AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Bailey was tempted to stay, just to see what Henri would do, but then his stomach grumbled and reminded him that they really hadn’t had anything to eat since earlier that morning. As Henri disappeared into the next room, Bailey made his way outside to the balcony that ran the entire perimeter of the bungalow. The pool glistened in the sunlight, enticing in its invitation, as did the hot tub in the far corner and soaker tub on the back deck.
The place was paradise, no question about it, and when Bailey spotted a large round chaise swing, suspended from the solid beams of the balcony, he knew exactly where he wanted to eat lunch.
Kicking off his flip-flops, Bailey hopped up on the massive swing that had about ten too many cushions, which he tossed down on the wooden slats behind him. He stretched his legs out, tucked his hands up behind the huge navy-blue pillow he’d kept, and took in a deep lungful of the salty air. The sound of the water lapping at the pilings below was peaceful as he closed his eyes and let the tranquil surroundings relax him.
These past few days had been intense, a whirlwind both personally and professionally, and having this moment, this time to turn his brain off and not think about anything other than how good it felt to just be, was a blessing. One that Henri had thought up, planned, and provided on a silver platter.
Henri…
Bailey glanced over to the open door and thought about the man he’d left inside, and couldn’t help but hope that Henri was feeling even a tenth of what he was when it came to the two of them.
Surely, Bailey couldn’t be the only one experiencing this intensity between them whenever they were alone, whenever things got closer, quieter, deeper between the two of them.
They’d spent nearly every waking and non-waking hour together since the night before last, and the more time he spent with Henri, the more Bailey found himself wondering, What would it be like to belong to someone like him permanently? To have him be…mine?
Henri had told Bailey that he wasn’t the kind of man to let anyone inside. But somewhere along the way, he’d let Bailey in. And Bailey had to believe that meant they were somewhere in the same vicinity when it came to how hard and fast they were falling in—
“You didn’t fall asleep out here, did you?”
Bailey shoved his thoughts aside and shifted up until he was resting on his forearms, looking in Henri’s direction. With his sunglasses back in place, he had a large platter in one hand and an ice bucket with Coronas in the other.
As Henri stepped under the awning, his lips curved.
“You approve?” Bailey asked, as Henri kicked off his flip-flops.
“Yep. I was hoping you didn’t pick the loungers on the dock, otherwise we’d end up as cooked as these suckers here.”
As Henri put the platter down on the cushion beside him, Bailey looked at the full seafood spread of lobster, crab, shrimp, and oysters, and his stomach decided to pipe up again.
Henri laughed. “I see I’m not the only one with an appetite. You should’ve said you were hungry. We could’ve gotten you something when we got off the plane.”
“You could’ve said something too,” Bailey said, sliding the platter closer and taking the lids off the condiments.
“I wasn’t hungry then. I was more focused on getting you somewhere private, somewhere…alone.” Henri climbed onto the cushion and stretched out on the opposite side, as Bailey reached for one of the shrimp.
“You know, I used to hate these as a kid.”
“Shrimp?”
“All seafood, really. Shrimp, crab, lobsters.”
Henri turned his nose up. “Umm, I’m suddenly rethinking our entire relationship.”
Bailey grinned, his heart warming at the easy way the word relationship had just fallen off Henri’s tongue. “Well, I love it now. But whenever we did Seafood Sundays—”
“Seafood Sundays?”
Bailey nodded. “Yeah. No matter if Mom or Dad were working or not, at some point every Sunday, they would pile us kids in the car and take us somewhere for seafood and then a game of baseball—if it was sunny. It was usually somewhere local, nothing fancy. There was this one place that Dad used to go fish at with his police buddies, um…Murray’s Beach. There’s a little restaurant that sits off the parking lot of the boat dock, The Ramp.”
Bailey looked at the shrimp in his hand, surprised by his sudden trip down memory lane, and then dunked it in the cocktail sauce. “I have no idea if it’s still there or not.”
Henri stared at him from across the swing, a thoughtful expression on his face. “You don’t go back there anymore?”
Bailey shook his head. “No. I… We… It’s too hard to go back to places like that without them. I prefer to remember that as it was. Does that make sense?”
