Page 18 of Take the Blame (Seaside Mergers #3)

Chapter Eleven

AUGUSTUS

I think my heart was broken. Not in the wax poetic, painful kind of way but in the it wouldn’t stop beating like I was running a marathon kind of way.

Ever since I’d had Alta Fernandez in my hands, body pressed against mine and her sweet little lips giving me the softest kiss I had ever received, I’d been functioning like an addict without a fix.

I felt terrible that day in the shop after ruining whatever big chance she was going on about.

My emotions had caused me to react before my brain could offer any kind of alternative.

Even though sound logic was right there in front of me, I couldn’t stop the adrenaline from pumping through me like a drug.

Anger, aggravation, annoyance? I’m not sure what exactly it was that sent me out there in a fit of indignation, all I knew was seeing her smiling and laughing and having a grand old time with some other guy suddenly made me want her to stop looking at me like I was the devil incarnate.

I mean, c’mon. I said one bad thing the first time we met. I was sick of that bad impression determining what she thought of me, especially when she could just laugh it up with every other guy on the street.

How that turned into me asking her to kiss me, I had no clue. If I had to guess, it had something to do with making up for the way we met. Back then, I made her feel bad somehow. So now, I offered to make her feel good to make up for it.

That was it.

That was all it was going to be.

So why the hell did it feel like the moment she put her lips on mine, every wrong thing in my world suddenly didn’t matter? Like it couldn’t matter. Not when I had something so right standing there in front of me.

Shit.

I’m glad she left. If she hadn’t, I might have been made into a liar right then and there.

I promised just one kiss, but if she would have stayed in front of me with her soft hands, and perfect little curves, and her skin that smelled like fucking cucumbers that day, I don’t think I could’ve stuck to just one.

Still, I couldn’t believe I propositioned her to kiss me. I’d been trying to forget about my acute lack of common sense ever since, but the memory of my thundering heartbeat as she disappeared was making that difficult.

At least I had a full day of work ahead of me to take my mind off it.

The sun was bright on the day of the first annual Seaside Waterways Women’s Festival. It was warm for October and everyone and their dog were out to enjoy what might be the last warm day of the year. I was glad we would be able to take advantage of it by being outside most of the day.

Vendors were required to be at the Seaside Park early for set up.

The festival doors opened at eleven, so all working entities had to be set up at least thirty minutes beforehand for checks and inspections.

Alta had given us the option for earlier drop off slots so we wouldn’t have to be stuck in the fray of delivery trucks unloading equipment for other booths.

We took her up on it. I’d been to my fair share of tattoo conventions, and from my experience, almost every single time something went awry.

“Where’s the generator?” I asked, looking over our booth with an assessing eye.

The artisan booths were set up in a row of tents off to the east side of the park.

Somewhere in the middle was a large stage decorated by a view of the water behind it, which left food booths to the west. Our setup spanned the size of two tents.

Alta had given us more space since we were offering the option to tattoo onsite and to do so we needed an enclosed space.

Parked directly behind our booth was a twenty-by-twenty foot trailer that held the two chairs we had available for work.

In front were simple fold up tables with our shop’s image booklets on display, our participating tattoos for this event plastered around the booth walls with our name printed onto a large vinyl sign.

Everything seemed accounted for except the…

“Generator, generator…” Ryan said as he toed around the small area. I watched as he bent at the waist to peek under the tables as if he would discover a generator the size of a lawnmower had simply rolled under one of them.

I sighed. “Ry, buddy, it’s not under there. Who was in charge of loading the machinery?”

“Quis was!” he said, perking up slightly .

“And who was in charge of the final check?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

He paused, then his shoulders deflated. “Me.”

Slapping a hand on his shoulder, I gave it a pat. “You gotta go get it, buddy. Quickly too please, before the boss shows up.”

“Scared of facing her after acting like a maniac the other day?” Jules scoffed as she arranged the flyers on the front table.

I cut my eyes to her. “I did not act like a maniac.”

“She ran out of there like you did,” Lana chimed in.

“She ran out because—” I stopped myself, remembering the way the waves of her eyes had surged after pulling away from my lips, like she too didn’t want to stop. Coughing, I deflected lamely, “She had to leave.”

They all laughed at my obvious bullshit, even Ryan and Gerald who were in the back when Alta stormed in had witnessed her leaving like there was fire under her feet.

Speaking of Ryan… I turned to give him a look, motioning for him to get going. Springing up, he grabbed the keys to the truck and scampered off.

“Don’t forget the gas!” I called out.

“Got it, boss!” he called as he jogged away.

Movement out the corner of my eye caught my attention and I looked up just in time to catch the storm as it passed over me. Ahead of us, walking toward the vendors was Alta looking up at the sound of the familiar word. Her eyes connected with mine immediately from the center of the grounds.

She was dressed for the weather and the occasion in khaki colored shorts and a sage green t-shirt that read “SWWS Staff” across the front.

Her long waves were down like normal, but pushed away from her face by a white headband, a lanyard around her neck, and a clipboard in hand to complete the look.

Her cute camp counselor chic outfit wasn’t what caught my attention, though. It was the instant blush that colored her cheeks when she saw me notice her, and the way she dropped her eyes over my own ensemble—a simple t-shirt and jeans—before looking away.

So she was thinking about what happened in my office too . And from the looks of it, she was avoiding it as much as I had the past few days. I understood. Just thinking about the way her lips felt now made me want to go over there and do it again, and this time for real.

Then I noticed who else was with her and glowered as a whistle sang from behind me.

Both Lana and Jules ran up to flank my sides, looking out over our fold up tables as they watched the group in front of us. “Who the hell is that ?”

I was beginning to really hate that question, because walking right next to Alta this time was some huge guy.

And judging by the deep color of his skin, he was probably not her brother.

The way they walked together, closer than strangers but not quite touching, told me that they were familiar but not close.

But the way she talked to him without any of the shyness I noticed her having with new people, I could also tell that they knew each other from outside of this event.

“Oh my God, there’s another one!” My lovely assistants continued to gush as we watched yet another man show up beside Alta and sling his arm around her, rustling her up a little bit. She laughed and pushed him away promptly before stepping back so that she was facing them both.

“Get back to work,” I said to the two of them, elbowing Lana gently. “I want this booth to look pretty. We need to sell at least twenty tattoos today to make this worth it. So you guys get pretty too while you’re at it.”

Both girls' mouths dropped, snorting out laughs before running off into the trailer, no doubt to use the mirrors. They loved a reason to doll up .

While they did, I busied myself with resuming work on the flyers Jules left, my eyes traveling not so subtly back to the girl in front of me.

And that quick, it was like I had witnessed a transformation.

After looking away for only a second, Alta had morphed from being just another girl, to being the boss I was used to her being.

Clipboard poised and ready, she was reading off some list to the large one, pointing in various directions around the grounds.

To the other guy, tall with a mixed complexion and curly hair topping his head, she gestured to the other side of the festival before sending them both on their individual ways.

Next, she talked briefly with two girls who rushed her almost as soon as the guys had left.

They had a whole slew of volunteers behind them, all wearing matching shirts identical to Alta’s.

For them, she made a phone call, and within minutes a small fire-headed girl who looked minutely familiar came charging Alta and wrapping her arms around her.

I watched curiously as she hugged her sister, brushing hair back up into her ponytail and shaking her shoulders in what looked like upbeat encouragement. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I put together that this couldn’t be the sister who’d made her so angry. But where was she ?

Appearing almost like a ghost at their side was another figure who fit the bill. It was written all over the way Alta, who I knew to be perfectly at ease with almost everyone, stiffened at the sight of her. The solemn looking dark-haired girl had to be the sister she was fighting with.

It would’ve been clear to a stranger that there was something going on between all the girls. Still, Alta was the one to smile and say something between the three of them to break the brief awkwardness and keep the momentum moving.

That’s my girl.

I coughed. I mean a girl. That’s a girl… that I know .

Jesus . I internally rolled my eyes at myself.