Chapter 10 #2
I definitely didn’t mind putting my hands on his muscular back. And I was glad I’d brought the type of lotion you had to rub in, rather than the spray kind. I dug into my bag for the bottle. “Turn around.”
My palms glided over his smooth, sun-heated skin, and I felt ripples of muscles tighten beneath my fingers.
I told myself to focus on what I was doing, but it was impossible to rub his broad shoulders and not imagine the way they might look hovering over me.
The quiet moment grew intimate and stretched into something that felt charged.
When I finished, Wes cleared his throat. “Thanks. I’ll pull the anchor so we can head back.”
Neither of us said much on the ride to the marina, and I started to wonder if maybe it was just me who had felt the spark.
Once we were docked, Wes looked at his watch.
“We have the boat for another two hours. I noticed a liquor store a couple of blocks back when we drove in. How about I run over and grab us a bottle of wine, and we can watch the sunset from here?”
“That sounds great. I thought you said you weren’t going to drink anymore, though?”
“I’ll stop at one this time.” He winked.
While Wes was gone, I fussed with my hair, using the faint reflection off the silver trim of the electronics console as a mirror. He came back a few minutes later, holding a bottle of wine and two plastic glasses.
“They even uncorked it for me.”
“I probably wouldn’t have thought of that until I was back on the boat.”
Wes poured us each a glass and held his up for a toast. “To surviving your first snorkel.”
I smiled as we clinked plastic. “I had a great time.”
He sipped. “I’m surprised you’ve never snorkeled before.”
“I only started going in the pool again a few years ago.”
“Why is that? Did you have a scare of some sort?”
I looked away before answering. “Yes, but probably not the kind you’re thinking of. I didn’t nearly drown or anything.”
“What happened then?”
I sighed. “Growing up, we had an in-ground pool at our house. I used to spend the entire summer swimming in it when I was little. The day after my tenth birthday, I got up early and let the dog out in the yard. Buddy started barking the way he always did when he saw squirrels or geese, only he wouldn’t stop.
I went outside to see what was riling him up so much, and I found a dead body floating in the pool. ”
“Jesus.”
“I didn’t go in it for the rest of the summer. Even the next year, I couldn’t bring myself to go near the water, so my mother finally had the entire pool drained and refilled. But it wasn’t really about the water. Every time I looked at that pool, all I saw was that man’s gray, bloated face.”
“Did you know him?”
I shook my head. “Years later, I was watching Law & Order, and a character drowned in a pool. The police and the medical examiner came, and it hit me for the first time that no one had come to our house except for my dad’s friends.
It was never on the news, and no one ever spoke about what had happened again. ”
“That must’ve been hard to understand as a kid.”
I smiled sadly. “I still don’t understand most things that have to do with my father. Namely, why he chooses to lead the life he does.”
“I’m not making excuses for him, but I’m guessing it’s what he knew. His father and uncles were in that life, and sometimes when you grow up around crazy shit, it starts to seem normal.”
“I think that was true for me when I was little. I didn’t realize other dads didn’t hold business meetings at home while blasting music, just in case the house was bugged. But the older I got, the more I understood, and the more distance I wanted from my dad.”
Wes smiled. “Can’t get much farther apart than New York to California and still be in the US.”
“I probably should’ve moved to Hawaii.”
The sun started to sink, casting a golden hue over the marina. Wes and I sat in comfortable silence, watching a sailboat pull in and dock.
“What about you?” I asked. “Did you go into the family business? Was your dad a cop? Is that why he got away with abusing your mom?”
He shook his head. “My dad’s an electrician. At least that’s what he was before he took off when I was ten.”
“That must’ve been difficult.”
“Not really. I was relieved he couldn’t touch my mother anymore.” He shrugged. “And my mom gave us a damn good life.”
“What made you want to become a policeman?”
Wes finished the rest of the wine in his cup.
“When I was fourteen, my older brother didn’t come home one night.
Luke was seventeen, and unlike most brothers who are close in age, we were tight.
I wanted to be just like him. That night, he was walking home after a party and passed a gas station where a guy was yelling at his wife and getting in her face.
Luke stepped in, and a fight broke out. The guy wound up stabbing my brother eight times. ”
My hand covered my heart. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”
Wes nodded. “It took the police twenty minutes to show up after it happened, and my brother bled out—he couldn’t be saved.
All I remember from that night is sitting in the hospital with my mom, and she kept asking over and over why no one came sooner.
Nobody had an answer. I decided right then that I wanted to be the reason someone’s brother made it home. ”
“You’re pretty amazing, Wes. You know that?”
He caught my gaze. “So are you.”
We watched the beautiful sunset until the sky’s show was over.
“It’s really nice to be able to talk to someone and be so open and honest,” I said. “My entire life, I’ve had to pretend my father is an upstanding businessman. It’s such a relief to just be myself.”
Wes’s eyes dropped to my lips. They lingered for a long time before he abruptly stood. “We should get going.”
“Oh. Okay.”
He unloaded the snorkel equipment we had to return and held a hand out to help me off the boat.
The wine and sun must’ve hit me harder than I thought, because when I stepped off, I lost my balance and tripped.
Wes caught me in his arms. Our faces were close, and I debated leaning in and pressing a kiss to his lips.
But before I could find the courage to do it, Wes was already pulling back.
The ride home was quiet, which seemed to have become a pattern with us. We’d grow close, and then Wes would put distance between us, sometimes while we were still physically next to each other. The silence continued in the house as we walked up the stairs to our respective rooms.
“Thanks again for today,” I said.
Wes nodded. “You’re welcome.”
I opened the door to my bedroom, but Wes stopped me from going in.
“Juliette?”
I turned.
“I wouldn’t have met up with her.”
I felt my forehead wrinkle. “Who?”
“My booty call from earlier. Even if I’d been in California, I wouldn’t have gone.”