When I finally pushed open the doors at the house, I shook the sand off my feet and headed straight for the room. While I got my overnight bag out of the closet and started packing, I also pulled up the bus schedules on my phone.
There was a stop not far away from here that went to the main terminal in town. The next bus to Raleigh departed in a little over three hours, which gave me enough time to finish packing, wait for Tristin, tell him I was leaving, and get there on time.
It was tempting to just text him to let him know I was going home, but I couldn’t do it. Not after everything we’d been through and the way I’d broken up with him the first time around. He deserved better than that this time.
A proper explanation and an actual goodbye.
Of course, I didn’t know how long he’d still be at the party. If I had to, I’d text him for now and talk to him in person once he got back, but it would be a cleaner break if we could both just leave it all behind us right along with the memories of this weekend and what it might’ve been.
I’d never just leave without a word, so once I was packed, I set my bag down by the front door and reclined on the couch with my phone. I pulled up an e-book on my reading app and tried my best to get lost in the world the author had created.
Thoughts of Tristin kept me from becoming completely immersed in the story, but at least reading helped pass the time. Sooner than I’d thought he might be back, I heard his car in the drive, and then the door banged open.
He stormed into the room with a wild expression on his face, his eyes wide and his hair standing up as if he’d been tugging at it. His chest was heaving, and he was muttering under his breath. A frown tugged at my brows. I was wondering what had happened to make him look this way when his darting gaze finally spotted me as I sat up on the couch.
“Brittany. Fuck. You scared me,” he said, rushing over and sinking down to his knees in front of me. “I thought you’d be gone. Archer told me you’d just come back here, but I thought…”
As he trailed off, he blew out a deep breath and scrubbed his hands over his face. He must’ve seen my bag at the door with the movement, because panic suddenly blew his eyes wide open again, and he grabbed both my hands, looking up at me imploringly.
“Don’t leave, Brit,” he murmured, a dark, stormy gaze fixed on mine as he tightened his hold on my fingers. “Please don’t leave. I made a mistake by not telling you about the party earlier, and then I made an even bigger one by taking you when you so clearly didn’t want to go.”
“I’m never going to fit into your world, Tristin.” I turned my hands in his so our palms were pressed together, my voice quivering as I tried to say what I needed to. My pain shone from his eyes as he stared up at me, putting together what I was about to say before I’d even said it.
“Don’t do this, baby,” he said, literally begging on his knees. “Don’t leave me again. We’re just getting started. I don’t give a fuck about that world. You are my world. Please stay. I’ll make it up to you. I promise. Just give me a chance to do it.”
I inhaled deeply, struggling with the fact that he was on his knees for me. My heart was pounding, pleading with me to do what he wanted and stay. In the back of my mind, however, I saw Selena’s sneer when she saw me walking into her home. I saw the way those people had looked me up and down, and I remembered how it had all made me feel like I’d never be good enough.
“I’ll stay,” I said finally, cautiously deciding to listen to my heart instead of my head. “I’ll stay here with you for the rest of the weekend, but I want you to really think about it, Tristin. Think about your duties to your family and the company. Think about those people you do business with and what their expectations of you are. Think about your future and what you want out of it. Think about everything, and then let me know once you’ve decided.”
“I don’t need to think about it,” he said firmly, his chin up and his shoulders open wide. His eyes bored into mine with fierce determination and absolute resoluteness in them. “Coming back was me fulfilling my duty and meeting their expectations. We have nothing to do with that, and we never will. The only thing I want out of my future is to build a life with you. You are my world, Brittany. Nothing will ever change that.”
25
TRISTIN
Brittany had been about to leave. Not just the beach house, but me. The packed overnight bag at the door had made her intentions about the coast obvious, but that wasn’t what’d made me feel like I couldn’t breathe.
It had been the look in her eyes that had made that old crack in my heart open right back up. That look was the same one I’d seen fifteen years ago when she’d stood in front of me and torn me to shreds.
When I’d seen it again last night, I’d been sure that no amount of pleading would convince her to stay. But I’d known that I had to try anyway. I’d have given her whatever she wanted in that moment, but it hadn’t surprised me when she didn’t ask for anything.
All she wanted was that I had to think about things. None of which required any thought as far as I was concerned.
What had surprised me was that she’d agreed to stay. She was giving me the chance to earn her forgiveness for that fucking party, and I was going to make sure that today was extra special. Just because she’d agreed to stay for the weekend didn’t mean I wouldn’t lose her as soon as we got back to Raleigh. I would do everything in my power to prevent that from happening.
The first step was showing her that the world I came from wasn’t all bad. Sure, a lot of the people were rotten, but the world itself had its perks. One of those perks was the reason I was up early, standing in my pajama pants on the deck outside with my phone pressed to my ear and a cup of coffee in my other hand.
“The sun hasn’t even risen properly yet,” my dad said cheerfully when he answered my call. “You’re lucky I haven’t been able to get out of my routine just yet. It turns out that waking up at 4:00 a.m. for the past forty or so years isn’t a habit that’s easy to break.”
I chuckled, bringing my cup up to my lips but replying before I took a sip. “I wouldn’t have called if I didn’t know you’d already be awake. How are you feeling? The party didn’t take too much out of you, did it?”
“Parties have always drained me,” he said dismissively. “They’ve always been more your mother’s scene than mine, but you already know that. I’m more interested in finding out why my favorite son is calling me at the break of dawn.”
“I’m your only son,” I said lightly, smiling as I looked out over the calm blue water and the gulls lazily circling above it. “It looks like it’s going to be another nice day. I was wondering if you guys are planning on taking the yacht out.”
“The yacht?” He sounded surprised. “No. I honestly hadn’t even considered it. I’m not sure I’m up for more action today after the hive of activity that’s been going on in this house since we’ve arrived.”
“Could I take it out, then? I’ll just need you to send me the contact details for the crew, but I’ll set everything up myself.”
“It’s yours,” he agreed easily. “I’ll text you the details. You haven’t been out on that thing for years. Even before you left, you weren’t very taken with it. May I ask why you’re suddenly so eager to go out on the water?”
I sighed, running my hand through my hair and squeezing the nape of my neck. “I’m trying to make up for a mistake I made with Brittany. I thought a cruise would be a good place to start.”
“Brittany? I thought I caught a glimpse of her yesterday, but when I looked again, she was gone. A cruise is always a good place to start groveling. I don’t know what you did, but you have my full support in trying to make it up to her. I’ve always liked that girl. Let me know if you need anything else.”
We said our goodbyes and hung up, my phone beeping with an incoming text from him not thirty seconds later. I dialed the number he’d sent next, set everything up for the day, then finished my coffee and went back inside.
; The chef had sent over a basket containing freshly baked croissants, cold cuts, and cheeses, along with some fruit and yogurt. I’d found it on our doorstep after I woke up.
Warming up the croissants while I made us each a plate, I poured some orange juice from the fridge into glasses and added those to the tray as well, and then I took her breakfast in bed. She was just waking up when I walked in, sitting in bed with her arms stretched out above her head and her eyes closed as she yawned.
When they blinked open and she saw me standing there, she gave me a soft smile and dropped her hands back to her lap. Her hair was loose and hanging in messy waves to her shoulders, she had the sheet draped around her hips, and she had on a pale purple nightdress that brought out the darker hues in her eyes.
“You’re fucking gorgeous,” I said, then smiled back at her. “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”
She nodded, moaning softly as she breathed in the scent of the croissants when I set the tray down on her lap. The sound went straight to my dick, rousing the fucker in an instant. I breathed through it, moving around the bed to climb back in next to her.
“Good morning,” she said, leaning over to plant a soft kiss on the bare skin of my shoulder before straightening out again. “What did I do to deserve breakfast in bed? I could’ve come to help.”
“Help me take stuff out of a basket and pop croissants into the oven?” I shook my head. “I might not be able to work miracles in a kitchen, but I can manage that.”
“It looks delicious.” She added some of the cold meats and cheese to her croissant. “It’s a good thing we’re not staying here longer. If this chef keeps providing my meals, I’ll be rolling sooner rather than later.”
“I can always offer him a job back at home if you like his food so much,” I suggested, then laughed when she rolled her eyes at me. “What? I like spoiling you.”
“What’s on our agenda for today?” she asked instead of arguing about me spoiling her. I took it as a good sign.
“I’ve got a surprise for you. All you need is your swimsuit and whatever you want to wear over it for the drive there and back. I’ve got the rest covered, but we also need to pack our bags. We won’t be coming back here.”
“I don’t have any of those fancy cover-ups,” she warned. “Is it a shorts and a T-shirt kind of surprise, or will I be underdressed again if I go in that?”
“Shorts and a T-shirt is perfect. It’ll just be us, and I won’t make that mistake again,” I said earnestly. “Next time there’s any chance that dressing up might be required, I’ll tell you in advance. For the record, I really did think you looked beautiful yesterday. Better than anyone else there, but I acknowledge I made a mistake.”
“It’s not only about what I was wearing,” she said quietly, her eyes rooted on her plate. “That was only the cherry on top.”
“I know.” I reached out, sliding my finger underneath her chin and applying gentle pressure until she lifted it to look at me. “Trust me, I know. Even Archer reamed me about springing it on you. I really am sorry.”
“If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t still be here.” She breathed in, smiled, and went back to her food. “Let’s just put what happened with the party behind us for now. I’m still not sure if or how we’ll be able to juggle a relationship with each other with the responsibilities you have in those circles, but I really don’t want to think about it right now.”
“Then we won’t think about it,” I said. “The last thing I’m going to say on the subject is, again, that I don’t give a flying fuck what anybody else thinks. Their decisions about whether or not they do business with American Aviation has nothing to do with my personal life. As for said personal life, I’ve never been friends with any of those people, young or old, and I don’t intend on starting now.”
“You make it sound so simple.” She screwed her eyes shut for a moment before opening them again. “Do you really believe it could be that simple?”
“I do, because it is. It’s my reality now, and it always has been. Now eat your damn food, woman. I have some making up to do.”
She laughed, and we stuck to lighter topics while we finished our breakfast and got dressed. When we got to the marina, I gave her a tour of the yacht and relished the look of awe on her face as she explored.
The boat was big but not massive. There were snacks, drinks, and food on board, and we stood side by side at the railing on the deck as we set off. We headed out to open water, stopping at an area where we could swim.
Brittany was back in that bikini that drove me crazy, but I tamped down on the need I felt for her and focused on having fun. We had a picnic on the deck and took a nap in the sunshine, talked, laughed, and kissed every chance we got.
It was another perfect day, and all the tension that had settled over us because of the party melted away as if it had never existed in the first place. I knew she still had her doubts, but I would keep working at overcoming them.
The crew set up a romantic candlelit dinner for us when the sun started setting, and Brittany snuggled into my side while we ate. She smiled up at me, her head resting on my shoulder as we sipped on our red wine once we were done.
“Thank you for today. You really didn’t need to go through all this effort, but I appreciate everything you did.”
“Anything for you.” I kissed the top of her head, then lay my own back against the padded cushioning of the bench we were on.
The stars were bright out here, a sparkling blanket overhead that reminded me of all the times we’d gone up to the roof of her parents’ house as teenagers. “I didn’t look at the stars much while I was gone.”
She frowned, confusion clouding her eyes before she glanced up at the sky. “Okay? That seems weird, considering you spent all that time soaring among them.”
“Yeah, I know. You’d think I’d have taken more notice of them, but I didn’t. I was always too focused on whatever the mission was.”
“Well, I suppose that’s normal,” she said. “Good, even. If you hadn’t been focused on the missions, you might’ve gotten hurt.”
“True, but that wasn’t really the point I was trying to make.” My arm was around her shoulder, and I stroked her skin with my fingertips while my mind worked. “When I did slow down, whether it was during our downtime or even on our way back to the base, I purposely avoided looking at them because they made me think about you.”
“The stars make you think about me?”
“With all that time we spent on your roof looking at them, how could they not?” I let out a low, humorless chuckle. “Avoiding them became second nature to me eventually. It just hurt me too much to think about you at first, so I shut it all down. I’ve missed you so fucking much, Brit. I didn’t even know how much was missing from my life until I saw you again. I didn’t realize how much I’d shut down and shut out until now.”
“I never meant to do that to you,” she whispered, turning her head to press a soft kiss to the hollow of my throat. “You’ve always loved the stars. I never meant to take them away from you. In fact, I kind of always figured you were happier among them than you ever would’ve been with me.”
“Never,” I promised, shifting so I could look at her and cup her face in my hands. “I’ll never be happier anywhere else than I am when I’m with you. The rest of it is all just bullshit and noise, baby. Let’s not get lost in the bullshit or drown in the noise. Not ever again.”
When I bent my head slowly and slanted my lips over hers, I poured all my emotion into the kiss. So many feelings rattled around inside me that I finally understood why kissing was deemed by some to be so powerful. This was me, opening myself up to her in ways I’d never even known I could open up, and I didn’t even need to say anything to do it.
It was all right there in the way we devoured each other with the stars I could suddenly see again as our only audience. The stars I hoped she wouldn’t take away from me by really leaving again.
26
BRITTANY
There was something happening between us that I couldn’t describe. Something so powerful that it was painfully breaking me apart piece by piece before putting me back together again and leaving nothing but joy in its wake.
This was that moment people wrote books about. Sang songs about. Made movies about. The moment of absolute clarity when a person became a part of someone else. It was the happy-ending moment, the happily ever after moment, but our story was nowhere near finished. Nowhere near the point where anyone could or would declare that we would live happily ever after in the end.
There were so many things still up in the air between us that I didn’t even know if we would ever get to that point. Tristin said all the right things, and I knew he meant every word, but what stood between us wasn’t even about us. It never really had been.
It was about society, and responsibility, and expectations. It was about whether we fit together as well as we thought we did despite all the broken pieces that had shattered under all the various pressures we’d faced.
But that was the thing about this kiss. That was part of what made the dismantling of the pieces so painful, but what made it feel so darn good when they came together again. It was because right now, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we did fit together as well as we thought we did.
It might not make sense to people, but that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because, in this moment, I finally really understood one of my favorite quotes. Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same.
Bad For You Page 17