His for the Summer: 50 Loving States, Florida (10 page)

He wasn’t her boyfriend, but more often than not, Hank would put lunch somewhere random. Like out on the balcony, on the coffee table, the bed in the room she shared with Gus, Gus’s home office. Soon after, Hank would head out and a few minutes later, she’d receive a message from Gus to put on her blindfold.

Despite being insanely busy doing whatever he did that made him able to afford a South Beach luxury fishbowl, he often came home for lunch. He’d feed her by hand and then afterwards make slow, lazy love to her in the bright light of the Miami sun. But he definitely wasn’t her boyfriend.

She still hadn’t seen him. Didn’t know much about him beyond the name he’d unexpectedly given her toward the end of June. She knew nothing of his voice other than the hoarse yells he’d sometimes let loose when he came.

But they texted all the time. About their days and, occasionally, about deeper things, too. At least on his part. Once he texted her about how even though he’d only met his brother a couple of years ago, he’d already become the most important person in his life. He told her he hadn’t known how much he’d needed a brother until he got one.

They had this in common. At least she thought it was something they could talk about. She’d written back to him about her sister. The one she hadn’t even known she had until her strung out mother had shown up one day, demanding money for the love child she’d been keeping secret for four years. Dana was messed up, according to the woman who seemed to need a lit cigarette just to handle having a conversation with Cera on the front porch of the house (which would soon be seized now that her father had committed suicide).

Cera told Gus about how she had been supposed to go to college the following fall—her college fund being the one thing the government hadn’t been able to touch because it had been set up in her name.

But she’d taken one look at the four-year-old child morosely sucking on her thumb, and decided right then and there that she’d do anything for this little girl. Her sister. The only family she had left. So she’d taken a big penalty and withdrawn all the money from her college fund in order to get Dana’s mother to sign a new custody agreement.

Cera thought Gus would have more to say about this story, seeing as he had a surprise half-sibling, too. But he’d just written:
“You’re a very good person.”
Then quickly changed the subject to safer topics. Like what plans she had for the day, what they’d be having for dinner, and how he’d be eating it off of her tonight, like he had the night before.

Judging from that exchange, and a few others, she soon figured out the deal. Gus liked hearing about her future plans, but had little to no interest in hearing about her past—especially if it involved her autistic sister or anything else that might be considered tragic or bittersweet. In other words, he didn’t want to hear about all the deep stuff she would have shared with him if he was her boyfriend. Because he wasn’t.

Yet he texted her all the time. Little messages to ask what’s up and see how she was doing. He’d also shown an interest when she told him about her dream to start a charter school for autistic children one day. Going so far as to have Hank scrub one of his old laptops and give it to her, so she could work on putting together a charter petition without being hamstringed by the ancient operating system on her own PC.

Over the past month, he’d sent her so many links to resources for starting your own charter, she had to wonder if he was using all of his down time at work to research
her
big dream.

In fact, her smartphone dinged right as she got to the little rectangle of concrete her landlady had rather generously called a porch.

“
Check this place out,”
the message above a long hyperlink said. “
Perfect place for your charter school, right?”

She clicked on the link. Darn, it
was
perfect. An old garden estate house. Two stories of white stone, broken up by what looked like well-insulated plantation windows. Thanks to a cadre of volunteers, it had been kept up over the years. But now the small botanical society that ran it was looking to sell because of dwindling membership numbers and the recent opening of a much bigger, and way more modern, botanical garden that had opened nearby.

But the place would be perfect for a K through 6
th
charter focused on giving higher-functioning autistic kids of all backgrounds the skills they’d need to eventually mainstream into their respective junior high schools. There was even a greenhouse on the property. Cera thought of all the Reggio-Emilia training she’d received during her practicum at the Lighthouse Center. She bet she could get all sorts of grant money to set up a gardening program for her kids.

Her kids.

Cera shook her head. Look at her. Already making plans for an estate she couldn’t possible afford.

As if reading her mind, a new message from Gus came through.

“Already crunched the numbers. No, you can’t afford to buy it outright. But if you deposit the August check, you’ll have enough for a down payment and to secure financing with enough leftover to make your payments until you can get your grants lined up.”

She hesitated, her finger hovering above the touch keyboard.

“I don’t see why it’s taking you so long to answer. This is what you want and it’s not going to stay on the market long. Don’t let some asshole who just wants a greenhouse steal the place from under you. Deposit the check and I’ll start making arrangements to secure the location for your school.”

What he said made perfect sense. And it wasn’t like she’d consider it a hardship to spend August in Gus’s bed. Even with the blindfold. But…

Her heart sank. The truth was she wanted the money. Heaven knew how long it would take her to raise that kind of money on her own. Literally a decade, most likely more. She could be in her fifties before she realized her dream of founding a public charter school for children with autism.

But she’d needed the June money in order to make Dana’s dreams come true. She could compartmentalize taking that money in exchange for sex and tie it up in a little box marked, “the things I did for Dana” inside her mind. Same for July. But her stomach churned at the thought of Gus paying off the student loans she’d accrued. Money it would have taken her nearly a lifetime to pay him back on a teacher’s salary.

And that was why she couldn’t bring herself to cash the August check. She wanted her own dreams to come true, too. Of course she wanted that. But not like this. Not in exchange for remaining DTF with absolutely no strings attached for August.

Her mind knew it was a good deal. But her heart…her heart just couldn’t take it.

“
Gus…”
she typed, realizing for the first time that she’d done something very stupid. Gone and fallen in love with a man she’d never actually seen.

Then she stopped, catching a glimpse of a postcard from the Santa Fe Opera. She smiled when she saw the image on front of it… her sister, dressed in a diaphanous robes of Persephone, the Greek goddess she would soon be playing on the main stage.

Dana hadn’t just thrived at the opera program, she’d flourished, going so far as to earn the title role in the full (if very short) opera the camp would be staging as a special season ticket holder event on Monday. Cera’s heart melted as she looked at the picture, the role that never would have happened if she hadn’t taken that money. The only thing she regretted was that she couldn’t be there, because it would take place the day after Gus returned from wherever he went when he went away for business. And it wasn’t like she was allowed to take the day off from being Gus’s mistress.

“Why aren’t you answering me?”

Gus’s question appeared on her screen. An irritated pinch, snapping her out of her thoughts about her sister.

“Sorry, I got caught up looking at the postcard for my sister’s opera. She’s the lead. Did I tell you that?”

No, of course she hadn’t. Because he’d already made it clear he didn’t love when she tried to talk with him about her sister.

“Great. Got to go. But let’s talk more about the garden house estate later. I’ll text tonight when I’m done with all these meetings.”

He wanted to help her figure out how to make a charter school for underprivileged autistic kids a reality. But he didn't want to talk with her about her autistic sister. He wanted her body, but he didn't want her to touch him, to the point that he bound her wrists with one hand above her head whenever he took her in missionary. He'd eat her out until she was screaming with pleasure, but he wouldn't let her give him so much as a hand job. He texted her all the time, but he never let her hear him speak. Or see his face. Yet when they were in bed together, he worshiped her body with his hands, touching and kissing her everywhere. And she did mean everywhere. She doubted there was one place on the outside of her body that hadn't been touched by Gus's lips.

But he wasn’t her boyfriend.

Cera let out a disgusted, sad sigh as she stared at his last message. As limited as her dating experience was, she was totally getting that Gus was sending her mixed messages.

And this time, she was the one who didn’t bother to answer his text.

LESS THAN AN HOUR LATER, the bus dropped her off, just up the block from Gus’s high rise.

She swam through the hot sun, wondering if maybe she should have taken Gus up on his offer to use his car while he was out of town. He didn’t love that she was still using the Miami bus system as her main mode of transportation. But it was the last thing she was still in control of—at least until the end of July. So she’d turned him down and continued getting around courtesy of her EASY card

However, the second bus she had to take to return to Gus’s place was way more crowded on the way back to the beach. Part timers who wanted to spend the rest of their day at the ocean, judging from all the flip-flops and swimsuit bottoms doubling as shorts. Good for them. But it was one of the city’s older buses, and the puny air conditioning system just wasn’t up to the task of keeping everyone on the overstuffed vehicle cool.

Then came the two-block walk back to Gus’s place. Cera was thoroughly wilted by the time she finally drooped back into her lover’s fishbowl. And when she heard the noise of Hank moving around in the kitchen, she inwardly groaned.

He was supposed to have the weekends off, but sometimes he showed up to make her lunch anyway when Gus wasn’t in town. Especially if his boyfriend, Leo, had to work that day. And he’d been hinting about all three of them doing some furniture shopping before Gus got back. He still hadn’t gotten the go ahead to outfit the place, but if the furniture just showed up one day and she told “boss man” she bought it, Gus would be totally okay with that, Hank insisted.

Hank, to her surprise, seemed to have developed a rather romantic view of their relationship over the summer. Seeing it not as something completely messed up—as she often did, when she let herself think too hard about it—but as some kind of quirky love story with him playing the part of the gay best friend— one who refused to tell the heroine anything about the hero beyond what she already knew, or give her any sort of advice that didn’t involve either clothes, food, or furniture.

So yeah, Hank could be weird. And he apparently didn’t feel Gus was sending her any kind of mixed messages. Also, she suspected it was part of his strange babysitting duties to keep tabs on her. Which was why she wasn’t surprised he’d shown up while Gus was out of town.

“Hey Hank!” she called out, making a beeline for the master bedroom. “Don’t bother with lunch. All I want right now is a cold shower and a tub of ice cream. And only then will I consider going back out in that heat.”

“I can help you with one of those,” a smooth voice answered.

Cera stopped short, her heart freezing inside her chest.
What the…?

She slowly turned around to see not Hank, but a completely gorgeous man standing in the kitchen. Tall and lean, he looked to be in his thirties, and he sported a full head of dark hair, styled to look like he’d just fallen out of bed that morning with a perfectly tousled do. What he was wearing could technically be called a suit, but paired with a V-neck and sky-blue loafers, the outfit didn’t put her in mind of a businessman. More like he’d just walked out of an advertisement for a destination only extremely rich people could afford. Which would maybe kind of explain why he was so freaking attractive. Like, insanely so.

However upon seeing her, his striking green eyes narrowed with a shrewdness that made her think he might be smarter than he looked at first glance. More than just a pretty face.

Her breath caught and she opened her mouth to ask if he was Gus. Was it actually him—?

But then she remembered her hand being guided over the ridge of Gus’s nose, which had been a perfectly smooth, skin-covered valley. This guy’s nose, upon closer look, was crooked, though. Like it had been broken in at least two places without a proper reset.

No, this wasn’t Gus. Just an extremely good-looking stranger. Standing in Gus’s kitchen.

“Hello,” she said carefully. Very carefully.

He tilted his head, studying her with a wicked gleam in his eyes. “And you are?”

“Cera,” she answered, even more slowly than she’d said hello.

“Hi, Cera. I’m Max.”

Her confusion must have been clear on her face, because he said, “Gus didn’t tell you about me?”

“I don’t think so?” she answered. Half question, half apology. Then she more than half grumbled, “There’s a lot I don’t know about Gus.”

“Apparently,” he said, looking her up and down. “Okay, wow…I can’t do this. You really do look a lot like her.” He held up a finger. “Give me a moment, sweetheart.”

“Sure,” she said, not quite knowing how else to answer as she watched the beautiful man in Gus’s kitchen pull out his phone.

“Yeah, hey, Cole, it’s Max,” he said a few moments later. “I just realized I need to give you a long overdue apology. Because when I married Pru, someone who used to look almost exactly like your wife when they both had extensions, that had to be kind of weird for you, right? I’m just now getting that, because I’m standing here with this girl Little Bro has been refusing to let me meet, and she looks almost exactly like Pru. Same big eyes, same height, same long legs, same rack. Dude, they’ve even got the same hairstyle! I seriously can’t tell you how creeped out I am right now.”