Never Say Yes To Your Best Friend (I said Yes)

11. Evilla

Chapter eleven

Evilla

Evilla

A pparently, our dates are disasters when they’re fake, when they’re not, and also when they’re supposedly not dates at all.

At least the beach is nice. It’s kind of weird because it’s not that late by the time we get there, only around eight and still at least an hour until sunset, but it’s really not that busy. There are zero sunbathers, only one adorable little girl walking with her mom but no other children, and a few couples and groups of friends, all of varying ages.

“I never come to the beach,” Mont says. It’s the first attempt at a conversation that he’s made since we left the crab place with a large number of to-go containers. There were a lot of appetizers left over since we ordered for four people and ended up only needing food for two. “Especially not during peak season.”

“I think peak season is technically in a week when school lets out. Or spring break, which has already passed.” I give the beach another once over. It’s so freaking peaceful. “It’s hard to believe it’s not still packed, given that it’s the end of the week, almost officially summer for everyone, and it was gorgeous today. I guess that’s pretty much every day here, though. Tampa truly is so beautiful. We’re very spoiled.”

Mont nods. “What about when you were little? Did you come here?”

Oh, we’re going to do this. Reminiscing on a sandy sunset evening walk. It feels borderline romantic, but he asked, and I’m one of those rare people who has a hard time not answering truthfully when asked something so directly. “We did, but I remember it always being so packed and rowdy. That’s the mental image I get when I think about the beach. That it’s just a party scene. I still loved it, though. Doesn’t every kid love the beach?”

“Probably. But it’s not that fun when the people outnumber the grains of sand here, either.”

“Exactly. It’s stressful. I don’t like big crowds,” I say.

“You?” He steps off the walking path. His Chelsea boots don’t look like the kind of thing made for the beach. He must think the same thing at the same time because he takes his boots off and hops around, trying not to get a bunch of sand all over his socks. Then, he gives up and eventually just shakes everything out.

I take mine off on the path. Technically, we still haven’t even made it to the beach yet. Well, I haven’t. I’m still on concrete.

The first step onto the sand feels like warm velvet. I remember, as a kid, getting sand up in a bunch of spots where sand isn’t meant to go. Getting your arse crack sandpapered all the way home in the car isn’t a great feeling, and I’m sure it’s not exclusively reserved for kids.

I wriggle my toes. There’s just something about an almost empty beach that makes me feel sort of free. The sound of the water crashing and lapping along the already wet shore is so peaceful, and the air smells exactly the way it did when I was little. Like salt and seaweed and just a little like lake mud. I’m sure it’s the mud that makes the lake smell so signature lakeish.

“Yeah, no.” Crowds. He asked me a question. The least I could do was pay attention after he was nice enough to offer to give me a ride in his spanking amazing car. Spanking. I remember once thinking that this man would give amazing spanks. Jesus, that’s a bad word to ever insert into a sentence because of the mental imagery I can’t control. “No, I don’t like them.”

“I didn’t think there was anything that made you uncomfortable. No situation where you couldn’t handle yourself and shine.”

Shine ? Did he really just say shine? Also, how much of what Connor said was true? I thought Mont only wanted the displeasure of my company because we were scratching each other’s backs. We both had something the other wanted. There was a lot of stuff Connor said that I don’t agree with. He was probably blowing smoke out of his ass where Mont was concerned as well.

Except…

Why is he looking at me like that? With a little bit of smoldering in his eyes? And why do those burning, golden flecks that stand out so well here in the late evening sunshine hit my lungs like a pack of arrows ripping through my chest?

Breathe. Yeah, good advice until it becomes impossible.

The dress I have on is best suited to not wearing a very obvious padded bra underneath, so I went with a more toned-down choice. Simple lace and fabric. No underwire. I like these kinds better anyway since they’re so much more comfortable. The problem? It makes it very obvious when I have a nipple thing going on. And I have a nipple thing going on now. As in, they could rip their way right through a sheet of plywood.

Thankfully, Mont’s eyes sweep away, out to the water, and not down my chest.

I take advantage of the privacy that his heated gaze tearing away from me affords and step out into the sand. I angle my body in what I hope is the right direction to not showcase my rock-hard nipple problem. I still can’t breathe properly.

Especially not when I imagine Mont’s mouth closing over one nipple and then the other. Naked. Closing over my naked nipples while his hand strokes lower, igniting all the fires everywhere.

Christ .

That isn’t going to happen. For one, this was like a goodbye thing. It’s not a hello thing. Connor was wrong. He was wrong about me, and he was wrong about Mont and probably everything else. I wonder how Genevieve is doing with him. She’s always liked a challenge, and she generally picks the bad boys when she dates. Connor fits the bill ten times over, at least in the troubled department. Then again, maybe he just had a bad day. Or a bad week. It happens. If Mont kept the first impression of me that I made when we first met, he’d be sure I have zero redeeming qualities.

We fall into a comfortable pace, walking along leisurely, well away from the water. It’s pretty much impossible to walk fast in an abundance of sand. Dry or wet, quicksand or regular sand, it automatically slows you down. Maybe that’s why people are so drawn to the beach. The pace of life gets turned down a few notches, and you can just forget about all your problems while you’re there.

Mont in a henley is hot. Mont in anything would be gorgeous. But Mont in nothing would be… unthinkable. As in, don’t you even dare let your brain go there.

It’s been a while since I’ve dated anyone for real. I get the appeal of casual encounters, I really do, but they’ve just never been for me, so that means it’s also been a hot minute since my vagina has been acquainted with anything other than my fingers or my vibrator. Anything testosterone-related hasn’t crossed the threshold of my panties in…erm…almost a year. God.

Mont is all muscly, glorious, and gorgeous, but the long dry spell explains why I’m not having such a dry spell south of the border at the moment.

It wouldn’t happen for just anyone.

I happen to know that this man loves crabs.

He’s generous with his employees.

He cares about people.

He adores his family to the point where he’s willing to make absurd sacrifices not to hurt their feelings.

He doesn’t mind that his friends are kind of troubled, even though most people would go out of their way to avoid them. Instead, he probably sits there and truly listens.

He’s a ridiculously hard worker.

He’s shy when it comes to talking about himself, whereas most people just can’t ever shut up.

Okay, and on top of that, he’s also as hot as a scorching summer day multiplied by the power of a blazing sun multiplied by Mercury. Mercury is a hot, hot planet, people.

There’s no way Connor was right. This was just convenience, and now it’s him being nice and saying goodbye and thanks. Connor was not right. Connor was not right. Connor was not right.

But what if?

Every step I take, my hormones start a full-body chant. What if, what if, what if?

Before, I thought if I’d never met Mont, I could have avoided so much trouble. And now? There’s a huge part of me that knows I’ll miss him , not just his mercury-level hotness. I’ll miss our conversations, our sparring. I’ll miss going for weird crab combos. And I’ll miss thinking that if I ever noticed someone again, I’d be tougher this time around. That was such a load of hopeful bull. I’m not tougher.

I’m walking too close. Our footsteps are muted by the sand, and I’m no longer thinking about how it feels like warm, soft velvet or how it smells like salt out here. Instead, I’m thinking I’d like to get closer to Mont than I already am. Close enough to take a chance and possibly brush my fingers against his. Close enough to see if Connor was right. To see if those sparks might be real. I’m thinking about how he smells like his usual—trees reserved just for men—and how that henley highlights all his arm and chest muscles and how those jeans look really good on his legs and hips and the rest of him that I’m not supposed to be thinking about. Maybe if he did take my hand, I might do something silly like never wash it again. Kidding. Possibly.

“Thank you for coming on this not-date—”

“Mont, I…”

I trail off, he breaks off, and we both turn to look at each other. We smile—his smile is shy, and mine is too wide. I’m about to laugh nervously because my heart is thudding, and it feels like we’re going to enter a moment .

Zing. Zing. Zap.

What the hell? When did it start raining out here? When did it start up with the hail? Wait. The sky is perfectly clear. I look at Mont, and he looks back at me, and we both hear the buzzing at the same time.

That isn’t rain pelting us. It’s hornets.

Or wasps.

Whatever, they’re both just as bad.

I do the first rational thing and race off, swinging my shoes in wild arcs and screaming at the top of my lungs. Luckily, Mont is racing a few feet away from me and doesn’t bite a shoe for dessert.

He throws his shoes and races toward the water. Something dark goes flying. His wallet? Then, a black blur whizzes past my face. A phone?

He’s running faster than I’ve ever seen anyone run, and my lord, he’s a work of art. I should be focused on the sinister buzzing coming at me from all directions, but I only have eyes for him.

Zing .

Well, until one of the little murderous beasts pings off the side of my face. I’m lucky they’re not leading with their stingers out. They’re just hurling themselves like mad little divebombing monstrosities of ultimate rage.

Mont is at the water’s edge already. He hurtles forward, arches, and dives while I stop, sand flying all over. I swing my arms madly, trying to escape the shitstorm we just came up on, but I stay put until he surfaces.

“Not the water! These things can follow a person for miles! I can barely swim as it is!”

His eyes lock with mine, and they go wide. Probably as wide as mine when I see what his clothes look like when they’re wet and plastered against a body that is the nectar of the gods, or for the gods, or for me.

“Ouch!” It takes about half a second for my brain to register the burning, horrible pain, but when it does, it seriously does. “Motherfucker!” Dancing on the spot isn’t going to save me.

Nothing is going to save me.

Mont looks like he needs to save me.

He comes charging out of the waves, water pouring and spraying all over. One stride to retrieve his phone and wallet, another to get his shoes, and then, he’s racing at me, his long legs eating up the sand. Sand, sand, sand flying everywhere.

The pain hits me in a wave of agony that doubles me over. I bend at the waist, bile rising in my throat. There’s something wrong with my chest. The hornet stung my heart. It stung my heart, and I’m going to die now. It’s stopping. I can feel it writhing in pain, and I can’t breathe through it.

I’m literally swept right off my feet just as the black spots come for me. The new angle puts me upright enough that my vision clears. I’m not dying, but the pain. Oh my god, the pain is red hot. It’s like a scorpion just crawled up my shirt and put my nipple in its pincers.

My. Nipple.

Holy fucking crab legs, I was just worried about my nipples being visible, and now I’m worried about them for an entirely different reason. No, not both. Just the one.

My face flops awkwardly onto Mont’s shoulder as he runs. He’s got me snuggled firmly in his arms, but I wrap my hands around his neck and shoulders anyway. At least, this way, my teeth won’t go through my lip when I faceplant into his muscles again.

He’s so strong. Strong enough that he doesn’t slow down one bit while he’s got me. He keeps running, sand flying up behind us. I can feel his boots thumping me in the back, and I somehow still have a hold on my own shoes.

Then, he does this miracle where he opens the car door amidst all the buzzing and shoves me in. He quickly gets the door shut before any of the mini-asshole attackers of death can get in behind me. He’s sprinting around the car and flying into the driver’s seat before my brain has fully caught up with what even happened out there.

My. Nipple.

Yes, that deserves to be repeated with two freaking dead-end stops for emphasis. Who stings someone’s damn boob?

It’s going to fall off. It’s cherry red. It’s on the stove, forced onto a burner, and it’s been struck by lightning. It’s swelling up like an overinflated balloon. It’s going to pop, it’s going to burn up, and it’s finished. I’m finished. It hurts so much that I might die right here.

I drop my shoes on the floor, but I keep fanning my arms around in here. Maybe a miracle will happen, and the extra air circulation will work its way through my clothes and stop the motherloving agony that is coursing through my body.

“Oh my crab, oh crab, oh my crabbbbbbb!” I yelp.

“Where did you get stung? Are you allergic?” Mont’s hands hover in the car between us like he wants to touch me, but he’s afraid. Not that it could hurt, but that I’m not open to him touching me for any reason, even in medical life-or-death situations.

“How the hell, where the hell, why the hell…where did those evil little buggers come from?”

“Is it possible for them to be in the sand?”

“On a beach? That’s a new level of heinously evil if I’ve ever heard of heinous evil.”

Mont’s eyes rake over me, hot and dark with concern. Despite the extraordinary level of murderous near-blackout level pain, I feel a twinge that is entirely hormonal. It’s me reacting to the nearness of all that testosterone again.

“Where did they sting you?”

“Nowhere I can check here without getting arrested for public indecency.” My nipple feels like it’s going to explode or fall off. Is that a thing? “What if the stinger is still in there?” I don’t mean to wail, but thinking about the damage this might have done to my boob is starting to scare me, right along with the high level of ouch. I know it’s not my boob. I know it. It’s my nipple. The thing somehow had an impeccable aim, and it stung me dead center of the boob bullseye.

“I don’t live that far. It’s far enough, but short of finding a public bathroom—”

“I’m not going to check this in a public bathroom!” I practically screech.

“Do you want me to take you home?”

“It’s too far.” My eyes well up.

I don’t want to cry about this. I don’t care about being strong or weak, but I know tears will only increase the level of panic. It’s already near hysteria, wondering and worrying about my poor nipple’s future. What if that sting caused lasting nerve damage? What if it’s going to hurt forever now? Can a nipple shrivel and fall off like a frost-bitten toe?

“Are you okay to go to my house? I can find the nearest hospital if you think you need a doctor.”

The thought of having to go to a hospital and getting medical attention for this is mortifying. I’m also super scared of all things doctor and hospital-related. Sometimes, it’s necessary, but I’m not sure this is one of those times, and I don’t want to take resources away from people who need the help. Also? I think they have to write everything down, and having this on my medical record? I would just rather not. I feel like the doctor or nurse who checked me out would rate this right up there with people who get strange objects stuck up in places they should not, and no, I’m not talking about the nose, although how awful would that be?

“What do you do when stung? Put ice? Dirt? Pee on it?”

“I think it depends on what kind of sting it is,” he replies.

“Do you have ice, dirt, and pee?” I ask.

“Ummm, I do, but I’m not sure—”

“Good. We’ll go to your house. I’ll hold it together until then. I can make it, I think. I hope. I’m not going to throw up all over your car or die on the inside or have a stroke before we get there. How long will it take, do you think?”

“Twenty minutes since traffic should be lighter at this time of night.”

I grit my teeth together, slide my seatbelt over my shoulder, and grunt out what I hope passes for words. “I can make it.”