Nineteen
Holden
The entire day passes after Phoenix pushes me into the pool, and I haven’t seen him since. Granted, he has to be here somewhere. The condo might be huge, but there are only so many places to hide for long.
I haven’t gone looking for him, in any case. The last thing I want is to piss him off even more than I already have, so I’m giving him some time to cool down. But there’s no way the conversation from this morning is over.
No fucking way.
After last night, there’s no going back. Not to ignoring each other, and certainly not to enemies. No matter how hard he wants to try, this is one bell that can’t be unrung.
“You ready to head out for dinner?” Kason asks, peeking around the corner into the bedroom we’ve been sharing. A circumstance that’s grown quite stale since arriving here, but especially after waking up beside Phoenix this morning.
I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t interested in doing it again, yet another chapter in this series of unforeseen events.
“Ah, yeah,” I say, grabbing my wallet from the dresser and slipping it into my pocket. “You got everything?”
Kason’s footfalls on the wood flooring alert me of his approach before I feel the heat of his body behind me, let alone see his arms as they cage me against the furniture.
“I never had the chance to ask, but where were you last night?” he murmurs, his chin resting on my shoulder. “I was surprised you weren’t in here when I woke up.”
Something like guilt churns within me, and it doesn’t sit well.
Even for me, what happened last night with Phoenix is a gray area.
While this thing with Kason has been fun these past couple months, it’s never been anything serious.
We’ve talked about it and have always been on the same page about that, exactly like I told Phoenix this morning.
So there’s no reason I should be feeling bent out of shape about this, considering this is just a situationship where we’ve barely so much as kiss—
“Earth to Holden?”
I blink up at him, realizing my mind went off in another world without answering him.
“Sorry, I didn’t get much sleep,” I tell him. And it’s not exactly a lie. “Let’s just say I wouldn’t recommend passing out on one of those pool loungers. They might look comfortable, but I can assure you, they are not.”
Not unless you have a six-foot-two, muscled baseball player to use as a pillow.
A small smirk curls his mouth up at the corner and he steps back. “You were pretty fucked up last night.”
Except I wasn’t. At least not by alcohol.
“Yeah, I guess,” I say with a forced laugh.
“Probably a good thing you laid off the booze today.”
That was the intention, though God only knows our bristly pal Phoenix is close to driving me to it anyway. Which he very well might before the night is over. Between the magnitude of what happened last night and his avoidance of the events altogether, the odds aren’t in my favor.
I blow out a sigh and nod before we head downstairs, ready to head out for our last night here. It’s supposed to be lowkey—grabbing dinner down at the boardwalk—seeing as no one wants to be hungover off their ass for the drive back to Phoenix’s parents in Nashville.
The other guys are already waiting outside by the cars when Kason and I step out of the house, minus Theo.
That’s when I get my first glimpse of Phoenix in nearly twelve hours.
His attention is thoroughly fixated on his phone while he leans against the Jeep, but I can tell from the rigid set of his shoulders, he knows I’m standing here. He can feel me, just like I can feel him. The only difference is, he’s choosing to ignore it.
Ignore me.
Ignore everything happening between us.
My teeth sink into my cheek, biting back the irritation growing inside me like a cancer, and I force myself to glance away. Getting torn up about shit like this isn’t me. If Phoenix wants to pretend it never happened, I shouldn’t care. It shouldn’t matter to me.
And yet it does.
I can feel this shift happening in the way he looks at me. How it lingers when I catch his gaze, and not only the heat from this insane lust, but also the emotion I see in it too. The unexplainable connection that truly makes no sense when I try to think about it logically.
As vexing as it might be, this thing with Phoenix defies everything I’ve known.
Theo draws my attention away easily enough when he comes barreling out of the house a few seconds later, slightly out of breath and full of energy.
Then again, he’s the only one not sporting a massive hangover today.
I’m sure he still had one helluva headache last night, though, seeing as he was both DD out at the bar and then lifeguard once we got home— making sure none of our dumb, intoxicated asses drowned in the pool.
“Dinnertime,” he says, a chipper spring to his step as he pulls open the Bronco’s driver-side door. “Autobots, roll out.”
The rest of the guys start piling into the cars, all opting to hop in whatever vehicle we made the drive down to Florida in…
except Phoenix. He’s getting in Theo’s Bronco rather than jumping back in the Jeep with me, Noah, and Kason, apparently taking the extra step to ensure he puts as much distance between us as possible.
And I don’t miss the glare he aims at me before he slams the door behind him, either.
Kason must notice too, because he glances my way and hitches up a questioning brow. “What happened this morning to make him so pissed at you?”
You mean besides him spending the night fucking me clear into next week, only to wake up with a head full of regrets?
“You know him better than I do,” is all I say before throwing the Jeep into reverse.
I’d have no problem admitting what happened last night to Kason, and if this were any other situation, I probably would have here and now. But I don’t have to be intimately familiar with Phoenix to know it’s a terrible idea. Hell if I’m gonna give him another reason to hate me.
Not when I’m already dying for him to stop.
“Remind me again how I got talked into this?” Phoenix shouts over the pop music as he stands on the back deck of the boat, strapped into a giant harness.
“Because we’re friends with a bunch of jackasses,” Theo reminds him from where he’s lounged on one of the bench seats.
“You’re the one who came up with the idea,” Noah reminds him with a gotcha there look.
“All I said was I wish we would’ve thought about going parasailing sooner in the trip,” he rebuts, raising his hands. “You and Luca were the ones who called the place to book us in for tonight.”
That’s exactly what happened too. Theo saw these guys parasailing off the coast while we were devouring our dinner—the first meal all day, for those of us still a bit hungover—and mentioned something about going out on it.
It was all Noah and Luca who pulled up the number on the sail and called to see if they could take us tonight.
“Who’s going with?” one of the crew members asks, arching a sun-bleached brow after he finishes hooking Phoenix in.
Besides Phoenix and Kason, the rest of us have already gone up. However when I glance over at Kason, I know there’s no way he’s making the journey. Not when he’s losing his dinner over the side of the boat.
Wyatt’s nose wrinkles up in disgust, seeing as he’s the closest to Kason while he tosses his cookies. “Told you that alligator was a bad idea, man.”
“He’s probably just hungover still,” Luca concludes, though the slight green tint of his own skin tells me he’s not faring much better.
I’m still in my harness, having just gone on the last run with Harrison, so…shit, I might as well.
“I’ll go,” I offer, hopping back up on the deck.
Phoenix opens his mouth to say something—no doubt to get out of going up there together—but the crew member is already clipping my harness back into the weird horizontal pole contraption used to keep us, along with the sail, connected to the boat.
“Well, I guess I was wrong about one thing,” I say to Phoenix, completely ignoring the guy adjusting all the straps around my body.
Phoenix’s eyes remain staring forward as he mutters, “Oh, I’m gonna love to see where this is going.”
“You don’t have feelings for Kason.”
Between the music and the distance between us and the rest of the group, I sincerely doubt anyone heard what I just said.
Well, except maybe the man making sure I don’t plummet into the Gulf from unknown heights.
Yet, from how Phoenix’s head snaps to me, I might as well have shouted it through a megaphone.
“No shit, Sherlock,” he hisses. “I told you that a month ago, and you’re just now figuring it out?”
“Nah, I figured it out a while ago. Just didn’t have complete confirmation until last night.”
If possible, the irritation in his eyes flares even hotter. “We’re not talking about that.”
“So you are still pissed at me.” It’s not a question. There’s no doubt in my mind from the way he’s looking at me and the tone of his voice that he’s angry.
Yet something in his eyes tells me I might be wrong. That he’s really just trying to act indifferent—which is a huge step from actually being indifferent.
“I’m not anything at you,” he mutters, glancing away. “Now, please, just drop it.”
It’s not in my nature to just drop it, and it’s something he should be well aware of by now. But the crew member chooses that moment to give the boat’s captain a thumbs up.
“Enjoy your ride,” he tells us, before offering me a wink.
The carabiner keeping us clipped to the boat is released, and within half a second, we’re flying backward into the air, slowly floating away from the boat.
It’s a spike of adrenaline, the moment solid ground flies out from beneath us with our bodies being pulled back by the wind inflating the sail.
But the rush quickly evaporates when I glance over at the horizon, at the colorful glow of the sunset.
“Oh, holy fucking God,” Phoenix mutters, and when I turn his way, I find him white-knuckling the vertical straps like he’s hanging on for dear life.