by Amelia Wilde
The shore has never seemed so close and so far at the same time.
I’m close enough to reach out and grab her ankle, but she’s kicking so powerfully I don’t even begin to dare. I push harder, lungs screaming, water fighting back, and we both pop up out of the lake at the same time. Eva runs through the water, knees high. “I won!” she shouts breathlessly, turning to point at me. “I won!”
Her bikini top has ridden up over one peaked nipple, her cheeks are pink, and she looks so fucking radiantly happy, her hair dripping wet. She’s beaming. It’s not a conscious decision I make—I realize that—because the next thing I know, we’re running toward each other through the water. I hate it, a little bit, for dragging me back.
But the collision—holy God, it’s glorious. All wet skin and slipping suits, and I reach down and tug the bikini down. Eva squeals, feeling what I’m doing, and my lips are on hers. She tastes like toothpaste and victory, and she’s kissing me back so hard it verges on a bite. How risky would it be to fuck her on the sand, on a towel, right here?
Somebody whistles.
It sounds close enough to be right behind me, but when I turn around, it’s three guys in a fishing boat, the sound carrying over the water. They’re out past the buoy, shouting and cheering and catcalling. “We see you!” The moment the sound hits us, Eva flinches away from me, her hand going to her mouth, the sound of her legs moving through the water one of the sadder things in my life.
Mood shattered.
I go after her and the guys on the boat clap, the sound echoing off the cabin, and I no longer give a shit what they’re saying. Eva moves fast across the sand to her towel, snatches it up, and shakes it out. Then she wraps it around herself like it’s chainmail. One stony glance back out at the guys in the boat and she heads for the cabin.
I sweep up my own towel at a run and manage to catch her by the elbow. My heart is still pounding with the effort of the swim. “What’s wrong?”
She puts on a smile as fake as I’ve ever seen. “I’m supposed to be working, right? Writing. That’s why you brought me here.”
“That’s one reason, but it’s not—”
“I’ll race you,” she says quickly, the smile shifting, becoming genuine.
“Race me to what? The cabin’s fifteen feet away.”
Eva looks up into my face. “You must have work, too. I saw your laptop bag. What kind of job is it?” Another thought crosses her mind. “It’s Sunday, so you must…you must work online, or from home.”
“I’m a fact-checker.” The actual title is fancier than that, but it doesn’t matter. And it’s not the whole truth, but...that’s for another time.
“So I’ll race you.” Eva’s eyes are bright. “I’ll get something done, before you can, or else....”
“Or else winner takes all.”
Eva stops dead and searches my eyes.
I’m serious.
“Deal,” she says.
9
Eva
I might have overreacted to the guys on the boat.
Okay. I definitely overreacted to the guys on the boat.
They were just a collection of human assholes out to have a nice fishing trip. And who knows? Maybe they were trying to applaud our human resiliency. It’s not easy to make out like that after an intense competition.
I overreacted, but it was such a sudden reminder of the consequences. Which, honestly, could be pretty devastating. Life has taught me that much.
And now I’ve challenged Ben to a writer’s retreat.
I’ve never been on a writer’s retreat before. My agent has fielded a few invites for me and so has my editor, but I’ve never gone. I know how women can get, late at night when the wine is flowing, and I don’t have a story to tell. No, I have a story to tell. It’s not one I want to speak out loud, late at night when the wine is flowing. It’s too heavy for moments like that. And then… what happens then? It brings everybody together. You let people in. And once they’re close to me, who knows what could happen?
This is a huge reason why I moved to New York City. It’s huge and anonymous and the odds that I might meet someone are slim. I don’t know what’s worse, actually. Getting bogged down with someone who only wants me for my success—which, ha—or falling for someone it’ll hurt like death itself to lose.
Not to mention Bennett, and his eyes on me, and his hands on me, and the way he kisses me like we might never kiss again.
Well. I’ve challenged him to a work race, and now I’m going to deliver. I saw the look in those eyes when he said winner takes all.
I press my thighs together, denim between my legs. I went directly inside the cabin and changed into a light off-the-shoulder sweatshirt over my favorite tank top and a pair of denim cutoffs. All of it is comfortable enough to write in. And, after running into the water like that, my head is clearer than it’s been in months.
It’s easier to think out here, away from the city.
In one way.
But in another way...
The thought of Bennett inside the house makes my skin heat. The way his fingers brushed over my nipple when he tugged my suit down for me, it makes me lightheaded. He could have torn it off, for all I cared in that moment, but instead, he shielded me from additional embarrassment. Those guys on the boat would have loved that.
And...
I want to see what it means when he’s the winner. I want to see what it means when he takes all. But then I’d have to give in, and giving in like that is hard to face. The thought of letting someone get that close, so close they could see all the terrible things about me….
I’ve got to focus.
I sit up straight and open a fresh Word document.
I normally write in a separate program, but seeing the icon makes me anxious, so it’s back to the basics. My meditation app on my phone would tell me to look gently upon my surroundings, so I take a deep breath in, let it out, and consider the lawn.
It really is beautiful here. The neatly tended grass. The thin strip of clean sand, and the blue water. Another fishing boat trawls by out in the deep, but it looks like one guy is in it, and from this distance it seems almost peaceful. The summer breeze stirs my hair, and—as the app would also tell me to do—I feel the weight of my body in the chair, which is also connected to the earth. As lawn chairs go, this one is pretty nice. If I had a balcony back at my apartment, I might even get one to put out there.
Or I could keep coming here with Bennett.
Recognize the thought and let it go.
Focus.
I bring my eyes peacefully back to my laptop screen and put my fingers to the keyboard.
I’ve got to write something. That’s the entire point of this. I asked Bennett for help with writer’s block, and he pulled a white knight and whisked me away to a secret fortress in the form of a summer cabin. And if I can work here, if I can get something on paper, I can flesh out the story I’ve been telling Kayla, my editor. She’s a pretty no-nonsense person. Good to the bone, and hilarious too. A consummate professional. But she’s going to be pissed about the fact that I lied to her this entire time. The only thing to do now is turn it into a little bit less of a lie.
Shit.
How do I do this? I’ve written two books so far, and started a lot of others, and every time I start a new book, I feel completely virginal and incapable of figuring out the basics.
What I need is an ending. In this way, Ben was right. If I know the ending, I could work backward to the beginning. But in order to know the ending, I need to know who’s involved, which circles me right back to the beginning.
I close my eyes and focus on my breath. My mind quickly wanders away to the sound of the wind chime on the breeze, the waves lapping at the sand, and—is that Bennett typing inside? He’s definitely beating me. Is he also looking at me? I love the way this sweatshirt makes my shoulders look. He’d probably want to tug it down to see more, and in the process, he could plant a kiss against my collarbone. And then he
’d look at me, with those coppery brown eyes, and he would see everything I needed. I wouldn’t need to say a single word. He’d lift me in those muscled arms of his, and we would not pass go, we would not collect two hundred dollars, we would proceed directly to bed.
Which is not the beginning of a thriller. With Ben, it’s the beginning of a romance novel. If I could get out of my own way and let it happen.
I hope he can’t see me right now. My breath has gone quick and shallow, and I open my eyes and stare out at the water.
Imagine being plunged into cold water, I tell myself firmly. Like before, when you and Ben were—
Everything leads back to him.
If Whitney were here, she would look at me with that expression of hers that says Eva, the world is but a circus, and we are players in it or some other weird saying, but the conversation would end with her telling me to take Bennett Powell to bed, in no uncertain terms.
And I would.
Except I challenged him to a race that I’m currently losing.
See? This is what happens when you’re high on victory. You end up practically jumping a guy in the middle of the lake, and then some asshole in a boat interrupts you, and then you have to rechallenge him again to something you’re no question going to lose.
I grit my teeth and close my eyes again.
A character. Any character. Any woman, really. I tend to write about women finding themselves in extraordinarily bad situations.
Hello? I call into the writer’s blocked reaches of my mind. I would really like to see where things go with Bennett, and I can’t unless a character shows up right now.
And just like that, there she is.
A woman who looks like me, only she has long, chestnut locks.
Like my sister had.
She could be me, if it weren’t for the hair, and the eyes. The shape of our faces would be similar.
But she’s not me.
She’s looking for something, and that search will take her into danger. A danger that will make my readers’ hearts pound with fear for her. And why is she looking? Go back, go back.
She needs the money.
A student, maybe.
Now she has a backpack slung over one shoulder.
A college student. Alone. And why is she alone? Why can’t she ask her family for the money?
No family.
Now we’re getting somewhere.
In a burst of inspiration, I write Chapter One at the top of the document.
Well, maybe she does have a family. I don’t know. My last heroine didn’t have a dad.
I’ve never subscribed to the wisdom that a person should write only what they know. My life has never been like a psychological thriller, except for one similarity, which isn’t really a similarity to thrillers. It’s just how life is.
Suddenly, I’m wending my way down a train of thought involving life imitating art and art imitating life, and I jump when the door of the cabin slams open behind me.
Footsteps muffled by the grass.
And then Ben comes into view with a triumphant grin on his face.
“I win.”
10
Bennett
She freezes, going absolutely still except for the loose strands of hair floating on the breeze. Maybe we’ve gone as far as this little game is going to take us. Maybe we’re on the verge of something else entirely. So many things are flashing through her green eyes that I can’t pin any one of them down.
Eva takes in a breath, shallow and quick, and then I see it.
Excitement.
This can go one of two ways.
I lay down another challenge. Another chance for her to claim victory, if she can. Or admit defeat, if that’s how she wants to play this.
Personally, I hope she goes down fighting.
“Here’s what I’ve done.” I open my own laptop and flip the screen toward her. My submitted assignment for this week’s project has been date-stamped. “Show me yours.” I crack a smile that has a deep blush covering her cheeks in an instant. “It’s only fair.”
Eva screws her mouth up into something between a smirk and a pout and turns her screen toward mine.
On the screen is a Word document.
At the top of the page, she’s written Chapter One.
That’s all.
“Seen enough yet?” Eva asks, her voice high and tight.
“I haven’t seen nearly enough.” I close her laptop with one hand and put mine on top of it, and then I place both palms on the arms of the lawn chair. I lean in close. Close enough to smell her shampoo and the sunscreen she carefully applied before she came out here in that little bikini. Close enough that I can hear her short little breaths, almost panting, when I murmur our agreement into her ear. “Winner takes all.”
“Where are you going to take me?”
I let my breath play over the shell of her ear and watch the tilt of her head, almost imperceptible, toward my lips.
And then I give her the answer.
“Lunch.”
Eva’s giddy, a sparkling energy settling over her skin. She leans back in the passenger seat of the rental car and puts her bare feet up on the dash. I don’t know if she’s relieved that I haven’t taken her to bed or impatient for it. Knowing what I know of her, it’s a combination of both.
But first, we have to eat.
There’s a tiny-ass town fifteen minutes down the road. The lake sits up high, surrounded by hills, so we follow their natural curves through deep woods. My phone goes in and out of service, so I’m relying on road signs to get us there.
A break in the trees gives us a stunning view of the lake, all diamond lights flickering on the surface, and Eva gasps. “Look at that!”
She points, and I steal a quick glance.
It’s a regatta, a bunch of sailboats skimming over the deep water.
She cranes her neck and presses her face to the window as if that’ll help her see through the trees. “Oh, that is such a sight,” Eva says. “All of them chasing each other like that.”
It’s weird, the things she’s delighted by, but what the hell? If she wants to find joy in watching these boats rush across the lake, then I won’t stand in her way. She’s got to relax if she’s going to get anywhere with her book.
Or with me.
At the next break in the trees, I pull off the road. It’s a wide shoulder, not exactly a roadside stop, but there’s enough room for our car, plus a guardrail to lean on.
“Are you stopping?” Eva asks, even though clearly, I am.
“Don’t you want to see who wins the race?”
Eva beams at me, clicks the button of her seatbelt, and hops out of the car.
A minute later, we’re standing at the guardrail, watching the boats hurtle across our view.
“How are we supposed to know which one is the winner?” Eva asks.
“No idea.” She laughs at my answer, and I put my hand on the small of her back. She presses back into my palm and I linger in that little shock of pleasure. “I don’t know how they score regattas. All I know is they used to have one every week all summer where I grew up.”
I feel her notice that, even if I keep my eyes on the sailboats. Neither of us has offered up much to the other, but here’s what I know about getting the facts: you have to be willing to give some up too.
“Where did you grow up?” Eva’s tone is cautious, casual, as if she knows where this kind of thing might lead.
We might end up knowing too much about each other.
And as much as I want to postpone the inevitable fallout that will happen when she finally understands how deeply I follow things, I have to know more about her too.
“Michigan. A little town in—”
A truck horn blares not far off, so loud it seems to shake the trees.
Eva whips her head toward the noise. “Way out here?”
“Probably making a delivery to town.” I press my hand more firmly into the small of her back. I can hear the truck
on the road now; I was paying attention to her before. It’s heavy, rumbling, and for an instant the noise melds with the sound of that Humvee in Afghanistan. That day, Wes Sullivan was driving, and Dayton Nash was up front with him. We’d been going to scout a village. “Look at those fuckers run,” Wes had said shortly before the explosion rocked the front of the Humvee. Dayton lost a leg that day. I lost my ability to focus on anything but getting answers. Why had we been there? Who had planted the IED? It was supposed to be a safe route. Vetted. And it wasn’t.
That doesn’t matter now. I’ve worked through that story for long enough that it doesn’t pull me under and into the memory. Instead, I’m hyperaware of the differences between then and now. Then, the wheels of the Humvee had kicked up rocks. The road was full of them. Made of them. The truck is on pavement. There’s a screech that seems out of place.
I’m on full alert.
The truck isn’t in sight, and then the next moment, it is, barreling into view around a sharp turn. The turn had been nothing in the little rental car. But the truck is going too fast.
What the hell?
“Ben,” Eva says, and I don’t look down at her, because I can’t take my eyes off the truck.
The front of it is covered in bugs, and it’s filthy, as if the driver got lost on a dirt road and only now found himself out on the little two-lane highway. The sun glints off the windshield, blocking him from view, and then the truck wrenches to the side and I see him.
He has one hand on the wheel, but he’s leaned over at a funny angle. Like he’s digging for something on the floor.
The man driving the truck has a bloody nose.
It’s running down his face and onto the shirt, so he must be grabbing for tissues.
The truck is close enough to see his eyes.
And the look in his eyes is enough to send a wave of ice through my core.
He doesn’t see us.