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No one bats an eye, because it’s perfect. It’s exactly how it was always supposed to be.
“After dinner, you wanna sneak a couple of beers, get drunk behind the saltwater taffy place, and then let me touch your boobs?” Palmer asks, wagging his eyebrows up and down, and making me laugh at how ridiculous he is and how I was a complete fool for thinking all the times he left this island before hurt like a bitch.
This time? It just might kill me.
Letting go of one of his hands, I start walking toward The Barge, suddenly needing some greasy diner food to make me feel better, tugging him along with me as I look back at him over my shoulder, suck it up, and give Palmer a mischievous smile.
“I might even let you stick it in my ass.”
His feet stutter on the sidewalk, and he almost trips over them as he squeezes my hand harder to stop from falling.
“For fuck’s sake, Birdie,” Palmer curses, glaring at me a little when I laugh and tug him up next to me. “You can’t say stuff like that to me without warning, man. I’m weak.”
We both laugh. Palmer lets go of my hand to drape his arm over my shoulders. I slide my arm around his waist as we walk, and we do what we’ve done a thousand times before, but this time it’s perfect.
And I wonder how much of this perfection I’ll get to soak up before I finish “working my magic” and he leaves me here again.CHAPTER 21Palmer
“I prefer to play the back over the front.”“Holy shit, I seriously cannot believe you’re broke!”
My fist is slamming into Bodhi’s shoulder as soon as the word “broke” shouts out of his mouth as loudly as possible, like the last hour we’ve been quietly discussing my current woes has finally caught up to his brain. While he’s busy bitching and moaning and rubbing the side of his arm, I quickly glance around the deck of Dockside Eddy’s, making sure no one heard him. There’s only five other people out here, since it’s the middle of the week and almost ten o’clock, but thankfully Ed has the sound system blasting “Margaritaville,” and it doesn’t look like anyone heard what Bodhi shouted.
“You want to maybe keep it down a little bit? I’d really not like the entire island to know what a dumbass I am.”
Especially Birdie. She’s been teasing me about being poor just because I’m not winning big purses on the pro tour right now, knowing she can tease me because clearly I have plenty of money in the bank.
Ha ha clearly I have plenty of money in the bank, right?! Oh, Jesus…
I’m trying to convince her I’m the best thing for her and she should fall madly in love with me, beg me to stay here forever with her, and take care of her. I know what fucking year it is, and I know Laura Bennett raised two brilliant, amazing, independent women, and Birdie can, has, and would continue taking care of herself forever and ever without once complaining or asking for help. But I’m still me. And I still want to take care of my woman, and provide for her, and give her a home, and give her everything she’s ever dreamed of in life, so she doesn’t have to lift a finger if she doesn’t want to. I can’t exactly convince her of anything but what a dipshit I am by starting off our new relationship with, “Yo, babe. Can I crash on your couch for a little bit? I swear it won’t be forever. Can you also spot me a twenty? My golf cart needs gas.” That’s Bodhi’s M.O. and how he lands women. Not mine.
Goddamn my fucking father…
With a sigh, I take another sip of my lukewarm beer, grimacing and shoving the bottle aside on the table when not even alcohol can ease my pain.
“You aren’t a dumbass,” Bodhi reassures me. “You let your dad handle your money, and he did a great job of it your entire life. You know, until recently, and now you are broooke.”
I groan, dropping my head down to smack my forehead against the table, and all those jokes Birdie made about me being poor are not so funny anymore.
“You know I don’t need the money, Pal. Take whatever you want—”
“Shut the hell up already with that bullshit,” I mutter against the table when Bodhi tries for the third time in the last hour to offer me all the money that’s been left untouched in his checking account for years. “I mean, thank you, but no thank you. I’m not taking your money. I’m a thirty-year-old grown-ass man who was oblivious to his finances like a dumbass, and I have to pay the price for that.”
