Moored Heart (Catalina Dreams Book 1) Page 3

  “‘Course you do, Winters,” Cal said, with the same tone of authority he used on the job. “Now tell me for real, how are you doing out there?”

  “I like it but… kinda lonesome, ya know,” Jason murmured. “There are like five thousand people in this entire place. Probably shouldn’t be so hard to meet them. But I bumped into a couple guys the other day. One of em’...” Jason laughed, thinking of Charlie and his wry, nasal voice, expressive face, and sharp wit. “He was a crack-up. I’m sure I’ll bump into him again. Seems like a decent guy to hang with.”

  “Well, that’s a start,” Cal said. “You’ve only been there a couple weeks, buddy. Give it a little time. Go get a beer with that guy. Sounds like something. What about eh... the ladies?” Cal put a little twang on it, and Jason could just picture him leering.

  “Like you said, dude. Been two weeks. Gimme a minute.”

  “Go get laid!” Cal said. “Place must be lousy with chicks in bikinis. Get that dick wet and call me back.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” If he were honest with himself, he wouldn’t mind getting his dick wet. He had indulged in a few post-divorce one-night stands. None of them were anything to write home about. Before that, he had not had sex with Alyssa since long before the shooting because things had already been going south, the two of them slowly realizing they had simply grown apart and become incompatible.

  If nothing else, he could use the release.

  He wondered briefly if getting laid would help him write?

  Jason hunkered down and managed an entire paragraph’s worth of a generic pablum that felt like pulling teeth to write before he finally gave up. It was hard not to stress out. What if he was physically incapable of writing the book? He could remember writing those freelance pieces that had been so well received. They’d come pouring out of him as if he were touched by some fleeting muse.

  That was the problem with the muse, he supposed. It was always fleeting.

  Jason sighed heavily as he brought up Pornhub. Jacking off might relax him, he reasoned. It sounded like a bunch of bullshit, but he had no better ideas.

  He found himself so restless that he could hardly settle on one porn clip. He finally chose one with a tall, fit guy and a big-breasted curvy girl going at it in a gym. There was nothing very special about it beyond the guy’s giant dick and the way he kept laughing in delight when he made the girl moan. That in itself was unusual.

  Jason unzipped his jeans and stroked his already swelling cock. The guy in the porn looked somewhat like the guy he’d met at the boba joint.

  Charlie…

  He looked significantly like Charlie. Not enough that Jason at all suspected it was him, but they had the same bright grin and dark hair. Their color was different though, Jason noted as he thumbed the head of his dick, spreading around the slippery pre-cum. Charlie had dark brown eyes, and this guy’s eyes were blue. Their bodies were similar though. Charlie had been wearing a soft yellow cardigan and a T-shirt, but he’d clearly been hiding some muscle under all that.

  Jason focussed on the guy in the porn as he thrust into the woman’s ass. He stroked more furiously and idly he wondered to himself: Did Charlie have a dick that big?

  Jason came with no warning. It was a rushed and unsatisfactory orgasm, but it was still a release. He rested his head on the back of his desk chair as he stroked himself through it, his mouth hanging open a little as he watched the Charlie look-alike pound ass.

  “Shit…”

  Jason watched the rest of the porn until the guy came, the girl shrieking as if she’d never had it so good. Finally, he closed his laptop and stumbled to his feet. His head was buzzing as one troublesome question pulsed in his mind. He cleaned himself up and grabbed his wallet, intending to go back to the island with no particular goal other than maybe picking up a girl.

  But that question wouldn’t leave him even as he skimmed across the current in his dinghy.

  Why had he jerked off thinking about some guy’s dick?

  But there was a girl there, he reminded himself. So it wasn’t gay.

  It wasn’t as if he’d never noticed men’s bodies before or been turned on by them. But he never thought much of it. He never let himself. Maybe that was because he was always utterly devoted to whoever he was with. He never had eyes for anyone else while in a relationship. It was just how nature built him. He was with Alyssa for so long…

  This is stupid.

  He was creating artificial problems for himself so he could busy his mind worrying about them instead of writing.

  “Dumbass,” he said to himself, as he tied off his dinghy and climbed up to the dock.

  This wasn’t rocket science. Jerking off was not satisfactory. He had to pick up a nice, attractive, enthusiastic one-night stand and clear his head. He didn’t think it would be very difficult. He knew what he looked like. Even with his slightly receding hairline and a beard, he was a “snack” as the kids liked to say. In fact, he liked to think the beard stubble gave him a rugged appeal.

  Jason tried to keep this in mind as he headed toward the beach, his hands shoved in the pockets of his loose pants. He stood up straight with his shoulders back, attempting an expression that looked both confident and carefree.

  That’s right. I’m hot and I know it.

  He still limped, but if anyone cared about that, they could go fuck themselves.

  He was getting the eye, he noticed, and he grinned at more than one woman who passed by... each one on somebody else’s arm. He also caught the eye of plenty of men. He was getting used to that. He found himself blushing, thinking of the porn and Charlie’s potential dick…

  No, we’re looking for a woman, not a man. Because we’re not gay. Or bisexual. Or whatever. We just got distracted looking at a porn, and writer’s block has fucked our head up.

  “Hey.” Jason happened upon a snow-cone kiosk on Crescent Avenue where a hot blonde was waiting for somebody as she consulted her phone. She wore a bikini top, and a sarong tied around her trim waist. Jason’s fingers tingled at the very thought of getting his big hands around a little waist like that, but he played it cool and pretended to browse the snow-cone flavors.

  The woman looked up at him as a breeze blew her hair around. “Hi. The watermelon is the best.” She nodded at the menu taped to the side of the snow cone cart, and Jason grinned at her and stepped aside just as two screaming children in swimsuits nearly plowed into him.

  “Watermelon, huh?” Jason said. “Maybe I’ll try that.”

  Jason’s jaw clenched.

  How did this stuff work again?

  “You should,” the woman said. It sounded dismissive, yet she was looking right at him as if she wanted him to keep talking to her.

  His mind went blank. He tried to remember what he’d said to Charlie. That conversation had been fun and easy and... well, potentially flirtatious if he was being objective.

  Jason said, “I uh—”

  “Where are you staying?” the woman said. She bit her lip and looked him up and down. Jason had an urge to sigh in relief.

  “I live on a yacht out on the water.” He smiled easily.

  “A yacht!” The woman perked up so much and so quickly that Jason found his smile collapsing. “Wow.” She sidled up to him, and he recoiled. “What’s a guy with a yacht doing walking around by himself?”

  Jason chuckled and tried to play it off. “Well, it’s a fluke. I’m not rich. I’m a retired cop.”

  To her credit, she tried to cover her disappointment. “Oh…”

  It wouldn’t have worked anyway, he figured. All he wanted was an easy lay, understood on both sides. Anyone who cared about money doubtless wanted to hang around.

  “I didn’t come to the island to fuck a cop,” the woman said. She clapped him on the shoulder. “See ya around.”

  Jason watched her walk away and blinked. He’d once chased a suspect for six blocks at full speed before someone opened a car door in his path and he’d flipped right over it, endi
ng up on his back and unable to breathe, the wind knocked right out of him. This felt similar.

  What happened to the days when he could just be hot?

  He had no more luck as he strolled down the bustling waterfront. All the women seemed taken or quickly uninterested. He wondered if he wasn’t as hot as he’d imagined. He definitely had a lot more years on him than he had the last time he’d been single. But he thought he looked damn good for forty-two.

  He was feeling pretty lousy about himself and the whole situation as he wandered down a side street and stumbled into a bar, figuring he’d treat himself to one drink and then go home and try his damnedest to make that one opening paragraph give birth to some paragraph babies.

  The bar was a little hole in the wall next to a yogurt shop. Young men crowded around the tables on a lime green patio, all talking and laughing loudly and drinking neon colored cocktails from skinny glasses. Jason had never been there before, but it looked welcoming enough. He marched inside and headed for the less crowded and quieter bar where two guys sat talking quietly.

  He didn’t miss the eyes on him either, but he only sat down and rolled his neck, as if he could force himself to relax.

  The bartender appeared and grinned at him, his dreads falling just so over his big brown eyes. “What can I get for ya, sailor?” He winked and his tone was so distinct that Jason abruptly realized he’d stumbled into a gay bar.

  Perfect.

  He laughed under his breath and said, “Just... Corona with a lime. Please.”

  “Sure thing. You want some chips and salsa?”

  It ended up being a pleasant place to chill outside of having to let down a couple of interested guys. Jason was amused by the whole thing. Somehow, he was repellent to women and catnip to men and he couldn’t figure out why.

  Too bad I’m not into guys.

  Immediately he thought of the man in the porn, blissed out as he pounded ass. He ordered himself a high end tequila on the rocks and he was halfway through it by the time he allowed himself to imagine another man in place of the woman in the porn with the Charlie look-a-like and he felt his cheeks burning at the idea, the small, high stool at the bar suddenly a little uncomfortable as his cock grew and he tugged at his collar, taking another long swallow of his drink.

  “Hey there, daddy.”

  Jesus Christ.

  Jason turned his head with a jerk and saw the pedi-cab guy from the day before. He let his shoulders drop, tipping his glass to him. “Hey. Takin’ a break from peddling the tourists?”

  “Yeah, my calves are killin’ me,” he said with a snort. He nodded at the bartender, who only winked in response. Obviously, he came to the bar often enough to have a usual.

  “Your name is um…” Jason snapped his fingers, trying to remember it. He could remember that Charlie guy’s name well enough. Why not this guy?

  “Andy!” Andy said in a lofty tone. “How could you forget? And after all we’ve been through.”

  “Haha.”

  “Interesting to see you here of all places.” Andy raised his eyebrows at him, and his hand curved around the glass that slid down the bar as if he’d psychically known it was coming. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a Flamingo man?”

  “Jesus, is that the name of this bar?” He looked around the brightly painted interior and saw two actual women at a table. They were clearly more interested in each other than any man.

  “Heh. You didn’t even know it was a gay bar, did you?” Andy said wryly. “Damn. I’ve been crossing my fingers since yesterday. Hearts are gonna break all over the island.”

  Jason snorted a laugh at that. “I doubt that very much.”

  “Okay, technically I’m only talking about myself and my buddy Charlie,” Andy said, ever so casual. “But I know everyone around here and trust me, they’ve got their eyes on you. But you’re tragically straight, right? Shame.”

  Jason sat, holding his drink, staring over the bar into the mirror behind the crowd of colorful bottles on the shelf. He could just barely see his own wide blue eyes staring back at him. His ears had perked up, and his cheeks were hot again.

  Andy was speaking for himself and his buddy, Charlie…

  He’d noticed the way Charlie had looked him up and down, just like Andy and all these other guys. Now there was confirmation.

  He was a person of interest.

  “Yeah, tragically straight,” Jason said. “This is stupid.” He narrowed his eyes at Andy. “All these dudes keep hitting on me on this damn island! It’s got me all turned around.” He felt everyone staring at him and things went a little quiet. That had come out wrong. “I’m not... It’s not… I’m just not…”

  “Huh.” Andy eyebrows were about to hit the ceiling. He leaned on his hand as he regarded Jason and sipped his neon blue cocktail. “Very interesting. Sounds like some latent bisexual awakening threw off my gaydar.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Okay, okay.” Andy raised his hands. “I’m obviously way off.”

  “You are!” Jason took a twenty out of his pocket and slapped it on the bar before downing the rest of his tequila and stomping out of The Flamingo and, hopefully, away from his own confusion. “You’re way off!”

  4

  Charlie

  Charlie considered himself a decent friend and a decent person, and that meant that when people asked him for a favor, he liked saying yes. This had led to the attendance of more than one painful sit through an objectively terrible live concert and some backbreaking work for friends around town who wanted help with building a deck or cleaning out an attic or even gutting fish. He was getting better at saying no, if only when the question involved something like gutting fish. But when his friend, Gus, who ran the bookstore in town asked him to help catch his Amazon package thief even though it would distract Charlie from work, he couldn’t sum up a no. It just wouldn’t come.

  It was difficult to say no to Gus. Gus was short and stupidly handsome, and he wore black-rimmed glasses that made his already large blue eyes enormous. Charlie had nursed a crush on him for a while, but Gus was more interested in books than people. Besides which, Gus had always seemed a little high maintenance for his tastes. Suitable material for a crush or a jerk off session, but nothing he’d ever seriously pursued.

  Still, Charlie considered them friends, and he was willing to help Gus with his Amazon package thief problem, especially when those big baby blues pleaded with him.

  “I’ve installed a camera on my porch!” Gus had told him. “I just give you the log-in and you can keep an eye on the feed. Not all the time, just when I’m running book groups or shelving or if I know I’ll be busy.”

  Charlie wanted to explain that sometimes the shop got plenty busy too, but he only nodded and smiled. He agreed to monitor the feed and see if he could spot the thief. Catalina was terribly small. Odds were, they both knew the thief well. It was unlikely that a tourist was bothering to walk around stealing the locals’ Amazon packages. Charlie was just relieved he wouldn’t be a part of whatever inevitably uncomfortable confrontation was in Gus’s future. He wouldn’t have any trouble saying no if asked.

  He was behind the counter at Porpoise Pot and the day had been about as busy as he’d expected with a steady stream of customers booking bike tours and boats and then impulsively buying some trinkets. He’d even sold some of his mother’s hand-knitted goods. An older woman had just about lost her mind over one of several big, chunky throw blankets his mother made.

  “Absolutely beautiful,” the woman said. “I’ll take it.”

  That pepped Charlie up considerably for the afternoon as he ate pita and hummus and watched the live feed of Gus’s front porch. Gus owned a massive, pastel pink Victorian house just a few blocks off Crescent Avenue. He both lived there and ran a bookstore out of the first floor. Delivery people brought packages around to a side door, but it was still ballsy to steal packages right out in the open. Gus had told Charlie he had a few packages getting delivered that day so Cha
rlie had his feed up on the laptop. But so far all he’d seen was the mail carrier and a couple curious cats. No packages yet.

  Jason showed up once the boat booking rush had gone. Charlie was leaning on his hand, listening to his favorite comedy podcast and watching the feed, knowing full well that probably nothing would happen. He had eaten all his pita and hummus, but his stomach rumbled, and he grimaced, still hungry. When Jason walked in, he did not immediately look up. But he felt eyes on him and glanced across the store, nearly falling off his chair at the sight of the stubbled hottie with the shoulders broad enough to make him drool. Jason’s arms threatened to burst from his T-shirt. He walked with a bit of a limp, Charlie noticed. But it wasn’t slowing him down.

  Charlie sat up straight and said, “Hey! You lost?”

  “Lost?” Jason walked right up to the counter and rested his hands on it, blinking at Charlie.

  “Oh, just um…” Charlie laughed, and he hated how high-pitched it sounded in his ears. He already had a nasally sort of voice. He didn’t need a dumb giggle on top of it. “You’re a local now,” he said. “They don’t usually come in here except to do my mom a favor and buy some of her knitted stuff. But I can sell you an overpriced box made of seashells if you’re really thirsty for it.” He grinned and held up one such box and Jason huffed a laugh.

  Wish you were thirsty for me, Charlie thought.

  “Not just now,” Jason said. He laughed harder than Charlie thought the joke deserved, and his laugh was warm and deep. “I didn’t know you worked here. I was just uh… I was passing by. Taking a walk. Oh, I was talking to your friend at Flamingo.”

  “Flamingo? You hang out at Flamingo?”

  “I don’t really know the neighborhood yet.” Jason drummed his fingers on the counter. “I was just looking for a place to have a drink.” He seemed nervous suddenly and picked up a seashell decorating Charlie’s front counter. He inspected it, his thick fingers caressing the ridges of the shell.