Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Ramona was relieved that the moon was full and bright. The sun had just disappeared for good, her phone was turned off, and she wasn’t nearly ready to leave this beach.
This cove.
Their cove.
The thought stung, but she hadn’t known where else to go. She couldn’t sit in her childhood bedroom and cry, and she couldn’t be around people right now, even April, who would do her best to comfort Ramona, but Ramona didn’t want comfort right now.
Comfort was for tomorrow.
Right now, she wanted to be pissed and hurt and confused and sad.
She sat cross-legged on the cool sand, the lake’s gentle waves whispering against the shore.
Shh.
Shhhhh .
The sound did help to calm her a bit, made everything feel delicate and soft, as though she were under those waves, water shimmering above her. The moon spread silver over the surface, sparkling and dancing.
It was a perfect night.
Clear and warm with just enough cool breeze to keep her hair from sticking to the back of her neck.
But everything else was a mess. Dylan, Ramona’s whole sad little life. She shouldn’t even be here. She should be at home, spending time with her sister, who was leaving in a couple short months, but no, because Ramona’s most soft and secret memory was in a tabloid.
A tabloid .
She sighed and scooped up a handful of sand, tossing it at the water as hard as she could. It was completely unsatisfying, the dirt scattering in the breeze and mostly back onto her bare legs. She stood, hunted around in the sand for a good rock, then hurled it at the lake. It landed with a plop that still did nothing to ameliorate the pressure in Ramona’s chest. She switched to skipping the rocks, hoping the more skips she could achieve the less she’d feel like screaming at the sky.
She’d been at it for a good five minutes when she heard a branch crack behind her. She whirled around, hoping a racoon hadn’t ventured out of the woods to crash her pity party.
But it wasn’t a racoon.
She would’ve preferred a racoon to who was actually standing on the beach in her cove.
Her fucking cove.
“Hi,” Dylan said, breathing hard as though she’d run here. She had a box of Kleenex under her arm. Ramona opened her mouth to ask why, but then decided she didn’t care.
She turned back to the water, side-armed another rock over the surface.
“You’re good at that,” Dylan said.
“I know.”
Dylan laughed softly. “I’ve never been able to skip rocks very well. I always—”
“What do you want, Dylan?”
Ramona didn’t turn around. Didn’t look at her. Didn’t even really want an answer. Still, infuriatingly, she felt her throat go a little thick.
“I…I wanted to talk,” Dylan said, her voice closer now.
Ramona released a bitter laugh. “I think you’ve done enough talking.”
Dylan was close now, standing in front of her. She was gorgeous even with her red-rimmed eyes. The moon made her hair look silvery, her Evenflow tee loose over her cuffed jeans.
“I’m sorry,” Dylan said.
Ramona’s face crumpled, but she smoothed it out fast. Her heart, however, wasn’t so easy to keep in check. “So it was you?” Her voice was soft, too small.
Dylan took a tiny breath. “Indirectly, yeah.”
Ramona didn’t even know what that meant. Didn’t care. All that mattered was that Dylan had shared their story with the world without even asking her.
“I’m so sorry,” Dylan said again.
She seemed closer now, her booted feet only an inch from Ramona’s sandy toes.
“Why?” Ramona asked.
“Why am I sorry?”
Ramona shook her head, let her silence say what she really meant.
Dylan sighed, set the tissue box in the sand. Ramona frowned at it, the familiar blue-and-green flowers on the cardboard.
“Is that from my kitchen?” she asked.
Dylan laughed quietly. “Yeah. Long story.”
Ramona kept her eyes on the box, the pattern blurring in her vision. “That memory was ours.”
Dylan was quiet for a second. Ramona saw her fingers twitch by her side, as though she wanted to take Ramona’s hand, but Ramona stuffed them into her pockets.
“I know,” Dylan said softly.
Ramona felt the first swell of tears.
“I told someone close to me, and they made a mistake,” Dylan said.
“ They made a mistake?” Ramona replied sharply.
“ I made a mistake,” Dylan said. “I should have realized they might…I don’t know. Use it.”
“Use us,” Ramona said.
Dylan’s expression was so soft and open, that first damn tear escaped and slid down Ramona’s cheek. She couldn’t help feeling betrayed, like this was all some game to Dylan.
“We don’t have to do this,” Ramona said, sniffing. “We can just stop, and I won’t—”
“Ramona,” Dylan said. She lifted her hand slowly, and Ramona didn’t flinch or back away when she swiped the tear from Ramona’s face with her thumb. “That’s not what I want.” She trailed off, looked down, biting her lower lip. “My job…who I am…I know it can be complicated. But that story is ours. And it’s important to me. I need you to believe that.”
“Is it?” Ramona asked, her voice a whisper, even though she didn’t mean it to be. She was shifting though, her anger giving way to something else, something light and gauzy, like lake water under a full moon.
“Yeah,” Dylan said. “Lifesaving, remember?”
Ramona exhaled. That word— lifesaving —like tiny flickers of light through her rib cage. This might be complicated, but it was also good . And she didn’t want to stop. She wanted Dylan in her life, and Dylan Monroe was never going to be simple.
Somehow, they’d moved even closer, Dylan’s tee brushing the front of Ramona’s blouse. And this time, Ramona reached out first, both of her hands taking Dylan’s, twining their fingers together.
Dylan exhaled heavily. “You believe me?”
Ramona could only nod, could only focus on their hands, the sensation of touching Dylan, being close. It obliterated doubt and anger, replaced it with something fragile and desperate. Maybe a little scared too, because she did believe Dylan. And that belief—that trust —was scary as hell.
“I was going out of my mind today,” Dylan said, curling their hands and resting them on her chest.
Ramona lifted her eyes to look at her. “You were?”
“The idea of hurting you. It was unbearable.”
“Dylan,” Ramona said softly.
“Last night,” Dylan said, “I really wanted to kiss you.”
“I wanted you to kiss me,” Ramona said. Her heart felt huge, thrumming at every pulse point.
“This is better though,” Dylan said. She lifted their hands, pressed them to her mouth. “To kiss here, in our cove.”
“Our cove.” Even closer now. Impossibly, defying physics. Ramona wanted to be closer still, crawl inside Dylan and set up a home, which was wild and terrifying and silly.
“Ours,” Dylan whispered, right before she closed that gap between them and brushed her lips over Ramona’s.
Soft.
Gentle.
So terrifying and so, so not silly at all.
Ramona kissed her back, just as soft and gentle, opening her mouth only a little to capture Dylan’s upper lip between hers. Dylan sucked in a breath, a tiny moan making its way out of her mouth and into Ramona’s.
And Ramona felt it everywhere. Soft and gentle wasn’t enough, not by a long shot, and the slow pulse spiraling through her body turned electric with that one little sound, a firework blasting into the sky.
She untangled their hands, a barrier between them, and then slid her fingers into Dylan’s hair, pulling her closer. Dylan was only a little taller than she was, her arms fitting perfectly around Ramona’s waist.
They obliterated any space left between them. Ramona tilted Dylan’s head just so, needing to kiss her deeper, harder. Ramona teased Dylan’s mouth open, swept her tongue over her top lip. Dylan gasped and responded, pulling Ramona tighter, letting her tongue meet hers, soft and wet and perfect. Her arms tightened around Ramona, but then her hands slipped under her blouse, fingertips soft on the bare skin of Ramona’s back. That touch—skin on skin—made Ramona feel wild. She wanted that feeling everywhere.
“Hello, Dolly,” Dylan whispered against her mouth.
Ramona laughed, pulled her even closer, framing Dylan’s face and angling her head so she could kiss down her neck.
Dylan groaned, and the sound shot straight to between Ramona’s legs.
“You’re…fuck…you’re really good at that,” Dylan said as Ramona kissed her neck, making her way to a sensitive spot just below her ear. Still not too wild. Not as wild as Ramona suddenly felt, as wild as she wanted to be.
But then Dylan whispered “Cherry,” and Ramona went feral. She made herself pause, pulled back to look at Dylan, her lips already kiss-swollen, her pupils blown wide.
“We’re on a beach,” Ramona said.
Dylan frowned. “Yeah. A cove.”
“Our cove.”
Dylan trailed her fingers up Ramona’s bare back, stopped at her bra strap, then drifted back down. “Our cove.”
“It’s stupid.”
Dylan froze. “Stupid?”
“God, sorry.” Ramona shook her head, rested her hands on Dylan’s shoulders. “Not stupid.”
“I thought it was kind of romantic.”
“It is.” Ramona pressed her forehead to Dylan’s. “It is so romantic. Or it was until I kissed you and now all I want to do is…”
She trailed off, suddenly shy.
Because what if Dylan didn’t want to…well, do what Ramona wanted to do? What if she wanted to go slower? Which was fine, god, of course it was fine, and it had been so long since Ramona had mixed feelings and sex. Logan was…not a mixture. He was a very simple solution, and everyone before him was only a fling, a summer romance, a—
Ramona blinked down at their feet in the sand, her forehead still against Dylan’s.
Just casual. You know…fun. Not so different from what we’ve been doing, really…
That’s what Dylan had said when she’d asked Ramona out.
And this was fun, but somehow, in the center of Ramona’s chest, it felt anything but casual. And as Dylan lifted Ramona’s chin with a finger, thumb swiping at her cheek, those eyes looking so deep into her, it didn’t feel like Dylan thought it was casual either.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Dylan said softly.
Ramona felt herself trembling, tried to steady her muscles, but Jesus, Dylan’s voice. Soft yet gravelly. Rough but somehow silky. She wanted it to trail over her skin. Scrape down her stomach and whisper between her thighs.
“I…I’m thinking I want you to take me back to your place,” Ramona said, her own voice as quiet as the lapping lake. A plea.
Dylan looked at her, eyes hooded, her mouth parted. “You sure?”
“Never been so sure,” Ramona said, her fingers digging into Dylan’s shoulders.
Dylan responded by wrapping her arms back around Ramona’s waist, pulling her close and kissing her, lifting her off the ground a little.
Ramona gasped, opened her mouth to Dylan, reminded herself to tease Dylan later about being so strong and buff and literally sweeping her off her feet, but right now, she just wanted to kiss her.
She wanted to kiss Dylan Monroe. Her Lolli. And so that’s what she did.