by Bromberg, K
“I’m fine, Hayes. Just tired is all.”
“Hmm.” He gives a non-committal sound that makes me scrunch my nose because I know he’s trying to figure out what’s going through my mind.
“Can you open the door, please?”
“What is your biggest fear about this weekend?”
What? The question comes out of nowhere and I hate that my immediate thought is that he means in regards to us. But that’s the crazy talking and once I rein it in, I know he’s referring to Mitch and Sweet Cheeks.
“I told you earlier at the beach. It’s not so much a fear but more my need to prove to them all that I made the right decision. Because if the women in Starbucks were speaking truthfully and if Ryder’s and your hunches are correct, this is what I have to do in order to give my business the chance it deserves to succeed.”
“Do you still love him?”
His question is unexpected and shocks me enough that I whip my head up to meet his eyes. I immediately wish I hadn’t. The porch light is bright and there’s no way I can hide the truth in my eyes from him.
“No.”
“Hmm.”
I don’t know if he believes me. The furrow of his brow and his unrelenting stare tell me otherwise.
“Six years is a long time to be with someone, love them, and then turn the love off like a switch.”
How do I explain to him that while I no longer love Mitch, I can love some of the memories we had together? That there will always be those shared experiences that I’ll look at fondly, but do I still love Mitch? No. I don’t think so.
“I just want my life back to normal,” I whisper, hoping he might be able to understand that. Needing him to be satisfied and leave me be.
His brown eyes hold an empathy I’m not sure I deserve, considering I’m the one who caused all of these changes. “What do you mean by normal?”
“I don’t know anymore.” I shake my head, thankful for the change in topic, and try to explain. “Since Mitch and I split, my life’s been in chaos. The moving out and starting over. The endless hours I spend in the bakery to try and make it work. It’s exhausting and yet I love every single minute of it so I’m not sure how to answer that.” It’s lonely. Not the everyday part because I’m so very happy with my choices, but rather the loneliness associated with not having someone to cuddle with at the end of the night and share stories about my day. I leave that part out.
“Would you change any part of it?”
He asks the question that I know I can answer without hesitation. “No.”
His smile is slight, but there. A nod of his head. A rub of his hand up and down my spine in encouragement.
“Then maybe you’re finding that new normal.”
Saylor
There’s nothing like waking up to the sun shining and the crash of waves on the beach outside my window. I let myself be lazy. I doodle in my notebook over new potential varieties of cupcakes.
At some point I hear Hayes on the phone somewhere in the house. I’m immediately irritated that he turned his cell on when we’d agreed to unplug. But when I set down my notebook to go say something, I notice the red light blinking on the Villa’s phone. The line is being used. So technically he’s not breaking the rules since he’s on the landline.
I glare at it for a minute. So typical of Hayes to skirt the rules but not break them. He hasn’t changed a bit and why does knowing that bring a stupid smile to my lips?
I figure I’ll let it slide. He’s probably negotiating a bazillion-dollar contract or something so who am I to interfere? Business being done in paradise. I pick up my pad again and start to write just as his voice gets louder. He sounds irritated. Frustrated. Adamant. Snippets of his conversation float down the hall. I overhear him talk about how his public image is taking a hit and then carry on about not giving a shit about the ironclad non-disclosure agreement. How he refuses to play the game anymore.
I’m intrigued at first. Hayes has never been one to rile easily so I’m curious what has him so heated. But then again, my knowledge comes from the teenager I used to know; maybe the fuse of his temper has shortened with age.
Feeling guilty for eavesdropping, I busy myself with a shower and then change the polish on my toes to a brighter color. I enjoy my quiet peace, private space, and the breeze blowing in the window. I even contemplate taking a jog on the beach . . . but since my toenails are still tacky I don’t want to ruin the polish. Besides, I’m on vacation, and exercise is work.
Then I’m brought back to reality and that this isn’t really a vacation. I’m here for a reason. I’m also most likely hiding out in my room to avoid Hayes since I made a fool out of myself last night. And while he may never have known my thoughts, I sure as heck did, and that in itself warrants feeling embarrassed.
But isn’t he just as much to blame as I was? Holding me close? Looking at me with that unrelenting intensity in his eyes? Yes. It was definitely all his fault. Ha. At least that’s what I’ll keep telling myself to justify my overreaction and wistful longing last night.
Hell, I have three more days of sharing the same space with Hayes. Of being around him and trying not to feel confused every time he looks at me. Or smiles at me. Or calls me Ships Ahoy.
Hayes Whitley twists me up like a Rubik’s cube. He did way back when and still does now. He’s changed me. Turned that naïve, solid-color blocked puzzle I once was and left me scattered all over the place. I’m a mix of emotions when it comes to him. And no matter how hard I’ve tried to get back to that solid state I was before him, I know I never will.
He’s left his fingerprint on me, marking me with invisible ink.
And being here is like stepping under a black light. Every single one of those scars becomes visible, brought to light so I can’t ignore them anymore.
Forcing me to face them once and for all.
I take my time getting ready. Fight the endless flyaway hairs from the humidity until I give up and just pull my hair back into a clip. After adding some mascara and lip gloss, I lather on the sunblock, unsure what adventure The Captain has for me today.
Just like that, he brings a silly smile to my face, even when he’s not in front of me. It’s like old times. When I’d wake up on summer break and he’d be at the front door, telling Ryder and me what adventures we were going on for the day.
And as if on cue, I hear him shout through the closed door. I can’t make out any words, but hear more than just a growl of frustration. Finally, my curiosity prevails and I leave my room to go satisfy it.
I hear his voice immediately and can see him out on the patio from where I stand in the hallway. He’s turned sideways, body obscured by the pillar, face angled as he talks to someone.
“Did you really think I’d give in so easily? Walk away without a fight?” He shakes his head and laughs but there’s no amusement in it.
Keeping against the wall, I take a step closer, craning my neck to see who he’s speaking to, but I can’t see or hear whoever it is.
“You don’t get it, do you? I begged, borrowed, and lied to get this chance again. To stand here in front of you one more time. To right my wrongs. To make you see why I am, can’t—SHIT!” There’s a bang as he hits his fist against the side of the pillar. His sigh is loud, his frustration evident in the sound alone. He steps back, and I can see him fully now. Board shorts, no shirt, a baseball cap slung low over his forehead with dark hair curling out at the back, and blue sheets of paper in his hand.
“Hayes?” I step out from my spot in the hallway and into the great room. His head snaps up at the sound of my voice through the opened pocket doors. He blushes immediately and it gives me pause because I don’t think I’ve ever seen Hayes Whitley blush.
Be still my heart. Because Confident Hayes is one thing, but Shy Hayes? That’s a whole other stratosphere of attraction. Like I’m-screwed type of attraction.
But then I remember him being embarrassed means I’ve caught him with someone or doing something and now I
feel like an idiot. Serves me right for being nosy.
“Hey.” He sets the papers in his hand down and leans against the pillar behind him. His smile soothes away my unease.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you and . . .” My voice fades off as I step out onto the patio and am surprised to find no one else out there.
He laughs at the perplexed look on my face. “Sorry. I was running lines and got frustrated trying to figure out how to play this scene.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I thought . . . never mind.” When I look back up from where he just hung his thumbs into his board shorts—my mind temporarily dazed by the abs and happy trail and the V—our eyes meet and hold.
Something about the fact that he actually has to practice at his craft kind of throws me. He’s always been perfect at everything he tries first time around and the notion that he is practicing, rehearsing, tells me he truly does care about what he does. That he takes it seriously. It’s such a change from the fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants mentality he used to have.
Practice before baseball try-outs? Of course not. And then he made starting lineup. Study before his final exams? Why would he? He aced them anyway.
So I just stare at him as the realization hits home: he’s the same boy I once knew and yet so very different. He’s matured. Changed. But in a good way.
Luckily he speaks and interrupts my overthinking. “I usually run them with my PA. She’s an aspiring actress.” He rolls his eyes as if everyone is in his life. “Rehearsing is hard when it’s one-sided.”
“Can I help?” His face reflects the same shock that I feel in asking.
He stifles a laugh but lets the lopsided smile spread across his lips and studies me. “You want to help?”
“Don’t sound so shocked, Whitley. I know I can’t act worth a shit, but I’ll help if you need me to. What’s the movie about?” I step closer, the breeze hitting my face and the view catching my breath momentarily as if I’d forgotten the paradise outside.
His lopsided grin turns sly. “It’s a romantic suspense project. This scene . . . is about the main characters. They’ve fought their attraction for what feels like a lifetime.”
“Why would you fight it?” The question is off my lips before I can pull it back, and it earns me a quirk of his eyebrow.
“Good question.” He shrugs, his gaze never wavering. “The way I see it, sometimes things happen in life and love’s put on hold. But if someone’s your soul mate, nothing is going to stop you from being together in the end.”
His words throw me. This introspective opinion so unexpected. The notion that I know him, and yet don’t know him, becomes more and more clear. It makes me want to talk to him that much more. Understand who he’s grown into. See the depth in his thoughts. The maturity in his opinions. Sure I loved him before. Loved the teenager he was—playful, loyal, sincere, funny—but I’ve changed and matured too. The things I look for in a man have evolved with that. Insight. Compassion. Security. Character. Integrity. All of those things in a man are important to me.
And as I look at him standing before me, I realize the more I discover about the almost thirty-year-old version of him, the more I realize he embodies all of those traits.
His comment repeats through my mind. If someone’s your soul mate, nothing is going to stop you from being together in the end.
“Is that you speaking or the character?”
“There’s a little bit of me in every character I play.”
“Nice deflection.” I laugh, thankful for it too. “I’ll make sure to remember when I need you to lift something that you have the superhero strength of that Marvel character you played last year.”
He just laughs and hands me the script. “Cute, Ships. You want to help, or not?”
“Ah, it’s all fun and games until someone makes fun of the tights you had to wear,” I tease, knowing his superhero costume received quite a lot of buzz over the Spandex pants and definitive bulge they showed.
“Hey, whatever pays the bills.” His smile tells me he’s heard it all before and it doesn’t bug him. And it shouldn’t, considering the rumors regarding the paycheck he earned for wearing those tights. As should any man having to walk around in very tight Spandex. “You ready?”
Shit. I guess I better focus. And not on him. Or his bare chest. Or his biceps. Or the thought of his bulge in Spandex.
“Is it ridiculous that I’m suddenly nervous?” I ask with a skittish chuckle to boot.
“Not at all. I know something—a role, an award, an anything—is worth the trouble it causes if it makes me nervous.”
“Good to know.” I take a deep breath and glance down at the script in front of me. Ignoring the staging I don’t understand, I make a quick study of the exchange between the two characters, Gabby and Noah. “Okay, I think I’ve got it.”
I can’t read the smile he gives me. It’s almost as if he knows something I don’t. I shake the thought and just play it off as he finds me helping him humorous. And he most definitely will laugh at my attempt to act, but I don’t care. How many people get the chance to say they rehearsed lines with an Oscar winning actor?
“Let’s take it from right here,” Hayes says as he leans over and points to a line. “And why don’t you sit on the edge of the chair for me. It will help me with blocking.”
“Okay.” Nerves suddenly flutter to life. Stupid really, but they do. I take a seat, my eyes skimming the lines over and over. Trying to figure out the context of the scene when I haven’t read the entire story proves rather difficult, but I’ll just go with it.
“That’s bullshit, Gabby, and you know it.” The expression on Hayes’s face transforms instantly and catches me completely off guard. He’s angry, frustrated, and tormented. His voice and posture reflect all three.
I stumble for my line as I look back down, knowing there is no way I can even match how seamlessly he slipped into his character. “I don’t know anything anymore.” My voice seems flat compared to his, but I keep going. “All I know is after tonight . . . after watching . . . never mind. It’s probably best if you just go now.”
“Huh.” He shakes his head. Disappointment is reflected on his face as he takes two steps toward me. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“You lost the right to know what I’d like and not like when you walked out.” My voice breaks. Life imitating art in a way I never expected when I told him I’d run lines with him. I swallow over the lump in my throat, because I know that pain. I start to talk and stop. “I didn’t make you leave, Noah. I didn’t start the fire. I didn’t hurt anyone. I wasn’t the reason shit went south. And more than anything, I didn’t make you erase me from your life.”
“I never erased you!” he shouts with shoulders squared and eyes alive. We stare at each other for a beat before his defensive posture slips away. His shoulders slump, head drops, and voice lowers so I can barely hear him. “I could never erase you, Gabby.”
“Don’t do this to me. Don’t waltz back into town like you own this place with that chip on your shoulder. I’ve moved on, Noah. I’ve made my own life. One that has no place for you in it.”
He lifts his head, strides across the patio with determination, and slams his hands onto both sides of my chair. I jolt at the sound, at the force that moves my seat, at the unmistakable virility of both Noah and Hayes combined in the eyes of the man looking at me. “Anywhere you are is my place, Gabriella.”
I snort. Know Gabby would do just the same and catch the flicker of surprise in Hayes’s reaction. “No. It’s not.” I can barely speak the words. Hate the pang I feel in saying them. Shit. Shit. Double shit. Do I feel the same way about him in real life?
“Tell me you don’t love me.” His hands are on my chin directing my face up. His eyes are so honest, so true, that I almost forget I have a script in my hand. Silence stretches between us and I convince myself I need to look down at the lines. Yet I can’t find it within me to break the hold he has on me, let alo
ne breathe.
Script, Saylor. The script.
I force myself to look down to the papers. To the words I need to say. I exhale unsteadily when I read them and then look up to meet Hayes’s eyes. “I don’t love you, Noah. I’ve met someone else. Another man who I know won’t leave.” I avert my gaze. Push down the emotions rioting through me. How funny. I thought I was going to feel so silly doing this and yet everything I am is in the tone of my voice right now. “Like I said before, it’s over. It’s best that you leave.”
“You’re lying,” he grits out between clenched teeth as he pounds a fist on the arm of the chair again. “Lying! Did you really think I’d give in so easily? Walk away without a fight?”
I’m mesmerized. Can’t take my eyes off him. “You did before.” My voice is a whisper of sound. My emotions raw in a scene that has nothing to do with me.
This is Noah and Gabby. Noah. And. Gabby.
Not Hayes and Saylor.
“You don’t get it, do you?” He’s exasperated. Frustrated. Pleading. He reaches out and tilts my face back up to his again. I hold my breath as he leans forward ever so slowly and puts his lips right to my ear. I smell the signature Hayes Whitley clean scent of soap and shampoo. Feel the heat of his breath. Warm under the touch of his hand. “It’s you. It’s only ever been you. I begged, borrowed, and lied to get this chance. To stand here in front of you again. To right my wrongs. To make you see why I am . . . why I can’t just walk away this time without knowing, Gabby.”
“Without knowing what?” I’m glad I remember the line because if I lean forward to look, I’ll come face first with his chest and that’s not something I need right now. The situation, the lines we’re rehearsing, the man before me—all three are powerful enough, and I don’t need the physical aspect of him to intoxicate me even more.
Hayes leans back so that our lips are inches apart. “Knowing what my forever tastes like.”
Neither of us move. Or breathe. And when he finally takes a step back, his mouth slides into a satisfied grin.
“You’re good, Say. Gotta hand it to you.” He ruffles a hand through his hair. “I’ve been running that line all morning and hadn’t figured it out. I was going in too hard, too angry. Having you to bounce it off made it easier. Let me see I needed to be softer with the delivery. Thank you.”