Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 103102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
“Really?”
“I was homesick. It was too cold in New York. I wanted sun and ocean and the lack of pretension you find here.”
“A lack of pretension?”
“A different kind,” I say. “Everything felt like bullshit. I wanted to picture something real.” I bring my eyes to hers, expecting disbelief, but I don’t find any. “I imagine you see weddings as bullshit.”
“No.” She swims back to me, brings her hand to my shoulder. “But I don’t find them romantic the way other people do.” Her other hand, to my other shoulder. “What do you like about the image of yours?”
Everything. My family all in one place. My grandma, celebrating. The feeling of love in the air. “When I go to a wedding, I watch the couple. They’re in the middle of this strange tradition where they promise their lives to each other in front of friends, family, strangers, and they’re not thinking about what it means. Or who’s watching. Or what they’ll eat for dinner. They’re completely lost in each other.”
“That is romantic,” she says.
“Not what you see, though?”
She shakes her head. “But I can almost picture that.”
Me, too. I see the two of us, right here, staring into each other’s eyes. I see the two of us in an airy hotel room, Deanna stripping out of her white lingerie and climbing into bed with me.
An entire honeymoon’s worth of sex.
I need that, now.
How can I need that now? Last week, I was sure I was meant to be with Lexi.
Grandma would say something sarcastic. It’s been too long. I want to fuck someone. As soon as I do, I’ll realize there’s no such thing as destiny. Only dick-stiny. Something ridiculous like that.
Maybe she has a point. Maybe I need to take the edge off. See if I feel the same way with more blood in my brain.
I can do that. Later.
For now, I need to stay on task. To focus on how she feels, not how I feel.
I release her and suck a breath through my teeth. I need air. I need sense. “You hate them?”
“No. I just don’t love them. I don’t feel what people are supposed to feel. Stephan always gave me attitude about it. Even though he was a realist, too.”
A cynic, but this time, I don’t argue. Maybe she’s right. Maybe she’s the realistic one, and I’m the one who isn’t in line with reality.
“It was small things. He asked me to skip underwear when we went out for drinks, and I told him I’d have to wash my dress too soon.”
Deanna Huntington, naked under her dress. Fuck.
“It’s not that I was against the idea. There is something sexy about it. But he didn’t ask. He told. And I wanted him to ask. Or at least offer more to me.”
“Promise you’d come on his hand at the bar?” The words are too easy on my tongue. The vision is too vivid.
She raises a brow. “Is that your move?”
How about we try it right now? “I don’t have moves. I do what feels right.”
“What feels right, right now?”
Touching her. Kissing her. Taking her back to the car to fuck her.
But I don’t say any of that. I dive under the water, and when I surface, I say, “Swimming.”
Chapter Nineteen
Deanna
When I was a kid, I loved the ocean. I loved racing through the surf, wading into the water, diving under the waves.
Dad never loved the beach. Mom was the one who loved the Pacific, who came to California to be near the ocean (and the entertainment industry).
She loved spending weekends at the beach. Sometimes, Dad joined. He sat under his umbrella, reading books in rash guards, breaking to adore Mom or us.
Sometimes, she brought her guitar, and the two of them took turns singing as Lexi and I raced through the waves.
Sometimes, she brought a book and read with him.
Other times, she braved the waves with us. She wasn’t like most adults. She dove under the water, embraced every cold drop.
Then she died, and we didn’t go to the ocean anymore.
I didn’t remember my love of it until I was in high school, until my friends started using the beach as a spot to hang. It was more of a make-out point than anything, and I wasn’t cool enough to hang at most of those parties (or inclined to swap studying for socializing), but I found my love all the same.
The roar of the crashing waves, the deep blue-green hue of the water, the blue sky bleeding into the ocean. An obvious contrast during the day. A subtle one at night.
I feel like that now. Like the sky above the ocean at night. Like I could dissolve into the water, stay one with it forever.
For the first time, in a long time, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
And then I find River, and I wrap my hand around his wrist, and, somehow, I’m even closer to where I’m supposed to be.