Variation: A Novel

OnPointe34: Not you guys correcting a professional dancer in the comments. Dead. The only person better than RousseauSisters4 at this is the missing half of that duo. Hey, Eva, cough your sister up before we send out a manhunt.

I rolled the warm glass of Yuengling between my palms, scraping the knobbed edges of the bottle against the table as Kurt Cobain sang about a heart-shaped box from the archaic jukebox in the corner of the bar, on which Gavin only allowed his selection of grunge or the rare punk song to play.

Six days.

Somehow, I’d made it six fucking days without driving my ass over to Allie’s and begging her forgiveness. Our past demanded more than a simple apology or a bullshit excuse. A lot more. What I’d done to her required blood, full-knees groveling, and probably a piece of my soul, and even then I wasn’t sure it would be enough.

A swift shin kick jarred me, and across the ill-lit booth, Eric Beachman’s eyes rose in expectation. “Isn’t that right, Ellis?” he prompted, glancing at the woman sitting next to me.

Right. Shit. I was supposed to be on a double date. It was the first time in a week my schedule had matched Eric’s to get out for a drink, and he’d brought his girlfriend’s sister. What the hell was her name? And what had Beachman asked?

“He doesn’t have to answer,” the brunette said with a quick, bright smile.

Jessica—Eric’s girlfriend—narrowed her eyes at me.

“Every swimmer likes to brag about the number of rescues they’ve had.” Eric helped me out, but simultaneously sent me the are-you-fucking-kidding-me look.

I cleared my throat. “Actually, I don’t keep count.” There, that was easy, even if I’d blanked on the last ten minutes of the conversation, which had been my MO all week. I’d be in the middle of something, and I’d think of Allie. Ordering new gear for the shop? Allie. Taking Juniper’s phone? Allie. Working out in the pool? Allie.

She usually lived in the back of my mind, but now she was up front and everywhere.

“I think that’s humble.” Beth—that was her name—said, her fingers drumming on the side of her empty glass as her smile widened. “I like that in a guy.”

Allie knew I was anything but humble. She’d known I was impetuous, and cocky, and so fucking arrogant, and liked me anyway.

“I’m sure he likes that you like that.” Eric took a drink.

Not sure I did. Beth was beautiful, with wide blue eyes and soft brown hair that leaned more toward chestnut than the dark coffee of Allie’s—

Stop comparing them.

It was all I’d done all night, put my funny, outgoing date up against the woman who had set my standard a dozen years ago, and that wasn’t fair. I was being a dick, and she didn’t even know it.

“How about I grab you another drink?” I offered, already sliding out of the booth as Beachman protested that we had a waitress.

I pushed my way through the Friday-night crowd, nodding to a few guys I’d gone to high school with at the dartboard and who were not perks of me being stationed in my hometown, and made my way toward my brother—who wasn’t always in the perks column either. Gavin was serving at the far end of the twelve-seat bar, so I snagged one of the two empty barstools along the narrow end and sat.

“What the hell is wrong with you tonight?” Eric took the seat beside me.

“Distracted.” I curved the brim of my ball cap.

“You’ve been spaced out all week,” he accused, then shot a glance over his shoulder at a group of boardroom types who were all yelling for Gavin from the corner of the bar. “Is there any reason to be in a dive bar in a two-thousand-dollar suit?” he muttered.

“’Tis the season.” I watched my brother make his way down the line of customers. He was a couple inches taller than my six-two frame, which gave him an advantage behind the bar, and perspective to see over the crowd, but I still had twenty pounds of muscle on him, giving me the advantage whenever I needed to kick his ass. “It’ll be thick in here next week.” Memorial Day weekend was always the unofficial start of the influx, and the Grizzly Bear Bar was a good indicator of the current tourist population. Come Fourth of July, this place would be packed to fire code.

“You worried about your test score?” Eric mirrored my posture, bracing his elbows on the edge of the bar.

“Nope.” The results of the exams we’d taken last week to qualify us for promotion wouldn’t be out for another couple weeks, but I knew I’d nailed it.

“Worried that even if you get picked up on the list, and promoted, there’s nowhere for you to advance here at Cape Cod with eleven other swimmers so you’ll have to pick another air station and leave your family?” He leveled a knowing look at me.

“Strangely detailed and usually accurate, but also, no.” But now I was worrying about it.

“I mean, you could go for Port Angeles and soak up the Pacific Northwest, or San Francisco and find out why I love California so much, or even up to Sitka. You know, like you’ve always wanted.” His head tilted slightly, waiting for me to react. That was Eric’s primary skill—finding out what got under someone’s skin and protecting them if he considered them a friend, or digging at it until they bled if he didn’t.

“I’m good here.” It had taken me two other East Coast duty stations before I secured Cape Cod, and I wasn’t leaving anytime soon. Not as long as Caroline needed me.

“Is it the date?” Eric tried again as Gavin took the orders next to us, my brother’s eyebrows knitting as he shot a perplexed look my direction.

“It’s not the date.” I watched Gavin methodically pull a couple beers from the tap a few feet away, his head inclined our direction at an angle that told me he was listening. “Beth is . . . fine.”

“Fine?” Eric’s eyebrows shot up. “She’s a fucking ten, and that’s without my practically-in-laws bias. She’s a teacher, which means she’s smart—you’ve heard how funny she is. Plus she seems to like you—not that you have an issue in that department—so what’s the problem?”

I shifted on my seat.

“She’s not Allie Rousseau,” Gavin answered for me, sliding two beers to the boardroom crew on our left.

“Shut the fuck up.” I glared at my brother and second-guessed my escape plan. He was clearly in the mood to screw with me.

“She’s not.” Gavin shrugged and reached for the liquor on the top shelf. “Brown hair, nice smile, petite. Totally his type, but she’s not Allie.” He poured four shots from the bottle of tequila. “You see, Bachman—”

“Beachman,” Eric corrected.

“Whatever.” Gavin pushed the shots at the suits, then picked up the tablet to record the drinks on their tab. “You brought him in a nice year-rounder—”

“He means local,” I interjected.

“—but little brother here has been hung up on Allie since he was seventeen, and there’s nothing you, or I, or Teacher back there in the booth can do about it.” He set the tablet down on the back bar and faced us, flipping his Grizzly Bear ball cap backward. “Hence the reason he’s sitting at my bar instead of ordering a refill back there.” He gestured toward the booths. “Hudson might be the baddest motherfucker alive to the US Coast Guard, but you put Allie Rousseau in a room with him and he’ll trip over his own feet.”

“Who is Allie Rousseau?” Eric’s face scrunched as he glanced between my brother and me.

“You just had to, didn’t you?” I narrowed my eyes at my brother.

“It is the sacred privilege of an older sibling to embarrass the younger one at their discretion.” He smiled shamelessly and reached for a lager glass beneath the bar.

“Who is Allie Rousseau?” Eric repeated.

“Sometimes I can’t decide if I love or despise you.” The harder I glared, the wider Gavin grinned.

“Both, little brother.” He jostled the brim on my cap like I was twelve again, then poured a Yuengling. “I’m not doing my job if it’s not both.”

“Who the fuck is Allie Rousseau?” Eric raised his voice.

Gavin lifted his eyebrows at me in challenge and slid the lager my way.

“You’re an asshole.” I took the offered beer.

“Alessandra Rousseau? The ballerina?” the suit closest to us interrupted.

All three of us turned our heads in surprise.

“What?” The guy loosened his silk tie. “I live in New York and my wife likes ballet.”

“Wasn’t talking to you,” I all but snapped.

“I was.” Beachman turned his full body. “Tell me more.”

I took a long pull of the beer while Boardroom showed Eric something on his phone.

“Hooooooooly shit.” Beachman whipped the phone my direction. “This is who you’re talking about?”

A Google image search brought up half a dozen pictures of Allie, mostly on the stage, the long lines of her body contorted flawlessly into impossible positions. He pointed to her formal headshot for the Company, which was—of course—a fucking showstopper. The photographer had caught her without a smile, wide eyed as though waiting for his next direction.

“That’s the one,” Gavin remarked, starting on another drink and blatantly ignoring the customers at the far end who looked like they wanted another round.

Eric returned the phone and thanked the suit before swiveling his seat back toward me. “And you’ve never told me about her because . . . ?”

My mouth opened, then shut. This right here was definitely in the drawback column of being stationed in my hometown.

“Because he’s still in love with her.” Gavin set a drink down in front of me that looked suspiciously like the one Beth had been drinking, rum and Coke. For all his issues in the reliability department, he had a memory like an elephant.

“No, I’m not.” Even another swig couldn’t wash the taste of a lie out of my mouth.

“Yeah, you are. He is,” he repeated to Eric with a nod. “Which is why he doesn’t talk about her.”

“For fuck’s sake, will you stop?” I pushed away from the bar.

“He’s either your closest friend or he’s not.” Gavin scoffed.

“I am.” Eric leaned forward like an old man at a barbershop, hungry for gossip disguised as news.

“She was my best friend,” I said just to shut up Gavin. “Her parents have a place here, and we met when we were teenagers. We were close for two summers and . . .” Words failed me, just like always. Everything that happened that night had been and still was unspeakable.

“And he was in love with her,” Gavin whispered loudly before pouring a Coors Light from the tap.

“Don’t you have customers?” I gestured down the bar.

“Don’t you have a date you’re avoiding?” he countered, sliding the beer to Eric.

“Truth.” Eric winced, taking the draft and glancing over his shoulder toward the booths.

“Point is, Bateman—” Gavin started as he mixed a vodka and cranberry juice.

“Beachman,” Eric corrected yet again.

“That’s what I said.” Gavin stuck a cocktail straw in and swirled. “That woman you so kindly brought to meet my brother doesn’t stand a chance. Never did. The nicest thing you can do for her is put her out of her misery before he does something truly stupid, like date her.”

“Not true.” I stood and reached for the beer.

“It is.” Gavin glanced my way and pushed the cocktail toward Eric, giving him his full attention and ignoring me. “You see, Barman, I’ve been there, hung up on a Rousseau girl, and it’s an infatuation like no other.” He glanced away, then cleared his throat.

My grip tightened on the lager despite the condensation quickly gathering on the glass. I wasn’t the only Ellis who didn’t talk about those summers.

“But the Rousseau sisters always had the look-but-don’t-touch vibe, and a touch-them-and-I’ll-ruin-you mother, and while I let that torch burn bright and hot before letting it go, Hudson here still carries his, and now that she’s been back in town a couple of weeks?” He flared his hands and made a sound like a bomb. “Hudson is the Death Star, and that woman is Luke, about to blow his ass up.”

“That’s a shitty analogy.” I took another drink and contemplated the mileage between here and Allie’s. I’d had maybe a third of a beer all night. I was safe to drive.

“Is it, though?” Gavin cocked his head to the side. “We could go with you’re the Titanic and she’s the iceberg, or she’s Oppenheimer and you’re the test site in New Mexico—”

“Point taken.” I reached for my wallet.

“Wait, did you say you had a thing for Allie too?” Eric stepped off his stool.

“God no. Her older sister. Never Allie.” Gavin glanced at me, years of history flickering over his gaze in that millisecond before the corner of his mouth rose in a smirk. “Allie was way too young for me. Too tightly wound. Pretty little thing—”

My spine stiffened.

“—but too prim, way too proper, too quiet, way too mousy—”

“Too fucking mine,” I snapped, flinging a twenty onto the bar top. “And she was none of those things. You never really knew her.” Heat flushed up the back of my neck.

“There he is!” Gavin raised his arms in victory. “I’ve been wondering when you’d wake the fuck up.”

Shit, I’d given him exactly what he was after, a reaction.

Eric’s attention flickered between us like we were opponents in a tennis match.

“Now go have the balls to tell that nice brunette that she’s auditioning for a role that was filled over a decade ago.” He shoved the twenty back at me. “And you know your money’s no good here.”

“How did you know she was back in town?” I picked up the rum and Coke in my free hand, leaving the twenty where it was.

“Word travels fast.” Gavin shrugged and backed away. “And our niece is a gossip. You know she’s going to hound that woman for an autograph.”

Juniper. Of course. What else had she told him? “You’re watching her tomorrow morning so Caroline can open, right?”

“Are you on a twenty-four-hour shift?” Gavin countered as the voices behind him rose to get his attention.

“Yes.” I only pulled them four to six times a month.

“Then looks like I don’t have a choice.” He saluted me with two fingers and headed toward the other end of the bar, a towel hanging out of the back pocket of his cargo pants.

Eric and I started back toward the booth.

“What happened between you and the ballerina, anyway?” he asked as we made our way through the growing crowd.

This was why I never wanted him to know. Beachman was a fixer, and now I was a problem with what he thought was a solution. “We fell out when I was eighteen, just before I went to basic.”

“Let me guess, she didn’t return the feelings?”

My stomach twisted. “She . . . it was just complicated. End of story.”

“But it’s not the end if she just happens to be here while you are. You really are the luckiest bastard I’ve ever met.”

“Trust me. It’s over. Allie isn’t the type to give second chances.” Or let anyone all the way in. I spotted Jessica and Beth and lowered my voice. “There are some fates even I can’t outrun, my friend. Do me a favor and let it go.”

We quieted as we approached the booth, and I gave Beth my most apologetic smile as I slid in beside her, drinks in hand. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.” She took the drink, then tucked her hair behind her ear. “So, you grew up here, right? We didn’t move here until I was a junior. I think you’d already graduated.”

I started to nod, since those dates lined up from what she’d told me earlier, but paused. Gavin was right. I could date this woman and even have a few laughs along the way, but it would eventually end because I’d never give her a full chance, especially not while Allie was a thirteen-minute drive from here.

“Right,” I said slowly, noting the tension winding in my chest as my thoughts spun. “I’m so sorry, Beth, but—”

“Hudson?”

The rest of my sentence died, slayed instantly by the sound of her voice. I turned and looked over a pair of jeans that made my palms itch to feel the curves under them, past the lightweight green sweater that fell off one delicate shoulder—exposing a pale-pink bra strap—and up into my favorite pair of whiskey-colored eyes. That tension in my chest cranked to a breaking point, and every thought besides carrying her out of here so I could beg her forgiveness privately fled the mush I called a brain.

“Holy shit, you’re the ballerina,” Eric announced.

Fucking kill me now.

Allie’s eyes widened, and she ripped her gaze from mine. “I . . . am.”

“Nice.” Beachman grinned and stuck out his hand. “I’m Eric Beachman, Hudson’s best friend.”

“Alessandra Rousseau. Nice to meet you.” Allie shook it but didn’t smile. Not even her public, polished, bullshit one.

“Or, I guess I should say, his new best friend.” He winced, and she retreated to hold the strap of her purse with both hands. “Not that I’m saying that he talks about you being his old best friend, or that you’re replaceable or . . . You know what? I’m going to stop talking.”

“That would be preferable.” I shot him a death look.

Asshole smiled back.

“Okay.” Allie glanced between the four of us, finally settling on me, and my ribs ached. God, had it always been like this around her? Hard to breathe from just a look? You’re not eighteen anymore—get a grip and formulate a plan. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but I was hoping I could have a word with you? In private?”

Hell yes. Fuck yes. Absolutely yes. Screw a plan. Whatever she wanted, she could have.

“Sure.” Great vocabulary, jackass. I abandoned my beer and slid out of the booth as she backed up a few steps to make space. “Back room?”

She nodded, then turned toward the bar and started walking. I kept my eyes off her ass and used every second to strategize my possible responses to what she might say. Forget logic and the very real reasons I’d ghosted her; every single scenario I pictured began and ended with the one thing I’d never done for any woman—groveling.

She opened the door near the corner of the bar like it hadn’t been ten years since the last time she’d turned the handle, and damn if it didn’t feel like I was eighteen again, hiding out with her while Gavin was on a shift, studying for the entrance test and laughing and talking about nothing yet everything at the same time.

I walked in after her, noting the scent of air freshener and stale beer, and closed the door behind me. For as bad as it smelled, it was neat and organized, from the file cabinet in the corner to the desk to my left. That’s where I put my ass, leaned it right on the edge of the surprisingly sturdy furniture so she’d have a clear line to the door and wouldn’t feel trapped.

“This place looks exactly the same.” She turned slowly in the flickering fluorescent light, taking in the details of the space in that quiet, observant way she had. I’d always thought she’d survived in that house because she was acutely perceptive, able to predict when a storm was headed her way. “But you . . .” She folded her arms across her chest and studied me with eyes that had lost the angry fire I’d faced back at the house. Given the cursory, almost empty way she looked at me, the fire would have been a blessing. “You take up more of it than you used to.”

“A couple inches of growth and rescue swimmer school will do that.” A corner of my mouth lifted. “And you look good too.” Better than good. She was a knockout, with big eyes, bow-shaped lips, and the cutest freckles across her cheeks. The girl I’d always thought was beautiful had grown far past that word as a woman.

She scoffed. “I look like I haven’t taken class in four months or slept since childhood.” It came out as flat as her gaze.

“Never could take a compliment.”

A spark of that fire flared in her eyes, and I barely leashed a cheer. She was still in there. “Not the point.” She shook her head, and her hair fell around her face in a soft deep-brown curtain as she dug into her purse. The wavy mass was a little longer now, falling a few inches past her collarbone. “I came because Anne mentioned that Gavin still worked here, and I thought he could tell me where to find you.”

“You came looking for me?” A full-on smile spread across my face. So much for strategy—I was going on instinct and hoping it didn’t fail me for the first time.

“Well, yeah.” With one hand she swept her hair from her face while the other tugged her phone free. “I didn’t know who else to go to. Or who to tell. Or who you’d told.”

“About?” I leaned forward.

“You need to talk to Caroline. I’m not Juniper’s mother.” Her fingers worked the screen.

“Of course you’re not.” Hadn’t given it a second thought.

She held up the same app Juniper used. “Turns out I’m her aunt.”