Soaked (The Water's Edge #2) (10 page)

She’d intimidated me more times than I cared to admit. And I’d let her. I’d fucking let her. But, even worse, so had West.

He’d stepped away from me after that breathless first kiss in the pool house—when she came into the room.

He’d let her touch him for that stupid ass picture under the palm tree at his grandmother’s house, that bold hand on his chest staking a claim without words.

He’d let her climb in his truck at the drive-in, as if she had a right to be there by his side.

He’d fucking let her stay at his house for the night after the BBQ instead of calling a cab and kicking her ass out.

And those damn pictures of her were in his fucking nightstand.

But when I showered, I remembered how he took care of me when I was sunburned.

I thought of him when I saw the pancakes at the buffet in the mornings.

When I shivered at night, I remembered him slipping through my window to spoon until the break of dawn, his warmth surrounding me.

The old beat up maintenance truck on the resort rumbled and rattled like his.

The kids’ area at the resort boasted an air hockey table, like the one at the Wreck. Same colors even.

The boat at the activities’ shed had a beanbag in the back, like the one I’d slept in on the
Vitamin Sea.

The sky turned the color of his eyes during the afternoon storms that moved through most days.

And those damn paper planes showed up without fail every fucking morning.

I was staring at them. Twelve of them strewn across my bed. Some were big and basic, the kind a second-grader might make. Others were smaller and intricately folded, mini fighter jets perhaps. Pieces of his angular handwriting peeked through on all of them.

Messages.

Words I’d been too angry, too scared, too raw to read.

Until now.

Tonight, I was tired of being on the tightrope, balancing anger on one hand and love—yes, goddamn it,
love
—on the other. I was tired and I was ready to fall. To let go of it all and just see where I landed. Discover which side was gonna win out in the end.

I ran my finger across the wing of a plane, the one that had showed up the first day. I didn’t quite remember the order they’d all been delivered to me—didn’t know if that mattered—but I remembered this one.

I had to give West credit. He hadn’t given up.

I hadn’t called, hadn’t texted, hadn’t looked at Facebook once.

No contact, yet the planes arrived faithfully each morning with a glass of orange juice.

He was a stubborn bastard, if nothing else.

Anticipation and nerves had my heart thudding heavily behind my ribs.

Biting my lower lip, I tugged apart the folds of the plane, smoothing the paper out as best I could. I didn’t read it right away. Instead, I grabbed the next one and repeated my actions. Unfolded, smoothed, added it to the pile.

When I had a stack of wrinkled notebook pages in my hand, I moved higher up the bed, stacking pillows behind me and leaning back against the carved-wood headboard.

My hand shook and my pulse hammered in my throat.

Somehow, it felt like these pages knew the answer. Like I was about to see what my future held.

West or no West.

I picked up the first one, tracing the creases his hands had made. The entire page was covered with the phrase
I love you,
written over and over again. Something shattered in my chest as some of the walls I’d thrown up to protect my heart cracked. A small PS message at the bottom said there was one
I love you
for each day since the morning I’d tried to save him from drowning.

One airplane listed all the parts of my body he wanted to kiss me, and I blushed in places I didn’t know I could blush. Another ranked the best places we’d had sex—the stairwell after the BBQ coming in at number one. Several apologized for not being a better boyfriend, not knowing what I needed, and letting me down. He promised to learn, listen harder, communicate more, do better. But he wasn’t giving up. He made that abundantly clear. He would be waiting for me when my plane landed, he swore.

But it was the one in my hand that had tears gathering in my eyes. It was the fourth time I’d read it.

Sadie,

Even though you’ll probably hate the comparison, you remind me of the ocean. See, I love the ocean. I switched addresses just to be closer to it. Moved in with my brother just so it’d be the first thing that I saw in the morning and the last thing I saw at night.

But something’s changed. You’ve changed me.

Now you’re what I crave. Need. Live for.

Maybe I suck at showing it. But I feel it. I feel it deep and strong and wide and sure and as far as the horizon. I love you when you’re dark and stormy. I love you when you’re peaceful and calm. I love you when you’re wild and unexpected.

I love it when I can still smell you on my skin and taste you on my tongue, hours after you’ve left.

How I can close my eyes, and feel your nails scratching down my back and your hands in my hair. How your voice is the voice in my head now, arguing with me even when you aren’t there.

You’ve given me a motivation to succeed I didn’t have before. Because now I have someone I want to take care of one day, spoil rotten with doughnuts and endless air hockey rematches and Lunchable picnics on my boat.

I just want to touch you, be close to you, in you, near you . . . with you. My world makes sense with you there to ground me. Steady me. Love me.

And I know you do.

I see it in your eyes. Feel it in your kiss. Hear it in your laugh.

Know it in my soul.

I won’t give up on us. You can’t just pretend the ocean isn’t there. It’s too big, too much to ignore.

Same with us.

I love you.

I should’ve said it sooner. I’ve felt it for weeks.

I love you whether you’re here next to me or across the sea. In my bed or just on my mind. Today and a million tomorrows from now.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

—W

Breathless, I collected the notes scattered around me into one semi-neat stack, then crushed the papers against my chest, a few rogue tears blazing hot trails down my cheeks.

I loved him.

Maybe it should be more complicated, maybe I should protect myself more, know better, run away, play it safe—but I loved him.

And suddenly that wasn’t enough.

I scrambled for my laptop, powering it up, impatiently waiting for it to boot up so I could log onto Facebook. I needed to see him—needed to see that he’d been missing me too.

My hands were shaking so bad, I had to type my password in three times before I got it right. I typed in
West Montgomery
onto Facebook’s search bar, then faltered, remembering I’d unfriended him. And his page was private—I would need to be his friend to see his pictures.

His friend. That word seemed far too small, too simple to encompass what we were. How my heart ached because I wasn’t with him. How my hands itched to stroke his skin, feel his muscles jump and contract under my touch.

No, I couldn’t see his whole page. But I could see what public photos he’d been tagged in.

It was better than nothing.

I scrolled through the results. Client photos—proud men holding fish by the base of their tails, grinning like lunatics, West perched in the background. One from his sister Hailey, of West with his two-year-old nephew Cody riding on his shoulders. That one looked like it’d been taken at their grandparents’ house, where Hailey and Cody lived.

I paused on that one. He looked scruffy. Like maybe he hadn’t shaved since I’d left.

I wonder how that’d feel between my legs?

His brother Wyatt tagged him in one from the house they shared, West asleep on the hammock, three crushed beer cans in a pile below him. Another of West mugging for the camera with Wyatt’s oversized hound dog, General Beauregard.

I kept looking, like a junkie searching for her next fix. A series of group shots from the Wreck, the bar Wyatt and West co-owned. My grin faded. I recognized too many faces in that image. Boone, Trevor, Kendra, West, Wyatt, some other girls . . . and Aubrey.

Fucking
Aubrey.

I checked the date. Last weekend.

I scrolled faster there, looking for more with
her.

One more—another group shot. It looked like a restaurant. I didn’t recognize many of the people, but Aubrey was sitting next to West at the table.

Nice.

Real. Fucking. Nice.

Yeah, try harder my ass.

If he really, truly wanted to make things work between us—wouldn’t he have cut ties with her? Avoided her? Because based on this, nothing much had changed for West.

Except the new dark hair highlighting his sculpted jaw.

That
she
was probably rubbing her skanky hand along.

I cut my eyes to the blinking red lights of the clock on the nightstand.

9:47 pm.

The bar downstairs was most definitely open. Open and full of booze. Booze that would make me forget. Make me happy. Make the pain in my heart that stabbed me with each beat just fucking stop.

I was tired of this tightrope act.

And drinking myself into oblivion sounded like the best plan I’d had in ages.

I MADE A
detour on the way to the bar. That ocean that West compared me to? It could have his damn paper planes. I didn’t need them.

Kicking off my flip flops, I walked until I hit the shoreline where the water dueled the sand for dominance. I tried to fold the airplanes back up best I could. The ones I couldn’t figure out, I just crumpled into balls. Whatever. They would still fly when I threw them.

One at a time, the sea swallowed his lies, the tide taking them away where they couldn’t hurt me any longer.

I stood there, waiting to feel lighter, happier.

It didn’t happen.

The waves tickled my feet, soaking the bottom of my jeans.

Something brushed against my toes, and I jumped back. One of the notes had made its way back to me. I scooped up the soggy paper, wondering if it was a sign. Peeling the edges apart, I held it up, squinting to see which one it was.

I love you.
The words covered the page.

He’d said he’d never stop.

So why did it hurt so bad?

I dropped the page. The sand or the sea—either one could have it. I wasn’t fighting for it anymore.

THE BARTENDER WAS
my new best friend. I frowned. Well, after Rue. And Theo. My third best-est friend. Because she kept pouring me these great margaritas.

I normally hated margaritas.

But Alison? My third best-est friend? She made some
damn
good ones. And there were so many flavors! Lime was okay. Mango was better. Watermelon wasn’t that great, but I drank it anyway because I didn’t want to hurt its feelings. I was almost finished with blood orange and it might have been my favorite, but I still had two flavors to go, so who knew?

The only thing I needed to decide on was whether pink lemonade or pineapple was next.

Wasn’t pineapple supposed to make cum taste sweeter?

Wait—that only worked if the guy drank it. Right?

I couldn’t remember now.

And it was fucking glorious.

Alison was my new third best-est friend and blood orange margaritas were the shit.

Best. Night. Ever.

I swung my head around when I heard the stool next to me being slid across the terracotta-tiled floor and almost lost my balance.

But Nick caught me.

Niiiiiiick. He looked nice tonight. Tight, dark shirt. Fitted khakis. I could kind of see the outline of his bulge against the fabric.

It wasn’t bad.

West had a nice bulge too.

I wrinkled my forehead. No. I shook my head.
No.

Not thinking about him tonight.

Hey! Nick was here. Maybe he could drink the pineapple margarita and help me remember. I could get the pink lemonade one then.