Harbor of Hearts
“Yes, I’ll take your next two Friday mornings, promise. Liz, you’re the best, thank you!” I said a few hours later, at a normal person’s morning time. I put the phone on the coffee table and fist pumped. “Got it covered. We’re going to the beach! I mean,” I paused, lowering my arms, “not that your attendance depended on me or anything.”
Reid tilted his head from beside me on the couch and lifted a brow, silently telling me he wouldn’t have gone if I didn’t. Why, I didn’t know. But the thought was sweet and so utterly Reid.
After he explained his theory about the clue, I jotted it down on the paper he had given me, adding my own thoughts to it as well. Then, we ventured into the living room to hang out for a while. I wasn’t sure what to do with myself, having never really been awake so early before. But Reid had been more than content chilling on the couch, watching some trashy TV, and reading. I mainly watched TV and scrolled through social media for a while.
“I’m going to take the dogs for a quick walk before we head out to gather supplies. Be back in a few.” He threw me a smile and headed to the garage to grab their leashes.
I picked up my phone to head to the guest room and throw some stuff in a bag, but paused when I saw Reid’s phone still on the table.
“Reid—” I called, swiping it into my hand and looking up. But he was gone, most likely going through the garage door to the backyard.
With a shrug, I put it down, knowing he’d come back for it after the walk. But as I did, the screen lit up, and I froze.
The picture on his background… was me.
Me, on the beach, last summer. At sunrise. The brilliant blues and pinks lit up the sky as I looked over my shoulder, my hair flying around, and the biggest smile stretching across my face.
My amber eyes reflected the colors of the sky, shining with an immense amount of joy.
I collapsed onto the couch, staring at his phone, bumping the screen again when it turned off.
I remembered that moment like it was yesterday, yet I never knew he had taken a picture. It could have been one of a million times I looked at him, as we had walked the entire length of the beach from Seaside Cafe to the Crescent houses and back. We wanted to see how far we could go from the second the sun peeked over the horizon until it was completely out of the water.
It had been twice, but we had also gone slow in some parts searching for shells, raced in others, with him tackling me and stopping to make out a few times. I had sand in my hair for the rest of the day.
My finger reached for the picture, wanting to touch it. When it brushed against the screen, the phone came to life and opened.
Reid didn’t have a passcode. He didn’t have facial recognition. Nothing stopped the phone from opening straight into the last app he was in.
The notes app.
More specifically, a single note he had either been looking at or adding to.
My breath caught in my throat, my heart screeching to a stop.
The note wasn’t just a note. It was a list. Like the dozens I had in my phone right now too.
Except this one was titled. I didn’t always title mine; sometimes I was in too big of a rush, sometimes I just didn’t care. The contents always told me what it was about, anyway.
But Reid titled his.
“My Love.”
I glanced around, feeling as if I were invading his privacy by looking at this. Technically I was, but my pause didn’t last long. Mainly because, like the background, the list was about me.
I couldn’t help myself—I had to read it.
Bullet points separated each individual item, starting with: When you smile at me, my entire world lights up, like fireworks set off from within. From one single smile.
Then: The little lines that form between your eyes when you’re focusing on something super hard, and how they slowly disappear as you come to a realization, eventually replaced by a megawatt smile.
After that: When you go out of your way to do things for others. To make them happy. To make them feel included.
When you start to get anxious and panic, your shoulders hunch in, like you’re trying to hide. But when you see me, you curl up into my arms and let out a deep, long sigh.
The list went on for a few scrolls, so many things on there that I would never have realized. But I instinctively went down to the last one.
Had he been adding to the list? Deleting something from it?
My answer came from the last two entries: The way you gasp so softly you probably think I don’t hear it, right before I kiss you.
How your whole body shakes and shivers every time I whisper in your ear.
I almost dropped the phone reading those last two lines. Gasp? Like the little breath I had in the car the other night, when I thought he was going to kiss me?
And how did he know about the shivers? About how he affected me when he was that close, like he was this morning when he reached behind me to turn on the coffee?
They were definitely questions I didn’t think I’d get answers to, unfortunately.
The other thing on my mind was how he just told me how hard it was to text or call, always stopping himself, but then he had this as his background? He had to see my face every time he picked up his phone. He had notes about me that he constantly updated.
I, too, had a picture of him as the background of my phone once. A picture of us, more specifically. But the day he broke up with me, I had biked to Norah’s house in a mess of tears. She had changed my background to a group shot, sans Reid, to remind me of who would always be there for me. I hadn’t realized until later that night when I went to call Reid out of habit and saw he was officially gone.
A lump in my throat formed. I looked at the picture of myself one more time before sliding the phone away and pushing off the couch.
My heart sped up the closer we got to the beach, remembering what happened the other day on the pier.
As if he could sense my nerves, Reid glanced over and grinned. “This is going to be fun, right? It’s been forever since I had a classic beach day. We got the food, Caleb’s bringing the volleyball and net. It’ll be fantastic. It’ll be great,” he repeated, as if he were trying to convince himself as well as tell me.
I nodded, tucking my lips in. I didn’t want anything to bring this day down. Reid deserved to be with his friends, in a place he loved and felt included. Just because his friends at home deserted him didn’t mean we had to do the same. I wouldn’t do the same.
If he could move on and stay friends, then I could, too. At least, for the summer. In the end, he would leave again, and who knows what would happen. But that was a then problem, not a now problem.
Everyone had already arrived by the time we showed up. Emma and Norah laid out on their towels, Emma putting sunscreen on Norah’s back.
I glanced around, checking out the scene as I whipped a towel flat, letting it glide to the ground next to Norah.
“You won’t find them,” Emma said, staring at me from beneath her signature red heart sunglasses. I caught her eye drifting down my neck, finding the necklace from Reid. She just gave me an eyebrow raise and didn’t say anything.
I picked up the sunscreen she was using, finding it way too low in SPF. Even though I kept a good base tan year round, I still didn’t use anything under fifty, especially in the summer.
“What do you mean?” I asked, slathering myself with the sunscreen I brought myself.
Norah propped up on her elbows, glancing between Emma and me, depending on who was talking.
Emma shrugged and tugged her wide brimmed straw hat over her head, tilting it down in the front so she could lay on her back and have it cover her face. “You’re looking for the Baysider jerks, right?”
I nodded.
“They won’t be here.”
I blinked, staring at her. Norah snorted, knowing exactly what Emma was doing and finding it hysterical. I, on the other hand, did not. “Emma. Just spill. You don’t need me to beg.”
She broke into a grin, shadowed by the hat. “Sean warned most of them away,” she started, purposefully pausing because she knew I was going to butt in.
“Grace’s Sean?”
“Who else?” she answered with a smirk. “And that’s not all. He said anyone who has an issue with Reid Bennett, with you, with us,” she gestured to the three of us, encircling her hand wider to include the guys and the twins on stand a few yards away, “is to stick to the Bayside beaches. And Sean’s word gets followed, if you know what I mean.”
I knew. We all knew. He may have been a Baysider, but his family was one of the oldest Bayside families, and he was a year rounder. It gave him a lot of seniority.
Teenagers were a weird breed. We thrived by the unwritten rules we put forth, blindly following those who asserted themselves as leaders.
“Oh,” Emma continued, getting our attention back on her, “and because Reid decked Declan in the nose and now everyone knows he’s Mr. Muscles or something. And not to be messed with, unless they want to meet the same fate.”
Norah audibly gasped at that comment. “Reid Bennett punched Declan Storms in the nose? Reid knows how to punch?” She sat all the way up and whipped her head around until she spotted Reid with Caleb, putting up the volleyball net. “Holy crap, look at him.”
I didn’t follow her line of sight. If I looked, I wouldn’t be able to tear my eyes off of him, and it would get weird. “He knows something about Declan, but he won’t tell me what it is.”
“I cannot believe all of that,”she waved her hand up and down in Reid’s direction, “has been under Reid’s clothes this entire time,” Norah said, as if I hadn’t even spoken. “He had one heck of a glow up this year. Wonder what changed.”
I pressed my lips together, knowing exactly what had changed, why Reid now ran on the beach at five o’clock in the morning and dove into the gym every day, too. But I kept it to myself.
The feeling of someone watching me hit me then. I looked over and found Emma intensely staring, one finger pushing down her glasses as she looked over the top of them.
“You showed up together,” Emma said flatly, keeping her voice neutral. “What happened to Declan? Why did Sean put out the warning?”
I watched as Caleb and Reid did a jumping high five when they finally got the net up. Caleb tossed the volleyball to Reid, then reached up, gripped his shirt behind his neck, and pulled it off in one big swoop.
His muscles rivaled Reid’s, but Reid had the height and the lean torso on his side. Caleb’s dark skin shone in the midday sunlight, highlighting his shoulders and abs. Both boys instantly gained the attention of the other girls on the beach.
Norah turned, so we were all facing the water and the boys now. She leaned forward and placed her arms on top of her bent knees. “You didn’t hear? Marlowe was the subject of their prank this year. Declan was chosen, and somehow our sweet, innocent Marlowe got caught in the crosshairs. Seagulls, and all that.”
She didn’t elaborate, thankfully. I didn’t need to relive the whole thing. Just the mention of seagulls made me glance around, to see if any were in the vicinity. Luckily, there were enough people around us that the birds stayed away.
“You were what?!” Emma screeched, causing Reid to hesitate and glance our way. Emma waved him off, and he returned to the net with Caleb on the other side.
I stared at Emma incredulously. “You really didn’t know? You know everything. I assumed it was the talk of the town by now.” I explained the seagull prank in as little words as possible.
“And you knew?” Emma said, glaring at Norah between us. “I’m losing my touch.”
She simply raised her shoulders. “I saw the video right after I dropped Reid off the night we picked up the twins from the airport.”
The night I asked Reid to stay with me.
“What a summer you’ve had, kid.” Emma muttered, adding a little sigh at the end as she leaned back on her hands, tipping her face up to the sun slightly. “So where do you and Reid stand?”
I didn’t answer her. Mostly because I had no idea how to answer that question.
But also because deep down, I knew what I wanted the answer to be. Every feeling I had for Reid had resurfaced in the past few days. I wanted to experience them all over again.
I couldn’t admit that to anyone, though. Not when Reid was giving me such mixed signals. First, he acted like everything was fine and normal. Then, he stayed with me while I cried, and almost kissed me in the car. I had no clue what was going on with him or where we stood relationship wise.
“Whoa… looks like the guys have a fan club,” Norah whispered a few minutes later.
I looked up and saw what she was talking about–a flock of girls surrounding the net where Reid and Caleb were playing.
“Can we call dibs because we knew him first? He totally Longbottomed, but we were friends with him before. That means something, right?” Emma pushed her sunglasses onto her head, staring at the scene in front of us with awe.
A bubbling sensation started in my gut, and my heart skipped a few beats as I watched Reid throw the ball in the air and jump to serve. Caleb dove with his arms outstretched, connecting with the ball, but not enough to get it over the net.
The girls all jumped and clapped, and Reid ate. It. Up. He grinned in their direction, taking a bow. One girl asked him to flex, but thankfully that’s where he drew the line.
Caleb, however, had no boundaries, and stumbled over, flexing every arm muscle he could as soon as he was standing.
I didn’t realize I was still staring until I felt eyes on me once more. This time, it was Reid. He caught my gaze and started to smile, but that’s when I stopped.
The clue. Reid said the beach sparked an idea about the second clue.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, jumping to my feet and heading toward the game.
Norah let out a wolf whistle and yelled, “Go get ‘em, tiger!”