by Ember Leigh
“Are you here alone?”
“Came with some friends.”
Her grin stretches wider. “Guys or girls?”
She’s not making it too hard to figure out where she’s going with this. “Both,” I tell her. “We’re here for a wedding.”
Her eyes light up, hand shooting out to grab my wrist. “Oh my god, so am I! Wait, are you the groom?”
And just like that my doorway of opportunity swings wide open. I want to forget about Nova? Here’s my chance. This girl is hopeful and bright eyed.
“Not the groom. Just his bachelor groomsman.”
The brunette pushes up against me, tucking some hair behind her ear. “My name’s Kitty. But you can call me Sex Kitten.”
I’ve heard lots of pick-up lines in my time, but that was one of the more blatant ones. I wish Nova were here to overhear it. I’m sure she’d be crying laughing. I look across the bar just as Nova glances away. She was watching us—the way my gut drops confirms it.
“What’s your name?” Kitty presses.
The bartender shows interest in me, and I swoop in, placing my order for a root beer. When he walks away, Kitty scoffs.
“You came to a nightclub to drink root beer?”
“I don’t feel like drinking alcohol.”
Kitty rolls her eyes. “We’re all here to party. Could have at least asked me for my order while the bartender was here.”
Sex Kitten is getting her hiss on. This is amusing to me—not irritating. “I’ll share my root beer if that’s what you really want.”
She softens a little, sighing. “Well, listen. Do you wanna go fuck in the bathroom?”
I laugh in her face. I can’t help it. This is too absurd, yet this is real life. “Sorry, what?”
“You’re hot, okay? We’ll never see each other again.” She’s dragging her pink-tipped fingernails up the side of my arm.
Once upon a time, the answer would have been yes. Kitty’s got cleavage for days and a skin-tight maxi dress hugging a model-worthy body. But she’s got Hell, no written all over her.
The bartender returns with my root beer, and I tip him. I raise the bottle to Kitty as I sidle past. “Night, HumpCat.”
“Sex Kitten,” she corrects me, just before I get swallowed up by the sea of people.
It takes me approximately thirty seconds of navigating between sweaty bodies to realize that I want to fucking leave. I’ve lost everyone again, yet I get the sense that I’m searching for Nova. I spot her red hair near the main doors, and I follow the swish of her high ponytail like it’s a lighthouse illuminating a dark night on the sea. The door opens, and I rush to follow her. My footsteps crunch over the gravel outside, the music receding to a dull, rhythmic thump behind the closed doors.
Nova is walking toward a series of benches along the front of the building, holding a finger in one ear. Her phone is pressed to the other side of her face.
“Hey, sorry,” she’s saying. “We were inside the club. I didn’t hear it ring.”
The disappointment returns, filling my veins with lead, and yet again I’m left wondering what the fuck I’m doing here. I’ve been telling myself all evening to get off Nova’s trail. But I can’t. I fucking can’t.
The door bursts open a moment later, and Rhys’s younger sister Harriet stumbles out. She crashes right into me, and I catch her easily. She giggles into my collar bone. She’s been shit-faced since we left for the club.
“I wondered where you went,” she murmurs into my shirt.
Nova finally sits down on a bench about twenty yards away and notices us. She pauses in her conversation, her gaze raking over me. Harriet squints at her.
“Is that Nover?” The Brits can’t help but add an R to the end of her name.
“Yeah.” I clear my throat, adjusting Harriet so that she’s more on her own two feet. I don’t know what to say or do here. I’m out of my element. I’m officially chasing, and I feel caught. To Nova, I call out, “You okay?”
Nova nods, phone still pressed to her ear. I don’t know how to say any of the other things knocking around inside me: Can I sit by you? Is that your boyfriend on the phone? What if you and I left the club altogether and walked the beach for a while?
Laney bursts through the door next, heading straight for Nova. “I told you not to take it!”
My gut takes that sickening nosedive again. Harriet is nuzzling my neck. She is so off-limits it’s not funny, being Rhys’s sister, and besides, I’m not attracted to her. I have no interest in anyone…except the one person who doesn’t want me. I’m pushing Harriet to standing, trying to put distance between us again, while Nova waves Laney away.
Harriet stumbles away, giving a weird smile to a nearby guy. “What about you and I go dance?”
Oh no. This is not good. The guy’s eyebrow lifts. “You new around here?”
“New? I invented new,” Harriet replies.
I cannot let this go further. She is out of her mind drunk, so I swoop in, hooking my arm around her back.
“Harriet, I thought I told you I was calling for the cab,” I say, offering the guy a tight smile. “Remember?”
“I wanna dance,” Harriet insists, her lips smashed against my cheek.
This isn’t good. I help her stay upright and fish my phone out of my pocket, seeing a missed text from Rhys. With one hand I struggle to type out: Ur sis is drunk. Needs to go back. I’ll take her.
This is the out I was looking for. I just wish Nova could somehow join us.
“Listen, you need to lie down.”
She snickers so hard that she snots onto my shoulder. I grimace, helping her walk toward the taxi stand. Laney is hovering over Nova, hands on her hips.
“I’m taking her back,” I call out to Laney, who turns briefly and nods. I don’t think she has any idea what’s going on. Hell, neither do I. One of the idle taxis nearby rushes to snag our business, and I’m guiding Harriet into the back seat as gently as I can. She flops backwards, skirt hiking up to her waist.
“All right, Harriet. We’re not trying to show the world.” I struggle to sit her upright in the backseat, but she keeps giggling and flopping over. I finally cram myself into the backseat with her, giving the driver our destination. As the car pulls away from the club, I spot Nova heading back inside.
I’ll never not help someone who needs it. But part of me wishes that I could have gotten Nova to myself for a little bit.
Because I think Nova might need some help too. She just doesn’t know it.
Chapter 9
NOVA
My alarm goes off at six the next morning. Why?
Because I’m a masochist. I like to torture myself on my vacation with excessively early rising in the name of art.
I am on a mission to catch this sunrise, even though I went to bed roughly four hours ago.
I fumble through the darkened hut, my limbs heavy with the aftermath of not enough sleep and too many martinis at the club. I’m ashamed to admit that I drowned the ache in my chest with alcohol, but Weston made it clear last night that whatever happened on the sailboat was a blip, a freak occurrence, a whisper that immediately faded into the ether.
In the span of one hour I saw him flirting with and hitting on three different girls. He even left with Rhys’s sister. I need to feel thankful that I didn’t take the bait and add myself to his list of female conquests. My knee connects with the side of the dresser and I blurt, “Fucking hell!”
This sunrise is going to be my reset for the rest of the week. I’ll be in official photographer mode starting today, at least for part of the time, as Rhys and Amelia’s first family-and-friends mixer is happening tonight. No better way to get myself in game mode than by getting a crappy night of sleep and hurting myself in the dark.
I finally locate the bathroom switch and blink against the sudden light. Maybe I should just go back to bed. I hobble over to the slatted blinds covering the tiny window looking out toward the beach and tug them open. The last gasp of night
has everything coated in cobalt blackness, but out on the horizon I can spot the first hint of dawn.
The sky looks cloudy and intense, which promises an epic sunrise. I must go. Renewed with excitement for my mission, I hurry to pull on my bathing suit, followed by a flowy beach dress. Because what’s a sunrise session without a dip in the ocean? I won’t be caught dead in this bikini around anyone else during our trip, so I better make the most of the water in the wee hours. Even if it’s cold—I’m in Aruba. I must take advantage of every last opportunity.
I gather my camera bag, eyes burning as I struggle to focus on my belongings. I slip on my flip-flops before heading out into the cool morning. Sand sprays behind me with every step, and the pure isolation out here on the beach at this hour is disorienting. I’m far enough away from the common areas of the resort to be bathed in pure, crushing darkness. The rhythmic hiss of the waves, growing louder as I near, is my only compass.
Once I reach a spot that feels like it should be my outpost, I slip off my sandals and set down my bag. I stand and let the sea air accost me, blowing at my hair, the salty breeze coating me. It makes sense why sometimes the best medical advice in the early 1800s was just go live at the ocean for a little bit. This shit is healing. Whether you’re here during a quarter-life crisis or undiagnosed consumption, the ocean can handle it.
The first blush of dawn crests the horizon, and my heart beats a little faster. This feels like Christmas morning, honestly. I’ve seen so many sunrises, and some of them in fascinating parts of the world, but it never gets old. Not even a little bit. I’m feeling around in my camera bag blind, but I don’t need light to see what I’m doing. I know every inch of this camera and my bag, inside and out. I deftly pop off the lens cover and sit down in the sand, waiting for the show.
It starts slow, but follows with a bang, the light cresting first in soft, lazy yellows until the fire is leaking onto the horizon. I sit transfixed just long enough to get my unfettered fill, and then I’m snapping pictures of the sky, the color show, the way the waves crest and the orange light bounces off the foam.
By the time the sun has revealed itself halfway, my camera has over a hundred pictures on it. I set it back in the bag and button it up. My time has come.
I tug my dress off and race toward the water. I need to act quick or I’ll lose my nerve. Especially if I sit here and think about how cold the water might end up being. I brace myself for a cold blast but—oh—oh—it’s fucking warm. It is so heaven-sent warm that I start whooping and splashing and kicking at the water. Why is this a surprise? I can’t say, other than it really is Christmas day and Mother Earth herself has given me this perfect ocean dip at 81 degrees.
I immediately sink to my knees, bathing myself in this luxurious bathwater at six thirty in the morning. I feel more alive than possibly ever. I laugh and kick and stand up and splash again. God, everything feels good. Everything feels right.
As I float in the knee-deep water looking toward the orange blast of sunrise streaking the sky, I start to hum. I don’t even know the music. It’s just some tune that apparently exists deep inside me. I’m usually not a hummer, but here we are. I move my arms in time to this apparently ancestral song emerging from the depths of me. I watch the sky and the wispy streaks of cloud being illuminated like they’re cartoons in the nascent daylight.
And I feel like a witch, sort of. Some sort of half-clothed siren, brewing mischief in the lapping waters of the sea. I came here to make art and dance in my bikini.
I dance and gaze and grin and laugh until the adrenaline wears off and tiredness is licking at me again. I slosh through the warm water, headed for the shore, feeling excessively happy.
Life is nothing if not a series of these ecstatic moments, tiding us over through the stressors and monotony and financial crises. At least I can say my cup is full now.
But I can also say that my cup-filling didn’t go unnoticed. As soon as I step out of the ocean and reorient myself to the shore, I notice someone else on the beach.
Someone who looks a lot like Weston.
Sitting in the sand, elbows propped on his bent knees, grinning out at me like he just watched every last second of my private dance session.
Terror streaks through me. Why is he here? For a moment I don’t know what to do. It’s not like I can pretend I didn’t see him. There’s nobody else on the beach except him and I. He’s in my direct line of sight. It would take a cartoonish level of gall to feign blindly stumbling past him and back toward my hut. Which I would actually attempt, if it weren’t for all my things sitting right next to him.
I draw a tense breath and start the walk through the sand toward him. His gaze doesn’t waver from me, and as I get closer I can see the bleariness in his eyes. His hair is tousled by the gentle breeze. The air is crisp and salty and pure, and as the space between us shrinks, the ache in my chest turns into a ravine.
There is something about this man. Something I can’t even begin to comprehend. But the safest thing to do is ignore it.
“That looked fun,” he says, his voice featuring that just-woken-up gruffness that sets the butterflies swarming in my belly.
I swallow hard, looking at my camera bag. Would it be so wrong to grab it, run back to my hut, and pretend this was all a dream? “What are you doing here?”
“Just wanted to catch the sunrise.” He squints out at the brilliant wash of color. “I’m pretty glad I did.”
I can’t tell if he’s quietly making fun of me or being sincere. I’ll never truly know the difference, or more importantly, trust my judgement. I’m inclined to believe him. But whenever I trust my heart with the opposite sex, it leads to horrible outcomes.
It wasn’t just the popular seniors who fucked me over in high school. It was my one and only ex, too. That boring-looking business major who I’d thought would provide a stable, secure relationship? Yeah, even he screwed around on me behind my back. I ate up his reassurances like they were candy. And then went on to eat a lot of candy once we broke up.
“Did you have a fun night?” I ask before I can think better of it. His gaze washes over me, making me painfully aware of my wide thighs and my big butt as I’m standing in my bikini before him. I should just go back to my hut and move on with my day. But there’s something pure about this daybreak moment. Even though I feel exposed and vulnerable, I’m curious to see where this goes.
“It was short,” he says, pinching one eye shut to look up at me. “And full of too many drunk girls.”
Ah, yes. The charmed life of Weston Daly. “I’m sure most men wouldn’t complain about that,” I say, reaching for my dress. “Isn’t that what you’re here for?” I tug it on over my damp skin, the wet ends of my hair plastering to my chest. Weston’s gaze drags back down over me, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
“I don’t know about most guys,” Weston says, distaste lingering in his words. “But too many drunk girls is not exactly my style.”
His words ring through me like an alarm. What I really want to know is did you fuck all the girls you flirted with last night? But I shouldn’t care. I can’t care. Because Weston is not for me, and I need to not want him in the first place. It’s just that whole not wanting him part that I’m struggling with.
“I assumed that being surrounded by drunk models was sort of your life’s mission,” I say, tucking some hair behind my ear as I bend down to button up my camera bag. “I know you like to party and have a good time. No judgment.”
“Right,” he says, the acid clear on his tongue. Maybe there’s something about this early morning clarity that’s got him rawer than usual. But he is not hiding his displeasure with me. So we’re back to square negative one. “No judgement at all from Princess Nova.”
“What you do with your life is your business,” I say.
He snort-laughs. “Then why do you keep bringing it up?”
Aaaaand he called me out. Great. The tops of my ears go flaming hot, and I yank the zipper shut on my camera bag. It
gets caught on my strap, which is odd, since I am positive that I set everything inside carefully like I always do. I struggle to tuck everything back inside and zip it up. I have nothing to say, so I say nothing.
“I don’t know a single other person that casually brings up my sex life even half as much as you do,” he spits. “Not even Elliot or Keko. Is there something you’d like to know, Nova?”
I straighten and sling the camera bag over my shoulder. I look up and down the beach. A few other people have scattered along the shoreline, lured out by the promise of a new dawn. Yes, there is something I’d like to know: could a man like you ever be attracted to me, or am I insane? I just can’t force myself to say it.
Because acting like I care will make me a liar. It will prove that it’s important to me, when I’ve spent my whole adulthood trying to convince the world—or just myself?—that I don’t need a hot man’s approval.
“No need for a Q&A, thanks.” I run a hand through my hair, suddenly exhausted by how stupid this all is. Someone is messing things up, and I’m pretty sure it’s me.
“Then why don’t you sit your ass down and enjoy the morning with me?”
I have a million reasons why, none of which would ever dare pass my lips. But the truth is that my head is spinning. I need to ground myself. I need to stare at the wall of my tiki hut and figure out what the hell is going on in my loins and in my head.
It was so much easier to hate Weston Daly before knowing him. Now that he’s showing me pieces of himself, I’m falling into his vortex headfirst without a second thought. And I don’t like it one bit.
Because I do want to stay with him. More than anything. I slide my camera bag off my shoulder. Watching the water with Weston. Has anything ever sounded so perfect, in fact? As I’m looking down at him, admiring the hopeful glint in his blue eyes as he waits for my response, a movement nearby tugs at my attention.
Amelia is trekking through the sand, heading for my hut.
“Shit,” I murmur, anxiety knotting my belly. We have a morning photo shoot scheduled for an hour from now, but I was fully planning on sleeping—or sitting with Weston—for at least forty-five minutes before we started.