Blame It on the Bikini(30)

‘Great idea,’ said Lauren, standing up.

‘Okay,’ said his mother slowly.

‘I’m not that hungry anyway,’ his father commented.

‘Good,’ Brad said. ‘Why don’t you two go down together to deliver it?’ He stared at his parents, who both stared, rather aghast, back at him.

‘That’s more your mother’s scene,’ his father eventually said.

‘It’s Christmas Day,’ Brad answered firmly. ‘You should be together.’ He moved forward. It’d be a relief to escape the picture-perfect scene with the empty undercurrents. ‘We’ll all go.’

Open-mouthed, Lauren watched him gather up a couple of platters.

‘Come on,’ Brad said insistently. ‘Let’s do it.’

He was surprised that they actually did. They loaded all the food into his father’s car, and Brad and Lauren followed in Brad’s car.

For two hours they stood and served food to the people who’d come to the shelter. Their platters had gone into the mix, and his parents were now fully engaged in dishwashing duty.

‘This was so much better than a strained dinner with them,’ Lauren muttered under her breath.

‘I know,’ Brad agreed. ‘Genius. But are you hungry now?’

‘Yeah, but not for any kind of roast.’ She looked slightly guilty. ‘How bad is that?’

‘Why don’t we go get Chinese?’ he suggested with a half-laugh. ‘The restaurant round the corner from me does really good yum char.’

‘Shouldn’t we have dinner with Mum and Dad?’

‘Nah, let’s leave them to it. We’ve done enough family bonding for the day.’

‘I actually think they’re happy the way they are,’ Lauren said as she pulled a chicken dish towards her, half an hour later.

‘You think?’ Brad asked.

‘Yes.’ Lauren chewed thoughtfully. ‘Surely if they weren’t, they’d have done something about it by now?’

‘I think they’re just used to it.’ He sat back and toyed with the food on his plate. ‘They’re apathetic and simply don’t care enough to do anything to change things.’

‘It’s a waste,’ Lauren said.

‘It is,’ Brad agreed. ‘Maybe they’ll learn something at the shelter.’ He grinned. ‘It might be a Christmas miracle.’

Lauren suddenly looked serious. ‘Have you seen Mya recently?’

Brad’s moment of lightness fled. He shook his head and stuffed rice into his mouth to keep from having to answer.

‘She’s not really a sister to you, is she?’ Lauren said slyly.

The observation caught him by surprise—he half laughed, half choked and shook his head again.

‘Is it going to work out?’

He shook his head again—slower that time.

‘Have you stuffed things up so badly I’m going to lose my best friend?’

He shook his head more vehemently. ‘Be there for her.’

Lauren studied him closely. ‘Why can’t you be?’

‘She doesn’t want me to.’

‘Really?’ Lauren frowned. ‘Mya had a thing for you for years. Even when you never saw her.’

Yeah, but the trouble was Mya had got to know him properly now. And though he’d offered her all he could, she’d turned him down. It hurt.

‘Don’t tell me you’re too apathetic to do anything about it, Brad,’ Lauren said softly. ‘Don’t make the same mistake as Mum and Dad.’

Lauren’s words haunted him over the next week. The memory of Mya positively tortured him. Night after night he replayed their last conversation in his head and he dreamed of the too few nights they’d been together.

She’d been furious with him for not opening up. She claimed he maintained as much of a false façade as his parents did. He’d not realised he did that. But she was right. He had opened up to her, though—a couple of times he had, and she’d been there for him in a way that had made his heart melt. So why was it that when he’d wanted to support her, she’d pushed him away? Until now he’d been too hurt to try to figure it out, but now he had to know.

Lauren was right too: he couldn’t be apathetic. He needed courage—Gage’s kind of courage. To run towards what you needed most—the one person you needed most. The one whose love and laughter meant everything.

He went to the bar and pushed forward to the front of the bar section she was serving. Her eyes widened when she saw him and she asked his order ahead of the people he was standing beside. He refused to get a kick out of that—it was probably because she wanted to serve him so he’d leave asap.

He inhaled the sight of her like a man gulping fresh air after a long, deep dive in the abyss. And as she mixed his deliberately complicated cocktail, he tried for conversation. ‘I like your hairclip.’ So lame. But true.

She put her hand to her head where her homemade clip resided and smiled self-consciously. ‘You do?’

‘Absolutely.’

She nodded, looking down to stir some awful collection of liqueurs before speaking quickly. ‘I don’t have the time right now for entire outfits,’ she said. ‘But hair accessories I can do. Pretty clips, small statements. Just a little fun and it keeps my fringe out of my eyes.’

‘That’s great.’

‘It’s enough,’ she said. ‘But you were right. I needed it.’

‘Good for you.’ He wished she needed him too.

For a moment their eyes met, and Brad was too tired to hide anything any more. He was too tired to try to make chit-chat and break the bulletproof wall of ice between them. He just wanted to hold her close—to have her in his arms and by his side and have it all. For ever.

But she moved to serve another person, and it was like having scabs from third-degree body burns ripped off. Coming here was the dumbest thing he’d done. For a guy who was supposed to be smart, he’d picked the world’s worst time to try to talk to her. New Year’s Eve was the busiest night of the year. Jonny was back—there were five bartenders there and all of them run off their feet. And she couldn’t even look him in the eye.

He didn’t even touch the cocktail she’d made for him. He just turned round and walked away.

Mya glanced up from making the next customer’s cocktail—desperate to make sure he was still there. But he wasn’t. She stretched up on tiptoe and just got a glimpse of his back heading towards the exit.

Oh, no. No, no and no. He wasn’t turning up for the first time in a week looking all rough-edged and dangerous and for one heart-stopping moment vulnerable—and then leaving again. She had things to say to him. Things she’d been rehearsing in her head for days and days and no matter the outcome she was still determined to say.

She pushed her way out from behind the bar and barged through the throngs. ‘Brad!’ She didn’t care who heard her.

But if he did hear her, he didn’t stop. She ran out onto the footpath and charged after him. ‘Brad!’

This time he stopped.

She looked at him, oblivious to the revellers on the street and the heat in the summer night. And now all those words that she’d been mentally practising just flew out of her head—when he looked at her like that?

‘Oh, hell, don’t cry,’ he groaned.

‘I’m not crying!’ she denied. And then sniffed. So what was the point in denial? ‘Okay, I’m … crying.’

‘Mya.’ He sounded strangled. ‘Please go back.’

‘Mya! Drew is having a fit.’ Kirk came puffing up beside them. ‘We need you back at the bar.’

‘I don’t give a damn about the bar,’ Mya snapped.

Kirk scuttled away like a dirt bug escaping daylight.

‘Mya, you should go back. You don’t want to lose your job.’

‘I don’t, but—’

‘And you need to focus on your upcoming exam.’

‘I don’t give a damn about that exam either!’ she shouted.

Brad stared at her, waiting.

‘Okay, I do, but …’ She broke off to draw a ragged breath. ‘I don’t care about the bar. But I do. I don’t care about the exam. But I do. I don’t care about anything that much but you,’ she admitted softly. ‘And I don’t want you to walk away from me.’ Another fat tear spilt down her cheek.

He sighed and took a step towards her. ‘Mya, I’ve always believed that no one can ever truly put another person first. That ultimately we’re all selfish and do what’s best for ourselves. But I was wrong about that.’ He stopped and breathed out. ‘Because I will do whatever you need me to do in order for you to be happy. If that means walking out of your life, then that’s what I’ll do. It’s the last thing I want to do. But I want what’s best for you.’