Lifeguarding had been one of my favorite jobs over the years of working at Fortuna, and I’d come to crave the smell of coconut sunscreen, even missing it on cloudy days. In another emotion-avoiding stunt, I’d lifted this little bottle of lotion from a cleaning cart in the resort hallway while burying my Austin tokens. Its coconut-vanilla scent was close enough to the smell of sunscreen that I pre-mourned reaching the end of the bottle even as I plotted ways to get my hands on more.
I really had done more than my fair share of thieving and thievery-adjacent activities this year, and it was only March.
Stepping back out into the main space, I found Vinh washing his hands at the kitchen sink.
“All good?” I asked.
“It’s fine for now,” he assured me as he turned off the tap and dried his hands. “Ready to go?”
I pulled at my shirt as I replied, “More so than I was.”
He stood guard as I locked up the boat, and we walked side by side to his car just as the sun started to set on the day. I climbed into the passenger seat and ran my thumb over my key chain, soothed by its texture and Vinh’s quiet presence beside me.
There really was something about the Lott brothers.
He parked in the cottage’s driveway a few minutes later, just as Bree and Liem walked out the front door. I unbuckled my belt, intending to get out and give up shotgun to one of them, but then I looked at him.
Hair dark and shiny in the last golden light of day, feet in those damned boots, and utter mischief in his aura—and he was headed right for me.
I clicked the seat belt back into place. I was only so strong, and it was best to have a bit of space between me and Liem right now.
Space my filthy fantasies had absolutely not given him earlier during my shower.
If I wanted to be part of these family adventures for the long haul, I really needed to not fuck it all up. The Lotts were Bree’s family, and even though Vinh had just said I was part of that, too, it didn’t mean I could be careless. I couldn’t go about life as I had before I’d had Liem Lott against me and my tongue in his mouth.
I wasn’t the same. Would never be the same, and I needed to act accordingly.
It was still true that I was twenty-three and unemployed with a catalog full of burned bridges, but I was resolved to tread carefully on the one I had left. The one I wanted to safeguard more with each passing day.
Vinh’s elbow nudged me slightly as he shifted into Reverse, and I blinked back into the world. All the zoning out my dumb brain was doing lately had to be its attempt to make up for twenty years without retrospection.
“Did you get chopsticks?” Vinh asked, glancing up at the rearview mirror.
Liem’s beautiful, tattooed hand appeared like an apparition beside me as he clapped Vinh on the shoulder, and my mouth watered.
Like Pavlov’s horniest dog.
“Of course,” the angel said, his voice like a rung bell. “I only regret we didn’t have extras for Princess and Cody.”
I was barely able to suppress a shudder. The casual use of my name had never been worth noticing before, but the way it sounded on Liem’s lips had me internally panting.
“It’s okay,” Bree assured from the backseat. “Cody and I are good with the disposable ones. We’re not as cool as you two.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out with a loud exhale, thankful for the distraction.
Until I wasn’t.
Cher
You, my friend, are in such trouble.
Me
*best
I stealthily returned my phone to my pocket and glanced back, finding Bree in conversation with Liem as if she hadn’t just done some of her signature trickery. Her gray eyes flicked to mebriefly before returning to Liem, and mine—the traitors—went along.
Lord have mercy on my touch-starved soul.
