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“You want some company?” he said on impulse.
He didn’t have any specific plans for the Labor Day weekend. He knew Faith would be expecting him at the pub that afternoon for the family’s annual Labor Day barbeque. But he’d happily give that a miss.
He generally avoided visits to Sullivan’s—the neighborhood pub in Bay Ridge his family had owned for two generations—if he could. He certainly didn’t love the place the way his pop and Faith and his three younger brothers did. He’d worked his butt off to get a scholarship to Columbia Law and make a career for himself at the Legal Aid Society, fighting for the rights of the poor and downtrodden, because he came from a solidly blue-collar, Irish American background that he was proud of. But he’d always found Sully’s a depressing place to be.
The bitter scent of Irish stout that clung to the dark wooden booths, the tinny sound of the traditional reels and jigs his old man played on a loop whenever his brothers weren’t around to provide live music, even listening to the regulars shoot the breeze with Faith about ‘the old country’ while she wiped down the bar, brought back memories of his mother, and the back-breaking hours she’d worked when he was a kid to keep the place going.
Hours that had taken their toll but which his pop never acknowledged and his siblings didn’t seem to remember. But he remembered, far too well.
“Haven’t you got plans for today?” Zelda asked, neatly cutting into his grim thoughts.
“Nothing I can’t break,” he said, dumping the last of the cooling coffee in the sink. He’d text Faith, tell her something had come up. Although he didn’t plan to tell her Zelda was staying with him. He kind of hoped she didn’t already know. Something else to quiz Zelda about. Had Faith given her his cell number? Weird he wasn’t as pissed with his little sister about that as he had been the night before last. “Give me ten to shower and change.”
He headed off to the bathroom, pleased to have an excuse to ditch his family and hang out with Zelda, somewhere public, where they wouldn’t get into any more trouble.
Zelda Madison had a wild, reckless streak that was bold and beautiful and exciting, which was why shampoo companies would pay a fortune to make her the face of their brand. But she was a guilty pleasure a guy like him couldn’t afford. He had a plan for his life. A plan he’d put in motion in middle school. A plan which involved hard work, dedication, determination and no distractions—such as surprise booty calls with runaway supermodels. Plus he’d promised himself he’d be a gentleman from now on. So he needed to keep his hands off her for the next couple of days. Only problem was, his resolve this morning didn’t feel a whole lot stronger than it had yesterday evening, because even in her tomboy pants and T-shirt she still looked good enough to eat—or at the very least lick all over.
A picnic on the beach would be the perfect place to enjoy her company, without risking having his libido torpedo his good intentions again. It was a bright sunny day, the temperature in the high eighties, and it was the start of the Labor Day weekend. Manhattan Beach would be packed. Even a bad girl like Zelda couldn’t tempt him into too much trouble when they were both under the watchful eye of hundreds of Russian Orthodox Jewish mamas.
“Wait a minute,” she called after him. He swung ’round. “You didn’t tell me what sandwich filling you want?”
“Whatever you’ve got’s good. I’m starving.”
Starving for what though, he wasn’t going to think about.
Better make that a cold shower.
*
“Wow, it’s a lot busier than the last time I was here.” Zelda shielded her eyes from the glare of the mid-afternoon sun and tried to ignore the flex and bunch of Ty Sullivan’s shoulder muscles under the royal blue polo shirt he wore with ragged denim cut offs. The man looked even better in his beachwear than he did in a creased two piece designer suit. He’d slicked his thick dark hair back from his high brow, and hadn’t bothered to shave off the day-old stubble. She noticed the dark, swarthy skin that seemed to have tanned even more in the ten minutes since they’d walked through the park from the road where they’d finally found a free space to park his SUV. Faith had once told her Ty was one of the black Irish, because his skin was as dark as his sister’s was fair.
“Not many families picnic here at midnight, that’s for sure,” he said, but tempered the remark with an easy smile.
“Speaking of family picnics, I thought you were supposed to be attending the big Sullivan barbeque bash this afternoon?” she said, trying not to sound wistful. Or worse, envious.
She’d always loved hearing the stories Faith told about her brothers and their family pub when they’d been at St. John’s together. Faith’s mother had died not long before she arrived at St. J’s a year before Zelda, and Zelda suspected the stories had been a way for Faith to work through her grief. But in a strange way they’d helped Zelda work through her grief, too. Because just imagining herself as a part of that close-knit, loving family had comforted her as well.
Ty had always featured strongly in those tales, which had been whispered between their beds late at night. The big brother who had punched a local bully in the nose for stealing his sister’s lunch money, or worked two jobs to help fund his way through college. Of course, when she’d finally been introduced to Ty that fateful day in the school foyer, she’d dismissed him as a judgmental, self-righteous prig. But she could see now her reaction had had more to do with her own envy—that Faith had a big brother prepared to fight her corner, instead of presume her guilt, and a family who would stand behind her and love her no matter what—than it did with Ty’s judgmental glare. Why wouldn’t he dislike her? Everyone had assumed she was the one who had stolen the wine. And normally they wouldn’t have been wrong.
But now she felt guilty for dragging Ty away from important family business. As much as she had enjoyed his company last night, and as much as she appreciated watching the way his biceps strained the fabric of his polo shirt as he placed their cooler on the sand and spread out the blanket she’d packed—she would have been quite happy to come to the beach alone. Well, happy enough.
“How do you know about the
family barbeque?” he asked, prizing the lid off the cooler to pull out a soda.
“Because Faith’s been planning it for weeks. I don’t want to be the cause of you missing it. You certainly don’t have to babysit me.” Which was what she was worried about. She had a feeling Ty Sullivan had an overdeveloped big brother complex. Something she definitely did not want to be the target of given last night’s X-rated exploits.
“Faith won’t mind if I skip it. She’s cool about that stuff.”
More like Faith would never tell him she minded, Zelda thought, because Faith loved him.
“She knows I have a life,” he added, dipping into the cooler to pull out one of the sandwiches she’d wrapped in greased paper.
“Has it ever occurred to you that Faith might not have much of a life?”
“How do you mean?” He bit into his sandwich, chewed and swallowed, apparently unfazed by the suggestion.
“Well, she’s sort of tied to the pub because of your father’s health. She used to want to be an artist when we were in school. She would draw all these amazing pictures in this sketchbook she took everywhere with her.”
