The Shore (2 page)

The blonde wrinkled her nose. “You're . . . not one of my new roommates, are you?”

“No, I'm Fred, your landlord,” he said, extending his hand.

“Oh! The landlord! So nice to meet you!” The blonde's frown turned into a smile, and her voice became sweet. “Sabrina Morganthal,” she said, taking his hand in hers instead of shaking it. “Would you be a dear and help me with my bags? They're too heavy for me, but I'm sure they'd be no problem for you.”

It was Avery's turn to roll her eyes.
She has to be kidding. Fred may look a little dense, but he has to see that she's playing him!

All Fred seemed to see was Sabrina's hand holding his, and the bare arm, and amazing body behind it. He smiled wide. “My pleasure.”

Sabrina batted her eyes. “Oh, thank you. I really appreciate it.” She sailed past him and into the house.

It was hard to believe how quickly Sabrina had gone from being rude to the cabdriver to sugary sweet with Fred. The poor guy practically tripped over himself in his rush to get her bags. He didn't even notice Avery on the walk as he dashed past her and tried to pick up both bags at once.

“Uhhh!” He grunted and struggled to drag them up the walk. Meanwhile, Avery went inside the house. Sabrina was standing in the middle of the living room with her back toward her and her hands on her hips, surveying the place. Avery immediately liked the way the light streamed through the windows. The walls were painted a pale seafoam green, and the carpet was the color of sand. The living room had two sofas, three comfortable chairs, and a television set.

“Decorated it myself,” Fred announced proudly once he made it inside and let go of the bags. “Well, with a little help from my mom. The entertainment center has a wide-screen TV, DVD/VCR with Surround Sound. The CD player holds twelve disks.
And
we've got Wi-Fi. Nice, huh?”

“Fabulous,” Sabrina said with feigned enthusiasm. Avery wasn't particularly interested in the entertainment center. Instead, she focused on the staircase that led up to a second-floor landing. She could see several doors, no doubt bedrooms.

“And over here is the kitchen.” Fred was still giving Sabrina the guided tour.

“You don't say,” Sabrina replied. “I never would have guessed.”

Avery bit her lip to keep from laughing. Fred couldn't be more than a year or two older than her. This must have been his first venture into real estate, and he was too eager to please.

Sabrina flipped her hair in that way that seemed to come naturally to beautiful girls. People had told Avery she was beautiful, but she'd never quite believed it. Maybe that was why she wasn't blessed with awesome hair flippage.

Meanwhile, Sabrina was getting impatient with Fred's house tour. “Can we get to the bedroom already?”

An astonished look spread over Fred's face. It suddenly occurred to Avery that he might have misunderstood the statement, especially if one believed all those stories about how wild “summer girls” could be. She clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing while Fred moved toward Sabrina, almost as if he was going to embrace her, clearly misreading her intentions.

Before he could get too close, Sabrina raised a hand to stop him. “Isn't there something you should take care of first?”

Fred scowled, raising one eyebrow, then the other, clearly wracking his brain to figure out what she meant. Meanwhile, Sabrina laid a hand gently on Fred's arm. “I meant, my bags, Freddy. Someone has to get them upstairs.”

“Oh . . . uh, right. Right!” Fred hurried for the bags while Sabrina, with the air of a queen, went up the stairs.

Avery's cell phone rang. “Hello?”

“Hey, baby.” It was Curt, and he sounded like he was in a
good mood. She felt a tingle of relief. “Got your message. You seen our room yet?”

“Not yet. The landlord's got his hands full with one of the other renters,” she said ruefully.

“Okay, I'll be there in ten.”

“I love you,” she said.

He'd already hung up. Well, at least he'd sounded happy. She closed her phone and slid it back into her pocket. Fred came past with Sabrina's bags.

“Excuse me,” Avery said. “I'm Avery James.”

“Be right with you.” Fred lugged one bag up to the second-floor landing, then turned and hurried back down for the second.

“I'm also renting here this summer,” Avery said.

“In a minute,” Fred gasped under the strain of the heavy bag, his forehead beginning to glisten with sweat as he headed back up the stairs.

Annoyed, Avery seated herself on the couch and listened to the sound of footsteps and doors opening and closing as Sabrina inspected the upstairs bedrooms and Fred tagged along. It was only when she heard footsteps coming back down the stairs that she looked up.

“—and that's why I need the big bedroom, sugar,” Sabrina purred to him as he followed Sabrina down the steps.

The big bedroom?
Avery felt a jolt, then stood up and cleared her throat. “Excuse me? Fred? I thought my boyfriend and I are supposed to have the large bedroom.”

Fred stopped and looked flustered and confused. “Oh, gee. I'm sorry, she . . .” He gestured toward Sabrina but then trailed off, like he wasn't sure what to say.

“We paid for that room in advance,” Avery stated, trying to sound forceful but fearing that she sounded wimpy.

Fred bit his lip and glanced over at Sabrina, who gave him a coy smile and batted her eyes. He turned back to Avery. “I'm really sorry, but she was here first. If it's the money you're worried about, I'll refund the difference.”

Now Avery was pissed. “Actually, I was here first. But she pushed past me. And my boyfriend has been in town for two days, but you told us we couldn't check in until today, so he waited.”

Again Fred's eyes slid to Sabrina. Avery realized that he was under her spell and there was probably nothing she could say that would make a difference. She took a deep breath and calmed herself. She was here to have a good time this summer, not make enemies on the very first day. Besides there had to be another decent bedroom. If Curt didn't like it, she'd let him work it out with Fred.

“I get to pick the next bedroom,” Avery said. “No matter who shows up next.”

“I promise,” Fred replied. Having put out that fire, he sidled over to Sabrina. “So, uh, I was wondering if you had any plans. . . .”

Sabrina gave him puppy dog eyes. “Oh, Freddy, I just
remembered I promised a friend that I'd meet her on the beach.”

Disappointment spread over Fred's face, but he quickly caught himself. “Yeah, okay, maybe later?”

“You're a sweetheart.” Sabrina gave him a peck on the cheek and ran back upstairs to her room.
Which had been my room,
Avery reminded herself bitterly, then sighed.
Oh, come on, get over it. It's not worth ruining your first day for.
She went outside to get her bags out of the truck. The sun was strong, and she liked the feeling of heat on her head and arms.
This is going to be a great summer.

Then she heard the voice that she hoped was going to make it so great. “Hey, baby.” It was Curt, strolling toward her on the sidewalk. Tall and lanky, he took his time, with that slightly disheveled look that made it seem like he'd just woken up. His black hair was tousled, and he wore baggy jeans and a black long-sleeved Metalhead T-shirt that was so wrinkled, it looked slept in. He had a bag slung over his shoulder and a couple day's growth of dark stubble on his jaw. Comparisons to Colin Farrell were not out of the question.

She threw her arms around him, and he dropped his eyes down to hers. They were dark like his hair and smoldered with an inner fire. “Miss me?” he half asked, half growled in the voice that always made her heart pound. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. In the heat in his kiss she tasted something unexpected and pulled back. “Drinking already?”

Here we go,
Curt thought, annoyed. They'd hardly been together a minute and Avery was already upset about something. What was the big deal, anyway? He'd only had a beer. So what if it was the middle of the day? She probably thought he was just goofing off, and didn't understand how hard he'd been working to get his band, Stranger Than Fiction, or STF, ready for a summer of shoreline gigs. The afternoon beer was just a way to relax a little, cut through the tension and stress of trying to get the guys in STF to rehearse. Especially when they were so close to the beach, beautiful water, and lots of babes in bikinis. Avery would understand soon enough. In the meantime, he wanted to check out the house where she'd insisted they stay this summer instead of with the band. He had to admit that from the outside, at least, the place looked nice, nicer than the dump his bandmates were renting.

“They're a corrupting influence,” Avery said, referring to the other members of STF. She was only half teasing.

“That's what they say about you,” he replied, also only half teasing. He slid his fingers through her soft brown hair. He liked the way her eyes sparkled when she gazed up at him.
Like I'm the only guy in the world.

She let go of him and moved to the back of the pickup and began unhooking the tarp. He got on the other side to help her. “You bring the rest of my stuff?” he asked.

“Of course.” She paused. “Where's Lucille?”

Lucille was not a person, it was a cherry red 1975 Fender
Stratocaster guitar and, Avery sometimes suspected, the closest “woman” to Curt's heart.

“I'm going to keep her at the other house,” Curt answered. “It's easier than hauling her back and forth.”

“Oh.” Avery averted her eyes and busied herself with the bags, but Curt knew she was disappointed. It was some dumb symbolic thing to her, like if he left his guitar with the band, then he wasn't entirely there with her.

A nerdy-looking guy with brown hair and black-framed glasses came out of the rental house. He was wearing plaid shorts with black socks and shoes. “You two moving in?”

“Fred, this is my boyfriend, Curt,” Avery said. “Curt, this is Fred. He's our landlord.”

Curt was surprised. While nerds often had an ageless quality, this Fred guy didn't look much older than he was. Kind of young to own properties.

“How did you know my name?” Fred asked Avery.

She looked stunned. “I'm Avery, remember? We just met. You know, inside, when that other girl stole our room?”

“Someone else got our room?” Curt asked with a frown.

“Oh, uh, I'm really sorry about that,” Fred said sheepishly. “Like I said, I'll refund the difference in rent to you, and I'll be glad to show you the other rooms right now.”

Curt bristled. Half the reason he'd agreed to stay here instead of with the band was that Avery had told him she'd found a really nice room for them. “You mean someone else
snagged our room and you didn't do anything about it?”

“I tried,” Avery mumbled.

Curt knew Avery wasn't real big about asserting herself, but given what a wimp this Fred nerd was, he thought he could take advantage of the situation. Curt narrowed his eyes menacingly at the landlord. “We paid for that room in advance. You had no right to give it away.”

“Look, I said I'm sorry and I'll refund the difference,” Fred answered uncomfortably. “I'll let you have the next best room.”

“I think you'll have to do better than that,” Curt said with just a hint of a threat in his voice.

“I . . . I don't understand what you mean . . . ,” Fred stammered.

“Think about it,” Curt said.

“Oh, well, I guess I could give you a discount on the other room,” Fred said.

Curt smiled. “There you go.”

“Let me show you what I've got.” Fred turned and led them into the house. Curt grabbed a couple of bags from the back of the pickup, and he and Avery followed.

“I still think we should bag this whole thing and stay with the band,” Curt muttered to Avery as they entered the house.

“I want us to have more privacy,” Avery replied.

“Privacy?” Curt scoffed. “In a house full of strangers, that's a good one.”

She turned scarlet but didn't say anything. Curt sighed. The whole situation was lame.

Inside they followed Fred up the staircase to the second-floor landing. Suddenly a hot-looking blonde came out of the room at the end of the hall, wearing a pink bikini top and pastel green shorts. Curt felt his eyes bulge. She was gorgeous and had a killer bod, top and bottom. If she was one of his roommates, he suddenly had a whole new reason for staying here. The blonde smiled warmly at Fred, then flounced past them on her way to the stairs. When she passed Curt, he caught a whiff of perfume that had to be expensive. Even better, she brushed against him in a way that let him know she had done it on purpose. As she passed, he couldn't help imagining what she'd look like with less clothing.

“Was that the big bedroom she came out of?” Curt asked after the blonde had passed.

“Yes,” Fred said, sounding miserable.

“I want to see it,” Curt said.

“Why?” Fred asked.

“So I know I'm really getting a discount on the piece of crap room we wind up with.”

Fred's shoulders sagged. “Uh, sure.”

Curt smiled. He was gonna talk this wimp down until they got a room almost for free. But when they reached the door of the big bedroom, they discovered that it was locked.

“You've got a spare key, right?” Curt said.

“Uh, no, I don't,” Fred said, shrugging and looking embarrassed.

Curt rolled his eyes. What kind of landlord didn't keep spare keys? This guy Fred was a joke.

“Here, this room is the next largest,” Fred said, hastening to open another door on the landing. This room wasn't much larger than Curt's bedroom at home, with only a double bed and a small dresser. The walls were drab, and the carpet was worn in spots. On the other hand, it was clean and it smelled okay, which was a major improvement over the rooms in the house where the other members of STF were staying.