Summer Star (The Blue Phoenix Series Book 1.5) (4 page)

Sky launches into a burbling run down of her family holiday history but I’m lost now, fighting against my desire to touch her, as if telling myself Sky’s out of bounds just pushed me further toward wanting her. No, there’s something strange here. Our cars and fates collided and now Sky’s telling me what I need to hear - with a mouth I want on mine.

Mouth. Curves. I fucking love curves, all the women surrounding me are skinny to the point they’re almost masculine. Hungry. No energy. No life.

Sky is everything I want at the point in my life when I don’t want anything, apart from to hide.

The talking stops and I disappear into my own thoughts for a while. Sky’s drifted to sleep, empty wine glass tipped over in her hand. I smile, the sight triggering a warmth low in my chest that I can’t explain, breathing life into my deadened emotions. Whatever else is happening here, she makes me
feel
.

“Sky?”

When there’s no response, I fetch a thick grey blanket from the bedroom and take the wine glass before I hesitantly place the blanket over her. She awakens for a few seconds, looks at my arms, mumbles, “And I don’t like your tattoos,” then closes her eyes again.

Summer Sky, you’re not who I want; you’re who I need right now.

CHAPTER FIVE

Today should be the first day of my holiday in peaceful solitude but my surprise guest's snoring interrupts the tranquility.

I woke at seven; the memory of why I'm here filtering into the room along with the sunlight. No expensive gym available here, so I pull on my track pants and head downstairs where the very funny and very real Sky sleeps. Sky lies on her back under the blanket, mouth parted. I doubt she'd appreciate being woken with the suggestion of an early morning run along the beach; she doesn't strike me as the type. I glance at the empty bottles of wine. After those, she definitely wouldn’t appreciate it.

Heading outside, I pause and close my eyes, focusing my other senses on the nearby waves and salty ocean scent. The beach is deserted, shells left along the shoreline as the tide retreats. Each pace I run through the damp sand pushes in the endorphins my mind and body need.

My thoughts drift back to what I walked out on. One last argument with our manager, Steve, about the pressure on us to get the album finished before the tour. The other, with Jem the night before, about how he’s too stoned to play decently, and how he delays everything, when each day he arrives at the studio too late in the afternoon. Liam will be pissed off I disappeared rather than face up to shit but I can't do this anymore. The thought of touring turns my stomach; and I'm pretty sure the anxiety attacks I'm having aren't related to the drug and alcohol withdrawal anymore. That was months ago. No, this is from the suffocating life that's stripped away Dylan Morgan so he doesn't understand who the fuck he is anymore.

I don't look much like him now, so I’m determined to stop being him in other ways too.

After an hour, I head back, slowing my pace as I approach the white house. Later, I'll walk; take time to soak up the peace. Maybe write, spend some time with my guitar. Once Sky has gone, of course. Something twinges at the idea of her leaving; the fresh sea air has filled my lungs but Sky has breathed something else into me that I want more of. She's funny and so removed from the Blue Phoenix world she helps me further away from the place too.

What did Sky plan to do whilst here? Maybe we can do something together before she leaves.

The snoring figure on the sofa hasn't shifted and with an amused look at the figure huddled under the blanket, I head for a shower.

Sky still hasn't woken by the time I return. Jesus, how can she sleep for so long in such an uncomfortable place? If Sky wasn't snoring, I'd worry she'd choked to death.

The small kitchen must contain more than wine. Surely, Sky bought other food apart from her curry. I check the cupboards – crisps, chocolate. Lots of chocolate. In the fridge, more junk food. There’re bananas in a plastic bag on the counter but I need more than that. I push around past the doughnuts and cheese and happily find a packet of bacon. Pulling out the meat and tub of butter, I locate a frying pan and set about cooking.

I don’t have much of a culinary repertoire, I'm used to people cooking for me. Instant noodles, beans on toast and simple sandwiches are my limit, but even I can cook bacon. The smell permeates the room and my mouth waters. The greasy meal cancels out the good of the run this morning but I’m going to enjoy it. Ah well, I sing along to an old Blue Phoenix favourite of mine and focus on the cooking.

I debate whether to ask Sky if she’s hungry but when I poke my head around the door, the sofa is vacant. Heading upstairs to look for her, I come across Sky standing in the middle of my bedroom staring at her bag in the corner where I piled her gear last night.

“Please tell me you're not throwing your knickers around the room again,” I say and lean against the doorframe.

She jumps and turns around. Despite her tangled hair and creased clothes, Sky’s presence in my bedroom edges me toward throwing this chick onto the bed and giving Sky what her darkened eyes are implying she wants.

“No.” This time there's only weariness to her tone, no chance of banter here. I smirk to myself; her snark is absent with her hangover.

“You look tired. I should've woken you. Let you go to bed.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“The sofa is shorter than you - can’t have been comfy?”

“I didn’t really notice; I was so… tired.”

Tired. Ha ha. “Okay. Well, I made breakfast.”

Why did I say that? I made breakfast for me, not us. Us? Shit. I guess I could make Sky a sandwich; after all, it's her food. Making a hung-over chick a bacon sandwich will get me some brownie points, surely.

Downstairs, I grab the spatula and drop the bacon on the buttered bread. The stairs creak and a dishevelled Sky appears in the kitchen.

That top button on her dress is undone again. I shake the image of her naked tits away and indicate my masterpiece. “I hope the bacon’s okay. Kind of been a while since I cooked.”

“I like bacon crispy...” Her half-asleep look turns to one of amusement and she giggles at me.

I stiffen and growl, “What's so funny?”

Unfazed she continues her sniggering. “Nothing. Well, you.”

“I guess we're both funny then.” What's so fucking amusing about cooking a sandwich? I should eat them both if that’s how she’s going to react.

Instead, I place the plate on the table in front of Sky and sit. When she brightens with the enjoyment of my awesome cooking, I relax. This isn't my usual means of satisfying a woman, but Sky's enjoying it.

She wipes a crumb from her face. “Why was I asleep on the sofa?”

“Ask those empty bottles of wine.”

“Ah.” Sky stares at the bottles.

Her lack of clever retorts this morning puts me in control. “Don't worry; all you did was fall asleep with your mouth open. Nice look by the way, the little drool hanging down the side of your mouth was special.”

She picks at her sandwich but can't disguise the sexy pink tinge crossing her cheeks. “So you left me and went to bed?”

“The bed I paid for, yeah. Once I removed your underwear.” I pause.
Sky without underwear... Sky's sarcastic mouth on mine; Sky in my bed... What position does she like? I bet she's an ‘on top’ kind of girl
.

My thoughts obviously aren't well hidden and I've involuntarily given her a ‘Dylan Morgan look’ because she takes a sharp breath.

For fuck’s sake, what happened to the idea I'd keep my hands and filthy mind off this chick? I shift my gaze to the floor and zone out of the sex. The fact I haven't fucked anyone for a couple of months isn't helping the situation.

“Anyway, what should we do today?” I slap my hands on the table and meet her surprised look.

“We?”

“I thought we could revisit some childhood haunts and see if ours match?”

“No, I mean...we? I thought one of us was leaving?”

“Hmm.” Surely, this chick wants to spend time with Dylan Morgan. Oh yeah, she doesn't know who I am. Supposedly. “Later? I'd like to spend some time with you.”

“Spend time doing what?” she asks cautiously.

“Like I said, revisiting some of the places we chatted about last night.”

Sky closes her eyes. “I don't remember a lot of what was said last night.”

I knew it. This is fucking funny. Miss Control Freak, who gave me a piece of her mind then burbled on about shit I barely listened to, has forgotten. “Yeah, you rambled on after a few glasses of wine. Mostly about your childhood, though I still don't know why you're here.”

She chews a nail.

“How about a walk to the beach?” I suggest.

“I smell. I need a shower.”

That's a semi-yes, I can work with that. “Get your shower, summer Sky. Then you can come to the beach and search for shells with me.”

The curious look Sky gives me as she leaves the room is my ‘yes’.

CHAPTER SIX

In an attempt to escape the porn-style images pouring into my head at the sound of water trickling over Sky in the shower, I head outside into the strangely warm day and even stranger cloudless sky. A rare summer day of sunshine, who knows what tomorrow will bring.

White paint peels from the old wooden table and chairs; evidently, the owner doesn't upgrade the house outside either.
Which means...
Heading around the corner, my childish side jumps for joy when I spot the mound of shells stacked against the wall.

The pile has grown since last time I was here but that was fourteen years ago. How many kids have spent happy summers here since my last one? A good few from the looks of it; more pink and white shells have been added and the mound is now half a metre high.

I wonder...

Crouching down, I begin to dig through the shells, pushing my way to the bottom.

“Why do you have so many tattoos?”

I stand and turn to Sky who's swapped her dress for denim cut offs that scoop around her sexy ass in a perfect way and a plain pink T-shirt that stretches across her curves. Her face is clear of make-up, hair loose and unruly. How can somebody so ordinary be so breathtaking?

“Don't you like men with ink?”

“Doesn't matter if I do or not. I'm curious.”

“I like them.” Tattoos are part of me, of who I am, my history inked across my skin. I’m getting the vibe she’s someone who judges people who have tattoos.

And that matters, why? I shake my head and return to my exploration. The shells scrape together as I dig. Maybe somebody took the tin.

“I think I made this pile,” Sky says.

“Or you added to it. I think I made the pile.”

“No, I'm pretty sure it was me. Look.”

Sky crouches down, scoops to the bottom of the mound, and finds the treasure first. She pulls the old biscuit tin out and shakes the sand from it. As Sky prises open the lid, I sulk inwardly.
My tin
. Inside are three perfect, spiral purple and white shells. Bigger than the others, these are the exact same ones I spent hours combing the beach for as a kid.

Mine.

“That's what I’m looking for.” I reach out for the tin but Sky grips it to her chest.

“Why?”

“I remembered finding the box one year. I thought it was someone's secret stash.”
Only three shells? When I added mine I left four in the tin.
“I left a shell in here too but it's gone.”

“Oh?”

I take one from the box and examine it. Is this one mine? “I was eleven and spent hours combing the beach for unbroken shells,” I say. “The perfect ones you find in the souvenir shops. It was the summer my parents spent the whole holiday arguing, and our last summer we holidayed as a family. Dad left us later that year. Anyway, after a week of finding half-broken ones, I finally found this huge shell - as big as these. The purple on the spiral was awesome.” Maybe this
is
mine. I curl my hand around the shell. “I left the shell here, because it seemed right to leave it with the other treasure.”

Why the hell did I just spew that load of my history to this chick? This place is supposed to be happy memories. I didn't count on my return to Broadbeach bringing memories of unpleasant parts of my past, too.

Why was I so sure my piece of the past was in this pile? Am I fooling myself that parts of the old Dylan still exist?

Sky stays quiet, and the scent of strawberries from her hair fills the space between us. We're not touching but there's a weird peace in her presence, a connection we share to past happy times. How fucking weird that she knows about the shells too. I picture a young Sky, spending afternoons on the beach as I did. Did we cross paths? No, if we both stayed at this house we couldn’t have visited at the same time.

“We can look for one now?” she suggests.

Silently, I place the treasure into the tin she's holding and snap the lid shut. Our fingers touch and Sky startles. Mine linger longer than necessary, as I fight against taking her hand and holding onto the memory before she buries it beneath the shells again.

Sky looks at me differently; for the first time her guard is down and mixed with inevitable attraction to me in her blue eyes is the look of someone who understands.

When I drove away from my present reality, leaving behind a shit storm I know is going on right now, I didn't expect to literally crash into my past.

This is downright weird.

****

I'm pissed off when the tide covers most of the beach, and collecting shells between waves isn't successful as they're buried deep in the sand. Sky dances around, waving her hands and squealing every time a piece of seaweed brushes her leg.

“Jesus, woman, it's only a bit of plant!”

“I don't like it! It could be a jellyfish!” She wrinkles her nose at me, scrunching up the cute freckles.

Okay, so I'm noticing a chick's freckles now? Whoa, Dylan.

We head along the shoreline in silence at first, but a comfortable one. The sea breeze takes the edge off the warmth of the sun but my new glow from the freshness of the day compensates. Each time a thought about the shit I left behind sneaks in, the easier it is to push away. That world doesn’t exist while I’m here.

“I take it you don't swim much,” I say as Sky stays to the edge of the water.

“I don't come to the coast very much. In Greece I do, but I prefer pools.”

“Greece?”

“My normal holiday destination. Have you ever been?”

“Oh, yeah. Not the beach though.” Athens. One of the many places in the world I go but never visit, stay but never stop.

Sky leaps away from another piece of seaweed and grips my arm before letting go with a look of horror. “Sorry.”

“That's okay; I knew you'd be unable to resist my body for long.” I’m half-joking because seriously, it’s true. They never hold out long.

“Sure, Dylan,” she mutters as she heads away.

Sky can't stride ahead for long because we reach the rocks at the edge of the beach, rough brown stone hewn by waves and filled with pools left by the retreating tide. I scramble on top and peer into the water, watching a small crab scurry away and dig beneath the sand.

“We could bring nets and catch crabs!” I say.

Sky's confused expression jolts me back to the fact I'm a grown man and not a little boy. “Right... with nets from where?”

“I'm sure there'll be some in the attic.”

“You're a little bit odd, Dylan Morgan,” she calls as I climb back down from the rocks.

Normally I'd get defensive and give someone a mouthful for saying things like this, but the small smile on Sky's face when she catches up stops any chance of that. Every smile she gives me I hold onto, and as we head back in the direction we came from for a crazy moment I want to reach out and hold Sky’s hand. How long have I known her? Less than a day and I want to do bizarre things like this. Coming here was running; meeting Sky is like arriving home.

Yeah, fucking weird.

Sky pauses and looks out across the foaming water. There's a family sheltering under windbreaks on the small shore left by the incoming tide and I watch warily in case they approach. Kids’ voices carry toward us as they run in and out of the breaking waves.

“Where are you from?” she asks.

“Wales.”

Sky pulls her hair away from her eyes and frowns. “You don't sound like you're from Wales.”

“I left a while ago. I've been living overseas quite a bit.”

“Oh? Where?”

“In LA, Sky,” I say with a laugh.

“Why's that funny?”

I back away from her defensiveness. “No reason.”

Yeah, I don’t sound like I’m from Wales because I haven’t been there for years, not since Mum died. What’s the point? There’s nothing there for me now; the last vestiges of the old Dylan dying as my accent does. Same with the other guys, Bryn and Liam visit family between tours and come back with full-on Welsh accents, which fade again as weeks pass. Jem’s completely lost his, but then Jem’s completely lost, period.

Sky wades through the breaking waves and I hurry to catch up again, aware the conversation is over. Lost back in my thoughts thanks to the silence between us, I don't notice how far along the beach we are until Sky stops.

Shit.
We've reached the town.

The path from the beach leads through the low sand dunes toward steep, stone steps; steps leading to my past.

A mix of disappointment and excitement clutches my chest as I look to the top. A metal sign sits outside a building at the edge of the brow of the hill, waving and squeaking in the breeze. Mrs. Hughes’s shop.

Why disappointment? Because I know, I can't go up there and see if everything is the same as I remember. “How about you get us ice creams?” I ask.

“How about
I
get them?”

“I made breakfast.”

This chick... She's so
normal
. I wait for her comeback, running my fingers along my lips wishing I were touching hers. Then, for the first time, the transfixed, gooey-eyed look I recognise from hundreds – no, thousands - of girls before is on her face and this niggles.
Don't look at me like that, Sky. You see more than him.

“Are you okay?” I ask and she looks away.

Movement nearby catches my eye; a young couple wander along the beach, hand in hand, and they're heading this way.

Fuck.

I turn my back and stare up at the blue sky. Nobody would recognise me here, with Sky, surely? Hyperaware of their proximity, I wait until the footsteps on the sand fade then glance at the figures disappearing along the beach. The girl looks around at us, her long brown hair blowing across her face.

Shit.

I need to go.

“I think I'll go back to the house. You okay to get the ice creams?” I ask Sky.

Sky searches her pockets. I don't have time for this. What if they spot me? Or come over? Tell the world where I'm hiding. Without waiting for a response from Sky, my racing heart propels me back in the direction we came.

How fucking stupid
. Deluding myself, I'm able to wander the beach and town without anybody seeing me.