Chapter Nineteen #3
“You were supposed to mean what you said,” I tell him, more dejected now, my voice soft and weak. “You were supposed to come with me, Finn.”
There it is again, that tight jaw, that grinding of bone. It’s too dark to see the color of his eyes — are they sea green tonight or more of that ocean blue? — but I feel them piercing through me just as much as if it were high noon.
I wait for a response, and when it doesn’t come, another sad laugh leaks out of me like helium from a pricked balloon. I laugh at him and at myself, too.
Fools, we are.
Love-drunk fools.
Wiping my nose with the back of my wrist, I shrug, the bottle of wine I’d toted to the beach with me making a sloshing sound in my hand. “Go on, then. You came here to say something? Say it. Say what you haven’t already.”
“Ember, I don’t—”
“Say it,” I snap, using my free hand to shove against his chest. My body lights up with longing the second I touch him, even for that brief second, every cell within me yearning to give in, to collapse into his arms and let him hold me — even if just for one more night. “Go on. I’m all ears. Tell me what—”
“Come with me.”
For a split second, the words have me speechless.
Hopeful.
But then anger slides right back in.
“Come with you,” I deadpan. “To Ireland. Where there is no yachting season. Where I walk away from my career, my aspirations, for you.”
“And what, it’s somehow fair for you to ask the same of me?”
I try to sharpen my gaze at him then, to pierce him the way his words were cutting me. But I feel it, how I soften, how my shoulders deflate and my eyes sting with the all-consuming sadness that’s ripping me apart.
“I never asked anything of you,” I whisper. “Except for you not to lie.”
His nostrils flare. “Em, I didn’t—”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t lie. Don’t try to make me feel crazy. I was there.”
“I never said I wanted to stay in yachting.”
“You never said you didn’t!” My chest heaves. “All those times I laid my head on your chest and talked about what came next, all the nights I dreamed aloud of where we’d go, the places we’d see together — you never stopped me. You never told me the truth.”
He closes his eyes as I step into his space, my chest pressing just below his, face angled up as I dare him to look at me and tell me I’m wrong.
But he can’t.
“I… I begged you, Finn. I begged you not to hurt me.” I hate how my eyes gloss with tears when those words croak out of me. “And you looked me right in my eye and told me you wouldn’t — all the while knowing you would.”
“Stop.”
“You wanted to use me up for the summer.”
“Stop.”
“Was it some masochistic game to you? To make me fall in love with you, knowing I meant nothing?”
“Stop, Ember! Jaysus,” he yells, pulling back from me and stalking two feet in the opposite direction. He rakes his hands through his dark hair, and for a moment I’m jealous of those hands, jealous that I’ll never feel those silky strands between my own fingers again.
When he turns back to me, he rolls his lips together, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he stares at me like I’m the one holding the gun.
We both know it’s always been him.
“You… You’re breaking me right now. You’re fucking killing me, Em.”
There it is again, that ache in my chest, that incessant need to throw my arms around him and pretend like none of this is happening, like we’re still the people we were just twenty-four hours ago instead of the ones we are right now.
But I can’t.
I owe it to myself to be strong, to see that his actions are speaking far louder than his words.
“Good,” I say, voice cracking. I refuse to blink, but a hot tear slides down my cheek despite my attempt to hold it at bay.
“I hope you hurt. I hope you never forget this pain.” I swallow, stepping close enough that I know he can see I’m not shaking when I say it.
“I hope you never escape the rotting death of what we could have been if you’d actually loved me the way you said you did. ”
I’d left him on the dark beach with those words.
And when I boarded my flight the next day, I thought I’d never see him again.
The memory had my throat tight and dry. I didn’t trust myself to keep talking about my father now, not with my emotions all stirred up like bay water in a hurricane. Between the booze and the sunshine and my heightened state of emotions, I felt two seconds away from bawling my eyes out.
But that memory held onto me.
Curiosity did, too.
And I gave into it, asking what I’d wanted to since that night in the hot tub.
There had been other, more pressing things to worry about since then — Gisella kissing Cameron, Leah being hurt, Finn having an absolute meltdown.
But now, we were alone on the shore — aside from the cameras I was sure were watching us still, even if from a distance — and I couldn’t wait any longer.
“So,” I said, poking him in the ribs just below his heart. “What’s this?”
Finn’s grin climbed. “You know what it is.”
My blood buzzed beneath my skin, a smile curling on my lips at his playfulness.
I hated that he was like this right now, that he was all airy and light, no shame as he let his eyes devour me in my bikini.
It was confusing as hell, and entirely too easy to pretend we were the people we were two years ago, that we were just flirting and teasing and biding our time until we got the other alone.
“I was right, then? It’s a firefly?”
He nodded, wiggling his toes in the wet sand as he stared at me.
“Is it for me?”
My stomach bottomed out when I finally asked.
“What? No.” He looked out at the water with his mouth downturned like the thought was absolutely ridiculous. “It’s because of the glow worms that used to fill the yard of the cabin I’d go to with me parents in the summer. It’s nostalgic. A little reminder of childhood.”
My cheeks flamed with embarrassment. “Oh.”
But before I could apologize for the idiotic assumption, Finn sucked his teeth and laughed, turning to face me again. He slid his sunglasses off so I could see his glazed blue-green eyes, the colors even brighter against the sea.
“Come now, love, don’t be daft,” he said, shaking his head. “Of course it’s for you.”
The words crashed over me like a tidal wave. He said them so simply, so confidently, as if they wouldn’t mean a thing.
But they meant everything.
His grin softened the longer I stared at him, shocked from his confession. Finally, I found the nerve to speak again. But I could only manage one word.
“Why?”
Finn slid his sunglasses back on, shrugging. “Took a page out of your book, didn’t I?”
“It helped you heal from us?”
“Something like that,” he said, and his voice was hoarse now, the playfulness abandoned.
I thought we were going to let it go, but he moved an inch closer, every nerve in my body firing to life as he turned to face me again.
He reached out, his fingers walking up my spine until his hand found the back of my neck.
He tickled the skin there, making chills burst out from the point of contact all the way down to my toes.
“And what about this, Firefly?” he asked, voice low and gruff as his finger traced the ink I knew was there. “This for me?”
He palmed the back of my neck then, fingers wrapping around until I had no choice but to look at him. His throat bobbed, and I was thankful I couldn’t see his eyes through his dark sunglasses, thankful I had at least one small barrier between us.
I didn’t get the chance to answer him.
There was a loud chorus of cheers from where our crew was on the beach, and then Eli was sprinting toward us, sand flying in his wake. He had a shit-eating grin on his face, and he swung his arms down to scoop me up without warning.
“Dibs on Ember!”
Somehow, a laugh managed to break free of the tight knots my body had been coiled into just moments before. “What are you doing?!”
“It’s what are we doing, babes,” Eli corrected me with a drunken grin, already jogging us back toward the beach setup. “And we’re playing beer pong.”
“Oh, they’re all going down.”
“I know that’s fucking right,” he said, smacking my ass with a holler that sounded like a war chant as he dropped my feet into the warm sand.
I glanced over my shoulder at Finn, heart still racing, skin still tingling where his fingers had touched the back of my neck.
He was already walking toward the crew, the corners of his mouth pulled up in that crooked, lazy grin he wore so well. From this distance, he looked relaxed. Breezy. It was like nothing had happened at all, which only added to my confusion and unrest.
Gisella popped up beside him and wrapped her arm around his waist, pulling him into her side. He let her. And jealousy sank its claws into me deep enough to break skin.
With me still watching them, Finn reached up and slid his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose — just enough to glance at me over the top of them.
The look he gave me wasn’t casual. It wasn’t friendly.
It was molten.
But I didn’t heed the warning of the imminent volcano eruption until it was too late.