Chapter 22
chapter twenty-two
Wendy
Three days ago, I heard every word Adam said to Carter. Gran had cracked the windows at lunch, and the crashing waves were not loud enough to mask it. Thankfully, I was the only one in the lobby at the time, or I’d have been embarrassed.
“She’ll get bored with you.”
“You’re nothing more than a distraction.”
“Wake up, Carter. You’re a rebound.”
And the one that turned my stomach …
“She’s acting like your summer slut.”
I stood behind the front desk with my hands clenched into fists, listening to what both of them said when they thought things were private. My very much—and will always be until the end of my life—ex-boyfriend reduced me to a whore while Carter threatened to put him on the ground.
I wanted to rage out, but I’ve learned it’s best to cool off first.
It took me seventy-two hours.
Tuesday, he ate alone, skipped breakfast with the Bees, and stayed in his room most of the day. Wednesday, we made small talk at the counter while I sorted through the mail. He asked about the surf competition and if I was entering. I didn’t answer him.
This morning, Adam comes down the stairs, dressed with intention.
He’s styled his hair how I like it with enough product to make it look naturally messy.
He’s wearing a navy button-up, the sleeves rolled up his forearms. His cologne drifts toward me, the same smell that still holds so many memories.
His stubble is cleaned up, and he smiles at me as he passes.
Tomorrow is his last day here, and we don’t have availability for him to extend his stay. This is the final performance.
I busy myself with my work. Adam gets the hint and leaves.
An hour later, when he returns, he’s carrying a bouquet of long-stemmed red roses, wrapped in paper with a ribbon tied around the middle. It’s generic, flowers you’d pick up for anyone. The thought is sweet, but the intention behind it isn’t.
“These are for you,” Adam says, holding them toward me.
“Thanks,” I say, taking them with a smile.
My parents raised me to be gracious, even in awkward situations. I set them on the counter without putting them in water.
“Can we talk?” he says.
“Aren’t we doing that now?” I ask.
“No, Wen. Like really talk.”
I stare into his hazel eyes, and he grins.
“Fuck, you look incredible,” he says.
A year ago, that compliment would’ve had me melting. I would’ve smiled and let him steer the conversation wherever he wanted.
“What do you want to talk about?”
He leans forward, removing some of the distance between us. The heat of his body, combined with the smell of his skin, takes me back. The good memories were my favorite, but there weren’t enough of them.
“I know you’re sleeping with Carter,” he says.
I don’t respond or confirm anything and let the silence sit between us. Adam has never been comfortable in silence, and tends to fill it with his own voice. It’s one of the tactics he uses when he manages—he talks until everyone agrees.
“I heard you,” he continues. His voice drops lower, and his eyes move to my lips. “Through the wall. I heard everything. Every gasp.”
Heat washes over me. This isn’t a conversation I wanted to have with him.
“I lay in that bed and listened to you.”
He moves closer, the way he used to approach me when he wanted something and knew I’d give it to him. His thumb traces my cheekbone, and his eyes are glassy. I can’t tell if it’s real, and that’s the most terrifying part.
“I could hear your voice, Wen. The sounds I heard for five years. And knowing another man’s hands were on you, that he was inside you …” He swallows. “It’s destroying me. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat.”
His thumb moves along my jaw, and his touch is gentle. For half a second, my body responds to the familiarity of it before my brain catches up.
“I keep seeing his hands on you,” he says. “I imagined what you looked like underneath him, and I can’t get it out of my head. You’re mine, Wendy. You’ve always been mine. I love you so fucking much. I think I always will.”
I don’t pull away yet. I let him stand there with tears in his eyes. A month ago, I would’ve crumbled and apologized and felt guilty for leaving him. That’s what Adam does though. He always finds a way to twist my pain into his own. I used to apologize for him hurting me.
“Have you been with anyone?” I ask.
He looks surprised—because, usually, this is where I forgive him.
“Yes,” he says, and I expect that knowledge to hurt me, but it doesn’t. “But we can move past this.”
“Who?” I ask.
His other hand comes up to cradle my cheek, and he holds me the way he used to after we fought and he won. “It doesn’t matter.”
I take a step away from him. “With who?”
My body goes numb as I stare at the man I gave the best years of my life to.
“Gwyneth.”
The air leaves my lungs. She was my best friend and one of the managers who worked beside me. We shared lunches and covered each other’s shifts, and she held me while I cried about Adam not choosing me.
I hold on to the edge of the counter because the ground is tilting under my feet. “How could you?”
“Wendy,” he begs, “it was a mistake. She saw how lonely I was and wanted to make me happy. And please don’t give me that innocent angel act. You’ve been fucking a random guy who’s staying at the B&B. I never would’ve thought you’d do that.”
He moves closer. “I love you, Wendy. I need you. I want to be with you and spend the rest of our lives together. Come back to California with me. We can leave the past where it is, and you can forget about that distraction.”
“Distraction?” I repeat. “Is that what Gwyneth was? Or would you say she was more of a rebound?”
“It meant nothing. It was just sex and—”
“Oh, so she was your summer slut.” I throw the words he used for me back in his face.
His expression shifts, and he places his hand on my face, then leans in to kiss me. “I forgive you.”
I step away from him. “You don’t want me. You just don’t want anyone else to have me.”
Every layer of the character he plays disappears.
“You disgust me. I would never be with anyone who speaks about me the way you have.”
He steps back. “I was angry and—”
“Bullshit.” I’m pissed now. “You spent five years making every decision for me. Where we ate, when we slept, which projects I took at work, and who I was conveniently friends with.” I stare at him, wondering if this has been going on longer than what he’s saying.
“I trusted you. Meanwhile, you were just managing me the same way you do everyone else.”
“That’s not true.”
“I almost fell for the act because you’re so goddamn good at this.” My voice trembles, but I keep going. “I’ve been watching you all week. How you are with Gran, the Bees, and even with Carter. You can’t keep your masks straight.”
“I care about you, Wendy.”
“Why are you here?” I ask. “This isn’t it.”
He goes still and exhales. “I want you as my wife, Wendy. And I’ve begged the company to promote you to the position you always deserved to have. Vice president of operations.”
I blink a few times at him. “What?”
“Three-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar base salary, performance bonus, equity stake, full relocation, a signing bonus that you can negotiate. I’ve been working on this for over a year, and they want you for the position. Of course, it comes with benefits.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I whisper, feeling sick.
He still can’t separate loving me from using me.
“Say yes. This was our dream.”
Our dream.
Six months ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated at this offer. I would’ve asked about the equity structure and done the math and convinced myself that going back was the smart thing to do. I’d be set for life.
“We can work through our problems, Wendy. I’m willing to go to counseling, how you wanted. I’m willing to work for us.”
He’s saying all the right things at the wrong time. I should feel something right now, but I don’t.
“Did they send you here?”
The half a second of hesitation from him tells me everything.
“Yes,” he says. “But I wanted to be here—”
“What do you get out of it?”
“You,” he says so clearly.
I swallow. “Tell me this, Adam. Do I look like a fucking moron to you?”
“Why are you acting this way? Do you have any idea what I did to make your dreams come true? Do you know what I’ve sacrificed?” he asks, trying to spin it.
“How much are they paying you for recruiting me? Thirty thousand dollars? Forty thousand?”
“You’re overreacting.”
“You keep saying that.” I walk toward the stairs.
“You said it when I begged you to be with me long distance. You said that when I told you I wanted to think about our future together. You even said it the night I left to come home. Maybe you’re underreacting.
” I let out a breath. “The answer is no.”
“The money—”
“Will never ever make me happy,” I say, taking the stairs.
The door to his room is unlocked, and his clothes are hanging in the closet in a neat row.
I yank the shirts off the hangers, and the metal clatters against the rod.
Then I toss them off the small balcony. His toiletries line the bathroom counter, and I sweep them into my hands and throw them out too.
The cologne gets tossed, along with his shoes.
I grab the empty suitcase and throw it out too. All of it goes over the railing, landing in the sand with a thud.
Adam stands in the doorway. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“You’re leaving.”
“You’ve lost it.”
“No, I’ve found myself again. I’m awake, and I’m finally able to see you for who you are. I’m disgusted by you.” My hands tremble from the adrenaline. “I don’t even want to see you again. Ever. Lose my number. Forget I exist. Go away.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“The only mistake I made was giving you the best years of my life. I let you frame every conversation so I’d walk out, thinking you were right.
You controlled my feelings and my decisions and my career, and I thanked you for it.
You tried to break me, and I won’t give you that opportunity again.
” I take a step toward him. “Get the fuck out of my grandmother’s house. ”
He’s calculating how much of a scene to make. Whatever he sees written on my face stops him from making his next move. If he doesn’t leave within five minutes, I will throw him off the balcony next.
He turns and walks away, and I follow him down the stairs.
Gran stands in the lobby, watching the whole thing.
“Adam is checking out early,” I say to her with my nostrils flaring.
Adam moves to the door and turns to me, begging me with his eyes. He steps out onto the porch, and I slam the door, the seashell Welcome sign slapping against it. I turn around, and my grandma just stares at me.
“Do you think throwing his shit off the balcony was necessary?”
My face cracks into a smile, and I laugh. “Yeah. I do.”
“Honey, you destroyed him.”
“He deserved it.”
I hear the engine of his rental car starting. Soon, he backs out of the driveway, and the noise fades until it’s just the ocean through the windows again.
Gran comes around the desk and squeezes my shoulder.
“I’m proud of you,” she says and kisses my forehead before leaving me alone.
The roses sit on the counter where I left them. I pick them up and drop them in the trash before stepping out onto the deck.
The beach is full of tourists and umbrellas.
More people are out because the surf competition starts this weekend.
My age group competes in two days, and I’m feeling nervous about it.
But what really scares me comes after. The summer crush agreement ends soon, and I made a promise to myself that I’d accept whatever happened.
If Carter leaves, I’ll learn to survive, per usual.
An hour later, Carter walks in with sand on his calves and a book tucked under his arm. “Everything okay?”
“I kicked Adam out,” I say.
Carter sets his book on the counter. “Want to talk about it?”
“I don’t know where to start. He slept with my best friend in California. He offered me a job.”
“Uh, that’s a lot.”
“I lost my temper and threw his suitcase off the balcony, then told him to get the fuck out.”
Carter blinks and then he bursts into laughter. “Damn, I’m sad I missed this.”
He walks behind the desk, which he’s never done, and slides a kiss across my lips. I melt into him, feeling relaxed for the first time all day.
“What was that for?” I ask.
He leans down close to my ear. “You needed a distraction.”
“Always do,” I say with a smile.
His hand moves to the back of my neck and squeezes once. The tension in my body releases.
“Do you have plans next Friday?”
“Are you asking me on a date?”
“Yes, I fucking am,” he tells me.
All I can do is smile. “What time?”
“Seven.”
I lean into him. “I’ll be there. Should I wear anything special?”
“I’ll have something delivered.”
My brow lifts. “And what does that mean?”
“You’ll find out.”
I let out a relieved breath. “You know what I could go for right now?”
He smiles. “What?”
“Some strawberry cake with strawberry icing.”
“With vanilla ice cream?” he asks.
“Stop. You’re turning me on.”
“Lead the way,” he says, looping his pinkie with mine, leading me toward the door.
Adam is finally gone. The surf competition is forty-eight hours away, and next Friday, I have a real date planned with Carter.
The last time I gave my heart to a man, he used it as currency. I hope Carter protects it.