Cherry Pop (Mercury Rising Book 3) (4 page)

B
en climbed
the ladder out of the water and up onto the transom of the
Bayliner
. It was a very nice deck boat that could seat up to twelve, and apparently it belonged to Dean. Or his family. It seemed to be sort of a
mi casa, su casa
situation.

He shook his head and water flew around him. The heat of the sun on his back was a welcome relief. The Atlantic was still warm this time of year, but he hadn’t gone skiing in a while and he knew he was going to feel it tomorrow in his shoulders. The sun was like a natural heating pad on his sore muscles.

“Move it or get dragged back in,” Tripp called from the water. Ben looked down and Tripp was holding onto the ladder rails, smiling at him. The sun and water made the tattoos on his arm gleam. Ben could see the tattoo that had been hidden by his shirt the other night. It was a sleek, black train on a set of tracks, giving the illusion of speeding across Tripp’s biceps.

Ben was momentarily stunned by how absolutely gorgeous Tripp was. After meeting his parents, it was no mystery where he’d gotten his good looks.

“You’re just jealous I’m a better skier than you are,” Ben told him, walking between the seats and onto the deck. He heard Tripp get out of the water, and then he felt a spray of water on his back as Tripp shook his head, just like Ben had done a moment ago.

“Nobody ever beat Tripp at anything,” Loreene said with admiration. “You sure are something. You two, doing all those stunts out there. Lucky you weren’t killed, the both of you.” She tossed Ben a towel then lay back down on the cushioned bench seat in her itty-bitty black bikini. She looked like Pamela Anderson packed into that thing.

“I’ve been skiing most of my life,” Ben said, wiping his face with the towel. “I worked summers at a water park, doing the synchronized skiing show.”

She rose up onto her elbows. “Did you? Well, that’s exciting. In California?” He nodded. “Did you ever meet anybody famous?”

“You know Brian Curland is famous, right? And Trey Barlow was at the engagement party yesterday, so I’ve met famous people,” Dean said impatiently. He sat on the same bench she was laying on, at her feet, his hand on her leg.

“That doesn’t count,” she said, waving off his words. “That Curland fellow lives in Mercury now—he’s marrying Evan, for heaven’s sake. And Trey Barlow is gay. I mean anybody
important
.”

Ben wasn’t even sure how to respond to that. Did she mean Trey wasn’t important because he was gay? Because that’s sure what it sounded like. He decided now was not the time to confront inbred Southern homophobia.

“I met Charlton Heston once,” he said. “He came backstage after the performance to see if we were related. We’re not.” But it had been thrilling all the same. The picture of the two of them was framed on his office wall back home in California.

“Oh,” Loreene said, eyes wide. “Wow. That’s so exciting!” She waved at Tripp behind him. It seemed to be her favorite way of getting someone’s attention. “He met Moses. Did he tell you that?”

Tripp stopped short and looked between Ben and Loreene, clearly confused. “Well, I know Jesus,” he said. “You didn’t get that excited when I testified.” Dean laughed out loud.

“Not in church, silly,” she said, laughing too. “The
actor.
You know, Charlton Heston.”

“You’re related to Moses?” Tripp asked. He looked impressed.

“No,” Ben said sadly. “I wish I was.” Loreene didn’t throw Tripp a towel, so Ben grabbed one off the seat and handed it to him.

“Thanks,” Tripp said, wiping off his chest.

Ben stubbornly kept his eyes on Tripp’s face instead of watching him wipe the gleaming drops of water off his insanely hot body. Clearly today was meant to be a test of Ben’s fortitude and resolve. What had he been thinking, agreeing to go out waterskiing, knowing that Tripp was going to be half naked all day? At least Tripp’s Hawaiian-themed swimsuit covered more than Loreene’s bikini did. When Dean was driving the boat Ben had been sure he was going to wreck it a few times he’d been so busy turning around to watch her flip and flop around on the bench in that bikini. Thank God Luke had taken over and was driving now.

“I met Iron Man in Wilmington,” Luke said. “He’s shorter than I thought he’d be.”

Tripp’s best friend looked like the redneck poster boy, but he hadn’t blinked an eye at Ben being gay, even tried to fix him up with Carter. Ben was always amazed when people managed to surprise him, like Luke.

“Mama, grab me a drink, please,” Tripp said, collapsing into the seat across from her. The cooler with the Cheerwine in it was in the back with them. The beer was in the bow seating area with some of Tripp’s cousins, who were hooting and laughing.

Loreene pulled a plastic bottle out of the cooler. She tossed it to Tripp and then looked at Ben with her hand hovering over the cooler.

“Yes, please,” he said in answer to her silent question.

“He ain’t never had Cheerwine before,” Luke said loudly from the helm. “Can you believe that?”

“They drink it like mother’s milk down here,” she said in disgust. “Tripp’s got a mouth full of cavities to prove it.”

“Daddy actually put it in my sippy cup,” Tripp told him with a straight face. It took a moment for Ben to realize he wasn’t kidding. “And I didn’t discover the joys of good oral hygiene until I was in high school,” he said drily. “Thanks, Daddy.”

“Well, it made you stop crying,” Dean said with a shrug. “’Course, you wouldn’t sleep you were so sugared up, but that was better than the crying. Never could stand to see you unhappy.”

“How old are you?” Ben asked. He cracked open the lid on his Cheerwine and took a drink. He had a feeling he was going to get addicted to it just like everyone else. He’d never cared for sweet drinks before, but something about being here on the water with the Laniers just made it taste so damn good.

“Don’t you two know each other at all?” Loreene asked, resting her cheek on her crossed hands and closing her eyes.

“No,” Tripp told her. “We just met a week ago. Evan introduced us at his party.”

“Oh, that’s right.” she said. “Well, that explains it, then. He didn’t seem like your other friends.”

“That’s a good thing,” Dean assured him.

“I heard that,” Luke said, slowing the boat down. They were cruising close to shore, and some of the people floating in the water near the beach waved at them. Ben and Tripp waved back as the group in the bow shouted and waved like maniacs.

“I’m twenty-two,” Tripp said. “You?”

“Thirty,” Ben said. He suddenly felt ancient, and hid his discomfort by taking another drink. He was used to be the younger man in a relationship, and didn’t much like being on the other side of the coin. Not that he and Tripp were in a relationship, of course. Which meant it really shouldn’t matter to him.

“You don’t look it,” Luke said. “I woulda guessed twenties still. You had work done? I heard a lot of them Hollywood types have work done.”

“I have not,” Ben said firmly. “Nor will I ever.”

He thought of Roland, who’d had work done on a pretty consistent basis. Ben hadn’t thought much of it since Roland was in the movie business. Even behind the scenes, it paid to look good in Hollywood. The last year or so they were together, though, Ben had protested. Roland was beginning to not look like Roland anymore and it had made Ben uneasy, rightfully so, it seemed.

He banished thoughts of Roland. They only served to remind Ben how blind he’d been.

“You just have to get a good surgeon,” Loreene offered, her eyes still closed. “You don’t want too much too soon. It has to be a subtle change over time. I can give you a couple of names.”

“She’d know,” Dean said with a wink.

“No, thanks,” Ben said. “I don’t think I need it yet anyway.”

“No, sir,” Tripp said, looking at him while he took a drink. Ben got flustered.

“Thanks,” he said awkwardly. “So, are you still in school?” A subject change seemed like a good idea.

“No,” Tripp said, leaning his head back and closing his eyes as he faced the sun. “I went to community college for a couple of years. Got my associate’s degree. Daddy thought I ought to go so I’d know how to keep the books and manage the money when he retires and I take over.”

“Take over the construction business?” Ben asked. He hadn’t really thought about Tripp being the heir apparent to Lanier Construction. His impression of Tripp as a young, good-time Charlie kind of guy took a hit.

“Yep,” Tripp said. “My granddaddy started it back in the seventies. Now it’s this huge corporate thing. Got our own building in Lumberton and all. You’ve been there, right? Folks can’t build fast enough in the South these days. We do jobs all up and down the coast.”

Ben was impressed. He hadn’t realized the company was that big. “I saw a bunch of Lanier signs on the drive down here,” he observed. “But it was housing, not commercial.”

“Yeah, we do both,” Tripp said. “I just finished a job on a crew in Myrtle. A new condo complex. I’m going to do a few months in the office now, handling the permits and estimates for the new strip mall in Mercury and the new subdivision at the end of Freemont Street. Daddy wants me to do it all. Got to know it all from the ground up.”

“I thought I saw a sign where they tore down that old gas station,” Ben said. “What’s going in there?”

“Well, Food Lion hired us, they’re going to own it and anchor the big space in the middle. A Subway, a Great Clips, and a Family Dollar are going in the other spaces. That’ll leave two open, but I’m sure they’ll fill up pretty fast.”

“We need a Dairy Queen,” Luke said loudly over the boat’s engine. “You get Curland to call DQ. Or Krispy Kreme.”

“I heard Cheryl Thomas was gonna open an ice cream parlor,” Loreene said. “Applied for a loan at the bank and everything.”

“Wow,” Ben said, kind of excited about the new businesses. “Are they building here because of the data center?”

“Yep,” Tripp said with a smile. “Took Brian Curland to bring Mercury a Food Lion.” He tipped an imaginary hat. “Tell him thank you.”

“I will,” Ben said with a laugh.

“The subdivision is a gamble,” Tripp said. “Daddy, me, Cornelius Lewis—you know, the head contractor at Turnstiles—and a few other people in town are investing in it. We hope there’s going to be a housing boom when the center opens.”

“We’re hiring local,” Ben said carefully, not wanting to get into that old argument. There’d been a lot of dissention in town and among the Turnstiles board about it until Brian came up with the idea of building a Turnstiles education center in Mercury to train employees from around the world, as well as holding workshops and events for other businesses. Trust Brian to find a way to profit from hiring an untrained work force.

“We know,” Tripp said, and Ben relaxed. “But not all local, right? You need more workers than Mercury can provide.” That was true, so Ben just nodded. “And the locals you hire are probably going to be getting a big pay raise from what they earn now,” Tripp added matter-of-factly. “That means money burning a hole in their pocket. What better way to invest it than a brand new house?” He smiled. “We created a subsidiary investment arm of the company for projects like that, so I hope the boom continues.”

“That was Tripp’s idea,” Dean said proudly. “See? That’s why we sent him to school.”

“He started on a crew, just like I did,” Luke said. The boat was slowing down as they neared the entrance to the inlet. “Now he’s an investor and office monkey. I’m still working the crew, though.” He gave an exaggerated shudder. “I don’t want to be in no office. And I can still fish.”

“Fish?” Ben asked.

“Bassmasters,” Luke said, pointing to his cap. “I’m on the tour.”

“The tour of what?” Ben hadn’t felt this out of his depth for a while. There was a whole culture down here that he was just learning about.

“Professional fishing,” Luke said, his voice implying Ben was an idiot. “I’m an angler. I’m getting ready for the Bassmaster Northern Open at the end of the month. It’s gonna be my tournament. I know it.”

“You say that every time,” Loreene said. “But we’re rooting for you, honey.”

“Hear, hear!” Dean said, raising a fist in the air.

Ben decided not to show his ignorance of what the Bassmaster Open was, so he kept his mouth shut and just nodded. The boat was crawling along the narrow inlet, and Tripp reached over the side and scooped up a handful of water and tossed it onto Loreene’s back. She sat up with a screech.

“Oliver Dean Lanier the Third,” she said sternly, frantically patting her hair into place while Dean laughed and wiped water off her arm. “Do not do that again.”

Tripp just laughed, and he looked and sounded so young just then, a mischievous boy tormenting his mother. Ben looked away, again feeling old and a bit foolish over his physical reaction to Tripp. He was officially a creepy old man, which kind of sucked.

“Oliver?” he asked. “I thought your name was Tripp.”

“Oh, that’s just a nickname,” Tripp said. “I’m the third, so I’m Tripp, like triple. If you’re the second, you’re Junior, like daddy. He’s Dean Junior. That’s what everyone calls him.”

“Does anybody call you Oliver?” Ben asked. He didn’t seem like an Oliver at all.

“Not if they want to keep on walking and talking,” Tripp said with a lopsided grin. “Granddaddy was Dean, Daddy is Dean Junior, and I’m Tripp.”

Ben could still walk and talk, but thinking when Tripp smiled like that was a tougher proposition. “Okay,” he said. “Tripp it is.”

“Yes, sir,” Tripp agreed. “It’s me.”

“
Y
our nose is sunburned
.”

Ben looked up from the spreadsheet on his laptop and regarded Brian sitting there staring at him. “I forgot to reapply. Thank you for your concern.”

“Where did you get a sunburn?” Brian asked, abandoning subtlety.

“In the sun,” Ben said, just to annoy him.

“Ha ha,” Brian said. “Spill it. Where were you yesterday? Evan called because he was worried you were going to be all alone this weekend. As if it was a federal crime. Did we even have weekends in L.A.?”

“I did,” Ben said. “I gave myself days off. I don’t know what you did. I’m not your keeper.”

Brian leaned back in his desk chair. He looked far more relaxed than Ben could ever remember him being. He was wearing black chinos and a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up. In L.A. he’d worn a suit coat every day.

Ben wore his usual uniform. Dark jeans with a tie and jacket was as casual as he got at the office. He’d seen no reason to change his style. Technically they were in Ben’s office in the new data center, but Brian pulled seniority and took the desk. Ben preferred to sit at the table with his laptop anyway, but he didn’t tell Brian that. It would have ruined his fun.

“So,” Brian said, resting his elbows on the desk and steepling his fingers as he leaned forward, staring hard at Ben. “You refuse to tell me where you were. That can mean only one thing.” He let the silence hang there expectantly, so Ben obliged by playing his part.

“Obviously. And just what does it mean, again?”

“You’ve met someone,” Brian declared triumphantly, leaning back in the chair with a flourish. “I knew it. A change of scenery was just the thing.”

“I hate to burst your bubble, Sherlock,” Ben said, looking back down at his computer, “but the only person I met was Tripp. I went waterskiing with him and his family yesterday down at Murrell’s Inlet.” He deliberately didn’t mention that he’d actually spent half the weekend with Tripp.

“Where the hell is Murrell’s Inlet?” Brian asked.

“Past Myrtle Beach. A couple of hours away.”

“With Tripp and his family?” Brian sounded mystified.

“Yes. Well, his mom and dad, his best friend, and a few of his cousins. Did you know that Tripp stands for triple and that’s what they call people who are This and That the Third? And that people actually go by the name Junior down here?”

“Yes and yes. So he already took you to meet his mother.” Brian sounded very smug. “That Evan. He’s always right.”

“Evan is not always right, despite his close relationship with the Almighty. Tripp is straight. Very straight, like the definition of a line in geometry straight. Straight without end, infinity.” Ben tried not to dwell on the surprising and misplaced disappointment he felt over Tripp’s sexual orientation. After all, even if Tripp
was
gay, Ben wasn’t looking. A relationship was the last thing he needed right now.

“Wow. That’s really straight,” Brian conceded. “Did you have fun?”

“As a matter of fact, I did,” Ben said, and he meant it. Tripp was right—his family and friends were crazy, but they were nice and funny and had accepted Ben without reservation. “I tried Cheerwine and his mother is praying for me so I don’t become a lonely gay down here. Tripp tried to set me up with a gay friend of his. I guess he doesn’t want me to be a lonely gay either.”

“Too late. You’re already a lonely gay down here. Isn’t Cheerwine good? I thought I wouldn’t like it.” Brian twirled his pen between his fingers. “Did you like the friend?” His question was just a little too casual.

“As a friend,” Ben said. “I’m not in the market for more right now, which is what I told Tripp.” He scrolled through his email, dismissing most of it. “His best friend is a professional angler.”

“A professional what?” Brian asked, stopping the pen’s movement and staring at Ben.

“A fisherman. He fishes.” Ben was still trying to wrap his head around that.

“You mean he owns a fishing boat? Commercial fishing?” Brian asked. “Can he make a living doing that here? I thought they fished in, I don’t know, Alaska or Maine or the Gulf.”

“I don’t know about that,” Ben said. “That’s not the kind of fisherman he is. He fishes for sport. Competitively. They have a whole league and tournaments and prize money.”

“You have got to be kidding,” Brian said. “That is the penultimate occupation, after tech billionaire, of course. Getting paid for leisure fishing. Genius.”

“The point is, there is a whole world down here that you and I don’t know about,” Ben said, a little uneasy at the idea. “What are we doing here, Brian? And you’re about to marry Evan. To commit to him and this place, forever. Are you prepared for that? Really? Because that’s huge. A colossal leap of faith into the unknown that is modern Southern culture, Mercury-style.” Brian laughed, as Ben had hoped, but there was a serious question behind the joking.

“We’ll muddle through,” Brian said. “It’s not rocket science. Millions of people since the dawn of man have explored the world and assimilated into new cultures. I think we can learn to blend in Mercury.”

“What is this ‘we’?” Ben asked in alarm. “‘A few months’, you told me. ‘Just until I get the center and the foundation running’, you said. I don’t need to assimilate. I’m going to be like, I don’t know, John Smith. I’ll study the culture and take notes and return to England, leaving the established colony behind.”

“You’ve never been to England,” Brian reminded him. “And you need to make an effort to learn your North Carolina history. It was John
White
who left the colony. And then he lost it, poor bastard. He’d have done better if he’d stayed.”

“Whatever,” Ben muttered. “I’ll be on the
Niña
, the
Pinta
or the
Santa Maria
, sailing home. To California. Where we don’t lose colonies.”

“Let’s not drag Columbus into this,” Brian said. “Maybe it will be longer than a few months. The plans for the foundation have turned out to be a little more complicated than we anticipated. And the building itself has turned into a gargantuan undertaking with the addition of the education center, which you well know as project manager. I’m not making it up to keep you here. I really need you.”

“I know,” Ben said glumly, slouching in his chair. “And I’m excited about the center and the foundation, really I am. I love my job, you know I do. I think what we’re doing here is great. I’m just…floundering.”

“Ah,” Brian said knowingly. “Now we get to the heart of it. Tell me what you need, Ben.”

“Oh, shut up,” Ben snapped. “From Sherlock to Freud. I don’t need psychoanalyzing. It’s no secret my life blew up a year ago and I had a hard time moving on.”
Understatement of the decade
, Ben thought. “This move to Mercury—temporary move
,”
he amended, “is a big step. But I have no plan. I’m thirty. I should have a plan of some sort, shouldn’t I?” It felt good to finally articulate his recent dissatisfaction.

“A plan for what? Retirement?” Brian asked incredulously. “A life plan? You know what my life plan was? Yeah, me neither. It sure as hell wasn’t to fall in love with some small-town Southern preacher man and uproot my life and my business for him, to suddenly find that the only thing that matters to me is making him happy. This was not what my crystal ball prophesied.”

“Oh, yeah,” Ben said sarcastically. “Back to Brian. For a minute there I thought we were actually going to talk about me.”

“Now you shut up,” Brian said without rancor. “My point is life plans are for shit. They blow up in your face. You have to wing it, Ben. You have to be open to the possibilities and accept the gifts that God gives you. We don’t know what we need ahead of time. We discover it on the journey.”

“Wow,” Ben said, staring at Brian wide-eyed. “You
are
getting married to a preacher. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk like that before.”

“I haven’t done a lot of things before that I’m going to be doing from now on,” Brian said with a shrug. “That’s what change means. Everything we do, every decision we make, leads us down another path, where different things are required. You adjust, you adapt, you accept.” He searched the desk and grabbed a sheet of paper. “I’ve got to write that down. Evan says I need to write a book with all this stuff in there. This is pure gold.”

“Whew,” Ben said with a whistle. “You’re back. You were really channeling Buddha there for a minute.”

“The great ones are always mocked in the beginning,” Brian said, writing. “You’ll see.”

* * *

“
S
o
, I like Ben,” his mom said. Tripp glanced up from his phone. He’d been waiting since Ben drove off yesterday afternoon for her to say something about him.

“Uh-huh,” he agreed. He looked back down at the news he’d been reading. The world was a real shithole these days. He tossed the phone away in disgust. He’d rather talk to his mom about Ben. “He is.”

“What’s a guy like that doing here?” she asked, walking over to the kitchen table with her coffee and sliding into a seat across from him. She was wearing shorts and a tank top, her hair in a messy bun on her head, no makeup, and even Tripp recognized that she still looked damned pretty. His mom sure was something.

“What’s wrong with here?” he asked, itching for a fight. He didn’t know what had got under his skin today, but he’d been spoiling for it since he rolled out of bed. Maybe it was because he hadn’t slept very well last night. He’d been thinking a lot about Ben, actually, which was why he hadn’t slept. He’d been wondering the same thing about him as his mom, but wasn’t going to admit it.

“Nothing,” she said. “At least not for folks like us. But for people like Ben? Mercury is a real push down the ladder.”

“Folks like us?” Tripp asked, leaning forward. “What’s that mean? What kind of folks are we? Aliens?”

“Rednecks, and you know it,” she said, refusing to get into a fight with him. He’d never understood how she stayed so calm all the time. He’d never even seen her mad at his daddy, and Lord knew that man deserved it even more than Tripp.

“There’s nothing wrong with rednecks,” Tripp said stubbornly. “We pay our taxes and drive on the right side of the road.”

“Wouldn’t it be great if that was all it took to make it in this country?” she asked wistfully. “You aren’t stupid, Tripp. I know that you know that Ben is smart, attractive, successful, educated. Not a lot of people in Mercury can say all that about themselves.”

“Well, there’s going to be a whole bunch more like him pretty soon,” Tripp said, irritated at the thought. “Once that new Turnstiles center opens, Mercury will be crawling with them.”

“Ben will still stand out,” she said. “He’s one of the bosses, isn’t he?”

Tripp shoved his chair back and stood up, unable to sit anymore. “Yeah, he is. I guess he’s in charge of the place even though Brian Curland is here too.”

“I was thinking of volunteering at that new charity foundation he’s setting up,” she said. “You think they’ll have something for me to do?”

“They’ll probably want you to stand at the door and make the place look pretty,” Tripp told her, kissing her on the top of the head.

“I was sort of hoping they might want more than that,” she said sharply. “I’ve had about enough of doing that for your father.”

Tripp sensed he’d said the wrong thing. “Sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean anything by it. It was supposed to be a compliment. You ought to call up Evan and ask him if there’s something you can do. He’d know.”

She bit her lip and looked skeptical. “You think? I don’t go to his church. I know you two are friends, but he might not want me there.”

“’Course he will,” Tripp said, dumping out his cold coffee. “Everybody wants you around. Everyone likes you.”

“You ever wish your mama was more than a pretty face?” Her question surprised him.

“You are,” he said firmly. “That may be what everyone sees first thing, but all it takes is a few minutes and they know you’re smart and funny as well as pretty. Who’s been saying stuff to you?”

“No one,” she said, drawing circles on the table with her perfectly manicured nail. “I haven’t seen your daddy since we went out skiing.”

Not for the first time Tripp cursed his dad silently. He loved him, but damn if he wasn’t the biggest fool in Mercury, running after young girls when a woman like his mom was waiting on him to come to his senses. “Well, he’s been pretty busy this summer. You know we’re stretched thin on all these projects. He’s got to hire another assistant.” He quickly turned his back and made a face. That was a damn stupid thing to say.

“Since he’s sending a hefty alimony check to the last one, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said drily. “But he could mention a prenup in the want ad.”

“I meant a real assistant,” Tripp said, turning back around to brazen out the conversation. “He’s working too hard.” It wasn’t a lie. His daddy did the work of three men.

“I keep telling him he’s going to have a heart attack, but he won’t listen to me,” she said with a shrug. “Your granddaddy did the same thing. Put him in an early grave. Anyway, he’s in Norfolk on that Taylor job. I think he needed breathing room. I just expected him back by now is all.” She shifted in her chair and took a sip of coffee, watching him over the rim. That look made him nervous. “So,” she said at last, putting her coffee down. “Are you going to tell me why you’re still here and not at the office? Not that I mind the company, but you don’t usually dilly dally around here in the morning.”