by Katie Cross
Dagny tugged me to a stop.
“S-sorry,” she mumbled. “Just a s-sec. I need to f-fix my flip flop.”
She withdrew her arm from mine and bent over to fix something on her shoe. I glanced to the bungalow, glowing behind us with strings of lights and green fronds. Melodic music filtered from the atrium at our backs, a gentle form of island reggae, and the sound of laughter rolled with it.
“Oh, sh-shoot.” She muttered something under her breath. “It b-broke.” She straightened up, holding a flip-flop with one side popped loose.
“Do you have others?” I asked.
“Yeah, j-just back at the b-bungalow.”
“We're heading there anyway.”
When she straightened up, she kept an eye on her other shoe while she started forward and didn’t see the couple just ahead. I opened my mouth to warn her, but couldn’t speak fast enough. Dagny crashed into Anthony Dunkin with an oomph and started to fall backward. Before she crashed into the sand, Anthony reached out and caught her arms.
I swore under my breath as I helped her stabilize.
“Are you okay?” Anthony asked.
Dagny froze, her eyes wide, and stared at him. Her mouth dropped into a shocked o and she made no sound. I put a hand on her shoulder as Anthony looked her over.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I wasn’t paying attention. Are you hurt?”
“Oh, hello!” Alison Dunkin called with a smile brightened by a few glasses of wine, I'd bet. “Dagny, was it?”
Dagny’s mouth bobbed open and closed for a moment before she nodded. With effort, she looked to Alison.
“Y-yes. G-g-g-g-ood to s-s-see you.”
Alison beamed at me. “And Jayson, so good to see you again.” Before I could check on Dagny, Alison pulled me into a quick, warm embrace. “I’m glad you were able to make it. You mean so much to Grady.”
“Thank you for inviting us,” I said.
Anthony stepped away from Dagny, but kept a wary eye on her. His gaze tapered, then he shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. “Forgive me,” he murmured to Dagny. “Do I know you? You seem . . . familiar.”
Dagny dropped her gaze, but she looked back at him now. She shook her head, mute. Her expression had become very pale.
Something was definitely wrong.
“Good to see you again, Alison and Anthony,” I said to clear the suddenly strange air. “If you’d excuse us, we need to—”
“A stutter?” Anthony asked Dagny. “Is that what I heard?”
Something fierce welled up inside of me, but before I could rescue her, her head shot up. She stared at him, wide-eyed.
“Wh-what?” she whispered.
He smiled, and not unkindly this time. “I recognize a fellow sufferer when I meet one,” he said gently. “I had a stutter for years, especially as a young man. The right speech therapist worked wonders for me, although it still arises from time to time. Have you ever worked with one? If not, I’ll send you mine. She’s a whiz.”
Dagny shook her head, more shocked than ever now. I couldn’t decide if I was annoyed, impressed, or shocked by Anthony’s straightforward tackling of the topic. From one sufferer to another, however, I imagined it felt more like solidarity than an imposition. Dagny looked like she was about to throw up.
Anthony held out a hand.
“Excuse me, I haven’t introduced myself. I get excited when I meet another person with a speech impediment, and then neither of us can talk.” He laughed, a rolling sound, and I smiled to save face. Dagny didn’t even flinch, just looked at him as if she’d seen a ghost. “I’m Anthony Dunkin, father of the bride. We’re grateful to have any of Grady’s friends here.”
“D-d-dagny,” she whispered.
“Good to meet you, Dagny.”
Color returned to her haunted face. She straightened her shoulders a bit and regained some of her usual presence back.
“G-good to m-meet you as well. Th-thank you f-for . . .f-for the lovely island es-scape. F-forgive me, b-but my sandal broke and I'm very tired.”
Both of them smiled graciously, murmured farewells, and continued down the sandy path back toward the atrium. By the time I turned back to Dagny, she was running back to the bungalow with one flip flop on and sand flying off her fast heels.
15
Dagny
The world spun around me when I stumbled back to the bungalow, barely able to breathe. My chest had tightened like an elephant sat on it, and it was all I could do to crawl to my bedroom, kick the door closed with a foot, and lay on the ground. The dizzy sensation cleared when I closed my eyes.
Calm down.
Calm down.
Calm down.
The day had been difficult to process without my biological father crashing into my unexpectedly. Kissing Jayson Hernandez was enough to set my stars spinning, and then he destroyed it with a single comment. It was just a kiss. Victoria’s arrogant posturing, combined with an exhausting dinner filled with small talk, which was my nightmare, left me emotionally depleted.
And to run into Anthony like that?
My chest began to tighten again, but I forced myself to draw in another deep breath. What if Jayson came in? He’d find me sprawled on the floor like a maniac. I covered my eyes with a hand, then scrambled for my phone. I’d tucked it into the pocket of my dress—because Serafina had some magical affinity for dresses with pockets. It’s like they found her, and she’d given me this one.
Desperate, I sent a quick text into our app.
Dagny: Need you?
Her reply came seconds later.
Serafina: I’m here.
* * *
Dagny: Jayson kissed me.
* * *
Serafina: WHUT. CALL ME NOW.
* * *
Dagny: No. No words.
My breath wheezed as I forced it in and out. The pins and needles feeling in my fingers started to fade, and so did the black halo around the edge of my vision. Serafina couldn’t know about Anthony, not with the NDA on the line. But I could get Jayson off my chest. Except no words would come out of my mouth right now. I could barely squeak the breath in and out as it was.
Texting had always been my saving grace.
Serafina: Spill.
With agonizing precision, I texted her all the details of the swim, the body surfing, and then the kiss. It seemed to take forever, and I must have sent twenty paragraph-long texts. But the precision of it helped my body calm and slow.
Dagny: Then he kissed me in. the. water.
* * *
Serafina: Shuuuuuut uuuuuup.
A thousand heart-eyed emojis and dozens of others that didn’t make any sense followed, like she just banged on the emoji keyboard. Her response, combined with finding the words without my voice, calmed my ragged breaths. The room stopped spinning. My vision came back into focus, and my chest eased off.
Serafina: What a great first kiss story. He always comes through. How are you?
* * *
Dagny: Stressed.
* * *
Serafina: Why?! He’s got the hawts for you!
* * *
Dagny: But what if nothing is different when we get back?
* * *
Serafina: What if EVERYTHING is different?
My heart gave a little flutter. Everything would be different—for me, anyway. In all the years of my quiet adoration of Hernandez, I’d never considered that we could actually be together.
That dreams could come true.
Hernandez had always been the dream. In some ways, I tucked myself into that imaginary space and stayed there because it was easier than having him . . . and then losing him.
Never had I imagined real scenarios playing out between us.
Real scenarios like what followed after the kiss.
Dagny: But then he opened his big, fat mouth.
* * *
Serafina: Uh oh.
Even texting the story helped the night feel better. My fingers gripped the p
hone so hard they ached, and I was grateful I didn’t have to speak. In this state, the words would never come out. Frustration tended to make everything worse.
Jayson had kissed me, then downplayed it once he had time to think it over. Maybe kissing meant something different to him and I made it too big. Perhaps it had just been a spur of the moment decision. A response to the fun.
His comment about what happened being just a kiss had shredded me. Before I’d even gone to the dinner, I’d been scrambling for a reason to steal back to the bungalow and gain a few moments alone to think. To not panic. To separate the fear from reality. Victoria's condescension set the dinner off on the wrong foot, and it hadn't improved as the dinner progressed.
Then I ran right into the biggest disaster so far.
Serafina: Idiot.
* * *
Dagny: Yeah.
* * *
Serafina: Talk to him, okay? No assumptions.
I snorted. Talk to him? Texting was almost too much. But I knew she was right.
Dagny: As soon as I get my breath and my words back.
* * *
Serafina: Get through the wedding first!
I groaned and rubbed a hand over my eyes. The wedding was tomorrow. I had no more mental ability to face a crowd full of people I didn’t know, especially not with Anthony at the head of it all. It was a miracle Jayson hadn’t hunted me down after running away—clearly something had been wrong. If he had, I’d have to explain myself or pretend I was sick or . . . something. Nothing sounded better than laying on the cool floor and letting my thoughts run amok. I had no energy for anything else.
After a promise to catch her up on everything later, I set aside the phone and stared at the ceiling. With our text conversation, I’d released the pressure of having kissed Jayson Hernandez.
The next fire sprang to life in my mind.
Anthony.
What must I have looked like when we collided, and I looked up to realize who he was? My thoughts felt fractured even now as I tried to puzzle that mess back together. Hadn’t I crashed into his wife the same way? Perhaps that was my fate with the Dunkin family. Slam into them like a wrecking ball. Threads of my original plan lingered in that idea, but I brushed it aside.
Not anymore. The NDA would stay in my backpack and I'd return to Pineville without another word to Anthony.
Did I imagine it, or did Anthony seem to have recognized something in me? Did I look like Mom, perhaps? Did he notice, like I did, that my nose was an exact replica of his? My hair color so similar? The crash had been fast, but I’d still grabbed onto details that I’d always wondered about. Attached earlobes, like mine. Anthony and I didn’t share many obvious traits. I’d inherited Mom’s shoulders. Her eyes. No, he hadn't given me much that made me easily identifiable.
Except a stutter.
Speech impediments had some genetic tendencies, or so doctors believed, when so little is understood about the brain and how we communicate. Of all the things I’d never expected to share with my biological father, the multi-millionaire, the stutter was it. What conniving fate gifted me with such a burden from a biological father that didn’t want me? Mom could take her universe powers and stuff it.
Slowly, my thoughts gathered themselves back together, and I guided them gently back to Anthony, to what he said, while I stared at the underside of the ceiling and pondered the fact that I hadn’t, at least, screamed, “I’m your forgotten daughter!”
A win.
The sound of a shuffle came outside, so I grabbed my phone. How long had I been here? The last text from Serafina had come forty minutes ago. I’d texted her for at least twenty minutes. An hour of just laying here, staring at nothing by the abyss of my thoughts. Jayson must have noticed something cagey in me and gracefully given me time to deal with it.
Too many emotions ran ragged through me to process now. I lay on my side, my body curled in a ball, and watched the stars in the sky through the double doors. A tear trickled out of the corner of my eye, then slid down my nose to plop on the floor. Another followed. I let them go, a sense of release in their presence.
Eventually, my weary eyes closed and I fell into a deep sleep.
When I woke up the next morning, I lay in bed.
For a moment, my fuzzy brain could only comprehend the roaring sound of waves outside. My thoughts spun until they caught up with the events of last night. Startled, I sat up with a gasp. A blanket covered my shoulders and body. I still wore the summer dress, but my shoes had been set aside and the sand cleaned off the floor where I’d fallen asleep. The thought of Hernandez coming in and finding me asleep on the ground sent a jab of something through me.
Affection?
Terror?
Regret?
Hints of sunlight filtered into the room in bare streaks of color. The brightening horizon lay dark and still against a vague band of black ocean not far away. Waves rushed quietly, a gentle roar that reminded me of a heartbeat. It must be very early in the morning. The rigid muscles that held me upright relaxed a little.
Today, Grady and Helene would officially tie the knot. The official day of Jayson’s responsibilities had finally come around, and I realized with another stab of guilt that I had no idea what those responsibilities entailed.
Movement next to me caught my eye and I froze.
Jayson stirred on the bed where he lay on his stomach, his face turned away from me. He slept all the way on the edge like he wanted to give me space. He wore an old t-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts, but the shirt crept halfway up his back. I forced myself to look away, but my gaze went right back to the rigid, muscular lines there. I blinked away sleep to study him, startled by his relaxed expression. The blanket he’d draped on me felt soft as I pushed it higher around my shoulders. A rush of warmth followed the thought that he must have been concerned.
I lay back down, the initial rush of panic fading. My half-sleep tangled mind began to clear as I shook the mental cobwebs free. His husky voice followed seconds later.
“You okay, Dagny?”
The question was quiet, a gentle roll. He hadn’t shifted, or opened his eyes, or even turned to look in my direction. After so many years at his job, his instincts must have been honed to other people.
“F-fine.”
He shifted a little, but still didn’t look my way. “I wasn’t sure if you felt sick or not, so I wanted to stay with you just in case.”
Tears welled up in my eyes, hot and stinging. “Th-thank you.”
For a long moment, we lay in the quiet. Finally, he turned his head to face me. Sleepy, dark eyes stared at me for a moment before he broke the lingering morning with another low, rumbled response.
“I made a mistake last night.”
My brow dropped.
“What?”
“I made a mistake.”
He rolled all the way onto his side, his shirt stretched halfway up his stomach to reveal tight muscles I wanted to run my fingers across. My fingers clenched into a fist and I forced my thoughts to slow.
Was the kiss his mistake?
“Wh-what do you mean?”
Stubble had broken out across his face, darkening his jaw in a shadow. Sleep still lingered in his eyes, which were otherwise bright. My heart beat twice as hard even though I hadn’t moved.
“I cheapened our kiss.”
The muscles in my face went slack. Before I could express any surprise, he continued.
“I didn’t mean to say that our kiss wasn’t special or mind-blowing or . . . the first time I’ve ever really been shaken up by a kiss, which is true. I just . . . you looked so stressed last night. I wanted to take the burden of talking about it off of you until we could both think about what happened without pressure. You’re already doing so much for me . . . I didn’t want to ask anymore.”
Of all the things he could have said, this wasn’t what I expected. My thoughts raced to formulate a response, but the ball of guilt that sat on my chest made it slow progress. The
balances were tipped, all right, but in his favor.
When I didn’t say anything, his jaw tightened. “I . . . I chickened out.”
“Wh-what do you m-mean?” I asked quietly.
“I was going to come back and check on you right when we got back, but I didn’t. Like a coward, I stayed on my side and gave you space because I knew that I’d made you uncomfortable with what I said. I was trying to help but . . . I made it worse. It’s . . . it’s like you couldn’t get away from me fast enough last night.”
He wasn’t entirely wrong, but on one hand, he was so wrong.
“You are p-perceptive,” I managed, just to buy myself time to figure out how to explain the complicated mess this had become.
He snorted. “Obviously not so perceptive, or none of this would have happened.”
“I w-wasn’t upset w-with you.”
“Riiiight.”
“Well,” I hedged, “a little. B-b-but I ran away b-because . . .”
His eyelashes fluttered as he waited, and a lump rose in my throat. What ramifications could come from me sharing? Would anyone ever know? Hernandez could be trusted to keep the secret, of all people. Hadn’t he just proven that?
“I c-can’t t-tell you yet, but please t-trust me? It w-wasn’t you.”
He reached over and his fingers found my wrist, where the tips sat on the sensitive skin where my heart pulsed. He gripped it in a gentle hold.