For the first time ever, Tony had to feign the positivity and confidence he usually exuded naturally. He hated knowing that Amy was spending the day with Duke. She’d probably already accepted the position, and now there’d be no turning back. Everything he’d done over the past two days pissed him off. He needed to hit the waves and clear his head, work off some steam.
He looked out over the sea of attendees, wishing every blond head was Amy. He’d felt her body go rigid beneath his arm earlier that morning when he’d said he loved her like he loved the others. It was only afterward that he realized how much those words had probably stung. She couldn’t know that he adored everything about her. She couldn’t know that it was her face he conjured up in the middle of the night, or that half the time he texted her, he did it just to feel the connection to her. There was so much that she didn’t know about the way he felt because he kept it buried deep inside, beneath the anger and confusion of his youth, beneath the womanizing and the refusal to get close to any woman for more than a few nights. Buried so fucking deep that sometimes he wondered if he’d ever be able to move past it. Until this weekend, he’d never wanted to.
He forced himself to focus on the seminar he was giving on creating one’s life. The irony was not lost on him that while he’d created his own life, he was doing a damn good job of fucking up the only part that really mattered.
Chapter Four
AMY DECIDED THAT she would remember this summer as the summer of perspective. She realized that in previous years, she and the girls had been there for one another in a different way than they were now. They’d practically been each other’s significant others, filling the gaps that boyfriends usually occupied. Now all of that had changed. Each of her friends had taken determined steps to change their lives the way they wanted them. They weren’t driven by what someone else felt or didn’t feel about them, and in the process they’d found their forever loves. Amy realized that she was the only one who hadn’t changed. She was the same girl pining after the same guy she’d loved since she was six years old.
It was time for a change, and if she’d had any doubts about moving on without longing for Tony Black, he’d made things perfectly clear for her. Three times.
Three painfully honest times.
She spent the day with Duke going over his ideas for the opening of the Australia resort. He was a savvy businessman with solid plans for the property and an endless budget. The more she learned about the job he had offered her, the more excited Amy became. She wasn’t thrilled about giving up the business she’d put her heart and soul into, but as with most things in life, where there was a meaningful gain, there was usually an equally meaningful loss.
Duke had lunch and dinner brought in, and they worked straight though until after seven. Duke was easy to work with, and Amy had a good feeling about him. Not only were he and Blue close, but during their all-day meeting he’d taken calls from both his sister, Trish, and his brother Gage. He hadn’t rushed them, which might have turned off another new employee, but Amy found his loyalty to his family refreshing, and it made her happy she’d be working for such a family-oriented man. Selling Amy on Australia hadn’t taken much. She’d never been anywhere beyond the East Coast, and once she’d made up her mind to pull up her big-girl panties and try to move on from Tony—and after he’d told her to take the job—she knew that being far away could only help ease the pain.
By the time she left the resort, she’d convinced herself she’d done the right thing by accepting the job, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she needed to see Tony one last time. She didn’t want to talk to him, and she definitely didn’t want to try to convince him that he was wrong. She was done putting herself in that particular position. She just needed to see his face with a clear definition of where he belonged in her heart—in the friend category forevermore—before seeing him again at Seaside.
On the way back to the Cape, she stopped at the Boston Marriott. A quick stop. She’d peek into his seminar, get one last look, then be on her way with a new job in hand and a new perspective on her love life.
This was good.
It was the right thing to do. Then she could put this part of their relationship—or lack thereof—away forever.
She parked the car and headed into the hotel. She wasn’t even sure Tony would still be there. She knew his seminars were all-day affairs, but he hadn’t texted her for days. She didn’t know his schedule.
Listen to her. Know his schedule. God. What had she been thinking?
She’d known his summer schedules forever. Now that she was thinking about it, hadn’t she known his schedule for the past few winters, springs, and falls, too? She’d downplayed to the girls exactly how often Tony had texted her. She’d had to. It would have been too painful to admit that while she’d become his habit, he’d become her everything.
Inside the resort her nerves got all prickly. She followed the signs to the Presidential Conference Room, where Tony’s seminar was taking place. She was in luck. It was scheduled to end at eight, and it was seven fifty. She had time to peek and run.
Outside the conference room doors, her brain stopped firing. Open the door. Her hands wouldn’t budge. Just open the door and look. One last look and you can put him into the friend file forever.
Tony had always been in her heartthrob file. Her I love you file. Her someday file. He’d been the only person to ever inhabit those places in her mind.
She drew in a deep breath and smoothed her skirt and blouse. Maybe she should have changed after her meeting. Why was she still dressed up? Why was she thinking about clothing when she was about to say goodbye to the someday Tony and welcome the friend-only Tony?
Taking the job was the right thing to do.
She opened the door with a shaky hand and peered inside the large conference room. The seminar must have just wrapped up. Tony stood at the front of the room surrounded by a slew of people. Amy’s eyes locked on the tall man at the head of the group. The man who never teased her about being flat-chested or chicken-legged. The man who knew she could handle only two drinks but often indulged in three with her Seaside friends. The man who carried her home on those nights and never gave her crap for it the next day. His handsome, tanned features stood out against all the rest of the people in the room. He was smiling, his eyes friendly and sharp. She knew that look. It was his game face. His on face. His game face was miles apart from his natural smile. The one that sucked her into the warm, loving, capable man that was Tony Black and clutched her so tightly sometimes she thought she’d forget how to walk.
Turn around. Walk away. You’ll be done with him forever.
Forever is a very long time.
Chapter Five
THE SALTY OCEAN air swept up the dunes of Cahoon Hollow Beach, bringing with it too many sweet and painful memories. Amy sat with Bella, Leanna, and Jenna later that evening as they tried to comfort her. God bless them for not giving up on her, because she was acting as sullen as a brooding teenage girl. She tipped back the bottle of Middle Sister wine she’d bought on her way there and wiped the tears from her eyes. How many times had she come to watch Tony surf without him knowing? How many years had she watched his muscles bunch and flex as he waxed his board, knowing those muscles would look even more enticing if she were the object of his efforts, lying beneath him as he learned about her more mature, womanly body and made it sing? How many summer nights had she lain in her bed wondering if he might appear at her window with confessions of love instead of the girls wanting to go skinny-dipping?
She felt Jenna scoot closer, smushing their legs together.
“That’s good, Ames. Cry it out. Cry out that Tony love.” Jenna took the bottle from her and drank from it; then she handed it to Bella.
“Don’t cry it all out,” Leanna said. “I refuse to believe that this is it. I know that stubborn surfer loves you, Amy. I feel it in my bones.”
“Not helping,” Amy said quietly. “I need to let him go.”
“She’s right. That big oaf may love her, but now…He doesn’t deserve her. Look how sad she is.” Bella rose to her feet and pulled out her phone. A minute later the sound of Hedley’s “Anything” filled the air.
“We need to spin this positive.” Bella pulled Amy to her feet. “You can do anything, Amy.” She bumped Amy’s hip with her own.
“He does deserve me.” Amy swayed from the alcohol, not to the music, and put her hand on Jenna’s shoulder to steady herself. “He’s a good man. He’s honest, Bella. He’s more honest than any man I know.”
Jenna rose to her feet and straightened Amy’s hoodie, which had clung to her waist. “I think she’s right, Bella. You want to hate him, but we can’t. He cut her loose. That’s the only way she’d be able to move forward. You know that.”
Bella rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I can’t look at Amy being so sad and think a good thought about Tony. He caused this.” She held her phone up to make the music louder.
Leanna reached for Amy’s hand and tugged her toward the steep path on the dune that led down to the beach. “Come on, girls.”
They stumbled down the path clinging to one another. Jenna crossed her arms over her boobs as she ran. “Slow down! These puppies are going to give me a black eye.”
They laughed and held one another up as they reached the beach. The sand was cold on Amy’s bare feet, but the laughter of her friends warmed her. They were always there for her—when she wasn’t hiding secrets from them.
He was always there for her.
He wasn’t always going to be there for her, and she needed to get used to that.
Jenna headed straight to the edge of the water. “Help me find rocks.” Jenna had collected rocks for years. Every room of her cottage and her and Pete’s beach house had rocks of all shapes and sizes in them. On the floors, on the tables, in glass bowls, and along windowsills. She was very particular about the rocks she brought home, and she would study each rock like some people studied diamonds, making sure the ones she selected met her expectations, which changed from summer to summer.
“I have a better idea. Let’s wash Tony off of me. Literally.” If she was really going to turn over a new Tonyless leaf, she had to stop being afraid to hold back. She needed to be brave and to take control of her life. Amy pulled her hoodie over her head. Goose bumps chased the cold air up her torso.
“Amy, what are you doing?” Leanna’s eyes widened.
“Starting over.” Amy stood in her pink bra and shimmied out of her jeans. She had always done the right thing, and that included being careful and modest. With the exception of skinny-dipping—or chunky-dunking, as she and the girls called it— at the pool at Seaside in the middle of the night, she’d never done anything like this before. It was so out of character for her that she even surprised herself, but she felt braver than she ever had, so she was going with it.
“You are not going in there.” Leanna picked up Amy’s jeans and held them out to her. “Shark bait, remember? How many times has Tony told us not to swim at night?”
Amy set her hand on her hip. “All the more reason for me to do it. He’s not the boss of me. And he doesn’t own my heart anymore, remember? Now, are you joining me or standing on the beach like a mother hen?”
Jenna whipped off her sweatshirt. “I’m in!”
“You guys are nuts.” Bella pulled her sweatshirt off. “I’m only going in to make sure you go no deeper than your knees. Idiots.”
“You guys…” Leanna pulled off her sweatshirt. “What if you get bitten by a shark?”
“Oh please. I have no meat on my bones. They don’t want me.” Amy shimmied out of her underwear and tossed her bra behind her as she strutted naked toward the water, feeling liberated. Thank God for Middle Sister wine, which she just might start calling Courage in a Bottle.
“Even Tony doesn’t want me. I’m done being Goody Two-shoes, by the way. I’m done being the one who does the right thing.”
She sensed them all behind her and felt empowered. More confident than she had in her life. She reached her hands out behind her and wiggled her fingers.
Seaside sisters, help me start a new life. She felt Jenna grab her right hand, Bella took her left, and Leanna took Jenna’s other hand. The four of them stood buck naked before the sea, and Amy’s mind drifted back to the summer before she left for college. Painful memories tried to claw their way into her mind—the blood, the fear on Tony’s face, the ache in her heart. She squeezed the hands of her girlfriends a little tighter and told herself that that summer had never happened. With a hard swallow to push down the lie, she raised her hands in the air and said, “Let’s cleanse Tony right off of me!”
They walked toward the water. I’m doing this. I’m really doing this. There’s no looking back. Once I get in there, he’s out of my system.
No matter what.
A wave broke over their feet, and they squealed and ran back up on the beach.
“Fuck that’s cold!” Bella crossed her arms over her chest.
“Chilly nipples! Chipples!” Jenna laughed.
“Oh my God. Oh my God.” Leanna bounced from one foot to the other.
“Holy fudgenuggets, it’s cold. But I need to do this.” Amy steeled herself against the cold and held out her hands again. It took only a second for the others to join her.
“All for one and all that shit.” Bella’s teeth chattered.
“Goodbye, Tony. Hello, Australia!” Amy ran into the ice-cold water, clinging tightly to her friends’ hands. She sucked in a breath as the water consumed her thighs and sent piercing shocks of cold water over her crotch and up to her waist.
Jenna shrieked. “Under!”
They all dunked under the water at once, then burst through the surface, laughing as they sprinted back up the beach, kicking sand everywhere. Cold and wet, and covered with sticky salt water, they shivered and snatched up their clothes.
“You….” Bella’s voice shook. “You took…” She pulled her hoodie over her head. “The job?”
“Uh…huh.” Amy pulled on her jeans. Her fingers were numb and her entire body was sticky, but she felt better than she had in the last two days.
“Summers off?” Bella asked.
“No.” Amy finished dressing and beckoned the others to come closer. They huddled together, teeth chattering, bodies shaking with cold. She swallowed hard against the tears threatening to silence her.
“He…He told me to go…” She closed her eyes to ward off the cold. “I don’t think I’m strong enough…” A shiver stole her breath. “To see him next summer. I’ll come…” She clenched her jaw against her trembling teeth. “For two or three weeks the following summer.”
They huddled together.
“He told you to? Tony did?” Bella narrowed her eyes as Amy nodded. “That asshat. Fuckhead. I’m going to kill him.”
“Amy…” Leanna put her arm around Amy.
Jenna did the same on her other side. Bella plastered her body against Amy from the front, and they came together in a group hug. Amy lifted her eyes to the dunes. This was where it all started so many years ago. She remembered when they were little girls searching for rocks for Jenna and playing in the waves while their parents sat on the blankets reading and talking and doing whatever else grown-ups did back then.
She was a grown-up now.
It was her turn to watch her children play in the surf. The thought stung.
She’d always hoped she’d do those things with her best friends, and she’d always believed that sitting right beside her, passing knowing glances and silent looks of love, would be Tony.
Her eyes caught on headlights in the parking lot at the top of the dunes. Caden was on duty tonight, and he always checked up on them if they were out late. The glare of the headlights made it impossible for her to tell if it was him or not. A tall, wide-shouldered silhouette came into focus. There was no mistaking the thick-legged man standing at the top of the dune in a pair of board shorts, powerful arms arcing
out from his body. Arms that had carried Amy to the safety of her cottage so many nights that she could feel them now, wrapped around her, warming her.
But they weren’t wrapped around her now. Those were the arms of her girlfriends holding her close. The ones whom she’d told she’d washed away the remnants of the man looking down upon them in the moonlight.
The ones she’d lied to in order to protect her heart.
She closed her eyes for a beat. When she opened them, Tony was gone, and her heart was just as broken as it had been before she’d tried to wash him away. Only now it ached even more, because she knew that if willing him away while she was nestled in the arms of her best girlfriends couldn’t do the job, nothing ever would.
Chapter Six
TONY PADDLED HARD to catch his second wave of the morning. He’d been up half the night, frustrated and angry over what was happening with Amy, and had finally decided to go out on dawn patrol—a surfer term for catching early-morning waves. He felt like they’d broken up, which was crazy, considering they weren’t dating. After his seminar last night, he’d gone back to Seaside and taken the back entrance so he didn’t have to pass Amy’s cottage, but that didn’t help. Every goddamn thing felt different. Her cottage was across the street and only two cottages up from his. He could practically smell when she was home, and last night he’d known that even though her car was in the driveway, she wasn’t there. The complex felt empty despite Pete and Kurt having drinks on Kurt’s deck. Even Pepper, Kurt and Leanna’s energetic Labradoodle, didn’t make him feel better. And Pepper was so damn cute he could make anyone smile.
He knew Amy had to be out with the girls, and he knew Amy well enough to know exactly where she’d gone. He’d finally given up trying to ignore the urge to make sure she was okay and he’d driven out to Cahoon Hollow. How was he going to get through this? Just seeing her had brought his feelings for her rushing back in. He couldn’t help but think he’d made the biggest mistake of his life by telling her to take that damn job.
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