Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (200 page)

“That person who walked past the homeless
wouldn’t be you. As a matter of fact, my biggest fear about you getting this
inheritance will be that you’ll give it all away.”

I smiled at that. “Maybe that’s what I
should do. Maybe Drake is right and all of this time I’ve been selfish and
unappreciative of all of the people who did help me and didn’t have to. Maybe
giving this money away could atone for some of that. Maybe that’s what karma
intended.”

“Hey,” I’d looked up from the card then
and into Matt’s face. “I don’t know everything that happened between you and
Drake, only what you’ve told me. But I do know you, Summer. I’ve lived in close
quarters with you for almost a year. You have a good heart and a good head on
your shoulders. I can’t even begin to imagine what karma would want with you…at
least, not in a negative way. You were a child on the streets and yes, without
the kindness of other people you might be dead by now. But you know that.
You’re the one who has told me that. You told me about Bennie and Phoebe and
Drake. When you talk about them, I see appreciation in your eyes and I hear it
in your voice. You remember all of their names, and you have affection in your
heart for every one of them. Maybe you didn’t know how to express that when you
had the chance, but it’s there inside of you. That makes you unselfish and my
best guess would be that a lot of what Drake said to you came from a place of
being hurt by the woman he’s still in love with.”

I sighed at that memory. Was Matt right?
Does Drake still love me? Was he just saying those things because he was hurt?
I’m not sure, but I am sure that hurt or not, a lot of what he said had the
basis of truth.

I got out of the tub and dried off and
dressed in my pajamas. As I slipped underneath the cool sheets of the most
comfortable bed I’ve ever lain down on, I held onto those words while I slipped
into a dream.
“A woman he’s still in love
with.”
True or not probably doesn’t even matter any longer, but all I know
is that thinking he still loves me makes my heart happy.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR

DRAKE

I leaned over and racked the multicolored
balls on the pool table in the back of Flanagan’s bar. I was trying to focus on
my next shot and not think about the girl at the bar. I saw her look at me when
I walked in, but I hadn’t come here tonight to pick up a stray piece of
pussy…not even if she did look a lot like Summer.

I chose my next shot and God help me, I
found myself wondering if she’d feel like Summer or taste like her. I’ve had at
least fifty women in my bed since Summer walked out on me and I haven’t found
one yet that satisfied me the way that she did. I could still close my eyes and
imagine what she felt like and how sweet she tasted on my tongue. I found that
both funny and pathetic.

Summer had been a virgin when I met her.
The women that I’ve been fucking lately were about as far removed from that as
humanly possible. They were skilled lovers that knew every move possible. They
knew when to suck and when to stop. They knew how to make me cum with their
bare hands or make me wait so long that I was practically begging for it.
Summer didn’t know how to do any of that, so why is it that I’m pining away for
her instead of enjoying what was almost continuously offered to me?

“Hi there,” I heard the woman’s husky
voice from too close behind me. She sounded like she had a cold or maybe she
was a heavy smoker. Oddly, it was kind of sexy like Janis Joplin’s voice. It
could also be that I found it sexy because I was just so fucking horny. I
hadn’t been with anyone since the day I was in the middle of fucking Melinda
and Summer showed up. That’s been almost a month ago. I couldn’t remember the
last time I went that long without sex since the first time I had it. I doubted
it was less that the fingers on one hand, if ever. But, no matter how much I
regretted that I still wanted her, I couldn’t stop, and I was beginning to
realize that cheap substitutes were just temporary fixes for the problem. I
stood up and looked at the petite little blonde about to offer herself to me
and wondered how twisted it would be to take her home and pretend it was Summer
that I was fucking. A cheap substitute was maybe better than none at all.

“Hey.” I said. My eyes lingered on her
slim body for too long before I finally turned back around to take my shot. I
felt her step even closer to me. Our arms were practically touching. I could
actually feel the heat from her body. I looked over at her as I stood up
straight. She’s a little taller than Summer, and her eyes are blue and not green,
but the similarities are still striking enough that in a dark room…

“I don’t usually proposition men in bars,”
she said.

I smirked. “I haven’t heard any
propositions,” I told her, “Does this mean you just haven’t got to it yet?”

She raked her blue eyes from my head to my
feet and brought them back up to my face, leaving a trail of heat in their
wake. “Yeah,” she said with much more confidence than Summer would ever have.
Surprisingly, seeing it in a girl that I thought looked so much like Summer was
kind of a turn-off for me.

I looked at her for a long moment and then
I turned back towards the pool table and racked the balls again. As I took my
next shot, I said, “And, how often does that mood strike you?”

She laughed in that husky voice and said, “Does
that matter to you? It’s not like I’m proposing marriage here.”

She had a point, I had thought that
myself. But I would be just using her because she looked like Summer and that
wasn’t only mean, it was kind of sick, too. I finally said, “I don’t think I’m
in the mood tonight, darlin’, but thanks anyways.”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes.
“You’re missing out,” she tossed over her shoulder as she walked away. I was
still looking at her when Lance and Kobe walked in off the street. I saw Lance
checking out her backside before he raised an eyebrow in my direction. I
ignored him. He’s probably never going to approve of the way I feel about
Summer, and I really don’t care. Kobe was, of course, oblivious. Lance stopped
at the bar, and Kobe came over to where I was racking my next shot.

“Hey, dude, how long you been here?” I
gave Kobe our standard handshake.

“Not long, we finished the shoot up early,
so I just came straight up from the beach.”

Lance came over with two beers and handed
one to Kobe. “Thanks, man. Hey, that girl at the bar, she looks kinda like
Summer,” he said, oblivious to everything except what I wanted him to be. Lance
looked at me again. I ignored him and took my shot. After I’d knocked the balls
where I wanted them, I asked Kobe,

“Where’s Phoebe tonight?”

“It’s Bennie’s birthday. She’s having a
party for him at the house.”

“So why aren’t you there?”

“Bennie doesn’t like me.”

I laughed. “Does Bennie really like
anyone?”

“He likes my girl,” Kobe said, “And
yours.”

I rolled my eyes and turned back towards
the table. I heard Lance chuckle as he told Kobe, “We’re not supposed to talk
about her, didn’t he tell you?”

“He told me,” Kobe said with a laugh. “But
he’s not my fucking boss.”

“You two girls want to play some pool or
not?” I asked them.

“I’d rather keep giving you shit,” Lance
said. “Or I could go over there to the bar and see if I could scrape up some of
your leftovers.”

I glanced back over at the girl. She was
talking to the bartender and from the side and in the dim light, she looked so
much like Summer that it gave me a chill. “Leave her alone,” I told him.

“Why is that? Would it be too much like I
was fucking your girl?” He laughed and so did Kobe as they high-fived each
other. The fuckers were having way too much fun at my expense.

“Alright, if nobody wants to shoot some
pool, maybe it’s time to say goodnight.”

“Aw, come on, don’t be a pussy,” Lance
said. “We’re just having fun.”

“At my expense.”

He pulled two striped balls out of one
pocket and sat them up on the felt table. Kobe took a sip of his beer. He at
least had the decency to look a little sorry for giving me a ration of shit.
“Yeah,” Lance said as he gathered the rest of the pool balls and racked them.
“But you want to know something funny?”

“Will you keep it to yourself if I say
no?”

He laughed and chalked the stick he’d
grabbed off the wall. “Nope. See, I was thinking that as much as you want to
deny you’re still hung up on Summer, you’re awfully sensitive about her.”

“Can we please talk about something else?
If I admit to you that I’m still fucking hung up on her will you let it go?
What the fuck is it with you lately, anyways? You were the first one to tell me
to leave her alone to begin with.” Kobe still had his face in his beer. Lance
leaned over and broke, sending one of the striped balls into the corner pocket.
He stood back up and said,

“Admitting it is the first step.”

“I’m serious, man. Why the fuck are you
suddenly so interested in my feelings for Summer?”

“When I went to Oregon and found her in
that little diner, she asked me the same thing, sort of.”

“Maybe you could share the answer with
me.”

“After she left, I was actually relieved
at first. I never thought she was any good for you. Since we were kids, I just
always assumed you and I would fuck our way through early adulthood and when it
was finally time to settle down, we’d both marry someone from our circle and
we’d hang out and raise our kids together. That surfing school you’ve always
talked about opening, I pictured us working there together.”

“You’d leave your father’s company?”

He shrugged. “My dad is not like yours.”

“I know,” I said. “I’ve always envied you
that.”

“He would be disappointed if I left, but
it wouldn’t break our relationship. I guess I like my job okay, but compared to
getting paid to surf all day every day
–
no fucking comparison. But anyways, I
digress…”

“You also need to take another shot,” Kobe
said.

Lance picked up his beer instead and took
a long drink. He handed the stick to Kobe and said, “Take it for me. Our friend
needs to hear this.” Turning back towards me, he said, “When Summer came along
and you were so infatuated with her, I was jealous.”

“Jealous? Are you telling me you’re in
love with me?”

“Fuck you. I’m telling you that I was jealous
that you had someone in your bed that you weren’t only fucking, but you were
actually falling in love with. You were talking about chucking all the dreams
you’ve had for so long and taking that job with your father. You had that look
in your eye that men get when they’ve decided to settle for less than they ever
wanted in order to get the girl they didn’t want to live without, and you were
still happy.” He paused as if waiting for me to say something.

When I didn’t he continued, “I was jealous
of that. I’ve never had that. I’ve never felt so much for someone that I was
willing to give up everything else I wanted for them. I acted like an ass. I
bullied that poor girl. I treated my best friend like shit, and then she went
away and you were miserable and I was happy. The fact that your misery would
make me happy bothered me, but you left for Bali not long after that, and I
didn’t have to deal with it right off the bat.”

“And then I came back.”

“Yes, you did, and you were still a
miserable son of a bitch. You were fucking everything with two legs, you were
making money hand over fist, you were winning surf competitions, and you were
still fucking miserable. When you left again for Istanbul, I tried to forget
about it again, like I did when you were in Bali, but it ate away at me. This
fucking growing up bullshit is for the birds. I finally couldn’t stand the
constant guilt I felt for the way I treated her and you, so I tricked Phoebe
into telling me where she was. I went there and threatened her so she’d come to
you. And then…the two of you fucked it up.”

In spite of myself, I chuckled. He was
right. He’d gone through a lot of trouble and it had taken Summer and I less
than ten minutes to establish we were both still hurting and neither of us were
going to do anything about it. “So what do you think should have happened?”

“You want my advice?”

“I have a feeling I’m going to get it,
whether I want it or not.”

“You should go get her, bring her back
here, open that surf school, and hire my pretty ass.”

I laughed. “It just so happens that I’ve
already talked to my mother’s real estate agent. She’s making an offer on the
old creamery building down by the docks.”

“Well, alright, my advice wins.”

“How do you figure? I’d already done that
before you gave me your valuable advice.”

“Because you were still on the fence about
going to get Summer. But now you’re not.”

“I’m not?”

“Nope, you’re practically on a plane to
Oregon.”

“New York.” Kobe had been silent up until
then. We both turned to look at him. He went ahead and took his shot while we
waited. When he stood up and saw us looking at him he said, “What?”