Chapter Thirty-One
MARINA
PRESENT
I take a step out of the bar and lean my head against the concrete wall, closing my eyes against the twinkle lights that hang between the buildings on this street.
I’ve only been back to work for one day and I’m already tired, and it hasn’t even hit the pm’s yet.
The one thing I hate is not being able to do my job, and the stabbing cramps and pounding headache I’ve been fighting for the last two hours are making it difficult today.
I’ve tried to put my conversation with the doctor out of my mind, but his voice keeps playing on a loop inside my head.
“Birth control is the most effective way to ease the symptoms.”
“We can work on getting scans done but that may take a while.”
“To the best of our knowledge, going on some form of birth control manages endometriosis the best way possible as of right now. Even after a scan, that will stay the same. It’s your best option.”
I hear the ding of a bicycle bell and my eyes squint open. They catch on a pair of nervous green eyes moving towards me. I close mine again, barely believing who I’m looking at.
Are hallucinations a symptom too?
“I thought you were leaving?” I say, still not opening my eyes.
I’ve had missed calls from Miles ever since I ran out of his room yesterday.
But I haven’t had the guts to pick up, to hear him tell me all the things he didn’t tell me four years ago.
That he’s leaving. I couldn’t handle it, not on top of everything else.
“I know you like to think that you’re never wrong, but it does happen sometimes.
” His tone threatens a smile to curve my lips, but I force it down and open my eyes to see Miles standing in front of me, his weight leaning on a deep red painted old school push bike.
It’s even got a little basket in the front.
“In the time I spent yesterday staring at the wall while you avoided my calls, I thought about all of the things we never got to do.”
“What is this?”
“It’s one of the things on our list. Go for a ride on Marina’s bike, ” he says. “I know we were meant to go on your death machine, but this is a little more my speed at the moment.”
I almost forgot about it, that list we made of things we wanted to do together. Number one being me teaching him how to make brownies, number two being him taking me on a Top Gun flight, and number three being a ride on my motorbike. Of course he remembered.
“I went for red cause, well, you know,” he says sheepishly. God he is so fucking adorable, I hate it.
“When was the last time you rode a bike?” I ask.
“Not since I was seventeen.”
“You haven’t ridden a bike since you were seventeen and you’re going to try now? With one hand to steer?” I nod towards his arm in his sling.
“That’s why you’re in the front,” he raises his eyebrows like it’s a challenge and I have to force myself not to let a smile or a laugh of my own slip free. His energy is contagious, and it’s taking everything in me not to give in to the feelings that swell in my stomach when he’s around me.
I let my eyes roam over him. He’s wearing a worn pair of cargo shorts and a loose white T-shirt, highlighting the tan he’s picked up since being here.
He looks so good casual, nothing like the pilot’s uniform I used to get peeks of when I would see him straight after a flight.
He looked fine as hell in that, but in this he looks…
comfortable. Like I could lie against him and crinkle up that white shirt and he wouldn’t care one single bit.
My mind throws me back to all those days we spent at his place in Sorrento, lazing around in the sun.
Swimming in the huge infinity pool. Doing other things in the pool.
Remembering the feel of my legs wrapped around his waist, of his strong arms holding me up as he walked us to the bedroom.
Of the way we would lay tangled up in each other for entire weekends, acting like a normal couple that were living together.
Watching chick flicks on Sunday afternoons, with popcorn and brownies and a packet of candy.
It was heaven. I remember thinking nothing could ever change how I felt about Miles.
I just never put Miles into that equation.
“I know you don’t trust me,” he says, leaning the bike up against the wall. “That’s why you disappeared yesterday. But that just means I need to work to gain it back, and I will.” He says it like a fact, like he doesn’t doubt for a second that he’ll be able to earn my trust back.
“If you’d stuck around yesterday, you would’ve heard me telling my mom that it didn’t even cross my mind to go back to the States, and that I want to heal here.
The place where I’m surrounded by warmth and the ocean breeze, and my sister.
And you.” That one word sets my heart racing.
“I don’t plan on going anywhere, not right now. ”
“What does that even mean?” My chin wobbles without my consent.
I can’t deal with his empty promises, not again.
“Right now is right now, and last time “right now” only lasted until a better offer came your way. What makes this any different? You’ll be here while you recover and then what? You’ll just go and leave again?”
He shakes his head, stepping in to me. “No, I won’t. I don’t know how it will work, but I won’t hurt you like that ever again, I promise you. This time we will figure it out together. I don’t want to lose you, Marina, not again.”
I close my eyes against the sight of him. Too scared to admit anything, like how all I want in this moment is for him to touch me, as if it will make everything else go away. But he can read me, he always could.
“Please, Marina,” he reaches up, cupping my cheek in his warm palm. “I’ve spent the last four years missing you. Please, give me a chance to prove that to you.”
I can’t help but lean into his touch as I open my eyes.
He takes a step closer to me and my breathing hitches.
This close, I can feel his body heat radiating off of him, his warmth ever present.
Miles rubs a knuckle from his other hand just above my belly button, touching me in any way he can with his arm trapped in the sling.
I can’t do anything against the pull, can’t help but close my eyes as I feel him drawing closer to me. My body almost trembles as the tip of his nose skates across mine.
Miles sighs. “This feeling never went away, you know. I never stopped wanting this, wanting you. I’ve ached for you every single day for the last four years.” My resolve crumbles with every word coming out of his mouth.
He nudges my nose with his, as if in question. The answer is in the way my heart is booming in my chest, in the heat of my skin under his touch, in the way I can’t do anything right now but press my lips to his.
He gasps quietly as my lips brush a whisper of a kiss over his, so light some might not count it as a kiss. But Miles does.
His right hand slowly curves the other around the side of my head, giving me the time to back out, but I can’t, not with the way his green eyes are piercing mine.
I slide my hands up his shirt and grasp the fabric pulling him back to me. Heat floods my system as his soft lips touch mine, the kiss warm and delicate at first, both of us re-exploring the feel of each other.
I move my arms up and wrap them around his neck, leaving just enough space between us for his arm in the sling.
I open my mouth to him, giving in to this moment.
Miles groans as I sweep my tongue into his mouth, swiping it against his as I rise up on my tip toes, needing to be as close to him as possible.
Heat sparks in my belly as his grip on me tightens, our kiss deepening with every breath.
Miles’s hand slides back up to my face, his thumb stroking the now rosy apple of my cheek before he slowly pulls away.
I grieve the loss of his lips against mine as soon as I feel the fresh air hit them.
He presses his forehead to mine and I breathe him in.
Taking a minute to think about this, about what this means for us, for me.
How am I meant to go about this? Where do I draw the line with what I’m willing to let go?
Am I even ready to let it go? Am I too in my head about this already?
“Where did you go, princess?”
“I don’t know how to trust you,” I whisper.
“I know,” he whispers. “I want to change that.”
I know he’s telling the truth, I know he won’t ever intend to hurt me, but something in me is still holding back. I can’t go jumping in head first, not with how it ended last time. No matter what promises Miles makes.
“Can we start as friends?”
A small smile forms across his face. It’s not just his mouth, it’s his eyes, the lines in his face. He lights up when he smiles, even when he’s trying not to.
“Sure, Princess, we can start as friends.”