The Heart of Us (Love in Isolation 4)

No wonder women have so damn many.

Easton: Preference on style or color?

Tatum: Sports bra or wireless. Don't care what color.

Easton: Got it. This is confusing as hell, by the way.

Tatum: LOL, welcome to being a woman.

I grab a beige wireless bra, a black sports bra, and a red lace one.

That last one is purely for selfish reasons.

Next, I find the panties section and am amazed at the variety of those too. Jesus fuck.

I'm not about to embarrass myself a second time, so I grab a few different styles. Boy shorts, bikinis, and a thong—again for selfish reasons.

After I'm done torturing myself, I move to the men's section and throw in boxer shorts, athletic shorts, joggers, and T-shirts. Then I realize I need swim trunks and should get Tatum a suit just in case.

Instead of asking her, I pick a bikini that I think she'd like and also a rash guard. Women's swimwear is basically my job, but hopefully, I did her justice.

I grab a couple of pairs of shoes for us both, and once the cart is full, I check out.

After loading my entire back seat with the grocery bags, I send Tatum a message to let her know I'm on my way. About fifteen minutes into the drive, I muster the courage to call my brother.

“You're in so much trouble,” Tristan says as soon as he picks up, and I hear Piper snicker. I'm sure he's talking about the skimpy bikinis I sent her a few days ago. She's been modeling for my shop's social media pages for a while now, and although Tristan says nothing too sexy, I purposely sent her my newest line that has very little fabric. I did it mostly to get a rise out of him, but it doesn't even matter now.

“Hey,” I say, my voice strained as the reality of what's happened hits me. I've been trying to stay strong for Tatum so she wouldn't run, but now it’s sinking in hard.

“Everything okay?”

“There’s been a fire at the shop, and I don’t know what I’m going to do. Everything’s gone.”

“What can we do?” Tristan asks at the same time Piper asks, “What do you need?”

“It’s a really long story, but Tatum needs to use the beach house. She’s one of my employees who was living in the apartment above the shop. Since we had to evacuate and she needed a place to hide from her abusive ex-husband, I gave her the address and code.” My voice shakes just thinking about Justin’s possible motives. What if he was trying to kill her in that fire?

“Hey, man, it’s gonna be okay,” Tristan tries to reassure me, but I'm worried as hell about losing the shop I invested everything I had into it.

“Well since I also need a place to stay until I figure something out, I’ll be staying at the beach house too,” I explain.

“So you’re both staying there together?” Piper asks, and I hear the hint of amusement in her tone. I know exactly what she's implying. A couple of years ago, Tristan was her professional bodyguard, and when a stalker tried to kill her, he hid her at the beach house until her stalker could be caught. After a few weeks, she broke down Tristan’s walls, and they've been together ever since. Regardless of their sixteen-year age gap and how completely opposite of one another they are, I've never seen my brother happier. Piper helped him in more ways than one.

“Yeah, I don’t feel right leaving Tatum by herself. I have a feeling her ex had something to do with this.”

“Why do you think that?” Tristan asks with a dark edge in his tone. He's always been a protective big brother, and I know he'd fix this in a snap if he could.

“He came here asking for her, but Tatum told me who he was, so I knew not to say anything. However, I think he figured out I was lying. It’s very suspicious how the fire started, and I feel like he was sending a clear message.”

“They’ll investigate it,” Tristan reassures me. “It’ll be easy for them to figure out if it was arson or not.”

“Yeah, but hopefully, they don’t think I’m the one who did it.” I blow out a frustrated breath. Anytime a business goes up in flames and is deemed arson, the owner is always the first suspect. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Tristan asks.

“That I need to use the house. I know Piper’s been working on the remodel for the past six months, and you guys are supposed to come here in a couple of weeks for your anniversary.”

“Easton,” Piper stops me before I can continue. “If you need the beach house, then please use it. We have a million other places we can go. Seriously. I’d rather you be safe and have a roof over your heads and focus on your business. Let me know if there’s any way we can help because you know I’ll send a whole team of contractors to fix it up in a jiffy.”