I grabbed my tray with shaky hands and looked over at Wilder. “You two can figure this out from here?”
“Rachel…” Landon pleaded.
“I’ll see you later, Leah,” I said to my wide-eyed best friend, who looked at me like she’d never seen me before. Then I walked as calmly as I could, when all I wanted to do was run, and dumped my food into the trash can before placing my tray on the pile.
“I know what you’re doing,” Landon said from behind me when I’d almost made it to the door.
“Oh?” I asked, not pausing in my stride.
“You’re trying to ignore me. That’s your game plan? When all else fails, avoid the problem?”
I stopped, hating that he knew me so well.
He was so close to my back that I could feel the heat radiating off him through my thin top.
“I’m not going to be easy to avoid, not when I’m putting myself in your path at every possible moment. In fact, I’m going to make it impossible for you to ignore me, Rachel.”
His breath ghosted across the shell of my ear, and I barely suppressed a shiver of pure awareness. Remember what he did to you. Remember watching your phone, packing the boxes, begging Dad. Remember what a broken heart and trampled pride felt like.
I straightened my shoulders and focused on the exit. “Watch me.”
Chapter Five
Landon
At Sea
“Hey, is your head in the game? Because I’m already down Penna, and I can’t exactly afford to lose you, too,” Pax snapped two days later as our boat hit another wave.
The sun was bright and the weather clear. If this went well, we’d be back on ship in time for this afternoon’s classes. That, of course, meant I’d be with Rachel the rest of the afternoon. It was slightly funny to me that the stunt I was about to pull off wouldn’t be the most dangerous thing I did all day—trying to get Rachel to talk to me could possibly end in way more bloodshed.
I pulled my focus from the Athena sailing ahead of us and, more importantly, who was on her. “Yeah, I’m here,” I said as I walked the short distance to the back of the ski boat. The sea was relatively calm today, which made this possible.
Rachel made this possible.
When her brain had started cranking away at the problem, and I saw the light come on, realized she’d found a solution, I’d remembered how easily I’d fallen in love with her that first time. How perfectly we’d complemented each other.
“Landon!” Pax yelled.
“I’m here, stop fucking yelling,” I said as I buckled my parachute harness on over my life jacket. Little John maneuvered the speeding boat closer to the Athena, the hull bouncing as we hit the largest of the wake. I steadied myself on the back of the passenger seat and slipped my feet into the wakeboard boots, fastening the soft closures.
The neoprene was soft against my skin, and I mentally high-fived myself for wetting it before we’d left the small island just north of the Maldives that had served as our refueling stop.
“You sure you want me to go first?” I asked Pax as I lifted my ass to the side of the boat where the tow bar had been positioned.
“You scared?” He grinned.
“Hell no. I’m just wondering if I’m already on that ship, who’s going to push you out of the boat when you chicken out.”
“You’re an asshole.” He laughed. “And I’m not an idiot. You’re better than me on anything that involves a board. I’ll be watching you to see what the hell I’m supposed to do.”
The camera came around now that I was buckled in and got all the shots Bobby would need of our equipment.
“You ready for this?” Pax asked.
“Hell yes,” I answered. I was about to be the first to do this, which was a bigger rush than the adrenaline alone.
He nodded and slapped my shoulder. “Okay. I’ll see you on board. And don’t forget to send the rope back down once you’re up there,” he joked.
“I got this,” I assured him, seeing the small flicker of apprehension in his eyes. That had never been there before Nick’s accident. He’d never questioned our gear, our safety, our motives. Now, since the sabotage, was a whole different ball game.
This would be the first stunt we’d completed since the shit with Brooke went down.
“Be careful.”
I nodded. “Always.”
He stepped back, and I took two deep, steadying breaths. “You know this is pretty fucking insane, right?”
Pax’s grin returned. “Our specialty.” We passed the Athena at a safe distance, and then Little John killed the engine.
“This should do it. You ready?”
“Ready,” I said.
A fist bump later, I swung the board over the edge and jumped into the Indian Ocean. The water was warmer than I was expecting, but seeing that we were just north of the Maldives, I shouldn’t have been surprised.
Little John maneuvered the ski boat so that the tow rope made it to my hands, and I gripped it tight. We’d moved the tow bar to extend off the side of the boat so it would allow me to wakeboard parallel to the ski boat until I could get hold of the handle on the tow rope that was attached to the Athena.
As I bobbed in the water, careful to keep my board flat against the surface, I glanced behind me to see the Athena coming up on us. If I didn’t know I was about to be yanked out of the water to the exact speed she was going, I might have been a little freaked out.
Okay, there was a giant fucking cruise ship bearing down on me and at least seven cameras catching every angle of my possible demise. I was a tad apprehensive.
“Here we go!” shouted Little John behind the wheel of the boat. I heard the engine kick up as the Athena came along beside us. There were maybe fifty feet between me and the hull.
Holy shit, did I feel small.
The ship passed, and I rose and fell with the ski boat beside me as we rode the large waves of her wake, needing the ship to pull ahead before we could launch.
“Now?” Little John asked.
“Go!” I answered.
The engine responded with a roar, and the ski boat leaped forward. Adrenaline flooded my system like a shot of nitrous oxide to a finely tuned engine. Pulling the tow rope to my chest, I kept steady pressure against the water until we were moving fast enough for me to get onto the surface. Then in one smooth motion, I stood, the water gliding beneath my board as we kept pace with the ship. I motioned toward the back of the Athena, and Little John obliged, turning us toward the rear of the ship, where another rope dragged through the water about fifty feet behind it.
Don’t fuck this up. She’s watching.
She’d sworn she wouldn’t, that she was pretending I didn’t exist for the rest of the trip, according to Leah, who told Pax, who told me like we were back in junior high or some shit, but I knew better.
Rope within reach, I let go of the ski boat’s tow rope with one hand and stretched toward it. My weight tipped my board enough to jostle me, and for a split second I was sure I was about to get a face full of the ocean.
Concentrate.
I blocked out the Athena, Rachel, Pax, everything that owned any piece of my brain besides the water and my board.
It was go time.
Balancing my weight, I grabbed for the rope…and caught it. The sound of cheers from the boat vaguely registered as I slid the rope through my gloved hands slowly, careful to maintain the speed I needed to stay above the water.
I reached the handle and shouted. Holding tightly to the handle of the ship’s tow rope, I let the ski boat rope go. I would have fist pumped in victory if I didn’t know it would land me face-first in the water.
Laughing, I whipped my board to the left, then fantailed and shifted back to the right. Holy shit. I’m wakeboarding behind a fucking cruise ship.
This part was relatively easy compared to what I was about to do, which was scary as shit but equally epic. Locating the carabiner, I pulled the handle to my chest and clipped it to the corresponding hook
on my harness.
“If this doesn’t work, it’s going to really fucking suck,” I muttered to myself. I was locked in, hooked onto the cord that connected to the back of a ship currently going about thirty knots. What could possibly go wrong?
A whole hell of a lot.
Before my brain could go through the hundreds of things that could go wrong—which all included me breaking ankles, legs, a neck—I said a fervent prayer and then pulled the cord for my chute.
A rustle of fabric grew to a roar, and I became the center of a tug-of-war between the Athena and my chute. Every muscle in my body strained to stay upright as the chute deployed.
Don’t hit the water. Don’t hit the water, I begged silently. If my chute took on water, I was fucked. And most likely dead unless I could unsnap fast enough.
I jolted upward as the chute snapped behind me, and air rushed from my lungs in relief. I was airborne. Looking down toward the boat, I saw Pax cheering me on, jumping so high I almost thought he’d go overboard.
“Fuck yes!” I yelled, my arms up in victory.
That was the only moment I gave myself before locating the handles of the parasail as I rose higher, climbing above the height of the Athena. A crowd had gathered near the landing site, and I hoped they’d watch as I set this baby down on the deck—instead of seeing a bloody mess in the propellers below.
For the second time during the stunt, I laughed. Now I was parasailing behind a fucking cruise ship. Unbelievable.
A minute later, with two of the Renegades manning the winch, I started to descend toward the deck. Rachel had been right—her setup was flawless.
Just like she was.
With nothing to do but watch as they reeled me in, I scanned the crowd, looking for her familiar frame, which finally came into focus when I was about thirty feet from the deck.
She came!
Her arms folded across her chest, she bit her lower lip, her worry apparent in every tense line of her gorgeous face as her gaze flickered between me and the winch team. Not only had she come, but she was worried about me.
Clearing the railing by at least five feet, I concentrated on landing. Gabe and Alex, my snowboarding partners, raced forward as my feet hit the deck and unsnapped the chute behind me, letting it catch on the metal railing so it didn’t carry me off the ship again.
Flawless.
I unhooked from the tow rope to the thunderous applause of the crowd. It took all of a minute for Bobby to stick a camera in my face, but I looked past the giant black life sucker and met Rachel’s eyes.
At least ten feet and a dozen or more people separated us as she stood on the steps that led to the next deck, but it felt like we were the only two there, maybe the only two in the world.
I vaguely heard the voices calling to me, asking me how I felt, what the hardest part had been, if I’d been scared, but all I saw was her. For the smallest moment, her eyes weren’t full of hatred but something I was scared to call pride.
“Thank you,” I mouthed, knowing she couldn’t hear me.
A small smile curved her lips, and she nodded once.
A body slammed into me, wrapping its—no, her—arms around my neck. “You did it!”
Zoe’s voice was like ice water through my veins. Of all the fucking timing. I peeled her arms from my neck and smiled down at her—it wasn’t her fault my dick wandered where it shouldn’t have. “I did. Will you help them set up for Pax? They have to get the rope back out there so he can get on the ship.”
She smiled up at me, oblivious to the fact that our time together, if that’s what it was called, was over, and walked away.
When I looked up to Rachel, the cool, closed-off look was back on her face, and I cursed inwardly. She looked away and shook her head, then turned around and walked up the steps.
“Nova, we need you!” Bobby called as he set up an interview station.
I sighed in the direction Rachel had taken, but I wasn’t defeated. For just the smallest moment, I’d seen past the walls she’d built against me. For the tiniest millisecond, we’d been connected again, and it sucked to have lost it, but now I knew it was possible.
She could try to ignore me all she wanted, but somewhere under all that hatred and ice, she was still my Rachel—the same girl who’d snowboarded by my side, planned stunts, and pulled a couple of her own. The same girl I’d given up everything for…only to fuck it all up a few weeks later. But she was still under there. I’d seen it at lunch yesterday, and again today.
I just had to find a way to break through to her.
Chapter Six
Rachel
At Sea
I tapped my pencil on the desk and looked out over the Laccadive Sea as students filtered into the classroom. The floor-to-ceiling windows were incredible. The whole ship, the experience, was phenomenal.
Except for the six-foot-four Adonis who’d just walked into my classroom. Of course he had a blonde batting her eyelashes up at him as he shut the door on the cameraman who had almost followed him in.
I’d nearly made an utter asshat of myself this morning when he landed on the back deck. For that moment, he’d been Landon and we’d been us, and it had all seemed so easy to slip back into that routine. Good thing the leggy brunette latched onto him and broke whatever spell I’d been under.
He had a kind of magnetism that changed the entire atmosphere around him, and I was drawn to him just like before, no different than every other girl on this damn ship. The chemistry between us I could handle, but these memories sucked. I jerked my eyes away from him, but not before I noticed how perfectly his shirt draped over his frame, or the way his cargo shorts hung on his ass. Ugh. How had he managed to get hotter in the last couple of years? He’d lost every trace of the boy he’d been, and all that was left was ridiculously handsome, hard, chiseled man.
“Hi, Nova. Nice stunt today,” the girl behind me said with a soft sigh.
Help me, dear sweet Lord.
He gave her a tight smile but bent in front of my desk. “Rachel.”
I met those hazel eyes and simply arched one of my eyebrows as my heart accelerated to a gallop. I was not talking to him, not opening any form of dialogue that would make a single part of me vulnerable to him. Hell no, you didn’t let the arsonist play with matches.
“Come on,” he begged softly.
It felt like ripping off a Band-Aid slowly, but I managed to look away. I was here to learn, not to deal with Landon.
He sighed, and I nearly cheered in victory when he stood, but then he took the desk next to mine and sat down. Seriously? The guy hadn’t come near me in years and now he had to sit right next to me?
Then he popped the top on a Red Bull and I almost laughed. At least it wasn’t a Gremlin. Watching him suck down one of the energy drinks made by the company my dad worked for would have been too ironic—even if it was the reason we originally met.
“It’s not going to work,” he said, turning in his seat to face me.
I kept my eyes on the professor, who was walking toward the podium.
“I get that you’re still trying to ignore me. It’s okay, I get it. I fucked up in more ways than I can possibly explain. But I don’t need you to talk to me. I just need you to listen.”
My entire body tensed. Was he saying he was sorry?
Don’t fall for his shit again. You’re not that stupid.
Rubbing the wrist I’d broken years ago, I sagged in my chair with relief when the professor started talking.
“Good morning, class,” the red-haired woman said. She looked to be in her midthirties and wore a stylish safari dress and cute wedges. “Welcome back to Cultures of the Pacific 310. I hope you enjoyed your brief break. This is your reminder to check your syllabus for due dates and pay particular attention to when your research paper is due. It’s on a topic of your choice, but it must be approved by me.”
I opened my notebook and then cursed under my breath. I’d forgotten my pen. Nothing like being unprepared.
> “What’s wrong?” Hugo asked, leaning over slightly from my other side.
“I forgot my pen,” I whispered.
“No problem,” he answered quickly, reaching into his binder. I’d only known him a week, but I was immensely thankful for him. Being Leah’s butler the last three months as part of his work-study, he’d taken care of my best friend when I couldn’t. He handed me a pencil with a quick smile.
“Thank you,” I said as a pen landed on my desk.
“You hate pencils,” Landon whispered.
Every muscle in my body locked as my eyes fixated on the blue Bic. How did he remember that?
“You can ignore the pen all you want, but then you’ll just get those giant gray marks along your hand that drive you nuts, and your notes will smudge. Your choice.”
God, he didn’t just remember that I hated pencils, he remembered why.
“It’s just a pen, Rach. Not a contract.”
Like the one you left me holding when I signed that lease.
I debated shunning the damned pen for all of thirty seconds, but when argued against having smudged notes that I wouldn’t be able to read, I gave Hugo back his pencil and picked up the pen.
I focused all of my attention on what Dr. Messina said, taking copious notes, but I felt each and every time Landon’s gaze shifted toward me. There was still a palpable connection between us, as if my body remembered his significance, or maybe just what he was capable of doing with it. Ignoring him had to be like when I’d given up processed sugar.
That first day had been torture. That first week? Agony.
But then I got used to it being gone until I’d learned not to miss it.
Yeah, but you’ve been missing him for the last couple of years.
Years of wondering at what point he’d decided to leave me. Years of wondering if the insane chemistry between us—the undeniable craving to be close to each other—was something I’d imagined. It’s not. Feel that energy between you, that hum that’s ready to be cranked up to a million watts? Yeah, it’s still right there.
Nova (The Renegades #2) Page 5