SPOTTED LOTUS as I steered the Scout into the public lot by the pier. She sat alone on the wall, her body completely still, her hair loose and whipped by the wind.
After I found a parking space, I got out and went to her. Tess had called just as I’d been about to have a reckoning with my brother and my mom, but they would have to wait. Lotus was my priority.
“Lotus!”
Although the wind ripped her name from my mouth and threw it far out into the sea, I knew she heard me. Her slumped posture snapped straight.
“Hey.” Reaching her, I touched her shoulder. “Tess told me you got fired. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, it sucks.”
Lotus didn’t turn to look at me as I took a seat beside her. I threw my legs over the wall, facing the ocean like she did. Her hair streamed across her pretty features, blocking my view, but what I could see of her face between the tendrils made my throat catch. She was crying. I hated it when she cried.
“It’ll be okay,” I said softly.
“Not so sure about that.” She shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself.
Keeping my voice calm, although I raged inside, I said, “It’s not your fault.”
That asshole was an idiot to fire her. Anyone having Lotus in any capacity and then losing her knew that.
“You’re a great bartender. He’ll soon realize what he’s lost. Let’s try this again.” I scooted closer. My hip bumping hers, I draped one arm around her slender shoulders and drew her into me. “I want to hold you.”
A shudder went through her at the strain of holding her hurt inside. I knew that strain. I’d been doing it for nine years by myself. She lasted for three heartbeats before she shifted and threw herself at me.
“Oh, Lotus.” I scooped her into my arms and deposited her on my lap. My heartbeats steadied once I secured her. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
There was no thought of leaving anymore. Lotus was it for me—the end of the road, no more journeying. She’d probably been it for me back when we were kids, but I didn’t go there. We were here now together. It was finally going to be the way it always should have been.
She didn’t speak, but her body shook.
“Let it all out, babe. I can handle it. I’m here for you. You’re not alone.”
I stroked her back, but for some reason she cried harder, so I held her tighter. While she worked through her emotions, I stared at the ocean like she had the other night, vowing to do whatever it took to make this and my wrongs right for her.
“You can let go of me now,” she said, her voice raspy from her sobs.
“I could, but I don’t want to.”
I lifted her chin, not commenting on her ravaged expression. Instead, I captured and tucked strands of tear-dampened hair behind her ears. She shivered each time the pads of my rough fingers grazed the sensitive shell of her ears.
“Why?” she asked, her red-rimmed eyes searching my determined ones. “Why don’t you want to?”
“Because I care about you.” More than cared, but I couldn’t tell her that. Not yet. Not until I removed the lie between us.
When she nodded and bit down on her lip, my cock lengthened beneath her delectable heart-shaped ass, but I ignored it. That task wasn’t as difficult as usual. I was dismayed by the new tears filling her eyes.
“What’s wrong, babe? Did something else happen?”
“Nothing new.” She licked her lips. “Just more trials and growing up, things the universe thinks I need to do.”
“I think you’re already grown up. Beautifully, wonderfully, admirably so, in my opinion.”
I cupped her jaw, swiping my thumb over her soft golden skin, and her lids fluttered. She seemed to crave my touch as much as I needed to touch her. That deep feeling in my chest blazed brighter and hotter.
“You’re lying to be nice,” she said softly, not meeting my eyes. “I look terrible when I cry.”
“I’m not referring to your red-rimmed eyes or your splotchy skin, or your outward beauty at all, though you’re far from not pretty when you cry.” I brushed my thumb across her skin again.
“What is it then?”
“It’s what you’ve done with the adversity in your life that’s beautiful.”
One slight shoulder lifted. “I just did what I had to do.”
“I think there’s more. Like those planters and the gifts you create, you’ve repurposed every painful event. You lost your