Summary of Chapters 1-50

In this summary, I hope to include everything you will need to know about the story to start at chapter 51 and read on from there. I will also include little tidbits of information not yet mentioned in the story. To be kind, I've put all the tidbits in bold print to make them easier to find.

This is the main character, Erin Lancaster, although the first person point of view bounces around between all the characters depending on the mood of the chapter.

Erin comes to Sunlit Tides to escape living in the same town (Riverview) as her ex-fiance (Sean) and ex-best friend (Meredith). Erin caught the two of them during the act by coming home early from work one day. She threw a fit and everything she could get her hands on at the pair. Sean begged her to not break off their engagement, they even had their invitations ready to be sent out. She broke it off, and she had to wait a few months before the house she and Sean shared to be sold so that she could have the money to move. The only one that knows where she moves to is her mother. Her mother and father divorced when she was around eleven or twelve, and she hasn't seen her father since. She has a brother named Bill who's friends with Sean, and that's why Bill doesn't find out where she went.

She buys a small, furnished house on the island and mostly stays to herself for a few weeks. She doesn't have a talent for socializing with people she doesn't know. (Don't call her shy, she hates the 'S' word.)

She wants to finish a novel she started years ago.

Aggravated at the lackluster appeal of her old novel, she decides to take a walk and happens upon a community park. The park is quiet until a father and daughter interrupt Erin's solitude so that they can have a picnic at a nearby picnic table.

Enter Bryce Burch, the dad in the pair that entered the park.

Bryce has grown up on the island, and he owns a small bar called The Flamingo that he purchased with money left to him after his parents died in a car crash. His ex-wife, Ashley, left him and their daughter, Adele (age 10), about five years ago to go and be with a man she met on the internet that lives in Bridgeport. Since she left him, Bryce has jumped from one woman to the next very quickly, always making sure they're tourists and not wanting anything serious. He can't help but notice Erin right away when they arrive at the park.

However, these picnics with Adele are a special time he sets aside to spend with his daughter alone, so he doesn't immediately go and talk to Erin. Adele, finally realizing her dad isn't listening to a word she says because he can't stop staring at the blonde woman behind her, orders him to go and talk to her and maybe invite her to the picnic.

Bryce walks over to Erin and does just that, and Erin, terrified, brushes aside any attempt he uses to convince her to at least come and sit with him and his daughter. As she practically runs out of the park, Bryce gets Erin's name.

Bryce then calls several friends to be on the lookout for Erin. He would have preferred to chase her right then and there, but Adele and all the picnic items prevented him from doing so. His only concern is that he guesses that Erin isn't a tourist since she was picking some of the community vegetables. That thought still doesn't stop him as he calls his best friend Jesse at his store (and calls dibs just in case -- more on that later), Ginger at the library, Desmond at the courthouse and his office (even if the office is right next to the bar), and Lynne at the spa on top of the hill.

Now, all his friends are curious as to why Bryce would be so very, very interested as to do what he just did given his previous nonchalant attitude.

Erin goes home, intrigued by meeting Bryce, and she gets the idea to write a story about a widower with a daughter. She's not really impressed by what she writes, but she's happy to be writing. The story has no title, but that doesn't bother her for now.

The next morning, however, she wakes up and quickly develops a case of writer's block. Aggravated, she heads out to hopefully break it by reading a book at the library. Ginger, the librarian and one of Bryce's friends that he called, quickly calls Bryce and tells him Erin is there. 

Erin is dismayed when just as she was getting into a book, he shows up. She doesn't know his name. 

She gets up and walks quietly away, and just as she thought she'd escaped, Bryce comes up behind her, introduces himself, and asks her to come to a party Friday night. She tells him she'll think about it.

 Bryce has an older sister named Pamela who has a husband named Simon and a son named Jeremy whom Adele calls 'Baby Jer-Jer'. Pam frequently takes care of Adele for Bryce while he works. Adele even has her own room at her aunt's house.

The same night after Bryce asks Erin to the upcoming party, he goes to his sister's, like always, to drop off Adele before heading off to the bar. Pam and Ginger (librarian) are best friends, and they both love to talk. Naturally, the second person Ginger called that day was Pamela to tell her all about how Bryce had asked for her to watch out for this blonde girl, acting really strange. 

Pamela has tried to set up Bryce with different women on the island many times, hoping that he'll develop another lasting relationship, but it never works for her. So, she has high hopes that Bryce maybe has found someone on his own, and she does everything she can to finally trick the information out of him.

Here's some info you may not know: Pamela is a witch. So is Bryce's ex-wife Ashley as well as Lynne (manages the spa at the top of the hill). The three of them, very close in age, formed a coven when they were teenagers. Ashley was the 'leader' of the group if there could've been a leader. Of course, this group 'broke up' when Ashley cheated and left Bryce. Pamela is sad for losing her friend and sister-in-law, but Lynne is furious. Of the two remaining, Lynne is more powerful and can be dangerous at times, but she doesn't come close to Ashley's ability. Pamela is very domesticated now, and she's happy. She's let her abilities slide.

It's unknown whether or not Adele and Jeremy posses any powers, but Adele is very likely since she also has a father with a latent ability.

Friday night rolls around, and Bryce worries about whether or not Erin will actually show up. Most of Bryce's friends show up to the party, and a few of them ask about Erin. Word gets around.

Bryce's best friend Jesse really teases him about it. Jesse moved to the island about eight years ago, so he knew Bryce back when he was still married to Ashley. He was also instrumental in pulling Bryce out of his spiraling depression by getting him to date at least short term... which Bryce interpreted as having loads of one-night-stands to hide and bury his pain.

Jesse also has a reputation from sleeping around, but his motives are different. It's his thinking that if he 'samples enough fish in the ocean' that eventually he'll find 'the one' he's been searching for. He's thought he's found her several times only to have the women think he's adorable/crazy/funny/lying, and they all leave to go back to their homes. 

The good thing about Jesse is that he has an amazing ability to bounce back after these heartaches, at least on the surface. He doesn't like to stay down for fear that in doing so he might miss out on another opportunity. Bryce teases him about being a softy; Jesse teases Bryce about being stone-hearted, calling him 'Bryce the Stone-Hearted' of all things. Aren't best friends great?

Jesse is thrilled that it looks like someone may have cracked through the stone from the look on his face... even if he laughs about it in the process, saying Bryce has 'goo-goo eyes'.

Then, Erin shows up (late), and Jesse is stunned.

Over the years, Bryce and Jesse have established a set of rules in order to keep them from fighting over the same woman. To make things simple, they call dibs. However, there have been times that dibs were considered null and void because the woman was too damn hot for dibs, and they'd compete. Many times, Bryce would back down since Jesse was always more serious. Those times that he didn't back down, however, Bryce would win.

Right after Erin shows up, Bryce gets called away by his bartender, and Jesse walks up and introduces himself to Erin. Erin immediately gives him the nickname 'Mufasa' inside her head because of his hair.

Just as Jesse is about to start really flirting, Bryce walks back over and, of course, realizes what's going on. The two men have a glaring match that makes Erin uncomfortable, so while she walks off to sit quietly at a table by herself (much more comfortable that way), Jesse tells Bryce he can't call dibs. They argue back and forth (quietly), and Jesse tells himself that he should back down since he can tell his friend is acting different with Erin. So, to put everything to the test, Jesse asks Bryce if Erin considers her being here a date. Bryce admits that he had to tone it down when he invited Erin to the party for fear that she wouldn't come otherwise, so he's not sure if Erin thinks of it as a date or not. Jesse asks him to find out because if she doesn't, then no dibs. Bryce is angry with him, and he walks over to Erin to ask her if she'd talk with him in private for a minute.

Erin had been meeting Bryce's friends (they slowly started bombarding her -- well to her way of thinking), and she feels like the floor just fell out from under her.

Bryce hears about Erin's fiance cheating on her with her best friend, and he's shocked. He tells her he understands what she's going through probably better than anyone else on this island. Erin tells him she's not ready to start dating again so soon after what happened to her. Bryce looks sad for a second before he goes back to this mesmerized look, tells her she's beautiful, they talk some more, and ...

... kisses her. Erin, shocked that she just told him she wasn't ready for this, starts kissing him back. It's one hell of a kiss, and when Erin starts coming back to her senses, Bryce doesn't want to back down. She has to eventually shove him off of her and run off.

Jesse sees her run off, and decides that he'd better steer clear of Bryce for the rest of the evening.

Bryce is pissed off at himself for doing what he did. He sits and angrily thinks about how he let a woman get close and she just ran away. Lynne comes to talk to him and try to get him think about why she may have run away, but he's too angry to really think about it.

Erin rides home on her scooter and drops to her living room floor in tears. She eventually comes to the decision that Sean was an asshole, and she wants to move on therefore she should be able to if she just tries hard enough. She needs to find Bryce in the morning.

She decides to start at the top of the hill and work her way down, assuming that sooner or later she'll run into him or one of his friends. She does. She finds Lynne, and, once Lynne threatens to make her life a living hell should she hurt her friend, she tells Erin several possible locations to find Bryce. After getting lost a few times and almost giving up, Erin finally finds him.

Now that Erin's found him, she tries to start apologizing, and Bryce tells her not to. She gets mad, and he secretly thinks that's funny. So, Erin starts explaining that she was afraid when he kissed her because all the same feelings started coming to the surface again. She goes on to say a little more, but all Bryce heard was 'feelings'.

They start talking, and Bryce tells her about his history with his ex-wife and how she got pregnant with Adele while they were still in high school. Ashley felt ignored since she worked days at the school and he worked nights at the bar he now owns. They both were there for Adele, but not each other. Erin and Bryce both admit that they want to start a serious relationship. Then, he apologizes for kissing her last night. Erin gets a little mad because even though she freaked out, she liked it.

So, they start off their relationship with a bang.

Hungry for some breakfast, they get on Erin's scooter to head over to the diner, and Bryce learns about Erin's want to become a professional writer. Then they head off to Bryce's house for her to officially meet Adele and his sister plus her family. A little overwhelmed, Erin handles it well for someone as bashful (remember, not shy!) as she. Bryce has to go to work, and Erin heads home to write a little more. 

As she gets her mail, she hears 'Mufasa' greet her.

Jesse hasn't heard about Bryce and Erin becoming an 'item' because his phone died again. (He keeps dropping it in the sand.) He tells Erin he bought her a housewarming gift, a picture, and they go in to find a place to hang it. Then they stand and talk for a while, and Erin catches on that he's really starting to put moves on her. She, not as smoothly as she intended, lets him know that she and Bryce are going steady.

Jesse's angry. Bryce again! Why is it never him? Partly because he really wants to, partly because of his jealousy of Bryce, he kisses Erin. Erin freaks out that he would do that to his best friend, bringing up all the anger she still bears for her ex-best friend. Screaming now, she throws him out of her house and takes his 'housewarming gift' and throws it at him, shattering the glass in the frame.

Then she calls Bryce at the bar and tells him 'the sky is falling' before giving him the short story of what happened. Her biggest problem is that Jesse told her that they would frequently go after the same girl at the same time, and she can't wrap her mind around how friends can do that to each other.

 Bryce rushes over to her house to find her curled up on her kitchen floor. He works at explaining his friendship with Jesse to her, and in the process, he tells her about the 'dibs system'. This ticks Erin off, and she asks him what he would do if Jesse had 'seen her first'. Would he go after her just like Jesse just did? Bryce answers her truthfully, saying he would. She tells him to get out, and Bryce goes into a more in-depth explanation saying that he would've stopped at nothing. He tells her how before he would back down if he thought Jesse had fallen in love (Jesse falls in love very easily). During this conversation, Bryce realizes he's fallen in love with Erin, berating himself that of course he'd realize this after she tells him to get out. Erin eventually tells him that she doesn't really want him to leave, it's just that she refuses to come between friends. Bryce believes his friendship with Jesse can survive this.

Bryce's leg falls asleep, and he asks Erin to stand up. When they do, she throws her arms around his neck before eventually saying she's tired. She asks Bryce not to leave, and he mentally whimpers because of what was happening with him while holding Erin in his arms.

He agrees to stay with her until she falls asleep, very tortured the whole time.

Finally, he can't stand it anymore, and they start making out. He feels shocked by how automatically he unbuttoned her shirt. He did it without thinking! He tells himself that his brand of 'comforting' probably isn't what she needs right now, and he goes back to work, berating himself for being crazy and stupid for falling in love this fast.

After Bryce leaves, Erin can't sleep after all. She gets up and frets for a few hours, writing out her thoughts in her diary, and she wonders if Bryce is playing her from all she's learned about him from Jesse. She wonders if she should break up with him before she winds up falling for him.
She eventually comes to the conclusion that she'll keep dating him but be very, very careful. She certainly won't sleep with him until at least a week has gone by to prove to herself that she's not a 'flavor of the week'.

The next day is Bryce's day off, and he takes Erin to a park (in his nice, red convertible) where they sit and talk, and he hears the whole story about what happened with her, Sean, and Meredith. His biggest fear is learning that Erin doesn't want to be found... meaning that Sean is probably looking for her and doesn't give a shit about Meredith. After a little while, they leave the park because it starts to fill with tourists wanting to enjoy the nice view, and he takes her to a little-known fishing spot with just as nice a view.

The story takes a detour right now as we explore other characters. The first two we learn about are Lynne and Troy.

Troy is the island's best Mr. Fix-it, and he is madly, and secretly, in love with Lynne. He's also the sweetest person. His mother lives in an assisted care facility after having a massive stroke, and he never knew his father. All he knows is that he was some rich tourist that seduced his mother and left her pregnant. His mother never contacted or tried to contact his father, preferring to raise Troy alone. Now here's a little tidbit: Troy's father is actually Maurice's grandfather from the story Forgotten City by PixxOfEight.

Troy comes over to fix Lynne's oven/stove. He figures out the heating element has gone bad, and that she may as well replace the dinosaur. Lynne hates the thought of that, but agrees that she probably should. Since he's already over, she has him look at the dripping faucet in her bathroom upstairs. While he's up there, a scorpion crawls out of the drain, Troy yells in fright but kills it. Him yelling brings Lynne running up the stairs. While they're up there, she tries to hand him a check for coming out and fixing stuff, and he doesn't want to accept it.

Lynne tries another tactic. She shocks him as she kisses his cheek while shoving the check in his front pocket. She meant it all in good fun, but she realizes that it might have meant more to him that she thought it would from the look he gives her. After a few awkward moments, the pair of them head downstairs.

He works at trying to hand the check back to her, but she keeps moving her hand away, eventually laughing from how funny the whole situation is. Troy's really good at fixing awkward situations for Lynne. Still, he doesn't want to keep the money. He threatens not to cash it, and Lynne merely tells him she'll be sure to make it cash next time. Yeah, ... Troy's mind goes in a very dirty direction with the thought of where she might stick some cash.

After another few minutes, he 'tricks' her right back by kissing her full on the lips and shoving the check in her hand during her shock. Then he laughs a little before he walks out of her house, leaving Lynne standing there thinking 'what just happened?'

We now take another detour to find out more about Desmond and Ginger.

Ginger moved to the island after her mother was put behind bars for killing her father. She wanted to totally remove herself from that whole scene. She tells Erin when she first meets her that her mother was watching a lot of "Gilligan's Island" episodes when she was pregnant with her. That, or she had a strange sense of humor. She says she gets her red hair from her father, and it turned out her mother didn't 'much care' for him.

Ginger loves to talk, and she has a very quick temper. She's incredibly smart even if she sometimes comes across as an airhead. She works at the library where her active imagination entertains her quite well during the slower times.

Desmond is a bulldog of a lawyer. In fact, he's Bryce's lawyer. He made sure to make it to where, if she ever tried, Bryce's ex-wife Ashley could never get her hands on Adele. That action was so valuable to Bryce that in addition to paying him, he's felt he owes him a huge favor.
Desmond and Lynne dated for a few weeks when he first moved to the island. Yeah, that didn't work out.
His office sits right next to Bryce's bar, so he's there from time to time to either eat lunch or get a drink once his work day is finally over.

Desmond had a rough childhood. He doesn't remember his real parents. Child services came and took him away from them when he was two, and after a little while in the foster system, the Lumpkins adopted him. He never felt really loved by the family that adopted him, thinking that they didn't think much of him because he didn't kiss the ground they walked upon for adopting him. He left 'home' at eighteen to put himself through college before deciding to settle in Sunlit Tides.

A few years after he moved here, Ginger arrived. He quickly discovered how easily he could piss her off and how beautiful she was when she got that way. He made an impromptu hobby out of it, driving Ginger crazy.

Desmond refuses to buy many of the reference books he requires for his job, preferring to check them out of the library... because that way he can get Ginger to deliver them to him... since he can't be bothered to go and get them himself and his receptionist/secretary/aid is often too busy. He secretly loves getting Ginger to deliver these books to him because pissing her off makes his day much more interesting. He keeps asking himself why he doesn't just kiss her beautifully-angry mouth, clear off his desk, and have her right then and there. Many other scenarios run through his head that I could fill a book with, but this is a summary so I won't hehe.

However, there are those times when he's actually nice, and these times take Ginger by surprise every time. The latest one, she tells him he should smile more. What she meant was that he has a nice smile, but he takes it to mean that she's calling him a grump. They have another small argument before she storms off.

They have yet another argument down at the beach where she tells him that he is grumpy, and that he should find a reason to smile, something that matters to him. He takes that to mean that she thinks nothing matters to him. A little hurt, he storms off. Ginger, after eating nachos, heads home to curl up on her couch with her teddy bear and watch chick flicks all night.

Back to Erin and Bryce!

We left them as they'd headed off to a small park to escape the tourist-invasion. They're all alone and decide to enjoy the view in their own special way. Erin, remembering her promise to herself, gets Bryce to cool it down a little before things go too far. They wind up sitting on the grass, and Erin eventually falls asleep while Bryce watches her, aching to tell her he loves her.
He's afraid to do it because he doesn't want to have to listen to her response. He knows it's crazy that he fell in love this quickly, and he strongly doubts Erin feels the same for him. He still wants to tell her though. So, while she sleeps, he whispers it in her ear.

While Erin sleeps, she dreams of riding on a cloud over the ocean to Sunlit Tides, her new home. When she arrives, her cloud disappears and she starts falling only to be caught by a golden cloud. Relieved, she flops back on this golden cloud, and it says, "I love you, Erin." like it was spoken right into her ear. The cloud deposits her on the hillside where she sees herself sleeping in a very happy Bryce's arms. He kisses her forehead, and she feels it and wakes up. She convinces herself that what she heard was only part of the dream and nothing else.

Erin and Bryce make out once she wakes up, and things really heat up before Bryce groans and says he has to get to work.
Erin goes home and changes, freaked out a little after what almost happened, and heads to the bar herself.

(This is the same day as Ginger and Desmond's argument.)
She immediately gets drug away from Bryce by Ginger who insists they get to know one another. Then Desmond 'rescues' Erin by asking Ginger to dance. Then they have that fight about which you already heard.

When things slow down (finally) for the evening, Bryce asks Erin to dance, and he acts like he wants to pick back up from where they left off at the small pond/park earlier today. After a short discussion, Erin panics and runs off again, hoping on her scooter and speeding away.
Only this time-- there's a pair of Audi headlights in her rear-view mirror. Bryce chased her down, determined to find out what made her so upset.
Erin tells him her fear that she's just another 'flavor of the week', and she has no way to know the difference.

Bryce tells her he loves her and kisses her quickly before she can say anything. Asking her to nod or shake her head while he has two fingers over her lips to keep her quiet, he asks if she'd come by tomorrow morning. She nods. He thanks her, kisses her quickly, and jumps back into his car to hurry back to the bar so he can close up.

Erin goes into her house and slowly slumps down into the floor in a very girlie giggle about what Bryce just told her. It wasn't her golden cloud after all in the dream. That was her hearing Bryce say that!

Once Erin gets over that and feels like she can trust her legs, she feels inspired to write again.

Her computer bucks the kickit on her. It's stone dead and not getting better. It is nothing more than a shell with melted wiring inside. So much for writing tonight!

The next morning, she oversleeps. Panicked that Bryce thinks she blew him off, she calls him and chastises herself when she hears the relief evident in his voice.

Bryce stands quietly, staring at her, when he comes to answer his door. Then he pulls Erin inside and is all over her in seconds. Erin realizes that maybe she didn't choose wisely when she picked out the outfit for today.
All Bryce can think of is that Erin is in those shorts again that she was wearing that day in the park when he couldn't take his eyes off her. He has a serious infatuation with Erin's butt.

They go upstairs after Erin tells him about her computer dying on her. Bryce says she can use his, so they set up a user profile on his computer for her. Then, his phone rings. It's Jesse, and Bryce leaves the room for a little while to go have an argument/discussion that had been coming for a while now about Erin.

Erin sits and writes for a few minutes before her thoughts lead her away from the book. She goes and stands on the balcony to watch the ocean for a while before Bryce finds her and they go back inside.
Erin, inspired again to write, quickly goes to type something up that occurred to her. Bryce pretends to read a cookbook out of his bedside table drawer when really he's wishing he hadn't set it up for Erin to use his computer yet. He's jealous of the attention it's getting.

Erin gets distracted when she makes her leading male role do something that doesn't fit his personality. She realizes it's something that Sean would do.
She starts having a real pity party with Bryce secretly watching. When he sees a tear roll down her cheek, he can't take it anymore.

He immediately hops up and goes to get Erin to tell him what's wrong. She tells him her book is crap and that she should delete the whole thing. Bryce quickly shuts off the computer (putting it on standby actually) before she can do it and scolds her when she tries to turn the machine back on.

He comforts her and admits that he was getting jealous of the computer anyway. Before too much time passes, they wind up making out on his bed. Just as his hand slips under her top, they hear "Daddy?" Adele is home from school.

I loved this cliffhanger.

Then, I torture you...
by not picking up from the cliffy for a while.

I bring in a character from my first sims 3 story, Queen of Denial. Her name is Marie, and she's the adopted daughter of Elena, the main character.

Marie has... issues.

*deep breath* Marie was sent to a boarding school not long after arriving in the story, and then she gets kicked out for fighting and sent home.. on the day her mom gets married. Her best friend is a boy named Dawson Creek. (joke name, yes. If you don't get it, don't worry about it.) Her first boyfriend is his older brother, Andy. Dawson has another friend named Armand that secretly has a thing for Marie as well. Andy ages up to adult, and he doesn't think it's right for him and Marie to continue dating, so he tells his brother he's going to go break up with her. Dawson tells his buddy Armand since they're talking on the phone anyway right at that moment. Andy breaks up with Marie, and almost as soon as he leaves the house, her phone rings, and Armand asks her to prom. Dawson also secretly liked Marie even if he already had a girlfriend named Cristina. He'd have quickly broken it off with Cristina after giving Marie a little time to get over his brother. When he finds out what Armand had done, he severs the friendship. Armand doesn't care, and he and Marie go steady at prom, crowned queen and king.
Skip ahead to adulthood: Armand continues to be jealous of Dawson and Marie's friendship, knowing that Dawson always keeps his eyes open for any opening. Armand and Marie get into a fight, and he slaps her so hard he leaves a bruise on her face. She breaks up with him. Cristina moves back to Riverview to be with her aunt, so Dawson is single now as well. He asks Marie out. When Marie shows up at the house, Andy (the older brother) reminds her that he wanted to date again once she was an adult too. She'd forgotten. He asks her out while his younger brother is in the kitchen, and she tells him she'll think about it. Armand asks her out too. She dates Dawson and Armand at the same time for a short while before finally choosing Dawson. She never gives Andy a second chance.
Then, Cristina comes back after visiting her cousins since her favorite cousin left Riverview for Sunlit Tides because her fiance cheated on her. (yep) Dawson promises Marie that he won't pick up where he left off with Cristina, but Cristina's ruthless. He's put into a situation at the ruins (Champs les Sims) where Andy takes Marie to see for herself that Dawson is cheating on her with Cristina. She sees them making out and is devastated. Andy comforts her while she cries.

Dawson is the one in the sleeveless T.
Extra tidbit: Not even mentioned in Queen of Denial: Dawson was framed!!! Cristina wanted Andy to get nervous about Dawson being faithful to Marie. So, having been invited to a Creek family dinner (as a friend), she flirts heavily with the less-than-brilliant Dawson, also having Andy play right into her hand. Andy was just a pawn in her devious plot. When she heard Andy traipsing through the tall grass outside the ruins, she pounced on Dawson. Since she knows what he likes, he doesn't stop her.
It works. Marie gets pissed and breaks up with Dawson. What Cristina failed to consider is Marie's violent way of dealing with things. Marie beats the crap out of her, leaving a nice bald spot on the top of her forehead.
Then Marie decides to tell all the men chasing her in Champs les Sims to fuck off, and she moves to Sunlit Tides.
Phew!

*goes to get a cup of coffee*

Still not picking up at the cliffy....

Okay... So, remember that phone call Bryce took after setting Erin up at his computer? Now we find out what was going on there.

We take a short trip back in time to just after Erin threw Jesse out of her house.

Jesse is extremely bummed out. 'Why is it always Bryce?'
He has a little pity party at his house for the rest of the weekend, and we learn about his parents and how they're divorced. He's furious with them and hasn't spoken with them since he moved away. He is an only child.

A few days later, he's at work and decides enough is enough. He's going to call Bryce and get the chewing out he has coming. They've fought before, right? Why should this time be any different?

They have the phone conversation. He apologizes while Bryce demands Jesse do something to prove he's sorry. Jesse has to dress as an old pirate/buccaneer captain at Friday's party. Big, heavy blue coat, hat, and everything. Even the boots.
Jesse's happy he doesn't have to dress as a jar of mayonnaise. That's the worst one. Well, unless he can find a couple of willing tourists with a good sense of humor. (You figure that one out all by yourself. If you don't get it, sorry.)

Now back to that cliffy....

Oh yeah, Adele had just walked in on Daddy feeling up his new girlfriend. I guess it's time to change that 'come in any time you want to use Daddy's computer' thing.

Bryce calmly tells Adele to go do her homework, etc, that he'll fix dinner in a little while.
In the meantime, he discovers Erin has very sensitive ears, and he has loads of fun making her squirm, vowing to eventually discover everywhere else she may be 'sensitive'.

(I realize this is the first pic of Adele that I've shown, and it's not a good one. Oh well, look on the side bar.)
 Adele has a Cameron fixation.... in case you can't figure that one out on your own.

Adele and Erin spend a little more time getting to know one another before Bryce comes upstairs and tells them dinner is ready. Erin can't help but notice how desperate Adele acts for a mother's attention.

When he sees how chummy his two favorite females are with each other, his heart just about bursts. After Adele goes downstairs to set the table, Erin asks Bryce to please get that look off his face before she starts crying. She was already fighting it anyway while she'd spoken with Adele.

The best part about this particular day (oh yeah, it's not even been but a week since the beginning of the story, and we're up to chapter 19!) is what happens after dinner! Adele goes to bed.
No, that's not the best part.

Bryce noticed earlier (ahem, when Adele walked in on them) that Erin is wearing a swimsuit under her clothes, so they decide to get in the hot tub.

Erin gets terribly, horribly nervous. 'Why on earth did I decide to wear a bikini?!' she asks herself.
Bryce hates that she feels nervous, so he initiates the cuddles.
They kiss for a little while, and Bryce worries that Erin is nervous because of what he told her last night. Then he goes into this long, impromptu speech about his reasons for not wanting to tell her what he told her but why he told her anyway.

So, she hushes him.
They talk for a minute or two about how he wants Erin to know that she doesn't have to tell him she loves him just because he told her.
Then they make out some more, and Bryce undoes her top.
They kiss some more.
He eventually, after a small battle with Erin's fingers, gets the bottoms off too, and Erin freaks out. So, he goes and gets them.

He eventually gets out of her the promise she made herself about no sex until at least a week so that she knows she's not a 'flavor of the week', but there are other things besides just sex. And he's not about to let a half-naked Erin out of that hot tub yet.

It gets steamy. You wanna know more detail? Go read chapter 19 then. There. I was nice and even provided you a link.

They both make each other feel better.

Erin goes home at about three a.m., and Bryce doesn't really want her to. They make an agreement that he can come over to her house in the morning (even though she'll be really cranky from lack of sleep) after Adele gets on the school bus. Bryce is used to a weird sleep schedule.

The next morning, Erin answers the door in a groggy mood. Bryce thinks it's kinda funny. He stares at her while she sleeps since she always acts uncomfortable when he stares at her while she's awake.

Then he can't help but hold her butt. He falls asleep.

Erin wakes up and Bryce's hand is still on her butt. She lies there and studies him like he studied her. Then she wonders if she can get away with kissing him and not wake him up.
It doesn't work. He wakes up and is all over her in less time that it takes to (my husband says 'skin a cat' but I sincerely believe the cat thing goes with another one) .. do something really fast. She has to wind up slapping his hand to get it off of her panties. Then his phone rings. He lets it go. He says that unless the bar is burning to the ground, he doesn't want to be disturbed. It rings again. He sees that it's Desmond.

Bryce is not happy that Desmond 'hired' a new waitress for him since the last one quit with no notice. But, Bryce owes Desmond big time, and (Marie's) the girl's father saved Desmond's life. Desmond was helping to pay back that debt by getting Agent Parren's daughter a job.
Tough t-bones, Bryce.

Angry and unable to relax anymore, they go shopping for Erin a new computer.
They meet Lynne and Troy at the store since they need to get a new stove for her.

When they come back to her house with her new computer, Erin falls in love with a stray cat she decides to name Miley. Bryce can't stand cats.

Erin starts to set up her new computer and (as many of us know) starts it up on the loads of updates that every new computer needs. Bryce starts getting jealous of a computer again. Erin gets aggravated since she can sense how irritated he is. She asked him to tell her if he wants her to get off the computer.

He tells her he wants her off the computer after practically tripping her.. he caught her though.

They go back to Bryce's house, and he works on convincing Adele to put off the weekly Tuesday picnic (okay now it's been a week). Erin doesn't like this idea, and makes him understand that he needs to still keep that picnic time with Adele. Bryce wants Erin to come too, but she refuses and says that that's their special time together, and that she'll be by tomorrow.

Bryce takes Adele on their father/daughter picnic and comes back bored once Adele goes up to do her homework. So, he decides to get on his computer to play a game to pass the time until tomorrow when he can see Erin again.

Bryce had forgotten that they'd last had the computer on when Erin was working on her book, and when he takes it off of standby, there it sits, tempting him. She'd asked him not to read it, but he can't resist.

He starts reading about a single father raising a daughter alone ... wait a minute! That sounds an awful lot like his life! The single father meets a woman that becomes his girlfriend at a city park. Again, too similar.
Now, he's convinced she's writing his life after reading quite a bit of the book.

The pain from the idea that Erin isn't dating him because she likes him romantically but instead wants to study him for her book worms its way into his heart. He can't believe how stupid he was to trust her.
He decides to confront her with this, not wanting to be the one that's hiding something.

Erin comes over the next morning, and he lets her in unceremoniously. She asks to go upstairs to his room to close out her book on his computer since she forgot to do it last time. (She'd sat up in a panic the night before when she realized it sat so open on his computer.) He tells her to go right ahead.

When Erin turns on the computer, she finds her book not where she left it, and she suspects Bryce read it. In a mild panic, she goes downstairs and tries to indirectly ask him about it.

Bryce (the Stone-Hearted) turns around, shrugs and tells her he read it before he comments on the interesting plot the book has and such familiar characters. He's basically an asshole to her before he flat asks her why she's dating him. Crying, Erin says because she's falling in love with him before she calls him an asshole and makes her way towards the front door even though she has difficulty seeing through her tears.

Bryce's attitude does a complete 180 as he chases after her. He doesn't have to go far or work hard to do it due to the way Erin is stumbling.

Begging her to wait, he spins her around and kisses her while she cries. Then, the apologies start to fly as Erin apologizes for writing what looked like his life, and he apologizes for reading the book without her permission.

Dun! Dun! Dun! Dun!
Sean!
(sorry, that's in bold for emphasis)
I don't let you see his face the entire section he's in in the chapter I'm summarizing for you right now. This is about as good a picture as you get.

Anyway, Sean has hired a private detective (just like Bryce feared he would) to find Erin. It was easy to find her. The residency transfer papers left a wide paper trail to follow.

Sean has her address. He also has two weeks of leave that he originally planned for their honeymoon.
He's planning a little island vacation!
He visits Erin's brother Bill to hand him the address as well since Erin never told Bill either. Bill asks him to leave Erin alone, that she left for a reason: him. Sean and Bill were friends in high school, both playing on the (American) football team. Bill beat him up when he found out what Sean did to his sister. Sean took it because he felt like he deserved it. Now, the guys' friendship is strained. Bill can only just barely tolerate Sean's presence.

Once Sean leaves his house, Bill immediately gets on his computer and starts emailing Erin like crazy. It's the only way he can contact her directly since he only got an address from Sean, not a phone number.

Erin stopped checking her email ages ago because she got tired of the earlier emails from Bill complaining that she shouldn't have moved away and not told him where she went, etc.

Desmond has the task of going to pick up Marie from the airport. He's not happy about it.

Oh, the cameos in this shot! Standing behind the computer is Dorothy Russell's mother from Cutest Lil' Jazz Singer. You can see her father in the red vest off to the side. Behind her is a sim of a friend of mine that that was the only sim they uploaded so I thought it'd be funny to put her in there as well. The woman in the beret was a bad guy/gal from Queen of Denial. Just barely behind her is Gabriella from A Moment in Time. I've used up quite a lot of my simbin (not all in this shot obviously), so now I search more from others, and I plan on making other cameo appearances frequently.

The redhead in the pic below is also from Queen of Denial. In fact, she shot the woman in the beret in the story hehe.

Desmond is his usual "charming" self and pisses off Marie who yanks his arm behind him and tells him she can take care of herself. Desmond, really turned on, calmly explains that it's his duty to see her settled into her apartment and introduced to her new boss since her father saved his life. Marie lets go of his arm, and Desmond picks her bag up off of the floor.
Marie keeps trying to get the bag herself, but he manages to keep it from her. He finds he's very attracted to her. Then, he takes her to the bar to meet Bryce.

Marie impresses Bryce with her ability to learn fast, something he thought she was only saying she could do.

Remember that Bryce has Jesse dress as a buccaneer captain as a punishment for kissing Erin? Well, Bryce also decides to trick Marie, practical joke really, to dress to match Jesse. He knows that Marie is Jesse's type, and he hopes to also use Marie to distract Jesse away from Erin.

Jesse goes for it hook, line and sinker. He's incredibly attracted to Marie, outfit aside even. So, he turns on the charm...

... It doesn't work out so well for him. Marie has a black belt in simfu, and she's mad at Bryce for trying to set her up with this guy Jesse. She did not appreciate Jesse's overzealous advances.

Poor Jesse has to then deal with Bryce punching him and apologizing to a very timid Erin before Bryce will really forgive him. More on that later because....

Another argument ensues between Ginger and Desmond, and I take the story there, sideways-like, for a chapter. Ginger finally gets mad enough at the stuff that Desmond says that she slaps him across the face before storming off. He follows after her, little does she know.

(I'm throwing in more pics here than normal because I like this chapter.)

He argues with her, she argues back before he finally kisses her already! Ginger feels thrown, not knowing which way is up among other things. She at first can't believe that Desmond feels this way about her, but he finally convinces her after a very entertaining argument/discussion. Then, they go find a shady spot to see how many grass stains they can make. :)

We're halfway through, now onto chapter 26. *wipes forehead*
It's been a little while since I've thrown in a juicy tidbit hm.....
Oh! I know! Here's an interesting pic (back in time 8 or so years) :

Guess who?
Sorry to those of you that have seen this before, but them's the breaks.
*hands out barf bags*

Here's a prettier picture:

Back to the party.
Erin is upset at Bryce for punching Jesse. Bryce eventually calms her down and improves her mood before making her upset again by kissing her in front of everyone. She worries about pictures of herself showing up on the internet where Sean could find them.
She and Bryce go down to the lower seating area where Bryce looks over Erin's shoulder and sees Desmond and Ginger getting it on. Then he kisses Erin and reminds her what night it is. It's been a week, and according to the rule Erin imposed upon herself, they are now free for love-making. Erin goes into a mild panic saying that the week started on Saturday not Friday night. Bryce discusses it with her but eventually backs down, agreeing on Saturday.

more on that later... back to Jesse:

He's not having a very good evening. He doesn't give up trying to win over Marie, however.

He apologizes, and she finally accepts his apology. When he asks her where she's from and why she decided to move here, she evades the second question in almost a panic-like state, saying she has to close up the bar. Jesse offers to help; then he asks if he can walk her home.

He tries to ask Marie out on the way to her apartment, but she turns him down. He's not given up yet though.

Back to Bryce and Erin...
Bryce convinces Erin to spend the night at his place since he'd already lined up his sister to have Adele sleep at her house.

They don't take long to make their way up to Bryce's room, and Bryce points something out to her. He checked the clock when they walked into his house.... It's Saturday.

Oh? You want to know what happens next, do you? They make love. Erin surprises Bryce with a few tricks up her sleeve. I'm not going to try to summarize it any more than that, so if you wanna know what happens then read it here.

The next morning, well it technically is morning when they finally go to sleep but anyway, Erin only sleeps a few hours before she can't anymore, and she gets up to start writing her book. Her two main characters are having an argument. Bryce finally convinces her to go back to bed.
They go to his sister's, and there are a few minorly-awkward moments with Jesse, but everything goes okay while they all watch the game. The Llamas lose to the Wolves. boo. Oh, there's also a humorous moment when Pamela and Bryce have a wrestle-type fight because Bryce refuses to chew with his mouth closed.
Bryce heads off to work while Erin goes home to work on her book some more. When she gets there, she has a surprise waiting for her.

Sean!!!
He explains to Erin that he'd hired a detective to find her and tries yet again to apologize his ass off. Erin won't let him, so then he tries to pull her towards her house. She knows from experience that Sean's version of 'talking' doesn't involve much 'talking', and she's scared. She yells "Fire!" to hopefully get someone's attention. She does.

Her neighbor, Julian Strong (a townie who came with the neighborhood), who lives caddy-corner from her house, hears her and goes out of his house to help. Sean is mad.

Tidbit: History has a way of repeating itself. I didn't do this consciously on purpose, trust me, but I decided that Julian is a retired boxer. You'll understand the 'history repeating itself' thing later or if you really know your stuff on my jazz singer story. There's a hint in that too.

Anyway, so Sean threatens to beat up Julian.

Yeah, Julian only took so much of that. He tells Erin with his eyes to run for it and hits Sean hard. Sean recovers, but not before Erin has run off, and eventually beats up Julian. Julian's daughter, Maggie, calls the emergency number.
Erin runs to Bryce's house, forgetting that there's no one there.

Bryce picks up his cell at the bar when Erin calls him as she frantically looks for any hidden keys. He tells her where they are, and hops in his car to drive over there. Marie hops in his car without being told. Bryce decides that he might need her and doesn't tell her to get out.

Those pictures tell it better than words.

So, Marie knocks him out, and Bryce goes inside to find Erin huddled up in the downstairs bathroom floor (no windows). She gives him the short story of what happened. Bryce texts Jesse and asks him to come over asap.

Meanwhile, Sean wakes back up while Marie had gotten distracted by the coming storm, and Marie goes out onto the beach to watch it roll in. Once she discovers Sean has gotten up, she runs over to try to stop him again.

Jesse sees Sean punch Marie, and he's furious, so he goes and beats Sean to the ground before Bryce, having learned what almost happened (Erin maybe raped), comes out and points a gun at Sean while Jesse helps Marie up in the pouring rain.

The police show up and arrest Sean for beating up Julian earlier and tell Bryce to put the gun away. (I've made it to where the island has that law that you can shoot someone that's on your property and trying to rob you. (Texas, you're awesome.) Bryce claims that Sean was trying to kidnap Erin.)

Jesse offers to drive Marie home since Bryce is closing the bar early tonight. She rudely tells him no.
Bryce ends up being the one that drives Marie home while Erin goes upstairs and crashes on Bryce's bed while Jesse hangs out, trying not to get the furniture soaked, in the living room just in case. Bryce asks Marie to cut Jesse a little slack, etc.
Jesse's bummed.

Bryce comes home and wakes Erin up. They have a little discussion/argument/makeout session in which Bryce explains his fear that Sean's accusation that he's nothing more than a rebound. Erin does her best to assure him he's not.

The next morning, Erin tells Bryce about how she'd kissed Sean back for a few seconds yesterday because she can't hold it inside anymore. Bryce emotionally freaks out, and they have some pretty rough sex that Erin thinks is a sort of healing sex while Bryce is really doing some sort of caveman-like territorial thing.

It's only when she sees how distant he is afterwards that it occurs to Erin that that wasn't comfort sex.
Bryce feels like shit about the whole thing, and he goes and cries a little in the shower from the hurt that Erin kissed Sean... even if for only a few seconds.
Then, he gets over himself and comes out to find Erin curled up into a ball and crying. He immediately pulls her into his lap and does his best to comfort her while ignoring the fact that she's naked. They leave it at that for now and head over to the police station for Erin to fill out some paperwork on her 'witnessing' of Sean beating up Julian and other stuff.

Later that afternoon, they head over to Pam's, and Erin insists that Bryce go spend time with his daughter alone while she stays safely with his sister. While Adele and Bryce have snow cones, she asks Bryce if he and Erin are going to get married. After snorting grape-flavored ice up his nose, he tells her maybe someday. Adele is okay with that.

By the way, this is Bryce's bar, The Flamingo. It's pretty much an unchanged lot that comes with the neighborhood. A new one has been designed, but I've not been able to work it into the story yet. (AND IT'S AWESOME! Thank you, yangthecat/caterpillar!)

Anyway, so now we journey back to Marie's perspective, and she hears Jesse's voice as she arrives at work the next day.
Jesse remarks on the hot weather (and Marie's attire) and he and Bryce joke around about other words that have double meanings before Jesse goes and sits at a table so he can deny all of Marie's offers to get him a fresh beer.
(Honestly, first the very heavy coat at that party and now not getting enough fluids in the heat... Jesse is asking for a heat stroke lol!)
Bryce sees that Jesse keeps trying to get Marie's attention and wonders if Jesse would do what he thinks he should if he lets Marie go home. Jesse doesn't. He does nothing. Bryce had wanted Jesse to follow her home... etc.
Jesse decided the night before that he would do his best to leave Marie alone.... in an obvious way... to see if that'd work better than bothering the hell out of her.

It turns out it's not so easy to ignore her as he thought as, for example, she seeks shelter in his store during a sudden downpour.
He helps her pick out a fresh, dry outfit and gives her the friends discount. ('We're friends, right?') Then, she goes to the bathroom to change. Jesse realizes he didn't sell her underwear, and as soaked as she was, if she wears her wet (another great word with a double meaning) underwear then having dry shorts is pointless. Her shorts are dry when she gets out of the restroom.

Suddenly frantic, she remembers she left her windows open, and surely water is pouring in from the rainstorm. He offers to drive her over there after closing up his 'not-seen-a-customer-all-day' store.

She's surprised he goes inside to help her mop up the water, but she doesn't tell him not to, realizing she needs the help.
He dries up all the water in the living room and goes to check on her where she is at the big window in the bedroom and sees that she's mopping the water up all wrong. While he shows her a better way to do it, lightning hits a lamppost across the street, startling them both.
Marie realizes that she's grabbed fistfuls of Jesse's shirt in her fear, and she proceeds to try and rub out the wrinkles.

Jesse can't stand it anymore, and he slowly gets closer...

.... and kisses her. Confused as to why she's acting surprised he did this when he gave her plenty of warning that he was about to do it, he kisses her again. This time she kisses him back before pulling back and asking him to leave.
Even more confused, he asks her why, and he tells her he has feelings for her and guesses that she feels the same. She tells him yet again that she's not ready to date anyone.

She tells him she needs time. Jesse wants to know how much damn time is she talking about here that she needs to dump all the shit she carries around with her?
They argue a little more before she tells him to get out.

Angry, Jesse drives home in the rain. Once he's pulled into his driveway, he looks down in the passenger-side floorboard to see a bag that holds Marie's wet clothes in it. Thinking he should wash them before they mildew, he gets them out. As he's putting the clothes in his washing machine, he notices that Marie did in fact take her panties off because they are in the bag and.... they're wet.

He has a collection of discarded bras, underwear and various swimsuit articles he keeps, magpie-like.

This is also explained again in a funny little story that Bryce tells Erin as he proves to himself that he doesn't always have to have sex.
Bryce and Jesse would have timed competitions to see who could remove a bra, etc faster. It's a cute story here .

After the story, it's already time to see Adele off to school.

Bryce walks into the bedroom and watches Erin sleeping for a little while before he can't stand it anymore and kisses her. When Erin jerks back in surprise, Bryce responds by holding onto her tighter. The pain of his ex-wife leaving him hits him fresh, and that makes him cling to Erin even tighter as he shakes and cries a little (he's really annoyed and embarrassed about it). He finally calms down after Erin assures him she's not going to leave him (she guesses), and they sleep a little while.

Bryce wakes up later than Erin, and he finds himself in an empty bed. Then he realizes that Erin is downstairs talking to Adele who is already home from school. In fact, it's already five in the afternoon! He hasn't slept this long in a long time. Guess he needed the rest after that emotional morning.

He finds Erin and Adele deciding what type of pizza to order. When Erin sees him, she blushes. He grins and wonders if it's because he never put a shirt on. Well, it is. Erin has a difficult time not jumping him right there in front of his daughter.
Anyway, Erin drops her phone (breaking it) when he startles her, and Bryce has to order the pizza.
While they're eating, there's a knock on the door. It's Sean. He asks to talk to Erin. Bryce says no. Sean makes some crack about Adele when he sees her.

Bryce beats the crap out of him, and Sean takes it, thinking he deserves it. Plus, he secretly hoped this would win him the sympathy vote from Erin.
Erin decides to talk to him alone on the porch. However, Bryce stands at the front door and watches them, angry and worried.
Erin tells Sean that she doesn't want to see him again, and that Bryce is not a rebound. In fact, she tells him she loves Bryce more now than she's ever loved Sean. Bryce hears that.
After Erin re-enters the house, she heads up to Bryce's room to curl into a ball, having finally said a true, honest farewell to Sean. Adele follows her upstairs and tries to comfort her until Bryce gets there.

Bryce explains to Adele that attacking Sean the way he did was wrong, and he's sorry she had to see her dad do something like that. Adele mentally rolls her eyes, thinking her daddy thinks she so much younger than she really is. Then, she heads off to do her homework after comforting Erin a little too.
As Bryce comforts Erin, one thing leads to another....

... and he comforts her one of their favorite ways. He makes her come fully clothed.

Then he slowly makes love to her that takes up almost a whole chapter here .

Meanwhile.... Sean goes clubbing.

He runs into Belinda. 

It's now that we find out that Belinda is the great-granddaughter of Gloria Love in Cutest Lil' Jazz Singer. So, we know that Gloria does eventually have at least one child. Who with? I'm not saying.

Once Belinda finds out Sean's name, she calls Lynne to see if he's Erin's ex she'd heard about. Lynne tells her to keep him there, that she wants to have a little 'fun'.

They all end up at Lynne's house, and Sean thinks he's going to get really lucky tonight.

He gets more than he bargains for when Lynne tortures the truth out of him. He admits that he had planned on raping Erin if she didn't show that she would take him back. Lynne curses him, making it so that any woman he ever hopes to sleep with will see the word 'rapist' burned onto his chest. (No, I had not known about that movie/book/whatever before I wrote this, but it's an interesting similarity. I guess great minds think alike.)
Then Lynne alters Belinda's memory a little since that scene was a little more than she could handle.

Now we go back to just after Jesse stormed out of Marie's apartment (since that chapter had pushed ahead a little in time).

Marie is freaked out because she knows she kissed Jesse back, that she meant it.
While watching the same movie as that time, she remembers back to a date with Armand that he tried to pressure her into sex, and she chickened out. She's a virgin.

Meanwhile, after they've made slow love, Bryce apologizes to Erin about the caveman-like, territory claiming sex they had the other morning. Erin doesn't understand why he's apologizing which irritates Bryce. He eventually explains it to her, and she forgives him.

Then Bryce mentions how much he loves having her there at his house (where she's stayed since Sean showed up on the island for her own safety). Erin fears he's two seconds from asking her to move in, but he doesn't. (even if he's starting to want to)

The next afternoon (a Tuesday again, they tend to make their way around eventually lol), we catch up with Adele on the playground. Helen Hoffman (another neighborhood townie) is her best friend and has a crush on this boy Eduardo Vega (and he likes her back). Eduardo's best friend is Todd Baker. Everyone but Adele knows Todd has a crush on Adele. Helen keeps trying to convince Adele that she likes Todd, but Helen can't get Adele to agree with her. He's just some stupid boy after all.

Back to Desmond and Ginger! This chapter really is one of my favorites. (41) These two are so much fun to write because I get to get out my crazy temper.

After trying to figure out how many grass stains they could make, Desmond takes Ginger to his house and hardly lets her sleep all weekend.
Monday she doesn't hear from him at all.
Tuesday all during her time at work, she doesn't hear from him. Her coworker tells her to head off early, so she does.

She decides she wants hot chocolate, and as she pours the hot water, she burns herself.
That's when Desmond finally calls. Of course, right?
She mentally tells him to fuck off and deals with her burned finger. Then she sees he left a message. He wants another damn book. She decides that since she's not at work, she won't comply with his request and belligerently turns her phone off.

Desmond didn't really care about getting the book. He'd just had a major breakthrough on one of his cases, and he had more free time that he wanted to spend with Ginger... in his office ... on his desk. Bringing the book was a ruse to get her there. He gets really worried when she doesn't call him back.

Ginger decides to take a cold shower (now hot from drinking the hot chocolate), and it sounds like her pipes are banging and making a racket until she turns the shower off.

It's Desmond banging on her front door. She drives him crazy going to answer the door in her towel. He asks her if she always answers the door dressed like that. She answers, "No, I save this for maniacs trying to break the door down with their fists."
Desmond tells her how worried he was, and Ginger tells him how mad she was and eventually shows Desmond her burned finger.
Then, typical Desmond and Ginger style, they argue, and Desmond lets out that asking for the book was a ruse to get her to his office. She wonders why he's making a big deal about it. He answers her by kissing her passionately. Her towel keeps getting loosened as they kiss/argue. 

Desmond asks her how she burned her finger, and she tells him. He surprises her when he tenderly kisses it. He does his best to explain to her that he was very busy with a case and lost track of time. Ginger argues back, saying he could've at least texted her. She tells him she'd started to worry she was some weekend romance or something. He laughs and says, "Like I could get my fill of you in just one weekend." Yeah, that pisses her off, and she pulls away.
Unfortunately, the towel stays with Desmond when she pulls away. With Ginger standing there naked and his plans to have her on his desk thwarted once again, he lunges for her and carries her off to her bedroom where they argue in a much more entertaining way until Ginger finally realizes that the book thing was a ruse.

They have crazy monkey sex (I do so love that term!) and cuddle for a few minutes afterward before Desmond asks if he's forgiven. Then he gets up to get Ginger some ice. Before they start making out again, Ginger puts the ice aside when he tells her not to, that he has a good idea for that ice.

If you can't figure out what he did with the ice, then don't worry about it. Use your imagination. I'll bet you're right. :)

Back to Jesse.... (still Tuesday)

He knows that Marie has tomorrow off (she'd told him last Friday night, and he made sure to have the same day off. It's common for him to have Wednesday off anyway.), and he decides to throw a party at his house as an excuse to have Marie over. So, he gets on the phone and invites everyone else first to make it more real, and he begs Lynne to invite Marie for him, hoping that will get him better results.

Lynne goes by the bar and asks Marie to come to the party. Marie declines when she hears it's at Jesse's. Lynne calls Jesse and tells him Marie said no. Jesse decides to go to the bar to find out why himself.

Meanwhile, Marie is meeting Bryce's heretofore-unseen assistant manager, Simon Cottrell. (He was on vacation before.)  Simon acts a little creepy, saying how happy he is to be working with Marie since Tuesdays are usually so long and hard. >.>

Then, when Marie stands up from restocking the bar, Simon surprises her by wrapping his arm around her from behind and mentioning how now that the bar is dead, they could go and make good use of this quiet time. She tells him to let go of her, but he instead puts his other arm around her. She turns around and slaps him across the face .... right when Jesse arrives.
Furious, Jesse demands to know what's going on. Marie is shaking, shocked that a boss would do that to an employee. Jesse asks to speak with her in private before barking at Simon to let her.

He gets out of Marie what happened, his party forgotten for the moment. Marie tells him, and he no longer feels comfortable leaving her there alone with Simon since she's obviously very uncomfortable. He asks her to go with him to talk to Bryce about it. It takes her a second or two for him to convince her to go, but he eventually does.

By the time they get to Bryce's, Marie feels stupid like she's making a big deal about nothing. She tells Bryce what happened but acts like it was no big deal after all.
Bryce listens to Jesse and Marie and thinks that Jesse is acting like a jealous, rutting stag that he saw Simon with his arms around Marie. He decides to believe Marie that it was not as big a deal as Jesse makes it out to be. After all, he has nothing to get Simon on if Marie won't press any charges.
Jesse is furious.
Erin is too. She can't believe Bryce can't see the obvious sexual harassment going on. Even Marie's reaction is, sadly, typical.

Marie now wants to get back to work, and Bryce offers to take her there. Jesse can't believe Marie is making like this is no big deal and tries to convince her otherwise. Marie jerks her arm out of his grasp.

Bryce and Marie leave to head over to the bar. Erin and Jesse realize that Bryce hadn't wanted Erin to be alone due to the threat of Sean. (They don't know that Sean has left -- scared away by Lynne.) So, Erin, knowing Bryce's jealousy of Jesse, decides to go hang out at Jesse's store until it closes.

When Bryce gets back home, frantic that he forgot about Erin's safety for a minute, he runs around looking for her only to call her and find out she's at the store.

He rushes over in relief that Erin's okay, but he's not prepared for Erin's anger at how he 'handled' the Simon and Marie situation. She tells him how she also can't believe that he left Marie alone with Simon again, even if Simon 'apologized'.
Bryce asks her to just go home with him, but Erin interrupts him and says that that's not her home. This is mostly in reaction to Bryce's acting like he wants her to move in, and that scares her a tiny bit.

Right now, all they can do is agree to disagree, and she tells him to go on his picnic with Adele, that she'll hang out at the store until they're done.

Thing is, the store closes at six. So, Jesse asks Erin if she'd go to the bar with him so he can keep a closer watch on Simon. Then Jesse gets an idea: he wants Erin to act like she's alone so that they can possibly pin something else on Simon. Jesse knows without a doubt that Simon will hit on her and possibly more.

At their picnic, Adele tells Bryce about Todd and how Helen thinks Todd likes her. Erm, not really the thing that Bryce wants to hear. He has half a mind to find this 'Todd' and remind him, brainwash him if necessary, that girls have cooties.
He looks at his daughter and sees his ex-wife. Ashley wasn't much older than Adele when Bryce first noticed her, and Bryce is scared out of his mind that Adele will wind up a pregnant teen as well.
He does what he can to convince her that Todd doesn't like her like Helen thinks he does ... when he's pretty sure he does from what Adele is telling him. Yeah, I had to read that sentence a few times too to understand it myself, but I'm leaving it that way. :)
Then, Bryce calls Erin and finds out she and Jesse are headed to the bar together, making him instantly and irrationally jealous. He still doesn't 100% trust Jesse with her.

Erin and Jesse go to the bar, and just like Jesse said, Simon starts hitting on her. (By the way, Jesse and Erin purposefully show up separately so they don't tip off Simon, and Marie is too busy to clue him in.)

Simon makes Erin a Cherry Casanova (then lies about its effects), and Bryce walks up just as Simon hands it to her and asks her her name.
(Bryce's eyes look like that because of the crazy bad lighting. I tried working on it and only made it worse, but there ya go.)
Erin then tells Simon that she's recently moved to the island and that she's Bryce's girlfriend.

Then Bryce and Erin have a moderately-heated discussion in which Erin admits her part in Jesse's plan. Bryce says that he wouldn't doubt that Simon would hit on her, so they proved nothing. Still, he promises to keep a closer watch on him.

That closer watch doesn't have to last very long....

Since Simon had been over flirting with Erin, the customer line at the bar had gotten long. After working hard to get it back down, he walks over and chews Marie out about it.

Jesse had noticed Simon shooting angry looks at her as he worked, but Jesse didn't say anything while he and Marie were chatting just so Simon would get mad and possibly do something just like this.

Jesse walks around Marie and jumps down Simon's throat in Marie's defense, pointing out that he wouldn't have had that long line of customers if he'd been doing his job and not trying to pick up Erin. Simon argues that Marie wasn't doing her job and was instead getting picked up by Jesse before Jesse points out that all the patrons in the bar area (Marie's domain) were happy before Simon started goofing off... etc. Simon asks Jesse, "Haven't you interfered enough today?" Jesse yells, "It's lucky for her I showed up when I did with your greasy hands all over her!" Simon then grins and asks, "Jealous?"

The arguing attracts Bryce's attention, and he hears Simon ask the 'jealous' question. Now he knows that Jesse and Erin are probably right and that he needs to fire Simon.
He does. He also apologizes to Marie.

Simon is ticked off, and he threatens to see Bryce in court.

Jesse and Erin help Marie and Bryce close up the bar, and Jesse asks Marie if he can walk her home again. She says yes. She's really glad for everything Jesse has done.

Before they get to her building, Jesse pulls her off to the beach to go back to his original plan to beg Marie to come to his party tomorrow. She finally agrees. Then there's a moment when it looks like they might kiss, but Marie warns him that if he tries that he'll wind up a painful ball in the dirt. Jesse wonders aloud if it's worth it anyway to which Marie reminds them that they're his balls after all.
After laughing a little too loudly for all the sleeping people around them, he tells her goodnight, making an obvious effort to not kiss her.
When he gets back to where he'd parked his car, Martha, at the bar, he gets a text with Marie thanking him for all he did for her today.

Alright, another couple of chapters that are my personal favorites, and I'm not going to really summarize them. I recommend you read them. 47: texting and Bonus: "nice" texting . Suffice to say, they grow closer through the power of texting.

That same night, Erin and Bryce talk about how Bryce is okay with her not being ready to move in/go as fast as he wants (when he's really not).

Little Tidbit: Bryce has a plan. First, he wants to build a new bar, hire and train new employees, etc. He wants to have as many activities as he can think of to have Adele and Erin interact together and hopefully grow close while the bar is being built. Sometime during/a little after that he wants her to move in with him. Once he's positive they really can get along living together (he's relatively sure anyway), he wants to ask Erin to marry him. He's guessing this will take 6-10 months. If it happens sooner, all the better.

Well, good luck with that, Bryce.

Wednesday dawns, and Bryce puts the first part of his plan into action. He calls a meeting with Jones and Marie. He offers Jones the assistant manager position to which Jones happily accepts.
Then, Marie's phone buzzes. The meeting is pretty much over by this time, so Bryce tells her to go ahead and take it.

It's Jesse, of course!
After some as-heavy-as-Marie-will-let-him flirting, he finally gets around to asking her where she is (that's his house in the background). When she tells him she's at Bryce's, he happily says he'll be right over there.
Panicking, Marie runs into the house and joins Erin in the living room, hoping Erin can do something to stop 'Jesse and his feelings' from getting too close. Erin really doesn't have any time to come up with anything (she gathers that's what Marie wants) because the guys soon join them.

Bryce catches on that Jesse wants a minute or two alone with Marie, and he gets Erin to leave the room with him, claiming to have her help him fix lunch.
Once alone, Jesse asks Marie if she'd teach him sim fu. Marie explains that she doesn't think an instructor and student should date. Jumping at that, Jesse asks if that means she wants to date him. Cursing herself, Marie tells him that's not it. Jesse points out that he wants to learn, and that it would be the perfect thing to do to spend time with her while waiting for this unknown amount of 'time' to pass until she's ready to start dating again. She says she'll think about it and practically storms out of the room.

Tidbit: Well, nevermind. I might still implement my plan that I'd originally put here. If you know it, hush. :)

Jesse's party!

Erin and Marie work in Jesse's kitchen together to help him get some unnecessary things ready. During a little small talk, Marie discovers that Erin is Cristina's (her hated enemy from Champs les Sims) cousin. Marie freaks out.

All she sees when looking at Erin is Cristina since now she notices that they really do look very much alike. She eventually calms down and apologizes. During all this, Jesse gets more of the story (in a way that makes sense instead of the garbled 5-second mess of a description from an agitated Marie) about what made Marie move here. Erin goes back into the kitchen while Jesse and Marie go to the living room where Marie eventually starts crying, and Jesse gets to comfort her. He doesn't mind one bit.

Then the girls go to change into their swimwear.

Marie shows back up at Jesse's house as the party starts, and flirty Jesse comes out full force at the sight of Marie in a bikini.

Erin learns later at the party from Lynne and Belinda that Sean is gone. She can finally relax.

Then she hears over a breeze Marie asking about the bag of clothes that she left in Jesse's car. Jesse says he washed them and they're in a bag... upstairs.

That's the end of chapter 50! You can pick up with chapter 51: Trick by clicking on the link.

'But but but! Don't we get something else? I mean, we've read all the way to the end of this damn thing! Can't you give us something else REALLY good?'

Oh alright.

You're so demanding!

Simon has a very good case against Bryce. He hopes to use Bernadette as an example of how Bryce used to handle employees 'dating'.

Todd really does like Adele, which you already know if you're reading this at the time it's released since I'm already finished with chapter 60 for crying out loud.

The biggest one:
Ashley's (Bryce's ex-wife) husband is dying of cancer. Ashley has nothing else holding her there in Bridgeport, so once he dies, she's wondering if she should go back to Sunlit Tides to reconnect with her daughter.
Her parents, who moved to Bridgeport when she did, want to move back to Sunlit Tides. They've never cared for Adele. They just want for their daughter whatever she wants.