“Are you serious?” I groaned. This guy had to be insane. “You actually want to hear my problems? Willingly?”
“Yep. Let’s test out how good of a bartender I am. If you don’t feel better after talking to me then I’ll quit tomorrow. Fair plan?”
He couldn’t be serious, could he? But the thing was…he might have been Ms. Whittle’s ‘Ben,’ but he wasn’t my ‘Ben.’ Just because he was gorgeous, kind of cocky, built like an MAA fighter, and actually talking to me, that didn’t mean I was about to fall instantly in love with him. So, shrugging, I decided why not.
“I accidentally saw the boy I like having sex with his girlfriend today. I walked in on them in the school locker room. That’s not something I can unsee. It was a reality check on how lame I am, since I’ve never even been kissed before, and a reminder of how he’ll never be mine. So there. That’s the pathetic reason I’m crying. Oh, and today’s my birthday. My parents will be here soon, and I’ll have to suffer through a “fun-filled, excitement overloaded” weekend with them.”
I waited for him to laugh, but he didn’t. Serious as a heart attack, he asked, “You’ve never kissed anyone before?”
“No.” God, this was mortifying.
“Just today alone I’ve already kissed three different women.” He said this with pride. I already knew he was a manwhore from the rumors at school, and now he’d confirmed it.
“Ew,” I groaned. “That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“Okay.” He rubbed his hand across the stubble on his jaw like he was thinking. Did guys like Rhett even have complex thoughts? “I have a plan to make you feel better. How about you and I…how about we kiss?”
I gasped and nearly slipped off my crate.
“Don’t look so stunned,” he said. “You’re a beautiful girl.”
Beautiful? That confirmed it; he had to be high. Or a flat out lunatic. Or maybe this was the reason he’d already kissed three girls today—he was a total player.
“How old are you?” he wanted to know next.
“Sixteen.”
“Yikes.” He jumped to his feet. Actually, he’d been kind of leaning toward me and I hadn’t even realized it until he ripped himself away from me. “You’re practically a kid. Is kissing a minor legal??”
With a giant huff, I stood up. “You are officially the worst bartender-turned-therapist ever!” I yelled at him.
“Oh yeah,” he yelled back, “well, you have the prettiest green eyes I’ve ever seen!”
What?
“And you shouldn’t let one guy define you. You should never cry over someone as stupid as a guy. Because trust me, we’re all stupid when it comes to women. And you shouldn’t kiss me either. Your first kiss should be memorable and special—something that makes you smile for the rest of your life. Ask anyone, I’m not ‘first kiss’ material. I’m not ‘last kiss’ material either. And you are—”
Something inside me came to life. I’m not exactly sure where the surge of confidence, excitement, and power came from, but I flung myself at this stranger and I kissed him. He was older and sexy and completely out of my league…and I, Sydney Francesca Michaels, kissed Rhett Morgan. He wasn’t Ben, but maybe he was the next best thing.
So it happened. A quick press of my lips to his. Then I immediately pulled back, suddenly shocked and terrified by my actions.
He stared at me for a moment after, as my face burned under his scrutiny and the blood in my veins raged through my body. He was probably equally as shocked and terrified, but somehow, the expression on his face didn’t show it.
“You have to go slower,” he finally said, his voice different now, thicker and heavier. “Never rush it.”
Inching closer, he took my face in his hands. His touch was searing hot. For what felt like an eternity, he continued to stare at me. I stood there, unsure how to act. Then his hands removed my glasses. He slipped them off and tucked them into one of my hands. “Can we try that again?” he asked, softly. “You already spoiled your first kiss on me. We might as well try to make it count a little more. Good plan?”
Unable to speak, I nodded. More than anything, I wanted to try that again.
“You really do have very pretty eyes,” he whispered.
“A boy in kindergarten told me they were diarrhea-green.”
“He was an idiot. They’re the color green the ocean turns when a big storm is coming.”
And with that lingering comment, possibly the nicest compliment anyone had ever given me, he pressed his lips against mine. Aside from his hands on my neck, no other part of our bodies touched—just our lips. Warm, soft, lingering lips. My brain didn’t know how to rationalize Rhett. I couldn’t decide what to make of him, but his kiss was perfection.
Up until the moment it ended.
Not even a second later, Rhett’s lips were forcefully ripped from mine. And then someone subsequently punched him in the jaw. That someone was my brother. John had appeared out of nowhere, livid, aggressive, and ready to kill. “Don’t you fucking touch her, Rhett Morgan,” he screamed. “You nasty motherfucker.”
Oh dear God! Never in my life had I heard my brother swear like that. Nor had I ever seen him hit another human being. John looked like a badass—covered in tattoos with a nose ring right through the middle of his nose like a bull—but he was harmless. At least, I’d always thought he was harmless. I guess when it came to protecting me, he wasn’t. Rhett stood up, adjusting his jaw. Then he shifted his feet, widening his stance like he was preparing to fight back. I was willing to bet money on the fact that Rhett had been in his fair share of fights in his lifetime. He had that look about him—the look like he could do some serious damage. I had to stop this.
“This is my fault,” I shrieked, tugging on John’s arm. “I kissed him. I kissed him.”
“I don’t care who kissed whom,” my brother snapped. “You’re never going near him again.”
“Fair enough. It was an impulse thing anyway. Didn’t mean anything. Can we just go?”
Rhett lowered his hands. I wasn’t sure if I was lying about the ‘impulse’ comment or not. Either way, he looked hurt by my words. But that wasn’t possible, right? I was the fourth girl he’d kissed today. Surely, he’d just find someone new to kiss later.
My brother ushered me away, toward the front of the restaurant, leaving Rhett behind. And I let him because I didn’t know what else to do.
“I need to pay for your milkshake and the appetizer I ordered,” John grunted. “Then we’re gone and never coming back to this hole again. Got it? Rhett Morgan sleeps around with everyone. He probably has crabs, and his crabs have something even more disgusting. He’s no good and will work at this bar for the rest of his meaningless life. You’re never going near him again.”
Wow. I didn’t know my brother could be such a judgmental jerk.
“It didn’t mean anything,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
We went back into the restaurant, John tugging me along. A big part of me wanted to glance up, toward the bar in the back of the room and look for Rhett. Had he come back inside? I felt horrible about my brother punching him. I hoped he knew that I was sorry. But I kept my head down and followed John.
Our untouched appetizer of fried calamari sat on the table. The server approached us, carrying my milkshake. John asked for the check and asked her to box up our food so we could take it home. It took a few minutes and then finally she returned. She handed John the takeout box and me my milkshake. She also slipped something into my hand when John wasn’t looking.
A piece of paper.
My heart started slamming even harder than it was already. My skin burned. I couldn’t look at the paper the whole way home for fear that John would see. But once we arrived home, I rushed up to my room to see if the paper was what I thought it was. It was. It was a note. A note from Rhett. The note read:
Come find me when you’re no longer jail-bait.
CHAPTER 2:
2 years later…
&n
bsp; SYDNEY
What and if. Alone those words never meant much to me, but string them together—what if—and suddenly I was faced with the most horrifying sentence ever. It was a sentence that used to fill me with hope. Now the words filled me with regret. What if? It was all I could think about—and feared that it would be a question that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
One week ago Ben Turner was alive and well. One week ago my life made a hell of a lot more sense. One week ago I still had the same silly dreams and hopes that I had been holding onto all four years of high school. Now, nothing made sense. I could barely breathe let alone think straight. Why? Why would God take him away from this world so young?
“Lost at Sea.” That was what all the local news stations had been blaring on repeat. And hearing that phrase over and over made me want to punch something and I thought if I heard it one more time I would go insane. Because I knew Ben would turn up. I knew it was only a matter of time before they found him—alive—and everything would go back to normal. But then, after only four days, the massive search party off the coast of California was called off and the phrase changed to something infinitely harder for me to stomach.
“Lost at Sea, Declared Dead.”
In the blink of an eye, the metaphorical carpet had been ripped out from underneath my feet and my entire world flipped upside-down. And what made it all so much worse—and it was already pretty damn awful—were all the questions I knew I would never have the answers to. What if this was all my fault? What if I should have tried to stop him, rather than encourage him, from leaving for the Coast Guard in the first place? What if I would have told him how I felt? Could that have changed things somehow?
Last summer, when other kids my age were exploring first loves and first jobs, I’d decided to take a few courses at the community college. What else can I say? I was a nerd to the core and I signed up because I had nothing better to do with my time. Only…I never expected a particular someone to be in one of my classes.
Imagine my surprise when I walked into the room on that first day and found Ben of all people staring back at me. I swear to God, I heard a hallelujah chorus in my head when I saw him sitting there. He’d been alone—none of his usual crowd surrounding him like a buffer. And when he’d spotted me walking into that classroom, even though we were barely more than acquaintances, he’d smiled his gorgeous ‘Crest-commercial’ smile in my direction. He probably only smiled because I was the only other familiar face in the room and although he wasn’t the type to sit alone, he’d smiled at me nonetheless.
Before that day I’d thought I’d moved on from my ‘school-girl’ infatuation. When I’d seen Ben having sex with Sonya two years ago and then subsequently kissed Rhett Morgan by the dumpsters, something inside me had changed. Maybe it was a punch to the face of reality or possibly a little loss of innocence, or maybe just the empowerment I felt from kissing someone else…ever since that moment, my feelings for Ben had subsided. In the time since, I’d even kissed a couple different boys and been on a handful of awkward dates. Nothing life-changing, of course, or even worth reminiscing over. But I couldn’t deny it, when I walked into that classroom and spotted Ben—it brought me right back to where I’d been prior to seeing him with Sonya.
All those dulled feelings started burning red-hot again. Because this time one little important detail had changed. Ben no longer was with Sonya. Their breakup had been ‘heard round the school,’ so to speak, and it was common knowledge that they were over. That fact opened my eyes to possibility once more, and I took a chance the old me wouldn’t have dared. I sat down in the seat next to his.
“Hi, Sydney,” he’d whispered. “Glad I know at least one other person in here.”
“Same,” I’d responded.
And that was the start of our friendship.
The real Ben wasn’t exactly as I’d assumed. In the days following that first day, I’d really gotten to know him. Previously I thought I knew him pretty well. But it turned out that I’d been wrong. Sure, I knew facts about him, like the fact that when he wore the color blue his eyes would make my knees feel wobbly, and when he spoke he could draw the attention of an entire room. But I quickly learned that studying a person from afar didn’t mean you actually knew anything about them.
There was a sadness inside Ben—this heaviness that weighed him down. It was something I noticed immediately. The class we shared was a calculus class and it was over my head. I’d always been good at math, but this was harder than I’d expected. Ben had the opposite problem. If anything the class was too easy for him. Almost immediately he recognized that it was difficult for me and he helped me in every way he could. He was kind and patient, staying after class to explain lessons when I didn’t pick things up as fast as he had. Ben had an altruistic side to him and it was his most attractive quality.
But that sadness. At first I attributed it to his breakup with Sonya. He never spoke of her, but I could see it in his eyes. Something was killing him so I figured that must be it. Sure, we’d talk about movies and laugh about the ridiculous outfits our professor wore, but there was more going on with Ben—more that I wished I could ask him about. Until one day—minutes before our last class and our final exam, we were sitting on a bench outside the classroom flipping through our notes in a final study session before the big test, and that was when Ben let me in.
“I’m joining the Coast Guard,” Ben confessed.
I froze. I’d been gnawing on the end of my pencil, anxious as all hell, because of our impending exam and because this was my last day with Ben. In the past few weeks we’d become friends. But I wanted more than a friendship…I wanted a relationship. I wanted to tell him how my heart always beat harder whenever he was near or how special he could make me feel with just a single look. If I didn’t tell him this today, I feared I would never get another chance. That was a lot of pressure to put on myself, especially when I had no idea where to begin or if Ben even felt a fraction of what I felt. But I had to try. Except, now he was dropping this bomb on me and it made me reconsider everything I had planned to say.
“That’s why I’ve been taking these classes,” he continued. “After today I’ll have enough credits to graduate early and skip senior year. I’m getting out of this town. I’ve already been talking with a recruiter. No one else knows, but I’m doing this. I have to…for my own sanity.”
Carefully breathing in and out, I attempted to process his words. My already frantic mind grew even more so. He wanted to skip senior year and leave? What? I could feel my opportunity to tell him how I felt slipping through my fingers. “Wow,” I whispered, trying not to sound disappointed. “That’s…unexpected.”
“Yeah. I know.” Ben’s pretty blue eyes focused on his notebook as his disheveled dark hair fell over his forehead and covered those eyes. He sighed, tugging his fingers through his locks. And it occurred to me as he did this—Ben was nervous. Or scared as hell. I couldn’t decide which. Either way, I wanted to erase whatever it was that seemed to be crippling him. To do that I knew I had to push aside my own feelings and tell him what he needed to hear.
“It’s unexpected, but also pretty badass,” I said, feigning some enthusiasm.
“What?” He looked up at me. Surprise and sincerity flooded his face. He was probably stunned by the fact that I—good girl Sydney Michaels—just used the word ‘badass.’
“Yes,” I answered, unable to stop myself now that I’d started. “You heard me correctly. It’s badass. Your leaving would be a giant ‘fuck-you’ to this town. I think that’s what you’re really going for.” I grabbed his hand, squeezing it. “Whatever your reason, you should do what makes you happy.”
The heaviness that hit my heart as I said this was crushing. The last thing I wanted was for him to leave, but I genuinely wanted him to be happy and the reward that came next made all my lies worthwhile.
Ben wrapped his arms tightly around my shoulders and held onto me like a life preserver. “Thanks,” he whisper
ed. “You have no idea how badly I need someone to support me on this.”
“No problem,” I mumbled into his shoulder—his very warm, muscular, heavenly shoulder.
After a moment, he broke his embrace. “Can I email you while I’m away?” he asked, clearing his throat and gathering up his math book and binder.
The blood that was racing through my veins sped even harder. “Yes.”
“Good. My decision to leave isn’t a ‘fuck-you’ to the town or to a certain someone. I’m leaving because some mistakes can’t be fixed. But know that…that I will miss you, Sydney.”
“I’ll miss you too.”
That conversation took place exactly six months and four days ago. It would forever be cemented in my brain. We exchanged many emails and several phone calls in those six months. And yet, there was never a clear definition as to what our relationship was—friends? More than friends? Perhaps a little of both. In the end I suppose it didn’t make a difference. Ben died when he fell overboard on a rescue mission off the coast of California. It happened at night, he was in full gear, and there was suspicion that the floatation device he was using wasn’t fully inflated. They waited forty-eight hours before officially declaring him dead, and his body was never recovered.
And today…today would be Ben’s funeral. Today his family and the world would bury an empty casket, saying goodbye, and forever killing the ‘what if’ I had dreamed about for the past four years of my life.
It felt like I was stuck in a nightmare from which I couldn’t wake up. Alive but not fully alive. Aware but not fully aware. Breathing but only just barely—each breath more difficult to manage than the one before it.
Today was also my eighteenth birthday. And the only reason I knew the date was because my brother John had once again made pancakes for breakfast, something that had become sort of an annual tradition. But I didn’t care what day it was or how old I was or what was for breakfast. Because Ben was dead. Nothing else mattered now.
Kill Devil Hills: A Complete Beach Romance Series (4-Book Box Set) Page 38