Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Cole
I’m shown to a table on a patio overlooking the ocean, the laughs and hollers of beach-goers ringing out from the boardwalk and nearby restaurants.
The scene playing out around me looks more like the set of a music video than a place to have a serious meeting. I’m here to talk to this guy about the next leg of my work, but I’m going to be distracted.
Not by the things going on around me, but by the girl who I left behind and can’t wait to get back to.
The guy I’m meeting with stands up and shakes my hand, looking around like he’s trying to fade into the background.
“Isn’t this place great?” he says, lowering his voice as we sit down.
“It wouldn’t have been my first choice,” I say, taking a sip of the sweating glass of water in front of me.
A waitress brings over a bottle of champagne and a few tiny plates with things that don’t look the least bit appetizing to me at the moment.
The guy slides a laptop out of the bag on the seat next to him and opens it, ready to go over dates, locations, logistics, and a million other things that I already have memorized.
The maps, schedules, and brand partnerships he’s talking about right now are the last things I care about. My next adventure, the thing I was looking forward to, now seems like an inconvenience at best, and a pointless waste of time at worst.
As my brain is assaulted with the low thump of bass from speakers, I can’t stop my eyes from scanning over the boardwalk and the white sand, wondering if this is the kind of place Ella likes to hang out.
She doesn’t seem like the kind of girl who would want to mix and mingle with the people here. Everyone is wearing designer, showy outfits.
She doesn’t need to draw attention to herself with revealing clothes while she walks along the boardwalk, and for fuck’s sake, thank god she doesn’t. I don’t know what I would do if she were here among this drooling trove of drunk frat guys. The jealousy might make my heart explode.
I’m nodding along with the guy across from me, but my mind is miles away.
He huffs out a laugh and closes his computer.
“Okay, I get it,” he says, pushing it aside. “There are more important things for you to worry about right now than business.”
He has no idea.
“Like what?” I say sharply.
He leans over the table slightly, lowering his voice.
“Take a look around,” he says. “I suggest that you fuel up on as much pussy as possible before you head back into the wilderness. Out there, it’s just snakes and a satellite phone.”
He leans back in his chair with a satisfied smirk on his face, like I’m supposed to chime in with an equally skeevy comment.
Instead, I drain what’s left in my glass and glance out toward the beach again.
He clears his throat.
“You seem preoccupied,” he says, finally catching on.
I push a breath out of my lungs and clench my teeth as I look out at the ocean.
It’s so vast.
So full of promise.
But now, that promise feels positively empty.
My brain zooms toward a picture that I’ve never envisioned before.
It’s me and her, twenty meters under the water, gliding past coral walls and schools of fish, her hand in mine as we float in that slow, surreal silence that makes the world feel like it’s brand new.
I stare out at the ocean, my eyes on the horizon.
He’s goddamn right I’m preoccupied.
Because for the first time, I know exactly what I want—and it’s not somewhere out there.
It’s her.