He supposed he deserved that. “Will you teach Carly?”
She considered. “Maybe.”
“Want to come over tomorrow?”
“Definitely not.”
He thought fast. “Carly and I go to Tijuana every Christmas Eve for midnight mass. Come with us. I promise not to make any insulting overtures.” He smiled ruefully. “At least, not in front of her grandparents.”
She regarded him with suspicion. “If all you want from me is sex, why are you inviting me to family gatherings?”
He didn’t have a good answer for that question. Neither did he want her to read too much into his invitations. “At this time of year, it’s all I have to offer,” he said finally. His game was way off, he knew. He used to be able to tell women what they wanted to hear.
She smiled at his honesty. “I’ll think about it.”
“The sex?”
“The midnight mass.”
CHAPTER 8
“Rise and shine, sailor.” The smell of whisky pervaded the room.
James opened his eyes with great reluctance. He’d been dreaming of Carly, of taking her on a trip around the bay, just the two of them. When he dropped anchor, finding a romantic cove where they could while away the day, he’d seen something swimming in the water, a dark shape, shimmering just below the surface…
“What?” he grumbled, rubbing his eyes. “It’s Christmas Eve. We aren’t working today.”
“Yes we are. Piss away that hard-on and make me breakfast.”
Groaning, James threw back the pile of wool blankets and stumbled into the bathroom. The cold, more than anything else, brought his constantly raging hormones under control. Arlen Matthews didn’t believe in wasting money on central heating.
James pulled on his clothes and headed toward the kitchen. With only the basic food items available, the morning meal was never a grand affair. James made do with cold cereal, as usual, after mixing a disgusting concoction of raw eggs, hot sauce, orange juice, and milk for Arlen. He was supposed to add a little hair of the dog, but judging by his dad’s breath, he didn’t need any more alcohol.
James sighed. He’d be captain and first mate today.
He drove, navigating Arlen’s old blue pickup truck through light traffic to Stephen’s place downtown. His brother must not have been expecting to work either, because he wasn’t waiting on the front steps of the run-down duplex as usual.
“Goddamn druggie,” Arlen mumbled, taking a swig from a flask.
James turned off the engine. “I’ll go in.”
Arlen shrugged and settled into the passenger seat, pulling his trucker cap down over his bloodshot eyes.
The door wasn’t locked, and James didn’t bother knocking. It was an informal kind of place. Inside, two guys he knew by face, if not name, were playing video games in the predawn light. Drug paraphernalia littered the coffee table. They barely glanced at him as he passed by.
At the open bedroom door, he paused, knowing from experience to keep his eyes averted. His brother’s girlfriend was an exhibitionist. “Stephen?”
“James,” Rhoda murmured. “Come in, honey.”
A little voice in his head told him not to look. He should have listened to it. Rhoda was on the bed, her nude limbs entwined with someone else’s. James blinked, thinking he was seeing an optical illusion, for he counted more breasts than should have been present. Then he realized that Rhoda was with another woman.
“Want to join us?” she asked, sliding her hand over the curve of her partner’s belly.
The other woman was passed out cold.
James pulled the door shut and continued down the hall, shuddering with revulsion. He couldn’t believe his brother crawled into bed with that. Rhoda was a dizzy blonde, overdyed, overused, and worn out. Drugs had sucked up all of her feminine curves, but it was her personality, more than anything else, that made her unattractive.
Stephen was in the back room, shirtless, barefoot, doing a line. It was probably 60 degrees in the room. The Matthews men weren’t big on cranking up thermostats.
When he noticed James standing there, he jumped to his feet, wiping powder from his nose. “Motherfucker! I thought you were the cops.”
James rubbed a hand over his face. If Stephen was worried about getting busted, why did he leave the doors open, have strangers coming and going at all hours, and keep glass pipes out everywhere? “Dad wants to work.”
Stephen didn’t consider saying no. “Shit. Let me get ready.”
An hour later, on the water, the early-morning sun broke over the horizon. It was going to be one of those spectacular winter days, crisp and clear, with miles of visibility and hardly any churned-up surf marring the smooth blue blanket of ocean. A good day for fishing, although James would rather be anywhere else.
When they pulled in the net, it was heavy with catch. James normally didn’t care for his brother’s company when he was wired, but today he was thankful for it. Arlen was snoring at the helm, dead to the world, and it took the strength of three men to pull in the net, even with the motorized spool. Stephen was so hyped up he had the energy of two, and James had more muscle than meat on his bones, so they were able to bring the net up to the surface together.
“Feels like a thresher,” Stephen said, indicating the extra weight.
“Merry Christmas,” James replied with a grin, wiping sweat from his forehead. A large shark would be a good catch, more than enough to call it a day.
But it wasn’t a thresher. Two bluefin were tangled in the net, still squirming, not enough to warrant an early dock.
The weighty portion of the catch was a different species altogether.
A woman.
The surf was up at Windansea Beach. Waves like glass had been breaking in picture-perfect sets since dawn.
Ben had promised to make Carly blueberry pancakes for breakfast, so he dragged himself out of the water midmorning for a break. After hosing down his gear, and himself, he dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and made his way to the kitchen, whistling, his mind on six- to ten-foot swells and a killer offshore flow.
“You have to take me shopping,” Carly announced. She was flipping pancakes, having given up on waiting for him to do it.
He grabbed a plate and helped himself. “On Christmas Eve? I’d rather not.”
“Please, Dad? I don’t have anything for James. Did you see the sweater he had on last night? He’s awfully poor.”
“So what?”
She changed tactics. “Did you buy a gift for Summer?”
“No,” he admitted, gazing out the window with longing. “I don’t need to,” he decided.
“Dad, you can’t invite her to our Christmas party and not give her anything. It’s totally rude.”
“What do you care? On Thursday you told her to take a hike.”
Carly turned off the burner. “I like her now.” She fixed herself a plate and sat across from him. “You want her to be your girlfriend, right?”
He took a huge bite. “Wrong,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.
“Oh,” she said, arranging a napkin over her lap self-importantly. “I see. You’re just using her for sex.”
He didn’t bother to deny it. Maybe Carly could learn a few things from him about the male brain. “I’m an adult. I can do whatever I want.”
“That doesn’t make it right, Dad. What if James was using me for sex?”
“Is he?” Ben asked, putting his fork down angrily.
“No. Don’t you get it? Summer is somebody’s daughter, too.”
Yes, but she wasn’t his daughter. “Summer is old enough to make her own decisions,” he said dismissively. “You aren’t. James isn’t.”
“James is the same age you were when you got Mom pregnant.”
He closed his eyes against the pain, having never seen the knife before she slid it between his ribs. “Carly, the last thing I want is for you to go through that same heartache.”
“You’re lucky she took you back,” she said after a moment.