Give & Take: An Age Gap Romance
READ A SNEAK PEEK OF CHAPTERS ONE AND TWO BELOW!
I shouldn’t be thinking about him.
Even though he tells me he can’t stop thinking about me.
I’m turning 41.
He’s 26.
I’m a serious person.
He’s fun-loving and carefree.
It’s all wrong. But every time Raphael LaForest looks at me, it feels so, so right. Just a glance and my whole body melts. The simple brush of his hand on mine and every last nerve ending is on fire.
But that’s not all. Raph makes me think. He makes me laugh. He listens to me, and he makes me feel beautiful and desirable in a way my ex-husband never did.
He awakens feelings in me I never thought I was capable of having.
But our age isn’t the only complication. Raph’s also the nanny to my two little girls. He’s leaving at the end of the summer. And my feelings for him are rapidly tumbling into a dangerous place.
One that looks and feels an awful lot like love.
I can’t burden this man with the complication of us. My world is small. My life is set. Raph has his whole life ahead of him. The world waiting for him to explore.
He can’t stay with me. I won’t let him.
I just need Raph—and my heart—to fall in line.
Give & Take is an age gap, grumpy sunshine romance, where she’s older and he’s the sunshine. It’s a standalone romance set in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest, in the ferry-access-only town of Redbeard Cove.
Book two in the Redbeard Cove interconnected standalone series.
Read book one here: Here & There
Read Give & Take in Kindle Unlimited. Or order the paperback!
Add to Goodreads here.
Available for a Limited Time Only: A Sneak Peek of Chapters 1 & 2 of Give & Take!
Chapter One: Raphael
There’s an extremely attractive backside in front of me.
It belongs to the woman I’m standing behind in the concession line at the Redbeard Cove beach, where I’m waiting to buy curly fries for my slightly testy and extremely pregnant sister and her bestie. Also pregnant. I don’t argue with pregnant women. It’s best to do their bidding to keep them happy so they don’t eat your head.
This backside though—it’s a very welcome change in scenery. It’s round and lush and covered only nominally with a white bikini bottom. I can’t tell if it’s the butt itself or the way it’s dusted in sand, but it does something to me.
Then I realize I’m blatantly staring at a woman’s ass, like I’m at a fine art gallery made for me.
“Shit.” I look away, rubbing my jaw.
I don’t objectify women, as a rule. I’ve slapped my teenaged brothers upside the head for less. But my soda cup was slippery with condensation, and I nearly dropped it taking a sip, and while my eyes were on their way back up I did a double take, because damn. Who wouldn’t?
Probably lots of people. Me.
I sigh, training my eyes on the beach to keep my gaze respectful. It’s crowded today, looking more like where I come from in California than the small-town little curve of sand up the coast of British Columbia, three hours from the closest big city by road and ferry.
But the woman in front of me shifts and I catch the scent of pineapple and coconut, laced with…peaches? Do they make peach shampoo?
“No,” the woman says into her phone. The clip of that word is surprisingly firm. She knows herself. She’s assertive.
Damn, just what I love in a woman.
Just like that, my eyes pivot back to her. And because she’s facing forward, straight to her sexy, sand-dusted ass I go. It’s a gorgeous—
The backside disappears, replaced with a deeply sexy, ever-so-slightly padded stomach.
I look up. The woman’s eyes are on me. She’s short. 5’3 or even 5’2, I’d guess, so she has to look way up to glare at me.
There’s a brief beat where I can tell she’s surprised at my appearance. She maybe even likes my appearance. But it’s gone a second later when she says, “Like what you see?”
I snap my gaze up at the icy tone.
Only instead of being my usual charming self, all I can say when I see her face is “Whoopsies.”
Whoopsies. Yeah, that’s what I said, and I’m glad, because it’s a helluva lot better than what’s flying through my brain in lit-up lights: “Holy shit.”
I don’t get stunned by women. I don’t even get nervous around women. Just fifteen minutes ago I met a girl over by my car when I picked up her sunhat that had blown across the parking lot. She handed me her number. I might have given her my prizewinning smile, but I didn’t ask for her number.
But this one in front of me? She isn’t a girl. This is a Woman. Capital W.
She’s late thirties maybe, or early forties. Her deep brown hair falls in loose waves around a tanned face, dusted all over in freckles. But her eyes. Jesus, her eyes. Poets have written about less. They’re…ethereal. Hazel edging on green, ringed in gold. Thick, dark lashes. Tiny lines at the corners that tell me she at least knows how to smile, even if she’s a million miles from it right now. Her lips aren’t curved up, they’re pursed, those breathtaking eyes narrowed into a death glare.
Her mouth falls open, revealing a soft, wet, pinkness inside that does something to me.
I can’t help it, my lips curl up in a smile. And I don’t miss the faint blush that comes to her cheeks in response, before her jaw tenses.
She whips around, muttering, “Unbelievable.”
I bask in that peachy shampoo scent. And the fact I flustered her. She might hate my guts on sight, but she wasn’t immune to at least some part of my charm.
I feel my sister’s glare as if she was standing right next to me instead of back down the beach.
Okay, so maybe she was just thrown by my boyish good looks. Shit, does she think I’m just a boy? Was she flustered because a younger man—a twenty-six year old man—was the one ogling her?
Fuck. Suddenly I need her to know just how grown I am.
“I do, actually,” I say.
She looks over her shoulder at me. “Excuse me?”
“Like what I see.”
For a moment, she says nothing. Her mouth falls open slightly, then snaps shut again.
You know, I’ve been told I’m charming. My sister loves to throw it in my face. Don’t think you can charm your way out of this, Raphael!
Spoiler, I almost always do.
But I haven’t stunned her this time. This time, the woman looks at me like I’m something stuck to the bottom of her foot. Her beautiful little arched, red-toenailed foot.
She could step on my neck and I’d croak Thank you!
“Jesus,” the woman says. She turns back around, readjusting her shoulder bag in a short, fast tug. I can tell by the way her arms shift that she’s folded them.
“Nothing,” she says into the phone. “It’s no one.”
I rub my chest. No one. Ouch.
“Next!” the kid at the cash calls.
It’s the woman’s turn to order. But she hasn’t noticed she’s been called.
“Don’t ‘Lana’ me, Mike,” she says. “I told you they’re not going!”
Lana. It’s the perfect name for her. Graceful. Classic movie-star pedigree. Sexy as fuck. Meanwhile Mike is the name of one of my little brothers, and it sounds sullied by whoever she’s talking to.
“Ma’am!” The kid says. He looks sweaty and irritated, like he’d rather be anywhere but here. He looks over her head at me. “You wanna go next?”
“No,” I say, even though the two hangry pregnant women I’m here for—my sister Deanie and her best friend Shelby—would throttle me if they knew I could have gotten curly fries to them sooner.
“Miss?” I say. Should I have said ma’am?
I consider what the chances are that she might knock me out if I tap her on the shoulder.
Shit, I might like that.
“Hey,” I say, leaning in.
She whirls around. “I swear to God,” she says. “I’m having a day. If you don’t—”
I lift my hands, then bend one finger down, pointing to the cashier.
She gasps and hurries forward.
“I’m so sorry,” she says to the cashier. She orders two milkshakes. She’s polite, her voice softer and kinder to him than to whoever was on the phone. And me. I deserved her ire. Probably phone guy did too. Mike. I hate him. Luckily I call my brother Mikey. He’s only fourteen. Is the second milkshake for Bad Mike? I hate him even more.
When it’s my turn, I order my two giant orders of fries, my eyes more discreetly on the woman, who’s moved over by the birch tree to wait for her order.
“Sir, your change?”
“Keep it,” I say, distracted.
The cashier’s eyes go wide. “Really? Thanks!”
I shouldn’t really be giving cash away since I’m not TA’ing at the university again until the fall, but I’m already moving sideways, my eyes on the woman.
Her shoulders are stiff, jaw tight as she taps into her phone with tensed, fast-moving thumbs.
I want to ask if she’s okay. What the fuck did Mike do?
But when she looks up at me and I smile—a polite, non-charming smile this time—she just narrows her eyes and looks back down.
It’s okay, I deserve that. I can bask in the glow of that fire. Toast a marshmallow.
I stand a good few feet away from her, giving her space.
She tosses her phone into her bag.
And looks right at me.
I’m not staring, I’m not standing too close. But she won’t stop staring at me. Finally she says,
“What is your problem, buddy?”
Her pulse flashes in her throat.
When I meet her eyes, her expression flashes too. There’s something there that surprises me. A kind of vulnerability, I think, before the daggers drop back into place.
I suddenly realize what an ass I’ve been. She’s beautiful, of course, but that’s almost an afterthought now. I’m curious about her. I can tell she’s fierce and doesn’t take shit. But she’s got a story. And she’s going through something.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I mean it.
She blinks. “Sorry?”
“For objectifying you.”
She looks surprised at that. She purses her lips, not saying anything.
“You can objectify me back, if you want,” I say. “I don’t mind.”
Her eyes narrow.
I turn around slowly, arms up in the air.
She bunches her eyebrows together like she thinks I’m insane.
I stop. Most of the time making someone laugh is the best way to diffuse a tense situation. Maybe not here. “I won’t say anything else,” I promise. “I’ll just wait for my fries.”
“Could you wait farther away from me?”
I’m already several feet away from her. But I nod. “Sure thing.”
I move a few feet away, right next to the garbage can. It’s stuffed to the brim. I stand right up next to it, like it’s my best friend. It reeks. Baking dog shit, probably. I make a gagging sound. Then another, covering my mouth with my hand. I don’t even need to fake it.
Again, she looks at me like I’ve lost my mind, which I guess I have.
But if I’m not mistaken, there’s the tiniest twitch to her lips. Almost imperceptible if I wasn’t terrific at reading faces. Which I am.
Then her lips are a hard line again.
But for that brief millisecond, she was fighting a smile.
Suddenly, I consider everything that might actually make her smile. Shouting the menu in spoken verse? Reciting Tolstoy to the tune of Mamma Mia? I know a lot of Tolstoy, thanks to my PhD. And all of Mamma Mia thanks to my sister.
I’m about to ask her if she likes ABBA when the cashier hollers, “Order 102!”
The woman—Lana—lifts her chin and strides back to the counter, picking up her milkshakes.
I swear I’m going to leave her alone. But when she asks for a drink tray, the kid rolls his eyes and tosses one to her without helping. She struggles to get the cups in and I have to physically hold myself back by shoving my hands into my pockets.
Then one of the cups slips, sloshing creamy pink milkshake onto her hand.
“Shit,” she says.
Fuck it. I go over, grab a napkin and hand it to her. Then wordlessly, I pop the drinks into the tray, tuck a stack of napkins and the straws between them and hold it out to her.
“You’re good at that,” she says without looking at me. “You work here too?”
“I should. I’m great at customer service. Really excel at making a first impression.”
She presses her lips together and I want to punch the sky in victory. That was absofuckinglutely a suppressed smile.
“103!” the cashier calls, sounding as thrilled as if he were calling out numbers at the DMV.
“I can count, too.”
She picks up her tray, gives me one brief look, like she wants to say something. Then she doesn’t. She turns around to go.
I collect my fries as quickly as humanly possible. But by the time I turn around, she’s already gone.
For a moment, I don’t move. I really, really want to go after her.
But she doesn’t want anything to do with me. I sigh, pitying my sad little heart, and stride back toward the hangry moms-to-be.
Still, I can’t help whistling an old song my mom used to play. It’s about an older woman who seduces a young guy in his twenties. It’s called Mrs. Robinson.
A guy can dream.
Chapter Two: Lana
I was having a good beach day. A clean house is my main source of sanity, but for once I threw our weekend chores out the window and got me and the girls out of the house. My friend Chris, who was supposed to meet us here, got held up. But I brought along a book by my favorite author I’ve been dying to try to find time to read, about a duke grappling with the difficulties of his ‘sinfully sized manhood’. I even felt brave enough to wear a bathing suit I haven’t put on since I had Aurora five years ago.
Then that guy had to completely ruin the mood.
Okay, to be fair, my ex, Mike, started it.
But it’s been a long time since a man looked at me like that. Let alone a stupidly hot guy in his twenties. For the past few years I’ve tried to adjust to slowly becoming invisible to men. I’ve gotten so good at it, I was sure he’d been messing with me at first.
I pull my wide-brimmed white beach hat lower over my head to try to angle some shade onto my book, also annoyed I forgot it when I went to get snacks. It’s huge and I like hiding under it.
It doesn’t work. And I still can’t get over what an ass that guy was, staring at me like that. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five or six. And so tall. Like, basketball-player tall. The kind of person I’d ask for help reaching the top shelf in the grocery store tall. He was in these ripped jeans and worn t-shirt like he’d just arrived at the beach. Both fit him like a glove, revealing little swaths of sun-kissed skin and a body not beefy but lean. And his face? Jesus. Dark hair flopping over his forehead. Eyes the shade of whiskey with thick, dark lashes. A cocky grin that made my stomach flutter, as much as I hated it.
But that’s not the point. The point is he’s practically a kid. I’m forty, for God’s sake. Forty-one at the end of the summer.
I set down the book I’m failing to read with a little huff into the sand. The worst part of that whole little expedition is that I’m mostly angry at myself. Because I’d be a liar if I said some small, tiny, minuscule microscopic part of me didn’t like being looked at like that. Talked to like that.
Like I’m more than just an overworked, stressed-out single mom.
It’s been years since a man looked at me at all. I honestly thought it was all over. My experience has been once I hit thirty-eight or so, suddenly it was like I’d mostly turned invisible to men. It’s been a relief, mostly. Not relying on the male gaze.
But I wasn’t invisible to him. And it sent something wholly unfamiliar and unwanted through me.
No.
I pick up my book again, and manage to read a few pages before the heat—irritation and embarrassment—come rushing back. I reach for my phone.
LANA: You got the absolute last good one Shelby, I STG.
When I get no response a minute later, I feel like an idiot for sending it. I don’t need to talk about this. I’m just desperate to get this weird energy out of my body.
My friend Shelby’s probably at her prenatal swim class or something. Maybe having amazing pregnancy sex with Mac.
I wrinkle my nose.
Shelby’s husband is my boss at the Rusty Dinghy. I knew him long before I met Shelby, and he’s like a brother to me. His name and sex should never be in the same sentence.
My phone buzzes.
SHELBY: LOL. The ex again?
I should leave it at that. “Yes” would be easy enough. Mike absolutely was my biggest pain in the ass an hour ago.
But I haven’t thought about him once since Mr. Tall and Charming.
LANA: Actually, it was this cocky kid at the concession stand.
Kid doesn’t feel right. But he was, compared to me. I hit send.
Then I groan. I’m not a public person. I don’t gush or gossip the way my friends do, though I’m absolutely here for it when they need to. I’m just private. I’ve always felt more comfortable that way.
But some part of me clearly wants to talk about this. The same part that can’t stop thinking about how that whiskey gaze felt somehow older than the rest of him.
“Mom!” Aurora calls, thankfully interrupting my traitorous and clearly sex-starved brain.
I follow her worried gaze. Nova, my oldest at eight, has sent their beach ball into the water. She’s grinning in a way I know means she did it on purpose. Her little sister can’t swim.
“Nova!” I hold up two fingers.
I bent the first of three fingers down fifteen minutes ago when Nova drank half her sister’s milkshake when Aurora and I came back from finding crabs down by the rocky end of the beach.
“She wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t said anything!” Nova pouted, nearly earning herself another finger down for pure sassiness.
She was right, Aurora as usual was too preoccupied with soaking up the beauty of the whole wide world to notice a whole milkshake.
“That’s not the point,” I told her.
My eldest is too clever for her own good. And her sass—I have to remember to call her out on it when half the time I want to write it down to use it myself. Mostly on bad customers. Or Mike.
Nova scowls but stalks into the water. She picks up the big inflatable ball like it’s a huge burden for her. Then she hurls it at her little sister.
I sigh, maintaining my strength. But it’s not something that can do damage so I let it go for the moment.
I return to my phone, explaining what happened at the concession.
SHELBY: Ugh. I’m sorry. I mean he was clearly obsessed with you because you’re gorgeous and smart. And likely told him exactly where to shove it.
LANA: That last part is true. But I’m under slept and beyond stressed about this nanny situation. And now Mike wants to take the girls to this overnight party when they’re at his place next month.
LANA: Sorry, I’m ranting.
My ex is a lawyer in the film industry in Vancouver. I remember exactly what went on at those parties.
“Mom! She did it again!” Aurora yells.
I lower my phone. The ball is in the water once more, only this time it’s floated twenty feet down the beach.
“Oh for God’s sake.” I stand up, ready to tell Nova she can kiss her screen time goodbye later. But when I take in her face, I see genuine regret.
I know my daughters well enough to know when they’re telling the truth.
My shoulders soften. I’m still annoyed by how rotten my eight-year-old has been lately—especially when I know she’s so sweet on the inside—but her face is now panicky. “I didn’t mean to, Mom!”
“Can you get it?”
Nova nods. I give her a go-ahead gesture and she springs into action.
I grab Aurora’s hand and we follow as Nova sprints down the beach, her little runner’s legs helping her close in on the ball surprisingly fast. I wince as she sprays sand onto some poor woman’s back on the way and apologize as we pass. It’s a beautiful young woman and she graciously waves and tells us it’s no problem.
I remember when I was that age. Not a care in the world except hanging out with friends and sunning the body I thought was so terribly imperfect.
“Is she gonna catch it?” Aurora asks, her red curls bouncing as she skips to keep up next to me. “Chris gave us that ball, she’s gonna be sad if we lose it.”
“Yes sweetheart. She’s fast. And Chris won’t mind at all.”
Chris is my coworker at the Dinghy. At twenty-eight, she’s twelve years my junior, but still one of my best friends, though our relationship definitely leans to big/little sister. Without the bickering. She’s also the definition of chill and won’t care in the least about a dollar store beach ball.
Nova splashes into the water, jumping on the ball like she’s wrestling an alligator.
Aurora shrieks her excitement, letting go of my hand to jump up and down. Despite Nova’s antagonizing, our sweet little Aurora thinks her big sister hung the moon.
My phone buzzes. It’s another text from Shelby about my ex, in all caps.
LANA: Sorry, at the beach. Kids wreaking havoc.
SHELBY: What? Where? We’re at the beach too!
I look around. The beach is long, but not that long. We’re in the more crowded area away from the brush and rocks now. I hold my hand over my eyes, looking for Shelby. She’s hard to miss at seven months pregnant.
“Mom!” Aurora cries, a look of panic on her little face. Her hands are on her cheeks Home Alone style.
I look over just in time to see Nova sprinting in an arc toward the ball, which is positioned all on its own in the sand, awaiting its fate.
Nova plays soccer during the school year. She has an excellent kick. A little too excellent.
“Nova!” I cry out.
I’m too late. Her bare foot connects with the ball in a loud pock sound. It flies hard in the direction of the most crowded section of sunbathers, because of course.
“Watch out!” I call, forgetting in the moment I’m supposed to say something like “Heads up!” But I’m not a sports person.
And of course, the ball smacks some poor guy right in the side of the head, making—hand to God—a comical boing! noise.
The guy’s so surprised he drops his paperback.
“Oh my God.” Even though Aurora’s five, she’s small, so I swing her onto my hip for speed as I move fast in their direction, my feet slipping in the sand. You never know how some people will react to kids being kids. Albeit naughty kids who know exactly what kind of havoc they’re going to wreak.
“I’m sorry,” I call, even though I’m too far away for him to hear me. “I—”
The guy stands up. He’s wearing a ball cap, so I can’t see his face. But Nova stands in front of him, looking a little scared.
My stomach plunges. If this guy tries to reprimand my kid I’m going to lose it. The other day an old man on the ferry yelled at Aurora for daring to sing quietly in the seat next to him and I told him I hoped his egg salad sandwich gave him e-coli and salmonella. Not my finest moment.
“Now you’ve done it,” the guy says loudly.
My stomach twists from worry into anger. Several nearby heads turn and happy conversations turn to murmuring.
“Hey,” I call, still too far away to be noticed.
“You,” the guy says, picking up the ball. He hasn’t heard me.
I open my mouth to yell, but he keeps going.
“Have awakened the BAD-THROWING TROLL!!”
I freeze.
Then the guy…roars.
It’s not a scary roar. It’s more like the sound someone would make if they were aggressively gargling mouthwash.
Aurora giggles next to me. It would be funny if I weren’t so stunned.
Through the crowd, I see Nova’s mouth fall open.
Several people are laughing.
The guy is a ham. He’s slightly obscured by the people now standing to watch in front of me. But over their heads I see him rear his arms back as if aiming the ball toward the crowd. But his arms go noodly, and he throws it hard in the complete opposite direction he was aiming. It loops through the air in a wobbly arc, landing with a bop on a sleeping man’s belly before rolling into the sand.
The man snores loudly and rubs a finger across his nose, but doesn’t wake up.
Aurora shrieks with laughter, wriggling out of my arms. Even Nova laughs.
I let out a breath. Thank God they hit a nice guy. A dad, probably.
“Do it again!” Aurora shouts, running up to him.
I follow with the intention of apologizing for Nova—with Nova, actually—and thanking him for understanding.
“Nova!” I call, turning to get her first.
“What?” she asks.
“You know what.” I reach for her hand.
“DO YOU DARE LAUGH AT THE BAD-THROWING TROLL?” The man yells at Aurora.
“YES!” Aurora shrieks.
Over my shoulder, I catch the man sprinting away from us with the agility of a linebacker, then throwing the ball directly into his own face.
Even I laugh at that.
That is, until I’ve got Nova’s hand and am heading his way.
He turns, jogging back to us.
And my stomach falls to my feet, my smile along with it. I take in the impossibly handsome face of the ogler from the concession stand. His gold-brown eyes are shaded by the brim of a ballcap he wasn’t wearing before, tanned chest and long legs no longer sporting a faded t-shirt and jean combo.
The guy has the audacity to grin. The even bigger audacity to reveal twin divots in his cheeks.
He has fucking dimples.
“Well hell,” the guy says, walking my way. “If this isn’t the best beach day ever!”
