London Falling (15 page)

“Ok.”

What in the hell just happened?
I crept to the couch to retrieve my shirt. Was that the same guy I stayed up with until dawn? I walked to the room Beau had designated as mine. The house felt warm, so the power must have returned sometime when we were sleeping. I turned the shower nozzle to hot and stood in front of the mirror while I waited for the water to warm up. Something didn’t seem right. Did he actually walk past me and just say ‘hey’ as if nothing happened? I was pissed. Stepping one leg in and then the other, I showered and prepared a speech for Beau.

One of the disadvantages to having long hair is the amount of time it takes to dry. Beau’s mom had a high-powered salon-style hairdryer stashed in the cabinet. But even with the professional settings, I still spent fifteen minutes drying my hair before I could resurface in the kitchen. It did give me ample time to rehearse my speech. It was going to go something like this: “If you think I’m just one more thing to check off your bucket list, then you’re wrong, Beau. You mean something to me. Last night meant something to me.” It was direct and short. I was going to stand up for myself, but still let him know I meant every breath of last night.

I charged down the hall expecting to find him in the kitchen. Instead, the room was empty and his laptop was open on the kitchen bar.

“Beau?” I called down the hall. No answer.

Ok, I was seriously getting mad. He had ditched me with no explanation. Because of him, I had fabricated two spring break stories. I lied to my friends and told them I needed to visit my grandparents before my big California move. I also lied to my parents and told them I was going with Nina and Candace to Charleston. Lying to the important people in my life wasn’t my first choice, but it seemed like the only way I could be with Beau. Now I wasn’t so sure I had made the right decision.

Then I saw the open screen on his computer. I didn’t mean to snoop, but it was staring right at me. I perched on the closest barstool. Beau’s Facebook page was open and nothing I read made any sense.
Unbelievable
.

“Hey.” Beau stepped through the sliding doors and raised a paper bag in his hand. “I got us some donuts.”

I turned toward him, not knowing what to say.

“You don’t like donuts?” he asked. I could tell he was confused.

I attempted a smile, but I was failing miserably. Donuts didn’t seem like the solution to the sour feeling I had.

“I promise I wasn’t trying to be nosey, but you left your Facebook page open and I saw the posts.” I was embarrassed he had caught me with his laptop, but more upset about what I had read.

“I didn’t want you to see that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He placed the donuts on the counter and sat next to me. “It’s not a big deal.”

“You were supposed to be in Belize this week, and you don’t think that isn’t a big deal?”

I could tell he was nervous, something I rarely saw in Beau. “Don’t make a thing out of it, London.”

“It kind of is a thing already. You canceled your spring break trip with your roommates, and they are posting all kinds of pictures and tagging you in them just to get to you. You weren’t going to tell me about Belize?”

“No. I was kind of hoping to keep it to myself.” He looked worried.

“I don’t know what to say.” I wasn’t sure which kind of guilt was worse—the lying kind or this. It seemed to be pelting me from all angles.

“Can we not talk about it?” Beau hopped up and rummaged through the donut bag, extricating a gooey pastry smothered in chocolate. He took a bite.

I didn’t want to make things any worse. His mood this morning had shifted since last night and I understood why. His asshole friends were giving him a hard time about the trip. Right now, he had to regret not going. He could be snorkeling and partying with his best friends in a vacation paradise instead of cooped up with me while we hid out from the world’s prying eyes.

“Can you still make it? Can you meet them down there?”

“What?”

“I didn’t mean for you to cancel your trip. You should go. It’s senior spring break. You still have the entire week. The guys aren’t going to let you forget it, if you don’t go.”

“Girl, you are crazy.” He slammed the screen on his laptop and pushed the computer away from us. “I guess I’ve been kind of a jerk this morning. Sorry. I shouldn’t have let them get to me like that, but it doesn’t mean I want to change my plans. This is definitely where I want to be.”

His lips tasted like chocolate. I felt my body give in to him as his arms encircled my waist. This felt so much better.

I pushed away. I still needed convincing. “You sure? It’s ok with me; I totally understand.”

“London, shut up and kiss me.”

***

Beau tapped the button on the garage door opener, and the heavy door retracted, blinding me with sunlight.

“Pick one.” He pointed to the two four-wheelers parked in the five-car garage of the beach house.

“I’ve never ridden one of these before.” I was starting to wonder if Beau was familiar with vehicles that had doors. He had a bike, a motorcycle, and a pair of four-wheelers.

“Really?”

“Really. I’ll probably crash. Can I just ride with you?”

“How about a lesson? By the end of the week, you’ll be riding solo.” He handed a helmet to me.

I placed it over my head.
So much for twenty minutes of hair styling
. Beau mounted the ATV and I positioned myself behind him. He revved the engine and we rolled out of the garage toward the beach path closest to the house. I noticed a sign posted between the dunes. I read the notice:
No vehicles on the beach. Emergency personnel only.
Beau clearly ignored the sign as we climbed over the wooden walkway and raced straight toward the ocean.

He made a sharp turn as we reached the shoreline and increased our speed. He maneuvered us along the sand, dodging the waves as they crept closer to the wheels. I clutched his chest with every quick jerk of the vehicle.

Beau wasn’t kidding about how desolate the beach would be this week. We didn’t pass a single person on the beach, only hungry seagulls. Cautiously, I pulled my hands from his chest and raised my hands in the air. I didn’t care if the gulls were laughing at me. The sun on my face, the wind racing past us, and Beau pressed against my chest was all I could feel, and it was amazing.

***

Besides chocolate, wine, and tickets to Broadway, I was learning the quickest way to my heart was anything Beau-related. That included fishing—something I had never done before spring break.

“So you think we can actually catch something?” I looked doubtingly at the pole Beau had buried in the sand between my feet.

He was busy setting up a line for his fishing pole. I admired how he knew exactly what type of lure to tie on the end of the line. I had no idea what any of those sticky fluorescent gadgets were that he retrieved from his tackle box.

“Movie star, movie star. Don’t you know by now that I’m only going to do something if it’s fun?” He was smiling brightly and I loved how it looked on him.

The waves pounded and the surf rolled to the legs of our chairs. I couldn’t believe how sunny it was. My sunglasses were anchored atop my nose and I had to break out a bottle of sunscreen. Professor Garcia would have been proud of me. We might not be having a Belize-style spring break, but it was sunny, warm, and we were sitting on a deserted beach together.

“What am I supposed to do if I hook something?” I stretched my toes out into the sand and started making a tunnel for the tide to pass through.

“I’ll help you. Don’t worry.” Beau stripped his T-shirt off his toned arms and hung it on the back of his chair. I watched as he reached into the cooler for a beer. “This is pretty awesome, you know that?”

I smiled as I took one of the icy Coronas from him. “Yep. It is.” I shoved a lime into the bottle and took a sip. “So, how long have you been coming to this beach?” I scanned the empty horizon and the rows of vacant houses.

“Not that long really. My mom bought the house when I was in high school. She thought it would help us do more family things.” Beau used air quotes and I heard a tint of sarcasm at the word
family
.

“So, I take it, it didn’t really work?”

Beau pulled on the rod, testing its place in the sand. His eyes followed the line until it disappeared past the breakers. “No. She has a lot of great ideas, but when all you do is work, you can’t really see the ideas through. She’s never here. It’s usually just my dad and me, or sometimes my friends. It’s a sweet house. I’ve had some cool parties here. I guess that’s the bonus of her never being here—just like this week.”

“I’m sorry, Beau. That’s too bad. I’m sure she doesn’t mean to work all the time.” I thought about my parents and how they were constantly working and devoted to their business.

“It’s no big deal.” Beau quickly changed subjects. He didn’t seem comfortable talking about his mother anymore. “You never told me what your friends are doing over spring break.”

Not wanting to press the issue, I rattled off my roommates’ plans. “Candace and Pearce have some kind of trip planned, of course. Pearce surprised her with tickets to the Bahamas. Nina was going to visit her cousins in Miami and, as she put it, have an ‘epic shopping trip.’ She asked me to go with her, but I didn’t want to disappoint my grandparents.” I giggled.

I did feel bad about lying to my friends, but I loved every minute I had with Beau and it seemed worth a tiny white lie to find this kind of happiness.

“You don’t regret it? The grandparent story?” He lowered his sunglasses to look at me.

“Honestly? No. I have had the best week with you.” I smiled and took another sip of the beer. “And I’m fishing.” I laughed.

“Hey! You’ve got one.” Beau jumped from his seat.

“What?” I was starting to feel relaxed from the sun and the beer.

He pointed to my rod, which was now bending with sudden force toward the ocean. “London, reel it in!” He was excited.

Shit. I didn’t think we’d actually catch anything. I grabbed the handle on the rod and began cranking the reel. The line was tight and I could feel whatever was on the other end fighting my every movement.

“You’ve got this.” Beau’s arms wrapped around mine, and his body formed a support so that I could lean into him and continue to reel in the fish.

I tugged, pulled, and cranked until finally I saw a sliver of something sparkling break over the waves.

“There it is! Beau, there really is a fish!” Hurriedly, I spun the handle, bringing the fish to the shore.

“Well, you are officially a fisherman.” He held up the fish for me to examine. It flopped wildly in midair.

“Don’t you mean fisherwoman?”

He laughed. “I guess so.” He unclipped the fish from the lure and carried it to our empty cooler. “Now, just catch a few more for us and we’ll have dinner.”

“We’re going to eat them?” I may have signed up for fishing on the beach all day, but cooking our victims wasn’t on my agenda.

“Of course we’re going to eat them. They’re blue fish—best eaten the day they’re caught. Don’t worry. I’ll do all the work.” He began re-baiting my line and tossed it out to sea for another try.

I smiled as I watched his arms glistening in the sun. He stepped back from the poles. “You ok with that plan?” he asked.

I realized right then that if Beau could turn slimy, stinky fishing into something fun, that I was in far deeper than I had ever planned.

“Yes.” I smiled. “I’ll do the catching and you do the cooking. And you do the unhooking and baiting part too.”

Playfully, he scooped me into his arms.

“Hey, I’m not a fish.” The skin on his chest felt warm from the sun and I tasted a hint of salt on his lips as he kissed me. He gripped my thighs, tugging me closer to him. I sighed. My heart was definitely falling for this boy—one spring break kiss at a time.

***

I wasn’t sure how ten days passed so quickly. Last Thursday night felt like a lifetime ago. During the course of the week, we had ordered take out from all the island restaurants that were open, combed the beach for every shell possible, watched an entire season of
The Walking Dead
, learned we were evenly matched at poker, soaked in the hot tub until we looked like raisins, tuned in for
Love Match
, watched the entire ACC basketball tournament, and my favorite, discovered shower sex was our best achievement of the week.