16. Miles Day
Like I haven’t seen her enough in my dreams this week, Ellie just had to show up here. The past few days have been a mix of miserable and wonderful. Miserable because I’ve had to avoid Ellie so Shaw doesn’t get any more ideas about us, and wonderful because it’s been great having him around. It’s going to be weird when he goes back to Alabama. Soon enough he’ll be a disembodied voice in my gaming headset, or at best a face on a screen for the occasional video chat.
But tonight it would be better if Shaw weren’t here at all, because I can’t stop myself from walking over to Ellie. She’s a bad habit I can’t shake. A sweet addiction that has me telling my friends–and the blind date they shoved on me when I got here–that I’ll order drinks for everyone at the bar. I’m hoping they’re all so preoccupied with the story of Shaw proposing to Sutton that they won’t notice me walking over to Ellie.
Her eyes meet mine, dark as the iced americano she teases me about drinking. She quickly averts her gaze though, and doesn’t look up even as I draw closer. Her hair is down, the curls looking somehow wild yet soft. The urge to run my fingers through them hits me like a club to the chest. My step falters slightly as I process this new sensation. The desire only grows when I see her up close, her lavender dress hugging her curves and showing off her long legs. And the constellation of freckles across her shoulders that I’m tempted to trace.
Naomi and Molly raise their brows at me, but then they mumble something about needing to go to the bathroom before abandoning Ellie. Interesting. Ellie doesn’t even look up from her drink though. It’s like she doesn’t notice them leave.
I lean in, my lips close to her ear. She smells like sangria and temptation. “I know you saw me, Red.”
She shivers and I smirk.
“I was ignoring you,” she says, turning to glare at me as I sit on the barstool to her right. “You know, kind of like how you’ve been ignoring me all week.” She looks back down at her drink, swirling the straw around.
I’m about to apologize. The words I’m sorry are dancing on the tip of my tongue, but then I realize: she’s mad. She’s not a little upset, or frustrated, no she’s angry. And a little tipsy, which is lowering her walls. This has me curious. Anger means there’s something deeper here. If I apologize now, she’ll likely feign forgiveness in order to get me to leave her alone. But if I push her…
“Aw, did you miss me, Red?” Her glare is back. True to her nickname, her skin has turned the color of the drink she’s clutching in her hand like a weapon. It might be a risk to prod her like this when she has a full glass in her hand. I wouldn’t put it past her to dump it on my head.
“No.” The word is encased in ice. “Now go back to your friends, Miles.” She says friends like it’s a curse.
“Tell me you missed me and I will.”
She slams her glass down and pushes away from the bartop. Before I can react, she’s storming through the crowd in the direction of the beach.
“Ellie!” I call out, knowing that if it wasn’t before, my cover is blown now. She doesn’t look back. I rush after her, pushing through the sweaty tourists until my feet are sinking into the sand. Ellie is ripping off her heels when I get to her.
“Hey, I’m–” I start, but she cuts me off.
“Save it. Go back inside, Miles.” She starts walking down the beach, shoes in hand.
“Red, come on, give me a chance to explain.” I grab her arm and she throws me off, whirling on me.
“Do you think it’s funny to play with my emotions?” She spits the words like venom. “From day one, I knew we wouldn’t get along. That was fine with me. But then you acted like we should be friends and for a moment I believed you.”
“We are friends,” I say and she lets out a bitter laugh.
“When it’s convenient for you, maybe.” She crosses her arms, but it looks less like she’s angry and more like she’s shielding herself. My chest aches with the thought that she feels the need to protect herself from me.
“That’s not how it is,” I tell her.
“I opened up to you Miles.” Her eyes are shining. I hate myself. “I told you about Owen and Naomi and how I felt about Coastal Cove. And I thought things were good. But then Sutton and Shaw show up and it’s like I was just the stand-in until your real friends showed up. I can’t do this we’re friends one minute and not the next.”
I rake a hand through my hair. Guilt carves through me like a dull blade. After seeing my parents be nice one day then at each other’s throats the next, the last thing I want to do is make Ellie feel how I felt growing up. No one deserves that. I close my eyes, willing myself to make the confession that needs to be said.
“I don’t do relationships, or marriage,” I tell her as I open my eyes.
“Why does that matter right now?” She looks confused and hurt and I hate it with every fiber of my being.
“It matters because Shaw and Sutton think there’s something going on between us.” She stares at me with wide eyes. “They’re engaged and in love and they want that for me, so they keep talking about pushing us together.”
“So instead of talking to me about that, you decided to ignore me?”
I sigh. “I thought that it was the best thing to do. They’re relentless, as are Fitz and Jada.” I throw an arm in the direction of Hank’s. “That’s why Kira was there. I showed up here and she was with them as some sort of weird group blind date.”
She scrunches up her nose. “That’s awful.” Her expression sobers once more. “But it doesn’t mean you get to cut off communication. I could have played along if you needed me too.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t exactly know how to say that my friends were playing matchmaker and you were the target. Please believe that I’d never want to hurt you.”
She looks down at her feet. “I…I believe you.” Her head lifts and her eyes meet mine. “But if you pull something like this again I’m taking Molly up on her offer to feed you to the sharks.”
I laugh. “Noted.” Her lips turn up in the faintest smile and my heart lifts. “Do you want to get out of here?”
Her eyebrows raise. “You’re going to abandon your friends and your date?”
“Yes, happily.”
She bites her lip. “Where would we even go?”
“I can’t believe you have a key to this place,” Ellie says in a low voice as I open the fridge in the diner’s kitchen.
“When I was in school I split my time between here and the golf course. Diane gave me a key so that I could come before school. I never gave it back,” I say with a laugh. My reason behind having a key probably raises quite a few questions. I’m hoping she won’t ask any of them. I made enough confessions tonight; I don’t want to tell her about my terrible childhood on top of it. I pull out a key lime pie and a whipped cream canister.
“You’re sure Diane won’t be mad?” Ellie asks, sounding skeptical.
“I’m sure.” I look at her worried expression and can’t help but smile. “Especially since I texted her before we left to see if it was okay.”
She gapes and hits my shoulder. “This whole time you let me think that we were breaking in!”
“It’s not breaking in if you have a key.”
She rolls her eyes. “Just open up the pie.”
“I thought I was the boss between us.”
She shoves my shoulder again, but this time I turn and grab her waist. Her eyes widen and she sucks in a breath. She lets out a little squeak when I lift her up and place her on the metal counter, making me chuckle. I did it to throw her off, but when our eyes lock I’m the one off-kilter. Her eyes are like swirls of dark chocolate, a tempting abyss that would be easy to fall into. My hands burn with awareness as I still haven’t let go of her waist. Her dress is thin and I don’t have to imagine the warmth of her skin beneath it.
When her eyes dip down to my lips, I know I made a mistake. I take a step back, letting my hands fall to my sides. I flex them, trying to rid myself of the feeling of her curves beneath my palms.
“We need forks,” I manage to say, sounding far raspier than I should while talking about utensils. I walk to the organizer that stores all the silverware and try to steady my breathing.
I thought it was a good idea to bring Ellie here. A way to make it up to her after I was such a terrible friend. But now I feel like I’ve gone too far again, that my instincts were off. I’ve never experienced anything like this. I can always trust my intuition, but every time I follow it with Ellie it leads me somewhere as dangerous as it is alluring.
“Thank you,” Ellie murmurs when I hand her a fork.
She lifts the canister of whipped cream and tips it. I grab her wrist to stop her. “Wait,” I say. Her eyes are glued to my hand wrapped around her arm. I clear my throat and let it go. Why can’t I stop touching her?
“Let me show you how to get the perfect bite,” I say and hold out my hand for the canister.
“Only you, Miles Day, would be egotistical enough to have a complex about pie.”
“Prepare to eat your words Ellie Hart,” I say, then wink. “Literally.”
She tries to fight it, but she fails to hold back a smile. Every molecule of oxygen flees my lungs as I watch her throw her head back and laugh. I feel like I hit a ball onto the green after a day of hitting it into the woods.
“That was the worst joke I’ve ever heard,” she says through her giggles.
“It made you laugh though,” I say with a smile.
She smiles back at me, her hair falling in front of her face. My hand lifts involuntarily to brush back the strands, but I stop myself. I need to get a grip before something terrible happens.
“What can I say? I like bad jokes.”
“It’s going to be hard for me to make you laugh then, because I rarely make any.”
“I can’t believe I agreed to be friends with you,” she teases as she tucks her hair behind her ear. I shouldn’t feel disappointed, but I do.
“Me either,” I say earnestly. Then I look down at the pie so that she can’t see the emotions written all over my face. I’ve confirmed this is a terrible idea, but I have to see it through now or else she’ll hate me again and for good reason. And maybe her hating me would be better, but I can’t bear the thought of it. Not after seeing the pain swirling in her dark eyes on the beach.
I dig a fork into the pie, getting the perfect ratio of pie to crust before taking the whipped cream canister and swirling a dollop directly onto the bite.
“Here it is,” I say, holding out the fork. “The perfect bite.” I expect her to take the fork from me, or even roll her eyes and tell me my idea isn’t all that special. What I don’t expect is for her to lean down, mouth open, and eat off the fork I’m holding. I’m so surprised I almost drop it.
She hums, eyes closed. A tiny dot of whipped cream is on her bottom lip. I swallow and contemplate what I did wrong to deserve this level of torture. I’m committed to not dragging Ellie into my mess, but I’m just a man. My resolve can only get me so far.
“Okay, you’re right, that was life changing. Do you think Diane would give me a canister every time I order pie here?” She laughs, but I’m too focused on how badly I want to kiss her. How would it feel, I wonder? My eyes flick up to hers. Would she be as fiery as she is in an argument? My blood heats at the notion of finding out.
“What is it?” she asks me. “Is something wrong?”
“No.” I clear my throat. “You just have a little–” I gesture to her mouth.
“Oh.” She laughs a little, then swipes at her bottom lip with her thumb and licks it. “Better?” she asks.
Worse. So. Much. Worse.