The Fall We Fell: A Small Town Friends-to-Lovers Romance (Ocean Pines Series Book 1)

by Victoria Denault

  He looks disappointed but nods. “Whatever you need, T.”

  I am not a fan of the way he shortens everyone’s names to initials. I’m T. His sister is B. My brothers are F and L and D. “Okay let’s start with an easy one. Can you drive me to and from dialysis Monday, before you head back to New Hampshire? I know Logan has River and Finn and Nova are working at the restaurant. Declan has some marketing meeting in Boston or something. Dad has to go out on the boat and Mom… well she makes me nuts when she comes with me. She hovers and asks the nurses too many questions and tries to pray over me while the treatment is happening and it just stresses me out.”

  He walks into the living room, ducking to avoid a beam the runs through the middle of the room, and I follow. When he turns to face me he looks contrite. “I can drive you there, but I won’t be able to drive you home. I know I usually leave late afternoon but I have to get back early this time because my bike club is doing a late afternoon ride, and I kind of organized it, so I can’t bail. Your treatment takes so long. I wouldn’t make it back in time for the ride.”

  Oh. Okay. So much for that being the easy ask. “Okay…. I guess I can find someone else.”

  “Ask the new guy,” Tom suggests as he walks past my breakfast bar that divides the kitchen from the living room and dips his head a little so he can walk over to the fridge where the ceiling slopes. He grabs my filtered water jug from there and makes his way over to the glasses stacked on the open shelf. “He’s probably got nothing to do.”

  “Jake isn’t exactly the new guy.” I have no idea why I feel the need to explain that, but I do. “I’ve known him since I was twelve. He was born and raised in Ocean Pines. When he was emancipated from his mom, he lived above the restaurant and he worked for us for like seven years before he became a firefighter.”

  “Wow. You know a lot about him. Are you President of his fan club or something?” Tom chuckles at his joke and takes two glasses off the shelf, flips them over and starts to fill them with water. “Anyway, whatever. Ask him.”

  “I’ll figure something out,” I mumble and shake my head when he offers me a glass of water. “I pee enough as it is, I don’t need water before bed.”

  He cringes uncomfortably because I brought up peeing. Tom is supportive as long as I don’t get into gory details of kidney issues and lupus in general . I have told myself repeatedly not to take it personally. His sister said she once cut her hand on a glass she was washing as a teenager and Tom bolted as soon as he saw the blood. Like, ran out of the house and left her bleeding all over the place. He did run to the neighbors, screaming, and got them to come over and help her and drive her to the hospital, but Tom himself was useless. And he was seventeen at the time.

  “Okay. No water,” he puts the glass he poured for me down on the counter. “What else do you want to talk about? How about how you’ve never told me you know one of my favorite hockey players, ever?”

  “No, not that,” I shake my head and dive head first into my next topic. “Did you get a chance to talk to your insurance company? About the testing and stuff?”

  Everything about Tom suddenly changes. His shoulders tense, but his head sags. His eyes hit the floor and stay there. He doesn’t seem casual, calm and collected anymore. He seems… awkward, tense and maybe even a little… guilty?

  “I just ask because you said last week when you couldn’t come for our regular weekend visit that it was because you were figuring out stuff with your insurance company and your work union about whether or not you’d be covered if you donated?” I say and I feel suddenly like a beggar on the street with my hat out. Which infuriates me.

  “Yeah… Terra… listen,” he pauses, finally lifting his head. He looks at me. His wholesome, handsome face is suddenly void of warmth or that friendly easy smile he has that I found so attractive when we first met. “My family thinks it’s a lot to ask of anyone to donate a kidney.”

  “I didn’t ask you,” I reply flatly. “You said you wanted to see if you were a match.”

  “Yeah well what the hell else was I supposed to say?” Tom says, and now that guilty vibe has switch to annoyed. He puts his glass down on the counter behind him and runs a hand through his blond hair, which doesn’t ruffle because it’s too short to be displaced. “I mean I really like you. We’re a great match but we weren’t even dating all that long when you told me about the kidney problems. I just … I felt cornered.”

  “You were not cornered,” I argue and I’m fighting a hot flush to my cheeks that is sheer and utter humiliation. “I was never going to ask you to donate. I made a pact with myself when I found out that I was only going to ask family, direct blood relatives, and I have stuck by that. You volunteered.”

  “I know. But I never expected to have to do it. I thought for sure someone in your family would match.” he pauses. “My parents flipped out when I told them I was thinking about it. They said I was too young to live on one kidney.”

  “Not scientifically accurate.” I can’t keep my mouth shut when someone spews misinformation about anything. It’s not who I am. But I should keep my mouth shut here because it makes it seem like I’m making an argument for him to donate. I’m not.

  “Well, what if something happens in five or ten years to my only kidney? What if my parents need one in the future and I gave the extra one to you?” Tom asks, and in that very second I know that this relationship is over. Not because he won’t get tested or donate but because he’s made me feel so utterly unimportant and defective—like a burden.

  “Those are all valid concerns.”

  I walk out of the kitchen and back into the living room. Tom follows, still talking. “I mean they haven’t completely shut the door on Declan donating, right?”

  “They have.”

  “But he’s fighting it, right?”

  “He is.”

  “Maybe he’ll win,” Tom says, hopefully.

  “Tom, is that hope dripping from your tone over the idea that I’ll be healthier if they allow Deck to donate or that you’ll be able to stop feeling like such a cowardly asshole?” I walk to the front door. He follows behind me.

  “That’s not fair. I am not a coward because I have other family members to think about, Terra,” he tells me. “We’ve been together five and a half months. I just…”

  “You just never should have volunteered to be tested,” I finish the sentence for him. “And I agree. That’s why I never asked you to be tested. Not once. You said you wanted to be there for me.”

  “I am! I’ve driven you to doctor’s appointments and dialysis,” Tom defends himself and I try not to smile. He drove me to the doctor once and to dialysis once. “And I’ve given up all my weekends at home because you can’t drive to Portsmouth anymore because of all the medical stuff you’re dealing with here. I haven’t complained about that even though it totally sucks that I have to do all the sacrificing now with the distance thing.”

  “Well, there’s a problem I can fix,” I say and unlock my locked front door. “You don’t have to do that anymore. We’re done. No need to spend weekends here or ever set foot in Ocean Pines again.”

  He looks stricken. “Terra. Come on. I don’t want to break up.”

  “Yeah but I do.” I say. “Can you go home now?”

  “It’s almost midnight.”

  “Well head up to Route One. There’s about forty motels to choose from.” I open the door and hold it wide for him to exit. The bag he brought with him for his weekend stay is still packed and lying on the floor of my front hall. I pick it up and hand it to him.

  “I’ve been drinking Terra.”

  I pull my phone from the pocket of my cardigan and pull up the Uber app. I punch the screen and turn back to Tom. “Jay is on his way.”

  “Terra…” he pauses. Our eyes lock and then I see it… the relief. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  He steps through the open front door and I watch him disappear down the stairs before I close my front
door and lock it again. I take three deep breaths, the last one ending in a small hiccup of a sob and then I slide down the door and dissolve into a puddle of tears.

  4

  Terra

  My dad, Charlie Hawkins, isn’t a talker. If you looked up ‘Salt of the earth New Englander’ in a dictionary, you’d find his picture. He’s tough, rough around every edge and also a giant teddy bear. The one thing my brothers and I have never doubted is his love for us. And I’m thinking of him right now, on the beach as the sun crests and creates a shimmering golden glow on the waves. Because it’s his rare but sage advice that I’m taking right now. He once told me, when I was crying over teenage drama of some sort, that the best medicine for any emotional ailment was the beach. So I should pick my sorry self up and go take a walk, get my toes buried deep in that sand, inhale that salty air and let the waves crush my worries as they break.

  I’m doing that now, only to be honest I’m picturing Tom’s face getting crushed under each breaking wave. Jerk. As I left the apartment for this walk, before sunrise, I noticed Tom’s car was already gone from my parking lot. He didn’t even try to talk to me again and fix things. It stung even though I realized halfway through my sleepless night that I was more humiliated than heartbroken. Tom triggered my worst fear—that someone I cared about felt this fucking illness that was an albatross around my neck was something I had tried to wrap around their neck too. I never outright asked him to try and be my donor. I promised myself when my doctor told me I was going to need a new kidney that I wouldn’t ask anyone. But did it hurt that he didn’t volunteer to help me like my family and even Nova’s brother did? Hell yes.

  “Tinkerbell?”

  The voice booms over the surf crashing to my left. It’s deep, friendly and oh so familiar. I turn to my right where a group of surfers who have just come in from the ocean are standing around talking, boards at their feet. My eyes lock with Jake’s right away.

  Shit. I should have known he would be at the beach. He’d spent the last three years in the mountains, nowhere near the sea that he grew up loving, so of course he’s going to be here surfing for the second time in twenty-four hours. After a curt wave, I turn and walk the other way.

  “Terra!”

  Fuck. I pause at the very same time I consider pretending I didn’t hear him, which makes that idea impossible. I slowly turn around. He’s jogging toward me. Damnit all to hell. I try to transfer the seven sand dollars in my hands to one hand so I can use the other to pull the sunglasses holding my hair back down over my eyes. I get the sunglasses down but drop two sand dollars. Before I can bend to pick them up, Jake is on his knee in front of me doing just that. He holds them up to me, still on his knee in his wetsuit, and gives me the most dazzling smile. “Terra Lucille Hawkins, will you take these sand dollars as a symbol of my love and affection?”

  My whole body heats up, and my ovaries do somersaults. Sweet baby Jesus, this man has no idea how much he affects me. And I’ve learned not to tell him.

  “Very cute, ” I reply and try not to smile too big as I take the sand dollars out of his hand. “Don’t you have work in an hour? Your first shift.”

  He laughs. I’ve missed that sound. Jake’s laugh is a deep chesty rumble. Hearing it for the first time at almost thirteen was the first time my girl parts tingled. “You took the sand dollar, that means you accept my affection. ”

  “Uh-huh.” I start walking. “I’ll let you get back to surfing.”

  “I can skip another wave. I’d rather chat with you. I told ya last night I missed you. That wasn’t a lie,” he replies and smiles. I know he means my family, not just me alone. But his smile isn’t its normal light, casual, lazy smile. It’s … intense. I must be hallucinating from exhaustion, right?

  I stop walking and just stare up at him, a tall wall of muscle wrapped in neoprene. His hair is glimmering like wet coal in the sun turning the sky orange above us. He cocks that head and his full mouth quirks upward. “This sun is barely up, so the sunglass thing is overkill.”

  He reaches out and lifts them off my face, pushing them back onto my head. He squints. “You’ve been crying.”

  “Nope. Collecting sand dollars. Got sand in my eyes.” The lie is ridiculous and he will see right through it.

  His dark, delicious eyes fall to my little pocket of sand dollars. “Yeah, you’ve been hunting sand dollars since you were three. And like the perfect girl you are, you don’t keep the live ones, and dead ones don’t spit sand at you.”

  “Live ones don’t either. They have no defense mechanism against predators except to hide in the sand,” I explain and it makes him smile.

  “I love that you know all these weird facts.”

  “I love that you called me perfect because I’m far from it.” I had no intention of blurting that out but there it goes, flying out of my mouth before my brain can stop it.

  One of the other surfer guys yells his name. I can’t make out their faces from here, but I’m sure I know them. I know almost everyone in Ocean Pines. “You coming to breakfast, Mav?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m gonna go straight to work from here. Later guys.”

  “You can go, Jake. I’m sure you’re hungry,” I say and start to walk away.

  “I can eat at the fire house.” He falls in step beside me and for ten paces we both say nothing, we just walk the velvety wet sand, as the edge of the surf dances over our toes. “Where’s the boyfriend? Not into some early morning beach combing?”

  “Did you know the larvae of the sand dollar are able to clone themselves?” I ask.

  “Don’t distract me with your hot nerdy girl facts, Terra Hawkins,” Jake says sternly but he’s grinning and oh my God, with the coral colored sky bouncing off the tanned skin covering his high cheekbones I’m just… enamored. And it’s wrong and dangerous. It did teenage me exactly zero favors to fall head over heels for Jake. “Where’s the boyfriend?”

  “He had a name. Tom.”

  A charcoal eyebrow lifts. “Had? And yeah I know his name I just don’t like him enough to use it.”

  Now both of my own eyebrows raise. “You can’t dislike him. You don’t know him.”

  “I can and I do,” Jake replies defiantly. “I am an excellent judge of character. He isn’t good enough for you.”

  “I have three brothers and a dad. I don’t need another overprotective, testosterone-filled protector in my life. It’s not eighteen-eighty-one, Jake,” I reply and stop walking, turning my body away from Jake to stare out at the waves as they crash. “Anyway, it’s over with Tom. Ended last night.”

  “You broke up? Last night?”

  I nod. There’s silence. I don’t want to look up at him. And then I hear a chuckle. A fucking laugh! So I can’t help but snap my head up to look at him.

  “Of course you did. Of course you’re single now. Not in June, but now.”

  “What are you talking about?” His smile has turned trite and he’s looking up at the sky like he’s arguing with the universe.

  He sighs, runs his hands through his wet hair and then faces me again. “What happened? He made you cry.”

  “Don’t all people cry when they break-up?” I reply.

  He shrugs those broad, neoprene covered shoulders. “I don’t. I’ve never dated a girl who has.”

  “Not in front of you,” I correct him but I hate myself for it. I do not want to discuss his past relationships. Especially not now when I feel so vulnerable. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about Tom, okay? It’s over and in all honesty, it’s for the best. Even if it sucks.”

  I start walking again but all of a sudden his arm is around my shoulders and he’s pulling me into him and I’m tingling all over at the feel of his body against mine. “Let’s sit. Talk.”

  The beach in Ocean Pines is wide and long. When it’s low tide, it creates a bit of a sandy hill to get back up to the board walk. Jake walks me halfway up the hill and stops us. Slowly, I let him turn me toward the water and pull me down to the
sand. Now we’re sitting side-by-side staring at the rolling surf, his arm still around me. “I hate that you cried over him.” His statement is startling, mostly because he says it in such a deep, low voice, stuffed with emotion.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “I know. You’re the strongest Hawkins. Also the prettiest, but don’t tell Finn I said that,” Jake replies, and when I steal a glance up at him he winks. I smile and swallow down a laugh. His arm around my shoulder tightens. “A smile? Wow, it’s almost like you’re happy I’m home.”

  “I never understood why you left,” I confess. Afraid to keep looking at him, I lay my seven sand dollars out in front of my crossed legs.

  “There’s not enough time to really get into that since, as you mentioned earlier, I have to be at work for my first shift in twenty-five minutes,” Jake replies quietly. “I got a new place too and I’m supposed to swing by and grab the keys.”

  Now I can’t help but look up at him again. “So fast! Man, Logan has been searching for his own place for like a year and you’re back fifteen minutes and snag one.”

  “I lucked out. Friend of a friend knew a guy,” Jake explains. “I actually got it lined up before I even got here. You should come by and see it sometime soon. It’s right on the water.”

  He tells me the address. I know exactly where it is because it’s only four short blocks from my place. I like the idea of him being so close. After he explains a little about how he found it, and how small it is but the views make it worth it, he pauses. “Tell me another silly sea fact like you used to do when we were kids.”

  I smile, eyes back on my sand dollars. “Ninety-four percent of the earth’s living species exist within the oceans you call silly. And the world’s oceans contain more artifacts, thanks to shipwrecks and such, than the world’s museums.”