Victim of Love (5 page)

I glanced Beck’s way, but he hadn’t moved. He was so still he looked almost as dead as he had the night before. And the question still burned. Did he not recognize me? Did he not
remember
me? Was he being discreet?

“When did he get here?” I asked softly.

“Last night,” she said. “Didn’t let me know he was here. Didn’t return my texts. Just got shitfaced by himself.”

Suddenly Beck bolted upright again. “Oh, I got your text, honey. That if I got to town I should meet you at a
gay
bar. Thanks, but no thanks.” He snatched his cap and fell back again, covering his face.

“You still should have let me know you were here,” she said. “Olsen, you want a drink?”

Though I never drank this early, I did want one, desperately. Especially after Beck’s comment about the gay bar, like the very thought revolted him. But Kamal was giving me the shit-eye. He wanted to go shopping, and it wasn’t right to just send him off on his own. This holiday was supposed to be a group venture. “I’m good,” I said. “I’ll save myself for later when Townsend and Pippa come back with our dinner.”

“If they catch anything,” Laurie said.

We hung out on the patio for a time and made small talk while Laurie finished her Bloody Mary. Eventually, Beck got up and walked over to the bar, returning with two ice waters. For a moment I thought one of them was for me, but he sat down and proceed to drink both of them. The anonymity of my sunglasses allowed me to examine him from where I sat. His short dark hair was less disheveled than it had been last night, combed back from a high forehead. He and Laurie had the same cute nose and shapely lips, but his bone structure was solid and masculine.

I tried not to stare as he sucked ice water through a straw, but failed, admiring his tanned arms, the way the tee shirt clung to his hard body, his narrow waist. The dusting of hair on his legs visible below the hem of his shorts. The flip flops on his feet. Shit, even his toes were cute. But it wasn’t just his physical features that made him attractive. He was handsome, but not fall down dead, make everyone in the room turn to look handsome. It was something else, an attention-grabbing magnetism that seemed to surround him like an invisible shroud. It was the way he moved, the way he spoke, obnoxious as it was.

In a way he was everything I hated: rude, uncensored, slick with overconfidence, and despite our encounter last night, seemingly uninterested in
me
. But despite all that, I couldn’t look away, caught in the thrall of his presence. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had lit my wick like this. But as fate would have it, he appeared to be, as Laurie so affectionately stated, an asshole. I tried to quell my curiosity, but found myself pondering what his deal was. Closeted, or just closeted around his sister? Then there was the third option, far less appealing: That he was just a heterosexual man who’d gotten so wasted he kissed a boy in reckless abandon.

The ice water seemed to have brought Beck back to life, and I realized he was staring back at me. I was afraid he’d caught me scrutinizing him from the duck blind of my Ray-Bans, but he pointed at me and asked, “You work with my sister, too?”

I nodded. “Yes. We work together at the lab.”

He turned to Laurie. “You said you had a work thing
here?
At this resort?”

“On Monday, yeah.”

“A science thing?”

“Yes, Beck. A science thing.”

“What the hell were you doing, testing for semen in the hot tub?”

“You are so disgusting,” she said. “This place also has a ton of conference rooms.”

“We had a workshop,” I offered. “On platelet lumi-aggregation.”

Beck took his sunglasses off and rubbed his eyes. “Sounds riveting. So we going antiquing or what?”

Kamal stood at the prompt. “I’m ready.”

Beck stood as well. “Okay. We’ll go for a couple hours, then get lunch. I’m gonna need some greasy fried food to combat this hangover. I know a place.”

Everyone agreed, and we were off.

As we all drifted away from the pool and headed back to get the car, I noted that Beck had somehow taken control of the social schedule, and everyone just seemed to be going along with it, not questioning his bossiness. But I was following him too. I got the feeling Beck was the type of guy who could talk you into jumping off a bridge with him.

I watched as he walked ahead with Laurie, wrapping an arm around her and muttering something in her ear that made her laugh.

“Interesting guy,” Kamal said as he kept stride alongside me.

I gave him a raised eyebrow but said nothing.

“You don’t think so?”

I shrugged. “I think you couldn’t have missed his snotty comment about the gay bar.”

Kamal sighed through his nose. “Just because a man doesn’t want to go to a gay bar doesn’t mean he’s homophobic.”

“Well, he’s something all right. Just not sure what.”

Kamal looked at me. “What’s the matter?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve seen you get screamed at by cranky doctors at the hospital and you don’t react. You even smile. You let things roll off, Olsen. Why does this man upset you?”

“He doesn’t! He doesn’t
upset
me.”

Now it was his turn to give me the eyebrow.

“Okay.” I gently grasped Kamal’s arm to slow our stride and put some distance between us and Laurie and Beck, then leaned in to his ear. “I met Beck on the beach last night. He uh, kissed me.”

Kamal stopped dead, his brown eyes widening.

“
Keep
walking,” I hissed.

We strode on. Quietly, Kamal said, “Did you know who he was?”

“No! He was lying in the water, drunk, I thought he was dead until he woke up and turned into Ricochet Rabbit. Stole my phone and led me on a wild goose chase down the beach. He made me
climb a sand dune
to get it back.”

“You can’t say anything.”

“Well, I wouldn’t. Of course.” I paused, then added, “To Laurie.”

Kamal gave me a sidelong glance. “Or to
him
.”

“Why not? I’d like to know if he at least remembers me.”

“He did not appear to know you when you met. If he does remember, he obviously doesn’t want it brought up. A man’s sexual orientation is a private matter, and that privacy must be respected.”

“Don’t Yoda me, Kamal. I’m not about to cause a scene. I just thought maybe if I have a moment alone with him—”

“You work with Laurie every day. This man is her family. You don’t want to take the risk of busting open that can of worms. Especially if he wants that can to remain
sealed
.”

“Well, maybe Laurie knows he’s gay.
If
he’s gay.”

“Olsen, Laurie has been going out of her way to support you since you came out to us. Don’t you think she would have mentioned having an openly gay brother?”

I scowled. “I suppose.”

“Then zip your lip. There are plenty of men out there. But this man you must not pursue.”

“I wasn’t gonna
pursue
him.”

“You were staring at him at the pool.”

“Yeah, because I was shocked to shit when I recognized him!”

“And because he’s very attractive.”

I had nothing to say to that, and it was just as well, because we’d reached the car. I was considering Kamal’s advice and all his stupid
reasons
why I shouldn’t confront Beck if I got the chance. Okay, so his reasons weren’t stupid. His advice was logical and made a lot of sense.

Kamal climbed into the driver’s seat, and I was both relieved and disappointed when Beck opened the passenger door beside him, leaving Laurie and me to ride in the back. Before climbing in, Beck glanced over his shoulder, and offered me a quick flash of his enormous grin, which made my face flush with heat.

Yeah, Kamal’s advice was solid. But I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to follow it.

****

The antique shop was more like a warehouse, a quaintly presented old barn painted bright yellow with rows upon rows of stuff in the airy, high ceiling space inside. What I knew about antiques was less than nothing, so to me it looked like the confiscated junk of a thousand dead grandmothers. But the fervor with which Laurie and Kamal prowled the items amused me; they’d darted off in different directions as soon as we entered, a bizarre, hungry light in their eyes.

Beck had abandoned me as well, but I kept him in my sights as I pretended to be interested some old milk bottles with daisies painted on them. When Laurie and Kamal were at a safe distance on the other side of the barn, I thought it might be the right time to catch a moment alone with Beck, and found him perusing a table of statuettes.

“Find anything good?” I asked.

He’d removed his sunglasses so I could now see his eyes when he glanced my way. They’d been alluring in the dark on the beach last night, but in the light of day, simply dazzling, and I had to summon my bravery to continue on my mission to verbally ambush him.

Shrugging, he looked back down at the table, picking up a carved, laughing Buddha. “You’re not gonna find The Venus of Willendorf in here, that’s for sure.”

I nodded. “Okay. I’m gonna pretend I know what that is.”

Beck gave me a small, cute grin, then set the Buddha down and moved on, picking up an oddly phallic looking statue, brass or maybe old gold paint. As he held it up I realized it was a nun, head shrouded in a veil, hands molded to her chest in prayer. “The Venus of Willendorf is a statuette some schmuck found while digging in 1908. Looks like one of those little, you know.” He cupped his hand before his chest. “Booby fertility figures. Ended up being about twenty-five thousand years old.”

I wanted to ask him how he knew this, inquire about his interests, his work, his life. But my brain was dominated by a more pressing question. “So, do you remember meeting me last night?”

Going still, Beck’s gaze slid my way. “Excuse me?”

“We met last night. On the beach.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re telling me you don’t remember.”

“Remember what?”

“Last night. On the beach. We met.”

He gave me a skeptical look. “If you say so. Kind of had a blackout, my friend. I didn’t give you a hard time, did I?”

Hmmm. A hard time.

“No, you were...fine.” I desperately wanted to tell him that we’d kissed, but it would come off as just that—desperate. And I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I believed that he didn’t remember me. But at least I had some sort of answer. If he was lying about the blackout, then he didn’t
want
to remember me, and that was now clear. I decided to take the conversation in another direction.

“So how come you didn’t call Laurie when you got here last night? Why’d you get so drunk?”

Beck’s arm lowered, and he gave me a surprised looking scowl that wasn’t altogether friendly. For a moment I thought he was going to beat me with the nun statuette. “That’s a bit personal,” he said. “I don’t even know you.”

“I’m sorry. Forget I asked.” Shit, I was making a mess of this, and making myself look like an overzealous ass in the process. I’d never been a smooth talker, and suddenly I felt twelve years old again, trying to hang with the cool kid and stumbling over myself.

Beck still studied me, his brow lowered over his eyes. Suddenly his brows rose as he focused on something over my shoulder. Turning quickly back toward the table, he leaned in to me. “Don’t make it obvious, but I want you to look over to your right, seven rows back. Do you see a tall, thin black man with a shaved head, behind the displays?”

I began to turn and he grabbed my wrist.

“Be subtle,” he whispered.

I figured he was trying to change the awkward subject I’d brought up, but I played along, mainly because he was touching me and I couldn’t think straight. So I pretended to be interested in a creepy porcelain doll, then stole a glance to my right. Through the space between two cabinets I did see a tall, bald black man, but he wasn’t looking our way. He seemed fascinated by a painted vase.

“Okay,” I said softly, setting the doll down. “I see him. What of it?”

“I’ll explain later, right now I need you to do something for me.”

“Um...what?”

He handed me the gold nun, then moved in close. “I’m gonna give you some money. And I want you to go to the register and pay for this. Then I want you to go outside and wait for me.”

I stepped back. “Say what?”

He grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled me in, pressing his forehead against mine. “No, stay cool, make it look like we’re speaking conspiratorially.”

“We
are
speaking conspiratorially,” I whispered. “The question is why?”

He eased back and pulled out a wallet, handing me a wad of cash. “Here.”

I frowned at the stack of twenties and fifties, then examined the bottom of the statue. “Uh, the price tag says this thing is seven bucks.”

Grasping my hand, he bent my fingers around the cash. “I know that. I need him to see me giving you the cash.”

“He’s not even watching.”

“Trust me. He’s watching.”

“Okay. I’m just gonna say it. You sound really paranoid.”

“There’s a guy following me. Of course I’m paranoid.”

I stared into his eyes, suddenly recalling one of Kamal’s past pearls of wisdom to me. ‘
Olsen, you can’t fuck the crazy out of someone. Remember that.
’

“Is this a joke?”

“Look, what’s your name again?”

“Olsen.”

“Okay, look Olsen, I promised my sister I’d focus on her this week and not get distracted by work stuff. I’ve pissed Laurie off in the past when I took off for work when I was supposed to be visiting her, and I’m trying to finally make things right with her. That guy over there is going to toss a monkey wrench into things for me, so I need to get rid of him. Will you just do this for me? Please? I swear, I’ll explain everything later.”

I hesitated. Crazy or not, his close proximity had me unnerved. But what the hell was he playing at? My instincts told me this was either an elaborate deflection tactic or a joke at my expense. Probably both. I was about to tell him to shove his gold penis-nun up his ass, but then he gently squeezed my hand.