Unexpected Arrivals(37)

“That’s a fine career choice. I’m sure your father has been a plethora of help and a wealth of added opportunities.” Doug gave his acquaintance a smug look that made me want to smack the taste out of his mouth.

There was something off, like the young guy wanted to challenge Doug’s statement, or maybe even his father’s. Instead, he bit his tongue. With a nod of indifference, he politely excused himself, an obligatory smile straining his lips—it was the same plastic grin his mother had repeatedly shown throughout the evening.

I straightened my spine when he made a beeline for the bar I tended, not wanting him to see my discomfort. I didn’t have much longer on the clock, and I needed to make it to the end of the shift. Dottie had put in a good word with Jared to get me the job, and I couldn’t let her down. She’d lived in this town for longer than I’d been alive—I’d make her proud if it killed me.

He glanced over his shoulder at the group of men his father still talked to when he stepped up. When I asked him what I could get him, he was either distracted or didn’t hear me. I didn’t think my voice had trembled, so I tried again.

“Sir?”

When he turned his focus to me, he was clearly taken aback. His crystal-blue eyes stared at my hair for an especially long time without meeting my gaze. I hoped he was admiring my unusual strawberry-blond hair and not something inappropriate clinging to it. His attention made me uncomfortable, so I cleared my throat, hoping he’d respond.

“Can I get you something, sir?”

“Do you have any beer back there?”

“Unlikely anything you’d drink.” I winked at him, amused by the request. I’d been standing here for hours, and not one person had ordered a beer.

He looked like he needed to loosen his tie, prop his feet up, and kick back on the couch to unwind. I couldn’t stop the mischievous grin that lifted the corners of my lips.

“Let me guess, Amstel Light? Or maybe Miller?”

“Both. Bottle. No draft.”

He shook his head. “Miller, please. My mother thinks Amstel is a beer women enjoy because it has fewer calories, although she doesn’t know a single female who consumes anything other than expensive wine. And Miller is her generation’s form of a microbrew, I guess. Somehow, it’s perfectly acceptable for a man to drink barley and hops, yet a woman should only partake of grapes.”

“Glasses are chilled. Bottles don’t leave the bar.”

“Of course.” He wasn’t the slightest bit surprised.

I chanced to offer an introduction over the top of the bar. “I’m Chelsea. You must be a relative of the couple throwing the party.” I’d already figured out the lineage, but I wanted to keep him talking. I hadn’t met anyone here, and even though he lived in New York, it made me feel normal even if it were fleeting.

“Carpenter. My friends call me Carp. And yes, the only child of said hosts.”

“Sorry for your luck.” My tone was playful, and he clearly noted my comment was in jest. “I take it Carpenter is your last name?”

He nodded as I handed him the glass. I couldn’t say with any certainty what he was thinking, though the taste of crappy beer didn’t appear to sit well on his palette. And the urge I’d seen to toss one back hadn’t driven him to down the one he had in hand. He needed something far stronger to escape whatever he ran from.

“It is.”

“Do you have a first name?”

His hesitation to share his first name was odd, but he finally acquiesced. “James.”

“Well, Carp, you’ve been the highlight of my evening. I get off in an hour if you don’t have anything to do.” I’d never been so forward and had no idea where my confidence had come from. I didn’t have a car here and had no way to get back to Dottie’s—although, I knew she’d understand and rescue me when I called.

“Sure. There’s not much to do here. I guess we could go down to the beach. The moon’s full so there’s plenty of light.”

“Sounds good. I’ll just meet you at the back door they had us come in. Work for you?”

An hour later, I released the tension in my legs when I found a bathroom and changed clothes. Then I met Carp at the designated spot. Carp. It was odd, but James didn’t fit him—it was too…formal. I’d just try not to imagine an ugly fish when I addressed him.

He appraised me the same way he’d done at the bar an hour earlier. Except this time, he didn’t stop at my hair; his eyes roamed from head to toe without bothering to hide the fact he was checking me out. Yet where he’d been fascinated by my hair then, he now stared at my leather flip-flops, or maybe it was the ink covering my feet.

“Do you live around here?” I asked, hoping to get a narrower indication of where I’d find him on a map. We’d been playing the get-to-know-you version of twenty questions since our toes had hit the sand.

“No. New York City.” The lack of details he gave wasn’t lost on me. Either he was a private person or a guarded one. “You?”

“On the other side of the island about two blocks from the water. It’s my friend Dottie’s house. It’s nothing like your parents’, but I love stepping out on the back porch and hearing the waves in the distance.” There was no indication of how much information he had an interested in learning, and since I hadn’t had anyone my age to talk to since I’d moved here, I chattered away, believing he was fascinated. “I moved down here a few weeks ago from Chicago.”