Blues Beach [Suncoast Society] Read online

  He started to reply but stopped himself, choking the words off as he settled back in his seat. He had finally recognized the feeling filling him, like being awash in an overcoat five sizes too big for him, a wet, cold one he couldn’t take off.

  A far too familiar one.

  The feeling he’d struggled through for years after losing Paige, and which had only in the past year started to fade a little.

  The long-term depression.

  A feeling that had completely disappeared after reuniting with Tracey a few days ago.

  And now…

  Back with a vengeance.

  He wasn’t going to get to raise his baby. Not really. Snippets of spare time here and there, unable to do more than spend his days off with him or her.

  It’d be Brandon, Stuart, and Jeff his baby saw as its dads. Emma would make sure of that.

  Clear as anything, he saw it all.

  And they’d be great dads, better than he obviously could be. If he’d been a good dad to start with, Paige and the baby would still be alive.

  He didn’t have the strength to do this. He was kidding himself if he thought he had. “I don’t kn—”

  “Stop it, Em.”

  He realized Grace now stood by his right shoulder, and had apparently been sitting in the booth behind him, but with the high backs, he hadn’t seen her.

  But she would have been able to hear every word.

  A look of rage flashed across Emma’s face. “You’re supposed to be on my side!”

  Grace slipped into the booth, next to Eric. “Not when you’re acting like a total bitch for no reason, no, I can’t be. True love isn’t a rubber stamp for bad behavior.”

  He kept his mouth shut. Besides, now he was trapped in the booth by Grace and couldn’t even save his pride and leave, find the server to pay the bill, and just…retreat to lick his wounds.

  “He’s not Pat,” Grace said. “Give him a chance.”

  “What’d he do, bribe you to say that?”

  “He didn’t have to. I’ve watched him. I’ve listened to him. Hell, you chopped him off at the kneecaps when he tried to talk to you about swimming. Pat never gave a shit about your swimming except to bitch it was a pain in his ass to pay for it, and he wasn’t even paying for it because Pop was.”

  “You were supposed to help me figure out what his angle is, not betray me!”

  “His angle is he loves Mama, and he wants to raise their baby with her. And you need to let them be together.”

  Emma sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. “I already told him he could do whatever he wants.”

  Grace leaned forward, dropping her voice. “No, you told him he couldn’t be a part of his baby’s life.”

  “I didn’t say that!”

  “You pretty much did, yeah. I was listening to you. Let me tell you something. I love you, but I cannot in good conscience let you do that to them. You are hurting and scared and mad that just when Mama is getting her life together she did something stupid. Okay, fine. We did something just as stupid by lying to them for over a year, or did you conveniently forget that?”

  Emma’s face reddened. “We didn’t get pregnant,” she muttered.

  “I don’t know about you, but I still feel pretty shitty about how badly it especially hurt Stuart’s feelings because of his issues over his family. We lied to them for over a year. Transpose that onto this. He’s not Pat. You’re determined to not give him a chance. Fair enough, but if you can’t trust Mama, Pop, Stu, Jeff, and me when we’ve unanimously signed off on him, then whose opinion will you give weight to?”

  Emma dropped her voice, nearly a hiss. “You have no idea what it was like living with him!”

  “Uh, yeah, I do, because how many times did I hold you while you cried over something that jackass said or did? I more than anyone know what he did to you, and hate him as much as you do.”

  “That’s not living it.”

  “So you punish Eric for it?”

  He couldn’t take it anymore. He needed air, needed to regroup. Needed time alone to think, and needed to talk to Brandon.

  But he needed to get away from Emma, because right now, he was only enraging her, and he knew it had nothing to do with him. “Look, I’m sorry, Emma. Really. I’m going to pay the bill. You two can stay, please, finish it, take it home, whatever.” Grace finally moved so he could slide out. “I’m a man of my word. I won’t move in with your mom. I’m sorry Pat was a jerk to you. He’s obviously an idiot if he couldn’t see what a great kid you are. That’s his loss.”

  Despite Grace trying to grab his hand, he turned and walked up to the front, to the hostess station, to pay the server. Fortunately, he couldn’t see the booth from there, and now he knew why Emma was both late to dinner and had been texting. She’d planned her ambush, determined to find fault with him somewhere and using Grace as her accomplice and witness.

  Nothing he did would ever be good enough.

  Once he’d signed the check and got his credit card back, he headed out to his car and was opening it when Grace burst out the restaurant’s front door, calling for him. She ran up to him.

  “Come back in, please?”

  “Is that her asking, or you?”

  Grace shook her head. “She’s scared. She’ll come around, I promise.”

  “Not tonight, she won’t. I’m sorry, Grace. I don’t think anything we say can convince her I’m not like Pat, and she doesn’t want to give me a chance to show her.”

  “Please don’t give up. You and Mama deserve a chance together.”

  His fingers tightly curled around the top of his door and he stared up at the sky for a long moment. “I don’t have the energy to fight this battle tonight,” he quietly said. “I’m sorry. I thought I did, but…tonight was a loss. I’m not going to be an asshole and sit there and try to force her to like me tonight when she’s not ready to. If that makes me a horrible person, then it does.” Then he slid behind the wheel and cranked the engine.

  Grace stood there, a pale shadow in his rearview mirror under the parking lot lights as he pulled away.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Eric couldn’t bear to go home and needed time alone to…think. To go over his words and make sure, despite Grace’s reassurances, that he hadn’t said or done something wrong.

  He headed west, over the Ringling and to the beach, and he left his phone and shoes in the car. Moonlight lit the waves in deep blues with streaks of faintly glowing bioluminescence along the shore. He had the place to himself, it looked like.

  This beach and this ocean felt so different than California. He’d thought it’d be a new start, then Tracey and their baby entered the picture.

  I could step into the water, keep swimming until I can’t swim any more.

  He cut that thought off. That was the depression talking, and he damn well knew it. But, no, there was wishful thinking and reality.

  He’d have to work to support Tracey and the baby, and he wouldn’t have time to raise the baby while doing that. Emma would do everything in her power to cut him out of Tracey’s life, no matter his feelings on the matter.

  It was one thing to claim he was going to keep fighting.

  But the mental exhaustion…

  Depression smiled at him from the shadows, sharp daggers for teeth.

  You thought you could escape me? You thought you were going to be happy? I just gave you a taste of the good life because I wanted to drag you down even deeper than you were because you thought you could get away from me in the first place. You’re not going anywhere. You don’t deserve happiness after what you did.

  Hell, Brandon had already raised a baby. He was obviously a good father, devoted. Even Tracey said that. He and Jeff and Stuart could be there for a baby in ways he couldn’t. Tracey would be too busy with the baby, and school, and work, to have time for him when they couldn’t even share the same house.

  He lay back in the sand and stared up at the sky. Icy cold pinpoints of light stared bac
k at him, the unblinking void.

  And in the grand scheme of things, he meant less than one grain of the white sugar sand he was currently lying on.

  He drew in a deep, shuddering breath. He knew he should say fuck it all, sweep Tracey off her feet, and raise their child. That’s what the Dom part of him wanted to do.

  The exhausted man who had dwelt uncomfortably close to depression and grief for too many years knew that was a fucking joke.

  He wouldn’t violate Emma’s consent. That wasn’t who he was. It would taint every bit of his relationship with Tracey if he pushed forward without Emma’s earnest blessings. Sure, he knew he could lay down the law and tell Tracey they were moving in together and getting married no matter what, and she’d do it. But Tracey would always feel uneasy if he did that, and it would force her to choose between him and Emma, and he refused to do that to her.

  He wouldn’t be that guy.

  Not even at the risk of it making him a stranger to his own baby.

  He didn’t even know what time it was when he finally trudged back to his car and headed to the hotel. He didn’t bother looking at his phone, either. He couldn’t pull himself together enough to talk to Tracey or anyone else tonight.

  Tomorrow, he’d resurrect the old mask, the one he’d worn so long and so well, that of a reasonably functional human being. When asked how he was, he’d smile and say fine.

  He wouldn’t cry in front of anyone.

  Brandon’s car sat parked in front of his room, and it wasn’t until both doors opened Eric realized that Grace was with him. When he glanced at his phone, he saw he had ten missed calls and it was nearly one in the morning.

  Shoulders slumped, Eric didn’t speak to them, just opened the door to his room and let them walk in ahead of him before he followed.

  “I didn’t know they’d planned this,” Brandon said when Eric didn’t speak. “Grace told me everything.”

  Eric sat on the end of the bed. “It’s over, isn’t it?”

  Brandon settled into one of the chairs at the table. “What?”

  “I told Emma I won’t go back on my word. She won’t sign off on a relationship with me and Tracey. I get it. I’m the odd man out because of what that fucker did to her and Tracey, and I’m the one who pays.”

  Grace sat on the end of the bed, next to him. “She’ll come around.”

  “Please, it’s…” Saying it was fine was a lie. It wasn’t fine, and it never would be fine. “It is what it is.”

  “Well, when I find her,” Brandon said, “she’s getting grounded, for starters.”

  That finally made him look up. “What? What do you mean when you find her?”

  “She ditched me after you left,” Grace said. “Stormed out of there in tears. Won’t answer her phone or respond to texts. She shut off her phone so Pop can’t even track her through it. She’s pissed at me—at all of us—for not siding with her. She’s wrong. Look, I get it, but she’s still wrong.”

  “And we were starting to worry about you,” Brandon said. “Trace and I have been trying to call you.”

  “Sorry. I went over to the beach to think. Left my phone in the car.”

  “Nobody expects you not to be a part of the baby’s life,” Brandon said. “That’s—”

  “Exactly what Emma wants. You didn’t hear her.”

  “You and Tracey belong together. She loves you, and you love her. You can’t walk away from Tracey because of a hormonal seventeen-year-old girl who’s got a ton of valid fears that have not a damn thing to do with you.”

  “What Pop said,” Grace added. “Hey, I sign off on you. I’ll talk her into coming around. I just need time.”

  “And then she isolates herself from her whole family because of me?”

  “I sign off on you, too,” Brandon said. “Like hell I’d let Tracey get mixed up with someone like Pat a second time. I talked to Carter, and to Carl. They both spoke very highly of you. Said you never brought drama into the store, they didn’t even have much of a clue about your personal life except they knew you were widowed. I’m pretty good at sniffing out bullshit, and bullshit artists, and you are nothing like Pat. I hated that sonofabitch on sight.”

  “So what am I supposed to do? Prove to Emma that I’m a liar right off the bat and do exactly the thing I said I wouldn’t do?”

  “That was a promise you shouldn’t have made, and I’ll call her out on it. As soon as we find her.”

  Brandon hadn’t heard Emma, though. Eric knew, to the depths of his soul, that if he did the logical thing, the thing no one else would blame him for, that Emma would declare she’d been right and completely lock down.

  And he wouldn’t do that to Tracey when she’d worked so hard to rebuild her relationship with Emma and Emma’s trust in her.

  Brandon dug his keys out and leaned in to hand them to Grace. “Sweetie, please go wait out in the car.”

  She reluctantly took them and gave Eric a hug before she left the room.

  Despite hating himself, his tears returned. He didn’t move, stared at his feet, and cried.

  Rock, meet bottom.

  Brandon stood and walked into the bathroom, returning with the box of tissues from there, and sat next to him. He handed him a couple and didn’t break the silence for several long minutes.

  “Did you really love Trace?” Eric hoarsely asked. “When you married her? Did you love her?”

  “I did. I thought I was in love with her. My family loved her. I thought…I thought it would be enough. I tried to deny who I was in more than one way. But she loved the Dominant in me, and I struggled to not break her heart. It was after Emma was born when I couldn’t deny who I was any longer, and I realized I didn’t want to raise her in the same kind of inauthentic environment I was raised in. In the process, I still managed to break Tracey’s heart, and I’ll always regret that. I still love her, because she’s the mother of my child, and I consider her a friend.”

  “I appreciate you trying to help, but Emma’s never going to accept me. You didn’t hear the way she sounded. She made it clear I’m not welcome in her life.”

  “She’d be doing this whoever you were. You could be a perfect, rich movie star and she’d still be acting like this.”

  “I’m sorry if this makes me sound horrible, but I won’t put Tracey through a battle.”

  “You’re not putting her through a battle. My daughter is pretty damn stubborn. I’ll be the first to admit that.” Eric didn’t respond. “Tracey and the baby need you. That’s your baby.”

  He took a breath and went there. “Emma reminded me that Tracey has you and Jeff and Stuart. I won’t be needed. And she told me all about the plan, that Tracey’s moving in with you, and Jeff will take care of the baby once she goes back to work.”

  “What? Okay, for starters, that hasn’t even been discussed. That is not ‘the plan.’ There is no plan right now. I mean, yeah, I literally said that to Tracey minutes after she told me she was pregnant, right before I found out you were the father, but we haven’t discussed that since then. There is no plan, Eric. Maybe Emma has a plan, but she didn’t clear it with any of us. And I have news for you—our daughter does not set policy in our house, and she does not decide things for Tracey, or for me. Especially something like this.”

  “Tracey told me she gave Emma veto rights.”

  Brandon sighed heavily. “Look, Pat was a massive asshole with ego issues, not to mention he’s a legit idiot. Totally different situation here. You can’t give up.”

  “Nothing I say will change her mind.”

  “Eric, it’s late, you’re upset, and you’re stressed. Don’t decide anything tonight, okay?”

  Eric nodded, even though the certainty had already settled deep in his gut like a hard, cold rock embedding itself in his soul.

  Brandon stood, patted him on the shoulder, and left the box of tissues sitting on the end of the bed before letting himself out.

  Eric flopped back on the bed and let defeat wash over him.


  At least in this one thing he was an expert.

  Unfortunately.

  What is wrong with me? Why am I giving in like this?

  Except…that familiar dark, tempting shadow in his soul kept whispering to him, encouraging him to give in. That it would fit the narrative of his life as a failure, and that he didn’t deserve any better.

  That he’d only be ruining Tracey’s life the way he’d contributed to Paige’s death.

  That she’d be better off without him and had people in her life who could take far better care of her than he could.

  He couldn’t handle having anything else on his conscience. His soul felt close enough to the breaking point as it was.

  Except giving up on Tracey and his baby…

  No. There had to be something. Some way to reach Emma.

  He stared at the dark ceiling, Brandon’s words ringing in his ears as Eric struggled to find his center, to find a shred of reason or logic inside all his pain.

  I’m stressed, it’s late, and I’m tired.

  And the girl who could’ve been his daughter but wasn’t hated his guts. Plus she was now missing, and for that he felt guilty, too. Hopefully she’d come home.

  I need to regroup.

  But that wasn’t going to happen tonight.

  The only thing he knew was going to happen tonight was that he likely wouldn’t get any damned sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Tracey stared at her phone in her hand from where she lay on the couch, her head in Jeff’s lap and her feet in Stuart’s.

  “You guys can go to bed, if you want. It’s almost two in the morning.”

  “You’re up, we’re up,” Jeff said.

  Nothing from Emma, nothing from Eric. It was pointless for them to be out looking for her, because they knew she didn’t want to be found right now. They’d already called around to friends of hers and no one had seen her or heard from her.

  When headlights swept the front of the house, Tracey sat up, pulse pounding, but Brandon walked in alone.

  “He finally came back to the hotel. Grace and I talked to him, then I took Grace home. No word from Emma yet, I take it?”