but that wasn’t the only thought heavy on his mind as he sat in the skycap of his family home thinking about the future. The completion of the ramp loosened all the things he’d been keeping tied down in the back of his mind. How many years did his father have ahead of him bound to a walker or a wheelchair, with slowed speech and tremors? Had his father ever imagined such a future for himself? When he was fighting in the war, praying every moment to make it out alive, did he ever dream that living out his years with this horrible disease would be his fate? Sawyer’s chest tightened with the painful thoughts.

  What hopes and dreams had his parents made that they were missing out on? Sawyer had another few weeks until he could retire, and then he would have forever with Sky, or so he hoped. But hadn’t his parents counted on the same thing?