Friend Is a Four Letter Word (10 page)

“I’m—maybe I should go.” The familiar feeling of walls closing in squeezes my chest.

Carter crosses the room and says, “
Hiraeth.”

“Excuse me?” I say.

He’s here. Beside me. He may as well have a pick ax in hand the way that stare could tear down walls. Jesus.

“That nagging restlessness. Last Christmas you said there’s probably a word for it.”

So he does remember. I fight the curve of a smile.

“I figured it out. It’s called
hiraeth
. I’m guessing that’s why you’re here now.”

“You don’t happen to have a wetsuit in your bag, do you?” Carter asks. His voice is a low drawl that could easily lull me back to sleep. I pull the duvet up to my neck and snuggle back into the plush bed.

“Huh?” I ask. I look up at him through a layer of lashes that I’m unwilling to part completely just yet.

“A wetsuit. I’m going camping down at San Onofre, I thought you might like to come with? Or you could, you know, stay here if you’d like.”

It finally dawns on me where I am and I pop my eyes open.

“Carter?”

“Morning, Shayna.” He slips his phone out of his pocket and gives it a quick glance. “Afternoon, I guess. How’d you sleep?”

“How? Um…” I glance around the bed looking for my sweater. “Good. I slept really good. How long was I out, though?”

“Eighteen hours. Give or take. You were beat.”

“I am so sorry. So, so sorry. I know this has got to be a huge intrusion—”

“It’s fine, really. I was more than comfortable out on the sofa.”

“You slept on the sofa? At your own place?” Oh dear God, what a leech I am. I sift through the vague memories of awkward conversation before I must’ve fallen asleep. I can’t remember much from last night. I was so damn tired.

“Would you stop it. I made omelets, I’ve already eaten, but help yourself. I’ve got to run down the road to grab some more surf wax. And I’m guessing that’s a no on the wet suit?”

“Yes. I mean, no. I don’t have a wet suit.” My brain is still cloudy.

“Okay, so, I’m just going to run out then,” he says.

His eyes rake over me in a way that I’m familiar with, but with Carter, the wanton look feels different. I can’t get what he said to me last night out of my head. He understands. Maybe more than he’s willing to admit. That feeling of loss for something that you maybe never even had. He gets it so much that the look of want in his eyes almost makes me sad. Because maybe he’s more broken than he wants to admit. Maybe all these years of being the ‘together’ sibling in his family is all a painful ruse.

Or maybe I’m just hungry and reading too much into the way his eyes slipped over my skin like a soft satin ribbon, tickling me with delight without even being touched.

“I’ll be back in a few,” he says, finally breaking eye contact. He turns for the door but stops short.

“Listen, Shay, I don’t want to pry, but I thought I’d mention it before we get on the road because there’s crap cell service out at the camp site. Do you… do you want to call your parents or anything before we head out? I’ll be gone for a bit, so you’ll have some privacy—I just thought—”

“No,” I say firmly. “I’m okay.”

“Alright, I just wanted to bring it up, you know, in case you had anyone you wanted to check in with. Let them know you got here okay?”

“I said no, Carter.” I reign in the bitch voice and try again. “Thank you for mentioning it though, that’s very sweet.”

My mind flips back to the other night when I drove home from Nolan’s. I had already made up my mind to get out of town before I walked through the door, but my parents’ reaction only solidified the decision. My mom was furious when I told her that Nolan and I had broken up. On our ‘anniversary’ no less. She immediately asked me what I’d done wrong. And all I could think of was what she and Dad had done wrong. Pushing me to be someone that I’m not out of fear. Pushing me to be
with
someone they wanted me with. I’m not ready to talk to them right now. Not with all of the secrets floating between us. I’m not sure when or if I ever will be again.

“Is this where we’re camping?” I ask as Carter pulls the car into a parking place. It doesn’t look like much, but it butts up against white sand. I open the car door and breathe in deeply, my lungs filling with the pristine, salty air.

“Yep, it’s one of my favorite spots. Anytime I ever doubt my decision to move west, I come out here and remember all the reasons I did,” he says. He slings a couple of bags over his shoulder.

“What can I get?” I ask, peering back into the car.

“Depends. Have you ever seen the Pacific before?” Carter asks.

I shake my head and bite my lip, my body vibrating with nervous energy at the ocean air swirling around me, and Carter looking at me with that gorgeous smile.

“Then nothing. Slip off your shoes and go check it out. I’ll set up camp,” Carter beams.

“That doesn’t really sound fair,” I say, all the while pulling off my strappy sandals.

“You can make it up to me,” Carter says. He gives me a quick wink that makes my heart race before waving me off toward the sand again.

There’s about ten yards of sand with tiny pads of concrete to separate each camp site with picnic tables and fire pits in between before it all drops off to a rocky cliff. After a quick glance around I find a path that leads down to the water. I carefully navigate the tiny, rickety staircase that leads down to the actual beach, walking sideways and clutching onto the flimsy railing. I have the fleeting thought that maybe coming out here alone wasn’t the best idea after all, that is, until I let my feet sink into the wet sand at the bottom of the staircase. The wind is stronger now that I’m closer to the waves and I can’t help but close my eyes and let it blow through my hair, clearing my thoughts. I completely understand what Carter said about coming out here and forgetting everything else. There is no other feeling like standing next to this massive ocean, alone, just you and the wind and the waves. I hug my arms around myself in the cool breeze and for the first time in a long time, feel like I’m okay. My feet sink deeper into the sand as the water laps around them and I feel the most grounded I have in as long as I can remember. How can a place do that? It feels impossible.

“You cold?” Carter’s voice is near my ear. I let my eyes flutter open and smile.

“I’m perfect. This… this is amazing. How did you know that this is exactly what I needed?” I ask.

Carter shrugs. “Trust me, I need this place a lot myself. I’m glad it’s helping. You want to stay down here for a bit?”

I nod. “Please. Unless you need my help?”

Carter pulls his hoodie over his head and hands it to me. “I’m good up there. Take all the time you need.”

I didn’t think this through. I’ve got one tent.

What if Shayna isn’t cool with sharing a single tent with me? I can’t really blame her. We’re friends… or maybe she’s my little sister’s friend. If I look at it like that, it makes it even more awkward. I want to look at her in a dozen different ways—and none of those ways running through my mind have anything to do with being Quinn’s friend.

Shit.

I put the tent together anyway and decide if she doesn’t want to share, I’ll take a blanket on the sand. Sleeping directly under the stars is what real camping is all about, right?

I’ve got our camp set up and a fire going by the time Shayna makes her way back up the stairs. She’s walking toward me wearing my hoodie that’s so big on her, it looks like it’ll swallow her up like the ocean. But she’s gorgeous. So damn gorgeous. I remember her as pretty, hot even, but seeing her again—here it’s like seeing her in a new light. She’s relaxed, her features a little less pained. I love that. A smile tugs at the corner of that sweet mouth I’ve been staring at for the last two days.

I don’t know what’s going on with her or why she showed up the way she did, but I need to find out. Something about her makes me want to help her. To fix things for her—even if I’m probably the last person on earth who should be trying since I can’t even fix myself.

“You hungry?” I ask, clearing my throat.

She bats at the rogue strands of hair swirling around her face. “Are you cooking again? I thought that was Quinn’s thing? Guess it runs in the family. Is your mom a good cook?”

I shake my head and let out a nervous laugh because the thought of my mom being a domestic goddess that passed her culinary skills down to Quinn and I
is
laughable. Mom tried her best, I’ve always believed that, but she never could quite get her shit together. Things would fall apart, Mom would leave for odd amounts of time, come back and we’d all sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened. Those things weren’t talked about in our house. I can’t tell if it’s better or worse now that Quinn and I are both out of the house and it’s just Mom, Dad and our younger brother Mason at home. Quinn has always said that Mason was the golden child and they’d keep things together for him, and maybe that’s true, but the brand of crazy and dysfunction that Quinn and I saw growing up couldn’t just evaporate. It’s still there, and if Mom passed anything down to Quinn and I, that’s what it’d be.

It took Quinn a long time to accept that she couldn’t fix things—that she couldn’t hang around in that misery even if it was to take the brunt of the bullshit off of Mason’s shoulders. But dwelling on how Quinn and I took a major loss in the familial lottery isn’t something I want to do right now.

I hold up a potato. “You haven’t lived until you’ve had a baked potato and a rib eye cooked over a campfire. I don’t think Quinn will whip up one of those for you, either. She’s a little precious about her cooking.”

“Sign me up,” she says. Her smile is ridiculous. It’s sass and sweetness all wrapped up into one gorgeous, plump mouth that is practically begging me to kiss it. Again. She’s crazy if she actually believes that I don’t remember that Christmas Eve. The one where she tried to open up to me, but when her eyes gave away that I was getting too close, she threw up a wall and put her tongue down my throat instead. I’m not complaining, not at all. But it wasn’t what she needed then, and now, well, I can’t go there now with anyone.

“So it was nice down there?” I ask. I rub oil and coarse salt over the rough skins of the potatoes then wrap them in foil and toss them onto the grill I’ve rigged.

“It was otherworldly. Seriously. How do you ever leave?”