Someone Else's Ocean

Everything about my life in New York went fast.

My new focus was slow and meaningful.

Fighting with myself to look away; instead, I chose to drink in the scene below. Accusatory gray eyes met mine when I glanced back down at the couple and my face lit up in embarrassment. Ian ripped himself from her, his eyes still on mine. He was clearly drunk and staggered into his house with the woman in tow, slamming the door behind them.

I threw the untouched fish in the sink and grabbed a pair of silencing plugs from my nightstand. It was going to be a long night.

The next morning, Ian sat on the beach in nothing but swim trunks as I made my way out of the house for work. He barely glanced my way which was fine with me. I had nothing to say to him. At least I didn’t have to worry about false reports to his mother because he had finally joined the land of the living. Despite my best efforts to block Ian out, I was up half the night hot and cold, tossing and turning, with body aches.

I knew what was coming and had the pissy mood to match.

In a freshly purchased pair of flip-flops, with an iced coffee in hand, I walked toward my Jeep to start my day when he spoke.

“Have you talked to my mother?” He wiped the sand off his swim trunks as he stood. Ripping my eyes from his profile, lit by the early morning sun, I continued walking to my Jeep without a word.

“Oh, you are going to play hurt?” He barked at me. “I declined your dinner invitation. I was pretty clear.”

I bit the inside of both cheeks and kept my feet moving.

“Could you at least tell her not to come?”

“Tell her yourself,” I said, throwing my purse into the passenger seat.

“Favor for a favor, Koti. I lent you my shower. This is not a difficult request.”

Facing him, I crossed my arms. “Why are you so afraid of your mother?”

Hypocrite.

I barely answered my own mother’s calls. My failures looked horrible on her face and were no less daunting over the line. Her “in my day” speeches suffocated me and had my whole life. The less we spoke the closer we got to middle ground.

Ian took a step forward. “She’s a mother. She asks too many questions.”

“Seems like you had no issue talking last night.” A single brow rose while he studied my face.

“Dirty boy, aren’t you? Tell you what. Why don’t you take your spoiled ass inside that house and call your own damned mommy.”

Screw babysitting, I would make it work. If Ian left, spoke ill of me to his mother, if I lost the commission, I would beg Jasmine not to fire me while I rallied for another property.

Ian took an aggressive step forward. “Not that it’s any of your business but I haven’t had sex with anyone but my ex-wife in fifteen years so I guarantee you if I sleep with anyone, it’s a well-deserved fuck.”

“Well, I hope you wrapped it up tight because we don’t need you multiplying your kind of crazy around here.”

His face turned to stone and his jaw ticked. “What in the hell did you just say?”

Ah, the angry South African Texan had returned. I’d done a fine job of ruining my twenty-four-hour truce. My father always told me before I entered any argument to go in with three justifiable points, or the battle wasn’t worth it.

Where Ian was concerned, I was good to go. “News flash buddy, number one, I’ve made more allowances than I should for your rude behavior. You have not once thanked me for the trouble I’ve gone through on your behalf to keep you in that house. Number two, which by the way, was fully booked when you decided to show up with your shitshow circus and has made my work days harder. Number three, not only that, I’ve lost more nights of sleep since you’ve been here than I have in a year! I said call your own mother, burn her house down, starve to death. I’m done watching over you. You aren’t worth the trouble!”

“What’s your problem, Koti. Are you jealous? Do you fancy me?” He asked, his tone unmistakably mocking as he took a step forward and then another until I was pinned to my Jeep. “I noticed you watching us.”

Feeling the blush creep up on my face, I chose to ignore the fact that he busted me.

“Jealous?” I scoffed as ice gray eyes slanted down and stunned me. “Do I fancy you? You think an invitation to dinner is a request for sex? Man, you have been out of the game for some time, old sport. You were an arrogant ass as a kid, but you’ve got one hell of an ego on you now, don’t you, crocky? What in the hell would I possibly have to be jealous of? Drunk sex with a hyena? I bet you can’t even remember her name.”

He glared at me openly.

“What did you call her when she left this morning, barstool number five with big breasts?”