Chapter 30
“What are you doing down here?”
“What are you doing down here?” Wren counters. “Who’s steering the boat?”
I grin. “Worried we’ll hit something?”
“We could. A whale or—”
“We’re not gonna hit a whale.”
“What, because there aren’t any whales in the ocean?”
“Because we’re moving slower than any whale swims. They’d have plenty of time to get out of the way.” I walk down the rest of the stairs, ducking my head to avoid hitting the cabin ceiling. “Let me see.”
“See what?”
I glance pointedly at the notebook she flipped over as soon as I appeared in the doorway.
“It’s nothing.”
“So, show me.”
Wren sighs, then reaches out and turns it over.
It’s a simple pencil sketch, but impressively detailed.
There’s texture to the water visible behind me and to the rope of the rigging.
There’s definition to my forearms, too, as I secure the sheets, my hair ruffled by the wind.
I’m smiling, expression relaxed and focused.
It’s flattering—to think this is how she views me. And that she bothered to draw me at all.
“You’ve improved,” I say.
Wren scowls. “I don’t usually draw—”
“Which I didn’t think was possible,” I finish.
She picks the pencil up off the table, spinning it around one finger. Her cheeks are a little pink, I notice.
“You didn’t answer me. What are you doing down here?”
“Down here, in the below-deck-cabin thingy? I heard blow jobs were being offered.”
She grimaces. “Do you, uh, do you think that your mom heard that?”
“I’m not sure,” I answer honestly. “She won’t care though. I’m eighteen. I think she’s assumed I’ve moved past passing girls I like you notes.”
Wren smiles. “You did that?”
“Once, in middle school. Cammie dared me to.”
“Was the girl her?”
“No.” But in retrospect, I wonder if that was a test. One I failed.
“You and she never …”
“We hooked up. Once. The summer after my sophomore year, right after Skylar died. I was—I was in a bad place. Looking for any distraction. Sex, drinking, even some drugs. It didn’t mean anything to me.
I never … felt that way about her. And I didn’t realize she felt that way about me until … too late.”
“Is that why she hates me?”
“It probably didn’t help. But I think her issue is more with how your life looks.
Cammie grew up with a single mom, who she’s mostly supported since high school.
From the outside, you—and anyone with money—has security she’s had to work really hard for.
Has family who takes care of them versus the other way around.
It’s not personal to you. Most of the summer people don’t spend any time around locals, so you’re the only one she can take any frustration out on. ”
“Is that how you see me? Spoiled?”
I shake my head. “No, of course not. It’s not like you had any say in who your family was.”
“Neither did you.”
I’ve never told Wren how much the comparisons to my father unnerve me, yet she seems to have realized it anyhow.
I nod, then jerk my chin toward the door. “I should go check for whales.”
She stands from her spot in the eating nook. “Before you get what you came for?”
“I was kidding, Wren.”
She walks closer, running her tongue along her lower lip in what I think is a purposeful move to draw my attention to her mouth. It works.
“Well, I wasn’t. I’ve never given you one before.”
I’m amused by the way she says it, like I’m possibly unaware.
“I know.”
“I was going to … that night in my room. I was going to blow you and then put the condom on, but I got … it’d been a while since we’d—I got nervous, I guess.
And I’d thought about doing it in your truck, in the driveway, but the angle was …
I wasn’t sure how to—” She stops talking, meeting my gaze and noticing the smile on my face. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“What?”
“Seriously, nothing. Keep describing all the times you’ve thought about blowing me.”
“That would take too long.”
My eyebrows rise. Not the answer I was anticipating. Just knowing that Wren has thought about sucking me in her mouth has me getting hard. Knowing it’s happened often? It’s not just a physical response.
“Sit,” she says, shoving my chest, pushing me toward the beige couch.
It’s barely a couch, really more of an oversize armchair. Not that comfortable, but I’m not focused on the flat cushions right now. My full attention is on Wren, sinking to her knees between my spread thighs.
“Have you hooked up on a boat before?” she asks conversationally, playing with the strings on my shorts. “Lie if you have.”
“I haven’t. Truth.”
She tugs down my shorts, thumb circling the flared head of my cock, smearing around the liquid already leaking from the red tip.
“I’ve barely touched you,” she comments, sounding amused. Wren blows on the wetness, and my hips jerk forward of their own accord. “Barely.”
“Are you gonna talk or suck?” I grit out, feeling like I might die if the second doesn’t happen soon.
Her eyelashes flutter as she looks up from under them. “Do you have a preference?”
I drag a palm down my face, then form a fist, tempted to shove a hand into her hair and guide her mouth where I want it. I don’t. Wren might be the one on her knees, but we both know she’s holding all the power right now.
“Suck, Wren.”
She does, and fuck if it isn’t even hotter than I imagined it being.
“You look good with my cock in your mouth.”
Her right hand moves from playing with my balls to flip me off.
I laugh, a fresh flood of arousal building at the base of my spine.
If I believed in soulmates, I’d accept Wren Kensington was meant for me. If I thought she’d ever be happy with the nothing I had to offer her, I would admit I was in love with her.
“I’m close,” I grunt in warning after an embarrassingly short amount of time has passed.
She hums, the vibration sending me straight over the edge.
I come hard and fast, filling her mouth with so much cum that it spills out, dripping down her chin.
Feeling her swallow is its own nirvana, and then I’m hauling her onto my lap, unbuttoning her shorts and slipping a hand inside, finding the wet spot in her underwear.
Circling her clit and having her ride my hand until she comes with a moan she muffles against my shoulder.
“You know no one can hear us out here, yeah?”
Wren lifts her head. “You know where here is, yeah?”
“Approximately. I haven’t been up on deck for a while, so …”
“Hey, all you had to say was that you didn’t want me to suck your dick.”
“Wren,” I say very seriously, “that is a sentence that will never ever leave my mouth.”
She smiles, then rolls off my lap and walks into the bathroom. I grab a water out of the fridge and then head back up to the deck, easing the sails a little and adjusting our course before taking a seat on the bench along the back of the stern.
Wren reappears a few minutes later, focusing on me before she glances at the sea surrounding us.
She pads across the pristine deck, sitting beside me and tucking her legs under her.
She holds her phone up, snapping a few photos of the boat and the water, then leans toward me, passing me her phone. “Your arm is longer.”
“You want one of us?”
She nods, so I flip the perspective and take one. It’s the only picture we’ve ever taken together, and it’s a good one. We’re both smiling. The wind is blowing her hair behind us. We look happy, and it scares me.
I’m too jaded to trust happiness will last. And I love Wren enough to push her far away from my problems. She’d probably try to fix them for me, like she did with that fancy lawyer.
“If I had your number, I’d send it to you,” Wren comments, glancing at the photo before dropping her phone on the bench.
Her tone is casual, nearly breezy. I’ve realized—maybe too late—that’s a signal she’s saying something important.
I play along, answering the same way I did earlier. “If you want my number, Wren, just ask.”
She doesn’t.
She trails her fingers up my arm, lingering just below my left elbow. “Which tattoo was your first one?”
“That one,” I say, twisting my arm so she can see. It’s a black outline of a baseball’s stitches. Small, only a couple of inches long because I didn’t want my mom to spot it.
Wren traces it lightly. “Why did you stop playing?”
“It was my thing with my dad. I didn’t like being reminded of him.”
She nods, touching the anchor next. “I like this one.” She weaves her fingers through my other hand, lifting and inspecting that arm too. “The vines are cool too.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m glad you don’t have a skull or something fake macho.”
I laugh.
“You don’t, right?” She glances me over again, like she’s worried she accidentally missed it.
“You know I don’t. You’ve seen me naked.”
“Yeah, but when you’re naked, I’m not looking at your tattoos.”
I laugh again, my fingers tangling in her hair as the wind continues to play with it.
Her hand moves to my wrist, flipping it and brushing against the name there. I tense, but don’t pull away.
“How old was she?”
“Thirteen.”
“Was your dad already in prison when it happened?”
“No. He was stealing from the station, had been for years, but he hadn’t gotten caught yet.
He got sloppy after Skylar died. She was the center of his world.
He loved me when I pitched a no-hitter or did something else he considered impressive.
But Skylar couldn’t do anything wrong. He adored her, and she adored him.
At least”—my voice catches—“she never found out about … everything.”
I still haven’t told Wren the full truth about my father. Why his sins are so unforgivable. I’m not sure it’s something I want her to know about me. And right now, this perfect afternoon, doesn’t feel like the right time to bring any of the ugliness up.
“Are you excited about UCLA?” I ask, changing the subject.
Wren turns her head, meeting my gaze. “How’d you know that’s where I picked?”
I debate lying, then decide the truth is pretty harmless. “If you don’t want strangers looking at your social media, you should make your accounts private.”
She smiles. “You looked me up?”
“It took, like, two seconds. Wren Kensington isn’t a common name.”
“A whole two seconds, huh?” She snuggles a little closer, her head fitting perfectly under my chin. I can’t see her expression anymore, and I’m not sure if that’s better or worse. “No.”
“No what?”
“No, I’m not excited. I don’t know if I want to go to college.”
Surprise trickles through me. “What? Why not?”
“I never have. The thought of being stuck in one place, with the same people? With a set schedule that looks the same every week? I don’t know what I’d major in.
I’d rather go to Greece than take a Greek mythology class.
Or intern at a company rather than take a business course.
I’m a kinesthetic learner, according to my guidance counselor.
Sitting and listening, taking notes? Bores me to death. And that’s what most of college is.”
“Then why are you going?”
She sighs. “It’s important to my parents.
Very important to my grandfather. He’s already disappointed I’m not going to an Ivy.
There are certain expectations that are part of my family, and I laugh at or ignore some of them, but others?
Pretty nonnegotiable. College is what all my friends are doing, what my sister did, what all my cousins did.
Everyone says I’ll love it once I’m there.
I have no idea what I’ll do after, once I have a degree, but that’s a later problem.
I’m sure all of that sounds stupid to you, but it’s … it’s my life.”
“I don’t think it sounds stupid,” I tell her. “My parents both went to college. It’s not like I’m unfamiliar with the concept.”
“Why aren’t you going?”
“Isn’t an option,” I say, hoping that’ll be the end of it.
But Wren scoffs rather than agrees. “I saw the letters.”
“What?”
“Technically, yes, I was snooping, but the drawer was open a little bit. There were at least a dozen schools, all recruiting you.”
I relax some. She doesn’t mean her letters. She doesn’t know I kept them all.
“That was before. Before I quit baseball, before I stopped taking grades seriously.”
“You could still go, if you wanted to. You didn’t even apply anywhere, right?”
I stay silent.
No, I didn’t. Because I knew what the reply would be and because no one, with the exception of my mom maybe, expected anything different.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You can’t just avoid—”
“I said, I don’t want to talk about it, Wren. It’s my life. Doesn’t have a damn thing to do with you.”
“Right. Of course.”
The words themselves aren’t bad, but her tone tells me, she’s pissed. Hurt too, probably. My fault again.
“I just meant—”
“You’re the one talking about it now,” she tells me, reaching into her bag and pulling out a tube of sunscreen.
I sigh, then stand. “I should check …”
“You should,” she agrees, not even letting me finish the sentence.
I walk toward the bow. I could check over this entire damn boat and still not know how to explain to Wren that going after things I want—college, her—means risking losing them.
I don’t tell her that.
But I do end up asking her to text me the photo of us. Because I want a copy. And because I want her to be able to reach me by other means than a letter or landline, if she ever wanted to.