Page 26 of Over & Out (Redbeard Cove #3)

Chris

I should say I’m tired and head back to the hotel. I was looking forward to taking a bath and downloading the latest release by my favorite author. Not her Duke series, thank God.

But I don’t say I’m tired. Because suddenly, I’m not.

He had my picture on his phone. He looked embarrassed when I saw. Something went fluttery inside me when I saw that. It’s still going.

So even though I shouldn’t, even though this is my boss and a drive is not a part of the job, I nod, pulling out the fob for the Maserati. “Where do you want to go?”

Hopper’s lips turn up at the corner in that devastating way. “I’ve got something else in mind.”

I follow him around the corner toward the garage, my insides feeling like melted butter.

The garage is massive. Way bigger than the one in Redbeard Cove.

That’s what I try to focus on as we walk.

Instead, as we round the corner, I find my stupid eyes lingering on the way his back muscles move under his shirt.

The way his mustache tilts with his little grin as he looks over his shoulder at me.

“I know. It’s like an airplane hangar. I have a few cars. ”

Even after everything we’ve been through these the past few weeks, I guess I’m still not beyond being swept up by Hopper being Hopper.

I know I have a crush on him. How could I not?

He’s him. But I also know he has a hard and fast rule about dating his employees, and I know he’s a movie star and I’m just me.

I don’t have mile-long legs or a team of hairstylists or people who scream for my autograph like he does.

I’m a small-town girl who’s cute more than pretty.

I wear silly clothes and make dick jokes with my friends probably more than I should.

But I also can’t shake the feeling that Hopper feels something for me.

I was sure it was just his charm, that everyone must feel that when they’re in his proximity.

But now I’m not so sure. The way I sometimes feel like he’s looking at me longer than other people do.

The way he grins when I laugh at his jokes.

My face on his phone screen. And now this drive?

Come on. Even if any of that meant anything, we’re completely incompatible. Right, Chris? And I don’t fall for people. I just don’t. Not even…

Hopper stops, and because I haven’t been paying attention, I bump into him a little, losing my balance.

My brain goes kind of haywire as he casually reaches a hand out to steady me.

“Sorry,” I mumble .

I don’t think he feels the same jolt of heat that goes through me when we come into contact, because he drops his hand fast, clearing his throat. “Walk much, bangles?”

“Shut it,” I say weakly. Because I’m all out of witty comebacks at the moment.

Hopper chuckles, but focuses on pressing some buttons next to the door he’s stopped in front of. The door beeps and softly pops open. Thankfully, when Hopper flicks on the lights, I’m sufficiently distracted.

“Holy shit,” I blurt out before I can stop myself.

This garage is the size of the gymnasium at the Redbeard Cove elementary school.

Only instead of ropes and balls, most of the room is taken up by a sea of cloaked vehicles.

“Nice lair,” I say, because I realize belatedly most of it is inside the slope of the hill beside his place.

“It’s a lot, I know,” he says. “Are you judging me?”

Maybe if I didn’t love cars so much, I would. But I understand the world he’s a part of. I’ve also seen his accounting. Only a fraction of his money goes here. “No,” I say honestly.

But as fascinated as I am, my eyes are drawn to a simple silver stand a few feet away. On the lone hook near its top, a silver triangle hangs. As in the instrument.

“You never told me you were a musician,” I joke, walking over and picking up the stick that hangs next to it. When I test it out, the ding rings through the open space.

Hopper sighs. “That was another gift from Tru.”

“Am I supposed to be getting you gifts? ”

“No,” he says firmly. “Anyway, this one was just to rub it in.”

“Rub what—” I frown, remembering. “She called you triangle that first day we met. Is this why? Are you really good at it or something?”

“Can anyone be good at the triangle? It only makes one sound.”

I make the sound. Then he sees I’m biting my lip to stop from laughing.

“Oh. I see. You too, huh?”

“I’m just going to keep playing it until you tell me the story.”

Ding.

He sighs, walking around to a smaller draped thing toward the side of this forty-seven or whatever car garage.

Ding.

“All right! You’ve made your point.” He sighs. “There was this rumor about me being a secret member of a”—he grimaces—“a traveling triangle band. It came out just before I came to Redbeard Cove.”

I snort with laughter. “Wait, a whole band of triangle players?”

“Exactly. It’s absurd, first of all, because imagine a group of, like, six triangle players.”

I start banging the triangle to an imaginary beat. Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

Hopper comes over and takes the stick from me. He dings the triangle dramatically, his eyes all serious on me.

I burst into laughter. “You are good at that!”

This time Hopper laughs too, a rare and stomach- tickling sound. “Apparently we were big in experimental rock circles,” he says.

It takes me a good amount of time to calm down after that.

Finally, Hopper asks if I want to keep jamming or see the ride he was thinking about taking out.

My laughter at that finally dies off after he whips the cloth off the most beautiful motorcycle I’ve seen in my freaking life.

“Shut up ,” I say, walking around the red street bike, a Ducati Multistrada V4 S.

“Too bad you don’t ride,” Hopper says, a smile spreading on his face.

“You’d be okay with riding behind me?”

“Why not?”

“You might be the first man I’ve ever met who’s secure enough in his masculinity to be okay with that.”

He shrugs. “Not like my steel sword’s going to fall off.”

“Hey!” I exclaim. He just quoted the Duke. “That wasn’t in the movie, which means— Hopper Donnach , you read the books!”

“And you know that line wasn’t in the movie, which means you watched it. Possibly more than once.”

My mouth falls open. But I’ve been caught.

Hopper laughs. A big, chest-deep laugh I’ve never heard out of him before.

“You tricked me!”

And holy shit, his eyes actually darken like the Duke’s do in the books. He tilts his head forward. “Aye, milady. ”

I swear to God my knees go weak. I have to grip the bike seat to focus on standing, like it’s a special new skill I’ve acquired. “Stop.” My cheeks burn like that time the Duke got scarlet fever.

Hopper tilts his head. “Wait a minute. What else have you watched? You are a Hopper Donnach superfan. I knew it.”

His tone is teasing. Still, I narrow my eyes. “No, you cocky piece of—I’m a Duke superfan. I was long before you pulled on those britches.”

Hopper nods, spreading his mustache with his fingers in that way of his that makes little tingles zip down low. “So it would do nothing for you if I said something like, ‘There’s pain in your heart, isn’t there, my sweet Daffodil?’”

I scream. I actually scream. “Stop!” But I’m laughing. And maybe crying. “What kind of monster wouldn’t be affected by that?”

Hopper laughs. Then he registers that I’m not just laughing. “Hey,” he says. “You okay?”

I wipe the tears from my eyes. “Oh my God. It’s so stupid.”

He walks around the bike, gently gripping my shoulders and dipping his face down so he can look into my eyes.

He cups my cheek, the rough pad of his thumb brushing away a tear I missed.

I feel myself flush, and it must be visible, because he glances at my cheeks, his lips turning up slightly for a moment before he meets my eyes again.

For a moment, I only see the Duke, and, of course this makes me almost swoon.

“It’s not stupid, Chris,” Hopper says .

“Yes it is,” I squeak. “You’re not him. I just—those books have helped me through a lot. I’ve been reading them since I was a teenager.”

“I shouldn’t have teased you.” He’s still holding on to me, and in that moment, I don’t want him to ever let go.

I knew they had it all wrong. But in moments like these, I feel it, deep in my chest. When he’s so tender and soft, I wish I could tell the whole world Hopper Donnach has the biggest heart I’ve ever seen. “It’s okay,” I whisper. “I like it.”

Hopper’s eyes shift, and instantly, the warmth in my chest starts spreading in rivulets all over me. I open my mouth, not knowing what I’m going to say, but Hopper drops his hands. Abruptly, as if only now realizing how close we are.

“You know, I could teach you.”

I swallow. “Yeah?”

I can’t meet his eyes. I don’t have the heart to tell him how much I used to love to ride.

Plus I’m still a little jittery from of his closeness. A little wounded by how quickly he jumped away.

“Yeah. You could ride in front, hold the handlebars? You’d be a natural.”

Three months ago I’d have arm wrestled an alligator for the chance to drive one of these. But three months ago I had a shoulder that didn’t randomly scream at me when I reached for a glass of water on my bedside table. I knew what my future held and hadn’t thought about my childhood in years.

Three months ago, I didn’t know Hopper Donnach .

Hopper keeps looking at me, and I know I can’t lie. So instead I deflect.

“Is this a bluff? Do you just have this bike to look cool?”

“Caught me,” he says. But finally he relents. He pulls out a coat and helmet for me, helping me get both on. I try not to shudder as his finger grazes my chin. Try not to smell that cool sage and eucalyptus soap.

When Hopper swings his leg over the seat, I have to fight not to swoon.

He looks good on a bike. Natural, like he’s been riding forever.

Which, he tells me a minute later through the mics in our helmets, he has.

As he wheels the bike to the door, he tells me how the first motorcycle he bought made his mom cry.

“I promised her she wouldn’t lose me on one of these.”

I think of how I told myself almost the same thing when I sold Betty. We can’t end it like that. I told her. Not after everything we’ve been through. I didn’t trust myself not to slip off and try to ride her. To do something even more foolish.

I climb onto the bike and wrap my arms around his waist. He’s hard under me, his thighs like steel at my knees. I don’t bother keeping him at arm’s length. On a bike like this, it would be foolish not to cling to the driver. Plus it feels way too good to hold on to him like this.

“I would have liked to meet your mom,” I say softly, which I instantly regret. Especially since the words make Hopper pause.

I guess that wasn’t very professional .

Neither is getting on the back of your boss’s bike. Or feeling the way you do about it.

But Hopper clears his throat through the mic as he wheels out of the garage. “She would have liked you.”

That’s both relieving and surprising. “Really? Even the way I talk to you?”

“Especially the way you talk to me. She always said her biggest regret was being a pushover with my dad until the day she left him. She admired women who didn’t take shit.”

“You don’t give me shit, Hopper,” I say softly. Words I never would have thought I’d utter around him. But it’s true. It doesn’t matter how much we fight. He respects me. He always has. “You don’t give anyone shit,” I say.

Hopper doesn’t say anything to this. He just expertly angles us out of his driveway. I hope he heard me. I hope he believed me.

He revs the engine as the gate opens. Nerves shoot through me.

“You okay?” Hopper asks through the speaker.

I’m holding on to him like I’m drowning, my hands splayed over his ribs.

“Yeah,” I say, loosening up. “It’s just been a while since I’ve been on a bike.”

“Tell me anytime you want to stop.”

“I’m good to go.”

“Hold on tight again. Okay, sweetheart?”

I close my eyes, my heart opening like a flower. That word. A sense of déjà vu washes over me, making my whole body ache. I know it wasn’t Hopper who called me that when I was carried off the track that day, but in this moment, I wish it had been.

My already torn-open heart beats like a bird’s wings when Hopper angles around a corner. He’s more than a competent rider. He’s smooth. Easy. Drives like the bike is an extension of him.

It’s just like I used to feel.

I could have kept Betty. Or I could have gotten another bike and ridden for pleasure.

But that day on the track, when I didn’t know how badly I was hurt, scared the shit out of me.

I knew I’d never race again, even if I was physically capable.

My dad died young. I have no siblings. I was the last of us. But this? This I can do.

Hopper takes us onto the highway as the sun lights the world golden. He asks if he can put music on. I say okay, sure. I won’t be able to even hear it, I’m riding so high.

But when it fills my speaker, my skin lights on fire. It’s “Work Song,” by Hozier. A song that sounds like it should be performed in a cathedral. A song that, when he takes us up to speed in the last of this beautiful day, makes me feels like I’ve ascended to a higher plane.

With him.

As we climb the hills. I let out my breath and close my eyes, my form pressed to the hardness of Hopper’s in a way that feels like I was made to be here too. He’s so warm. So good. So competent and capable, all that not-really-real dickish energy vanished, as if it were never there.

I swore I wasn’t going to let my guard down again, but how can I not?

I can’t imagine a more perfect way to spend a night.

With a man who does this; who looks like he does; who looks at me the way he does.

Who grins when I hurl insults at him. Who listens when I tell him I’m upset.

Who pulls the truth out of me like he’s coaxing the real me out of the cold darkness that lingers under the bubbly sunshine.

It’s all so much. I’m overwhelmed by how good I feel. How free. How, for the first time in what feels like forever—like before I lost everything—I can fly.