Chapter 17 – Braelyn
brAELYN
The schooner cuts through the water that glitters like melted sapphires in the late afternoon sun.
I lean against the railing, sipping a delicious margarita, letting the salt mist spray my face and frizz the fuck out of my hair.
We’ve been at the resort for three days now, and Roman hasn’t been in the ocean once.
Honestly, I’m shocked he suggested this.
To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time he’s been on a sailboat since his capsized off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, and Nash was swallowed by a freak storm and rough tides.
Roman worked all day at his restaurant. I didn’t join him. I needed a bit of space this morning, and I spent that time talking to my parents and even searching for apartments while I hung around on the beach.
Roman stands beside me, his profile sharp against the impossibly blue horizon.
He’s a beast of a man. All tall and broad, with dark lines.
His short hair gently rustles against his forehead in the wind, and his pale blue-green eyes look almost colorless against the sun and water.
Then there’s his ink, vivid against tanned skin and sunshine.
Our game of truth or dare in the spa pool yesterday ended after he answered my question about the kiss.
He ended it, I should say, by getting up and sitting under an umbrella and eating lunch.
I joined him, and we morphed into regular conversation, and that was that.
But it’s been sitting with me, and I can’t shake it.
But I’m trying to. I’m desperate to return to us as we’ve been since I was a kid.
So far, this boat ride is living up to the hype.
The catamaran is sleek and spacious, carrying maybe twenty other guests who scatter themselves across the various seating options, sipping complimentary margaritas and taking photos against the spectacular backdrop.
The sun is starting to hang low, beginning its descent toward the horizon.
“What’s that?” I ask, noting the underside of his hand as he rests his wrists on the railing.
“What?” he replies, turning from the water to glance down at me.
I take a sip of my drink because damn do these people know how to do a margarita, but I use my other hand to tap his left ring finger just beneath his knuckle. “It looks like a sideways teardrop or something.”
I’ve never noticed it before. Then again, I don’t regularly study his ink and it’s on his palmar side.
I know he has his brother’s name and date of death on his arm.
I know he has a chef’s knife on his forearm with the words live by the sword beneath it.
I know he has a raven for his mom, whose name is Raven, and a bunch of other things.
But I never really paid attention to the tattoos on his hands, even when I’m cleaning them up after his fights.
Probably because I’m more concerned about the cuts and abrasions than I am anything else.
“It’s nothing. Just something I did one night a few years back,” is his flippant response, which naturally makes me study it closer. Still, I legit can’t figure it out.
“Okay.” I pause and nudge him with my elbow. “You’re quiet. Why are we doing this? Sunset cruises aren’t exactly your style.”
“Do you remember that day?”
Shit. My head bows, and my insides tumble straight into the sea.
“Yes, I remember that day.” I didn’t go with them to the Vineyard, but I talked to Nash a few times that morning.
It was two weeks after our two-year anniversary.
We were eighteen and planning to go to school together in Boston.
Then I got the call, and I think I died that day along with him.
Nash was my first everything. The guy I gave my heart to and loved with everything I had.
Maybe that’s why I’m not more broken up over Adam. Maybe I simply tried to transfer what I felt for Nash over to him. I don’t know anymore. Everything is so confusing. I digress.
Roman completely shut down. Lost himself.
Went somewhere so dark, I’m not sure how he returned.
Actually, I’m not sure he fully did. And there were whispers.
Roman was the adult, and Nash was still a kid.
Why didn’t they have life jackets on? How could Roman let go of Nash’s hand?
All the things they said, and Roman blamed himself harder than anyone could.
Roman and I had been close before that. But that brought our friendship to the next level. I stayed by his side, and I’ve been here ever since.
My head falls to his shoulder, and I step closer to him, needing the contact but also sensing he does too. As if proving my point, his hand wraps around my waist, and he holds me.
“I live above the water, and I stare out at it every day, thinking about Nash. About where he’d be and what he’d been doing and how his life would look.
If he’d be married to you and if you’d have children.
But this is the first time I’ve been back on the water.
I know it’s not possible that he’s here.
We were off the coast of New England, and likely a whale or shark or something ate him—”
I gasp and sob at once, but he presses on.
“—but still. I like the idea that he’s down there looking up at us and smiling that smile.” He looks down at me. “Do you remember that smile?”
Tears are all over my face, but I manage a nod because I do remember that smile. It could light up remote villages at midnight.
“So you brought us on a booze cruise to make me cry?”
He smiles at my attempt at humor and wipes my tears with his hand. “I don’t talk about him a lot and I’ve been thinking that’s not the healthiest approach. If you don’t talk about him, then it’s like he never existed. Like he never happened.”
“Like documenting.”
“Huh?”
My lips curl up on one side. “I had a nursing school professor who told me that if you don’t document something, it didn’t happen.”
“Where do you think he’d be if he hadn’t died?”
This might be the first time Roman has ever said that in a way that didn’t imply that he killed him.
It was a freak accident. The two of them were out in the water sailing around when a rainstorm blew in out of nowhere.
Not uncommon off the coast of New England, but it brought rough waves with the rain, and one capsized their small boat.
They were holding hands over the hull when another wave came and tore Nash from Roman’s hands.
Roman dove into the water and searched for him, but he never found him, no matter how many attempts he made.
Roman was in that water for three hours before he was rescued by the Coast Guard, clinging to the boat and screaming for his brother.
They never wore lifejackets. Maybe that’s stupid, but Nash was a professional sailor, and from the time he was sixteen on, he stopped wearing one.
Since then, darkness has lived inside of Roman.
A perpetual anger. A need for control. An unsettled quietness that if you don’t know him or why he’s this way, seems elusive and makes him mysterious and a bit of a dick.
It’s sexy to women and alluring to men, but he shies away from all of that.
He’s just Roman. Quiet and soulful and deep and broken, but with the heart of a lion.
“I like to think he would have become a doctor as he said he wanted to. I think he would have worked with your father as a neurosurgeon. He would have settled down and gotten married and had a dozen kids.”
“With you, you mean.”
I smile up at him. “Maybe. Who knows. We were kids back then and had a lot of growing up to do.”
His fingers graze along my cheek and his hand on my waist tightens. “I always felt like I robbed you of your future with him.”
“You didn’t rob me of anything. Life took him. Not you.”
His eyes dance about my face, and a soft smile hits his lips. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”
He holds my eyes and inches in ever so slightly.
My heart starts a drumroll, and I grip my drink so hard I’m shocked I’m not cracking the plastic.
My belly tightens with an uncontrollable flutter.
Because it feels like… like he’s going to kiss me.
Like he wants to kiss me, and I don’t know what to do.
If I want him to kiss me or not. I don’t know what happens to us, to me, if I let him.
Would it be just a kiss or would it turn into sex? Just a vacation thing?
Or would it be the start of something else? We’re technically married, and that complicates this further. I can’t sleep with my fake husband.
Am I even ready for that with anyone?
He dips again, his thumb dragging along my cheek.
“Brae,” he whispers, and I don’t know what comes over me, but I shift toward him and put my hand on his chest. His heart is pounding beneath my palm, but before he can do something crazy like kiss me, a woman screams across the boat, and we break apart.
“Help! My son! He was leaning over to see a fish and fell overboard.”
There’s a flurry of gasps and cries for help, but before anyone can respond, Roman is racing across the boat and without stopping, flips himself over the railing and dives straight into the ocean.
Panic seizes me, and I run, my stomach slamming into the railing as I frantically search the choppy blue water. The sails are lowered, and the boat slows to a crawl. A horn wails through the air, and two attendants are armed with life rafts, searching the water as I am.
“There!” a woman cries, pointing to the left behind the boat about twenty yards back. “There they are. He has him.”
Relief like I’ve never felt before slams through me, settling some of the adrenaline that had taken over. My knees threaten to buckle beneath me and more tears spring to my eyes.
Two life rafts are tossed right at them. Roman grabs one of them and secures the boy onto it by wrapping the strap around his chest and making sure he’s holding on tight so they can haul him in before he does the same for himself with the other raft.