Chapter 27 Elijah
ELIJAH
Ipull out my phone while I wait for my grandmother and Easton.
Betty is watching TikTok and suggesting the four of us do some viral dance at the wedding. I definitely don’t see that happening, but I’m too busy starting shit with my sister to listen.
Are you going to be okay getting Mom on the plane tomorrow?
KELSEY
You act as if I haven’t done this before. Of course I’ll be okay. Are you being nice to Easton?
How I’m being to Easton is none of your business. Also why the fuck are you trying to set her up with Hawk’s best friend?
This, I only admit to myself now, is the real reason I’m texting.
Why shouldn’t I? Thomas is currently dating Sofia Leigh, for God’s sake. Easton owes him nothing.
That doesn’t mean she needs a one-night stand with some LA douche to fill the void.
Aiden is not from LA.
Yeah, THAT was the important part to refute. Well done.
You’re being ridiculous. First of all, because Aiden isn’t a douche. He’s Hawk’s CFO, he’s loaded, he’s hot, and he’s a really nice guy.
I just don’t see how a fling with someone is in her best interest.
Aiden’s in Boston for work all the time, so it wouldn’t necessarily be a fling. You’re just jealous I’m not trying to set you up too.
She’s half right.
I’m tempted to say something implying that Easton’s more vulnerable than she appears and this just isn’t the time for it, but it would be a lie.
She seems better without Thomas, and she’s improving by the day.
A fling with this douche who isn’t from LA might help her see it for herself—but it’s going to kill me to witness it.
Easton climbs into the passenger seat, shooting me an uncertain glance, which probably means my grandmother started shit with her at the grave. Jesus, I’d truly thought there was a limit to it.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
She looks at me a moment too long before she answers. “Yeah.”
Something happened. I’ll get it out of her later.
Once my grandmother climbs in, I steer us back toward the beach. Everyone’s quiet, preoccupied. Easton and my grandmother are both staring out the window unhappily. Betty’s still on TikTok, oblivious to it all.
“So, will you two be ready to head to New Orleans tomorrow?” I ask, looking in the mirror.
Betty shrugs. “What’s the rush? The activities don’t even start until Thursday.”
Yeah, I guess. But Kelsey tends to let my mom call the shots, when we need her resting up until Saturday.
We’ve gotten so lucky, with the timing of her remission, but we’ve been here before.
It would just take one bad fall to turn what should be an amazing day for Kelsey into everything I don’t want it to be: my mom on display, embarrassed, while my sister frets.
We drop Betty and my grandmother off at Paul’s, agreeing that I’ll pick them up after lunch the following day—New Orleans is only four hours away and with any luck, this will spare us all the regular morning stops.
At our rental, Easton goes upstairs, then returns a few minutes later in the bikini I jerked off in.
I still can’t believe I did that and at the same time, I sort of want to do it again. It’s for the best that we each have our own bathrooms here.
“Hold on,” I say, dropping the newspaper on the table. “I’ll go with you.”
“You can’t go in,” she warns. “There’s no way that wound is completely healed yet. In fact, let me look.”
I’m instantly stiffening at the idea of her unbuttoning my pants, the way she started to yesterday. I have to fight it off as best I can.
I choke. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
She rolls her eyes. “As we’ve established, you’re not well-placed to decide that.”
I wonder if she knows that her hips sway when she walks. That I can see the faint outline of her nipples beneath the bikini top.
Jesus. I really need to notice less about her. Especially right now.
I make a concerted effort to think of anything else as I unbutton my shorts and push them down, adjusting myself as I rise.
She pulls the bandage off. “It’s actually healing really nicely and it doesn’t look infected, but you still shouldn’t go in the water just to be on the safe side.”
I laugh. “If you think going in the water with a mostly healed wound is something I would consider dangerous, you clearly have no idea how much dangerous shit I do at my job every day.”
“Fine,” she says. “When you’re dying of sepsis, don’t come crying to me.”
“I’m pretty sure that if I’m dying of sepsis, the last person I’m crying to is a girl who has already promised that she won’t call nine-one-one for a kindly grandmother.”
She laughs. “Kindly is a stretch, but I’m glad you finally believe me about that.”
Once I’ve got my swim trunks on, the two of us proceed to the beach, not bothering with flip-flops this time, our feet sinking into the powder-soft sand.
She looks as if she’s fifteen again as she runs into the water, and I feel as if I’m fifteen too. Or maybe I’m thirty-five, but the shit that’s happened over the past decade was just some kind of bad dream, and life worked out the way it was supposed to.
There’s a sandbar farther out. The two of us wade toward it then swim once it gets too deep. Unfortunately the water is full of seaweed. By the time we reach the sandbar, her hair and mine are full of it. I pull it from her long mane and then she plucks a few pieces from mine.
“We’re allogrooming,” she informs me. “It reduces cortisol and increases oxytocin.”
I smile. I like that she’s telling me her facts again.
We sit for a while in the waist-deep water, observing the shore from a distance. I could stay here all day if I had a cooler.
“You realize,” I tell her, “that this trough between the sandbar and the shore is exactly where sharks feed.”
She grins. “Good thing I don’t have an open wound to lure them toward me.”
“I swim faster, so I’d mostly be luring them to you,” I reply, and she takes off for the shore, giving herself a head start in a race we never even agreed to. I chase after her, slowing as we near the shore, and she smiles at me once we reach the beach.
“You let me win,” she says.
I shrug. The truth is that I enjoy watching her win more than I enjoy beating her. I always have. I should have recognized how crazy I was about her long before I finally did.
She spreads her towel in the sand and closes her eyes, sighing in contentment.
I set my towel beside hers and attempt to read the paper but catch myself watching her instead.
Her chest rises and falls steadily as she drifts off to sleep, and before I can stop it, I’m picturing my hand sliding down her taut stomach, my palm pressing to one of those jutting hip bones.
My fingers running over the strip of fabric between her legs, giving her only enough pressure to make her want more.
I roll on my stomach, looking for something else to think about, something to kill the image off.
Like the fact that by tomorrow night, I will no longer have her to myself, but Aiden very well might.
Yep. That definitely killed the mood.