Chapter 4

Of course, he was here, sitting on Drew's couch. Why wouldn't he be here already? Drew would choose to spring this on me at the last possible second.

Max ran around my legs excitedly as I paced in circles, kicking at random rocks in the driveway. He really should pave this crap, but that wasn't important at the moment. The man who had been holding my family home over my head tricked me into working with the last person I wanted to see, and that was what mattered. Not that he knew that.

Before Nathan left that last summer, he hadn't come out to his family. We were a big secret, but we'd been close. If he had ever come out, it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to piece together what had been going on between us.

And why did he still have to look so damn good? It wasn't fair. If he had gone to college just to abandon me, why couldn't he have been hit with an ugly stick or something? Then again, for all I knew, there was a reason Nate hadn't returned like he said he would. I, however, chose not to cling to hope. He didn't deserve that from me.

"Would you calm down?"

My head snapped toward Drew's voice. Calm down? He wanted me to calm down?

When the object of my irritation appeared in the doorway behind him, my body instantly gravitated toward my bike. I yanked it to a standing position and swung my leg over the seat. "I'll calm down when you figure something else out."

"Chase."

I froze at Nathan's voice. It was pathetic how—after four damn years without it—something as simple as hearing my name pass through those lips could transport me right back to where we'd been.

With a huff, I let the bike drop back to the ground, sending Max running across the yard, startled by the sudden noise and movement.

"What the hell do you want?"

The way I snapped was out of character, but I'd bottled it up for the last several years. When Nathan shrank back, I knew I'd hit a nerve.

Drew moved out of the way as Nathan exited the house and slowly made his way across the lawn to me. When we stood toe-to-toe, I had to fight the urge to let go of my anger. I had every right to be angry. He'd betrayed my trust. But I'd been stupid to think that someone I'd fooled around with during the summers as a teenager was actually coming back for me.

"This isn't... ideal."

I scoffed. "Ideal? What the hell are you doing here, anyway?"

The front door closing had me looking over Nathan's shoulder to see that Drew had left us alone. Just fucking great.

Nathan's cheeks pinkened as he looked around, his discomfort apparent when he could no longer meet my eyes. Good. I wanted him to know I was pissed.

"I was sent out here to work..."

That got another laugh out of me. "Work? You? With your big flashy college degree."

That hit a nerve. Whatever softness had been on Nathan's features before vanished. He locked right up as he looked at me head-on.

Nathan pulled his keys from his pocket and, without saying another word, walked over to a newer-looking Toyota. He clicked the key fob before sliding into the driver's seat and starting the car. He rolled the window down as he backed down the driveway. "Tell my uncle I'll be back later."

I watched his car drive off toward the beach before my body sagged in defeat. A cold, wet nose nuzzling my hand snapped me out of my thoughts. I scratched Max behind the ears before taking him back into Drew's house with me. The man was sitting on the couch fiddling with his pack of cigarettes when we walked in, but he dropped them on the table when he saw me.

"That didn't seem like a happy homecoming."

I fought the smile that wanted to pull at my lips. "In case you didn't notice, things didn't end so well between us."

Drew nodded before standing. He crossed the room and placed a wrinkled hand on my shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "I don't know what the extent of your relationship with my nephew was. I knew you two were close way back when. Maybe it was my mistake for assuming it was more."

Had Nathan not come out to his family? It was risky to say something if he hadn't, but Drew didn't seem to judge us.

I swallowed around the lump in my throat. "I thought it was more, too. And maybe that was the problem."

Itossed the rag into the bucket before wiping my forehead and looking around the bathroom. Drew had been right that the last people to rent hadn't left much of a mess, but I still had to scrub the place down.

When I glanced out the windows toward the beach, I made out what looked like ants walking along the sand. My thoughts immediately drifted to Nathan and how he'd driven toward the beach entrance after our blowup this morning. Was he still out there? Maybe it had been a bit much of me to assume anything about him. There had to be a reason he was sent out here for the summer, degree or no degree.

I never let my anger get the best of me, but seeing him again brought everything I'd been keeping inside to the surface. Drew had gotten me to settle down enough to tell me the rest of the properties that I needed to clean today. It was a lot, and at the end of the day, I was thankful that I wouldn't be doing this by myself this summer. No matter who it was that I was stuck doing it with.

My phone pinged with an incoming text message and I pulled it from my pocket. The sigh that escaped me betrayed my irritation. I didn't have a lot of friends left around here, and the ones that had hung around liked to stir up trouble.

Art: Party out by the jetty tonight. Are you game?

Was I? I shoved my phone back into my pocket as I gathered the rest of the cleaning supplies and jammed them inside the bucket that I hung from my handlebars. My bike wasn't always the best mode of transportation, but after buying the camper, it was all I could afford; especially since I wanted to save up to buy my parents house back. Drew drove me around in the winter months when it was colder, but one day I needed to figure it out for myself.

Once again, I gazed toward the beach. Nathan had a nice car, but he'd always had a lot of nice things that I didn't. Until they'd died, my mom and dad had done pretty well for themselves, running one of the little shops in town, but we didn't have everything that the Grant family had. It had devastated me to lose what was left of my family when the house went on the market, and when Drew Morris bought it and offered me the opportunity to buy it back... I couldn't pass up the opportunity.

I ditched the bucket and bike back at home, giving Oreo a can of food before stupidly making my way out to the beach. It was only a fifteen-minute walk from my lot. The time should have given me the clarity to turn my ass back around and not do this, but if I had to deal with Nathan Grant for the next however many months he was here, I might as well make the most of it. Indulge in the perks.

If there was one thing we had always had, it was chemistry between the sheets. Maybe while he was here, I could at least get that out of him. I couldn't put my heart on the line again. That was completely out of the question. He'd destroyed me once before and I wouldn't let him get that close ever again.