Sea Breeze 04 - Just for Now

me. Oh.
    “Manda, if you don’t get off me, we are gonna have to have a round two real soon.”
    I wiggled a little more on his lap, and this time he laughed. “You’re going to kill me. Death by sex with the hottest woman on the planet. That’s one helluva way to go.”
    A knock at the door startled me, and Preston tensed underneath me. I looked from the door to him, and he lifted me off his lap. Then handed me a towel. “Go on in the bathroom and take a shower.”
    I was worried it could be Marcus. I didn’t want him hurting Preston any more. I wrapped the towel around me and stood there.
    Preston pointed to the bathroom, and I shook my head. “It could be Marcus.”
    Preston laughed. “Well, you standing there like that ain’t gonna help matters if it is.”
    “You can’t answer the door naked,” I pointed out.
    He looked down at himself and smirked. “No, I can’t.” Then he headed for the bedroom. Another knock and a “I know you’re in there. Open the damn door” told us it was Dewayne.
    Preston came walking out of the bedroom in a pair of sweats and pointed to the bathroom. “It’s Dewayne, and we both know he ain’t here to kick my ass. Go take a shower, and don’t come out in a towel.”
    Smiling, I walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind me.
    Pressing my ear to the door, I listened to see what Dewayne wanted before I turned the water on. He could be here to warn us Marcus was on the way.
    “She in here?” Dewayne asked.
    “Word travels fast.”
    Dewayne let out a bark of laughter. “Hell yeah, it does. You messing around with Marcus’s sister, that’s screwed up. Even for you.”
    “Shut up, D. What do you want, other than to see if Amanda is here?”
    “Ah, you know, the usual. You got Marcus ready to pound in anyone’s head who looks at him the wrong way. Rock and I have to keep him from getting thrown in jail. So I need to know, are you just fucking her, or is this more than that?”
    “It’s Amanda, D. Don’t say that. Ever.”
    There was a pause. “So Rock was right. For you to mess around with Manda, it has to be for a bigger reason. She got to you.”
    “I’ve been attracted to her for a couple of years now, but she was too young. She’s not anymore, and I . . . It’s different with her. Everything is different.”
    Hearing him admit that it was different with me eased the worry that he might never love me. Just to know he felt something.
    “I’d say it was your business, but since we were kids if something goes wrong with one of us, then it is everyone’s business. Just be careful. I know shit you probably don’t know I know. It ain’t the kind of thing relationships are built on. And Manda ain’t the kind of girl you just use for a little while.”
    “I know that. Don’t you think I fucking know that?”
    Another moment of silence, and then the front door opened and closed. I stepped back and took a deep breath.
    The bathroom door swung open, and Preston walked inside with a wicked grin on his face. “Since you waited on me while you listened in on that conversation, I think I’ll help get you clean and you can show off those singing abilities of yours in the shower. I’ve been waiting all damn day to hear them.”

Chapter Nineteen
Preston
    Letting Amanda go home was hard. I wanted to keep her here. Every time she walked out my door, I worried that she wouldn’t come back. That she’d find out the truth about me. Tonight was family dinner at her house. She said her brother had told her that he didn’t want her to tell their mom. She wasn’t emotionally stable enough to deal with it.
    I didn’t expect her mother to accept me. She knew I was from the wrong side of town. She knew I’d gotten in trouble all through high school and Marcus had helped bail me out. I was Marcus’s charity case in her eyes. I’d never be good enough for her daughter.
    My phone vibrated in my pocket, reminding me of my appointment. Every time I had to go work, I loathed it more. I’d started looking in the paper every day for a job that could pay me enough to take care of the kids and fit into my schedule with classes and baseball season when it started up. So far there was nothing. I wasn’t qualified for anything. But I wasn’t giving up. I had to find a way out of this. I wanted to be worthy of Amanda, and I knew I never would be as long as I continued doing what I was doing.
    I reached over and picked up my keys. I had to go do this. If I wanted