"Mom." I look to my dad, hoping he'll back me up, but he sits there concentrating on his asparagus, slicing it, studying it, eating it like my mom hasn't just said the most asinine things.
"I know, I know." She waves a hand to brush the words away. "Not appropriate brunch discussion. I apologize."
I want to tell her she needs to look up the definition of empathy and maybe try to put it into practice. But I let it drop because it'll have absolutely no impact. It's actually almost refreshing when she steers the conversation back to Chase. Until she stretches it out to the point I'm ready to stab myself with a butter fork. Finally, I say, "Fine. I won't discount him. Unless you say one. More. Thing. About him."
It shuts her up, but giving in irks me. I think maybe that's just how today's set to play out anyway. With me being mad. Giving in to what I wanted to do with Sawyer and leaving without the answers I went there to demand. Running into Brock the way I did. Dealing with my mother for this entire excruciating brunch… Can't wait to see what else is in store.
At least it's not long before I have an excuse to book it out of the restaurant because I have to get to work. But I end up late anyway because I get stuck behind an accident. And then I can't find the sunscreen I usually leave in my glove box—and I forget about it between my Jeep and the stand, and by the end of the day I'm burned to a crisp.
Seriously. Screw today.
I'm in bed before the sun's even set. Headphones in, music pushing every other thought out of my brain. Blackout drapes closed, blocking all the light. Eyes shut tight, but even that doesn't stop me from seeing every moment with Sawyer today, over and over again.
I fall asleep imagining him in my mouth again, so it's no surprise I dream it all night long. I wake up with my hand halfway down my pajama pants, desperate to wrap my lips around him all over a second time.
Jesus. I'm ready to go. Like, right now. I push my hand into my underwear and I'm not sure I've ever woken up so wet. So trembly. In so much need of release.
Goddamn it, Sawyer.
I don't want to give him the pleasure of making me come again, even if this time, he's only in my mind.
But the urge to give it to myself is too strong.
I picture him the entire time. His skilled fingers. His demanding tongue. His eyes looking up at me. My hand across my belly is his hand splayed there, twisting my skin, pulling at me, sliding up to tease my breasts until I'm gasping. It's his other hand in my panties, flicking against my skin, curling into me, twisting until I can't even gasp because I have no more air.
And a few minutes later when my toes are curling so hard my feet ache, and my back is arching toward the ceiling, uncontrollably and even painfully thanks to my sunburn, I moan the exact words I've been thinking since I first woke up. "Goddamn it, Sawyer."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SAWYER
THE WAVES ARE good and angry today, but the ocean is packed because it's Saturday and Outer Banks natives are out in swarms among the vacationers. Which sucks because I'm in the mood for a long, hard ride.
Some tweenager paddles past me, her board slamming into my shin because I didn't hook my own out of her way fast enough. It barely stings, but I rub it anyway, feeling my irritation grow. Then she looks over her shoulder and apologizes, her braces flashing in the sun, and I feel like an asshole, even though my annoyance isn't with her.
I dragged Jess out of bed this morning, looking for some brother-type bonding because I've been feeling kind of bad about dropping him in his own vomit, but he texted his stupid-ass friends along the drive and invited them. Including my least favorite of the bunch, some freckled bonehead who can't surf for shit, the bruiser-looking one who told me to chill when I found Jess at the bar the other day. At least he leaves after an hour in the water because he has to work. The tools he grumbles about never getting to use make me think he works for an electrical technician. I actually know a few local people in the industry, but I don't care enough to ask if he wants any introductions.
Because he's a little shit. And when he asks my brother if he's got anything planned for later in the week, eyeing me all slyly like I don't know he's trying to goad Jess into another drunken escapade, I want to shove his face under the water until he agrees to get the fuck out of my brother's life. Because Jess's turning out to be just like him. A little shit.
So no, I'm not going to offer to help his friend. It's a lesson I wish could pull into a conversation with Jess. Don't be a dick because people won't go out of their way to make your life easier. But I can already tell how well it'd go over with him. Which is to say, not at all. He's in the selfish years of his life, the ones where he already knows everything, doesn't have to listen to anyone else, and thinks he can get away with anything he wants to.
"Hey, shithead," I shout to him instead, motioning to the decent size of the swell on the horizon. "Get ready."
Rather than responding with his usual know-it-all attitude, he smiles. "Thanks, dude." Then he rides it like a champ and pride funnels through me until I'm smiling, too.
At my place later, he helps himself to a beer from the fridge. It's a strange dichotomy, my desire to avoid being a second father to him, while also doing my best to keep him in check. He sees my hesitation and cracks open the can, chugging before I can tell him not to.
"Watch it," I say, deciding on the spot. "You only get two of those all night, so you probably want to pace yourself. Pizza's not even here yet."
He lowers the can, wiping his mouth and burping loud enough to make a lesser man wince. I shake my head. "Amateur hour."
He strolls by me, crossing from the kitchen to the living room, asking, "Is that a challenge?"
"You tell me." I rip a burp of my own, and it practically vibrates through the house. Jess laughs, so I do it again, catching up to him and blowing the air from my next one in his face. I shove him down onto the couch. "Beat that."
We spend the next twenty minutes trying to outdo each other, and by the time the pizza gets here, I can tell he's feeling a little sick from all the swallowed air.
"If you puke on my couch, you'll be eating it this time," I warn, watching his face filter through queasy when he takes another sip of beer. He rolls his eyes, so I add, "Dude, this is the only nice piece of furniture I own." It is nice, too. Comfortable. Not down to the barest of threads like the one I just got rid of.
"You wouldn't have to worry so much about your precious sofa if your table wasn't covered with all your papers and shit." He gestures to the dining area behind us. "It looks like a miniature jungle." He has a point; my table's my workstation these days, cluttered with papers and variations of different houseplants. "What the hell are you doing with all that anyway?"
"Comparing phyllotactic spirals." And when his expression goes blank, I explain, "Analyzing the different ways plants arrange their leaves for collecting sunlight to copy the design and use it to gather solar power." I could talk about this for hours—it's a refreshing change from the past few years of poring over natural grazing migrations with Rajesh, in school and then after graduation—but Jess's eyes are glazing so hard right now, I refrain.
I really do need to pick up some office furniture for the second bedroom, which currently holds a lot of blank space with a few certificates and credentials on one wall. But whatever. At least I have a nice couch. Plus I like the lighting in the dining area, the way the windows face out to the east so I can get up early with the sun to get work done. It's good for the plants, too. I like how much space the table gives me for laying out multiple design specs.
Maybe I should at least pick up some tray tables or something.
"You want me to clear a place for you at the kiddie table?" I ask. "Or can you drink your beer and eat your pizza like a man on the couch and watch a movie at the same time?"
"Kiddie table? Please. And fuck you, anyway," he says, but not in a shitty way. "I'm not gonna puke over half a beer."
"Oh yeah?" I ask. "What's the count up to these days? What wa
s the limit you passed before you got in my car?"
"Whatever." He shrugs, full of forced nonchalance. "That was a one-off."
"You sure about that?" I study him. He studies the movie. I lean across to his end of the couch, tapping my fist into his arm. "Jess. You said you'd get your shit together if we came back to the Outer Banks. You swore. No more cops. No more getting wasted. No more skipping school." No more scaring the shit out of me every time my dad calls to tell me Jess hasn't been home in three days and isn't answering his phone.
"God, chill." Teenage rage tightens Jess's entire body. "It's fine. I had a rough day that other time. It's the summer so I couldn't even skip school if I wanted to—which I won't." He takes a huge breath, visibly trying to relax. "And I'm not gonna vomit on your stupid couch. My stomach's fine." Like he's trying to prove it, he shovels half a slice of pizza into his mouth.
"Rough because you saw Quinn?" Shit. I wasn't going to ask. Damn it, I have zero control where she's concerned.
Jess glances at me mid-chew, starts scowling, speaks with his mouth full. "I don't want to talk about her."
"Why?"
He shakes his head, swallowing his food with the last of his beer. A part of me wants to press harder. Quinn was like a sister to him. But another part thinks talking about her's a bad idea for me, too. And the biggest part of me doesn't want to rock the mood for the rest of the night. Especially because I'm about to tell him he has to have a soda before his next beer. So I let the Quinn thing go.
Wish I could let her go.
I grab another slice, shoveling more in my mouth than he did with his. It's another contest, and this time we're both feeling pretty ill by the time it's over.
Jess only finishes his second beer for the night to prove he can. I don't even bother. We're both passed out before midnight.
CHAPTER TWENTY
QUINN
“I SAW JESS," Gianna tells me a week after the surf shop incident involving his stupid brother. "That kid's a mess."
I'd smile at her rhyme if I didn't hate the truth it contained so much. "Yeah, he really is, huh?"
She straddles her surfboard, bobbing next to me in the salty water. "He literally stumbled into the shop yesterday, drunk as hell. His friend had to carry him out. I don't even think he recognized me."
"What happened to him?" I shake my head, regret lacing my ribs tightly together. "He used to be such a sweet kid."
Gianna shrugs. "So did I."
Now, I laugh. "Gi, you've been many things in your life, but sweet? Let's not get carried away."
"My mother thinks I'm sweet."
"Yeah. She has to." I grin, splashing water at her.
She opens her mouth to respond, but we both feel the change in the water at the same time. The wind kicks up a bit and the water behind us dips backward.
"Take it!" she says—and I'm paddling my arms hard before she's even finished. The water shoves us forward in the biggest surge we've seen all afternoon, wild and frothy. A few more strokes and I pop to my feet with perfect timing.
I follow the dropline to the base of the wave—but so does Gianna, that snake. She drops in, peeling to the right above me and shoving past with a huge smile, spraying me in the face with water.
I shake my head and slice into the barrel of the wave as it breaks, just a few feet behind her. Soon we're surrounded completely by the curved wall of water.
And then she eats shit.
She's fine; I can tell right away it's not a bad fall, and I sweep around her, laughing until I can't breathe. Serves her right, the little barrel thief. I accelerate past her, through a bottom turn, and it propels me to the front side of the wave's lip. I kick my tail out to release my fins—and for a moment I'm airborne.
The wind rushes against my face. Heat from the sun dries the tops of my shoulders. I close my eyes, breathless with it all. When I land back against the wave, my board is steady under my feet and I glide perfectly with the water. This rush—there's nothing else like it. Not even the feel of Sawyer's hands against my skin.
Well, okay. Maybe that comes close.
When the ride's over, I paddle back to Gianna. She's waiting for me on her board and waves away whatever she thinks I'm going to say when I get here. "I know, I know. Serves me right."
I push into a sitting position on my surfboard, salt water lapping against my thighs, and nod. "Bet your ass it did."
"I'm fine, thanks for asking."
"Oh thank goodness." I pause to catch my breath. "I was really worried when I saw you here sitting on your board without a care in the world."
This is one of the reasons we love each other so much, I think. She can dish it out—but so can I.
"So while you were off on your joyride without even checking to make sure I didn't drown, I had some time to think."
"Wow. What was that like?"
"I think you should talk to Sawyer." Her suggestion cuts the sarcasm from my sails.
"What?" I squint at her and shade my eyes with a hand, searching her face for a sign that she's joking. "No. I told you. Never bothering with that again."
"Oh, please. You can't even say that without your voice wavering. You're not done with him—even though you should be. And I'll kick your scrawny ass if you even think about actually getting back together with him."
"Not even the slightest possibility of that," I say, hoping my words are a lie.
Wait.
I mean, knowing the words are truth.
Ugh.
"I do think you need closure, though. I mean, specifically for your legs when you're around Sawyer—but also with him in general." She wipes a wet strand of pink hair out of her eyes, looking at me with a soft smile so I know she's joking about the legs part. Hell, she's not really wrong, anyway. "But I was mostly talking about Jess."
God, I forgot we'd just been talking about him. I'm such an asshole. "Talking about Sawyer makes my brain all fried. But you're right."
And she is.
The Jess I used to know has to be there somewhere still. But this path he's on… He needs help. Maybe Sawyer doesn't know how bad things are. I splash the water, making miniature waves with my fingers. I wish I knew what their lives had been like the past years. I wish I had a little more insight to anything about them. I should've talked to Sawyer about Jess when I stopped by his shop. Even if he wouldn't give me answers to anything I wanted… Jess is important to us both, whether or not he hates me.
I promised Jess a long time ago that I'd be there for him. And then he disappeared from my life before I could keep my word. But maybe talking to Sawyer about him is a small restitution for what I wasn't able to do while he was gone. Not that Jess'll thank me for it, but it's the best I can do.
A fresh edge of guilt stabs my chest. He's only sixteen, and he's so messed up. I wonder if things would be different if I'd been able to keep my promise. "Shit. This sucks."
"I could tell Sawyer," Gianna offers. "If you really don't want to see him again."
I almost laugh, but the thought of not seeing Sawyer again is so not funny. God. Why can't I just be over him? Why are my damn emotions as unpredictable as the ocean these days? I wrap my hair into a sticky, salt water-drenched bun. “No. I'll talk to him.”
"Quinn…" She trails off, sucking on her lower lip. It's her tell—albeit a rare one—for holding something in.
"Just say it," I say, even if I know where she's about to go.
"Are you okay about Sawyer? For real? Because…it took you a long time to heal after the first round."
"We're not going another round." I can't even come close to making my words sound genuine. Hell, they may actually be true, but I don't want them to be. And Gianna's always been able to see through my bullshit.
"You blew him the second you were alone with him."
"Whoa." I throw a hand up but can't block the sting out of what she says. I fling water at her instead, grabbing my board to steady myself when a swell pushes me up higher than I'm expecting. "Be a little
bitchier, why don't you?"
She wipes water from her eyes. "It's the truth."
"That's not exactly how it happened."
"I know." She sighs. "But Quinn… I'm really not saying this to be a bitch. I love you. But don't you think maybe you should chill with the physical shit? I can tell by your face when I say his name… Sawyer—" She points at my face, though I swear I haven't even blinked. "See, just like that. You're coming apart all over again."
"I'm not," I say. And I think this part actually is true. "I'm still attracted to him, yeah. But I'm not that brokenhearted seventeen-year-old anymore. I'm not going to break again."
"I just want to make sure of it, okay?"
I nod and glance at my watch. "Shit. My shift starts in thirty."
"Take the next one in," she says, all intensity gone from her tone. She said her piece, and things are back to normal between us just like that. "I'll call you later."
"By the way," I say, waiting for the next surfable wave. "Did you borrow my wakeboard?"
"No. Why?"
I shrug. "No big deal. It wasn't in my Jeep the other day… I thought I had it in the back. Maybe someone stole it."
Gianna laughs. "If you need me to go all bruiser on some thief, let me know."
"I'll be sure to keep that in mind." I laugh, too, because as tiny as she is, I know firsthand she can do it. More than likely, I left the board someplace, though. Wouldn't be the first time. Wouldn't even be the third or fourth.
"Hey, text me that Chase boy's number, will you?"
Huh. I knew something might work there… "You sure you won't eat him alive? Because he's pretty great, Gi."
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