Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
SIMON
T he water was damn cold, lapping at my overheated skin as I waded deeper. I opened my eyes but kept my back turned to the beach. I needed a minute to recover after all that, but I was looking forward to her surprise.
While I couldn’t imagine what it might be, there were a few things I was hoping for. Abigail as a whole had been a surprise tonight, though. She’d changed.
A lot.
That was why I needed a minute.
The girl I’d known would not have let me touch her on a beach where we could’ve been discovered at any moment, nor would she ever have initiated something like that. Not that it hadn’t been fucking awesome.
I hadn’t had an orgasm like that in longer than I cared to admit—and from a hand job? No way.
Her touch had been like a drug to me, though. It’d made me feel all kinds of things I didn’t usually feel, every sensation somehow intensified by the knowledge that it’d been coming from her .
Finding out that Walker and Co Marketing were in the running for the Fit Gal contract had been an interesting surprise for me. I should’ve expected them to have been considered, but it had slipped under my radar.
Seeing her at least twice a week for the next three months, though? That was going to screw with my head in a big way, but it was also going to be fun. I would get to spend time with her. Get to know her for who she was now, and then I’d get to whoop her ass to land a client who would bring in millions to our firm.
I would get that contract. I just kind of wished that it didn’t have to be at the expense of Abigail not getting it.
Where the hell is she?
At least a couple of minutes had passed and I still couldn’t sense her in the water with me. I couldn’t feel her coming closer either. A shiver crept down my spine and I spun around just in time to see her fully dressed and moving back up the beach, her head turned to look at me over her shoulder.
“See you next week,” she yelled, and though it was dark out here, I could’ve sworn I saw a satisfied smirk on her lips. “It turns out I was right. Hooking up meant nothing to me, and neither do you.”
She faced forward and took off running, and I was so shocked that I laughed. Shit, when did she become so spicy?
I’d never had a woman walk away like this after fooling around with me, not without at least a thank you and a see you later . It was way more common for me to be the one doing the walking away. It had become something of a pattern for me, ever since I’d run from Abi.
Yet here I was, buck naked in the ocean and waiting for a girl who was already halfway back to the hotel. Water dripped from my hands as I lifted them out of the water, rubbing them over my head and laughing again before I started making my way to the shore.
I honestly couldn’t believe she’d ditched me. Abi used to be so sweet and kind, not the type to do this kind of thing at all, but I’d definitely taken that for granted. This pissed-off Abigail who’d had years to marinate in her anger was feisty, and I kind of liked that.
I liked that she’d grown into a strong, capable woman who took what she wanted like she had earlier and who didn’t take any prisoners. It got my blood pumping all over again, but my dick deflated fast when I got out of the water and realized that she’d left my phone and wallet, but my clothes were gone.
“Fuck,” I grunted, wondering if she was serious about this. But it looked like she was. She definitely wasn’t coming back. Her little prank no longer seemed so funny.
As I looked at the hotel, I could just barely make out the outline of her with heels back on her feet as she strode across the deck and got swallowed up by the crowd of partygoers who had spilled out of the restaurant. “Abigail Walker, you have no idea what you’ve just done.”
Freeballing it in the breeze, I bent over and scooped up my phone, which had been placed neatly on top of my wallet so it didn’t get full of sand. It was a surprisingly thoughtful gesture in the middle of a mean trick. I fully understood getting some payback, but standing in public with my cock out was technically a felony.
Grateful for the lifeline she’d left me, I called my friends. David picked up and laughed for at least a full minute after I’d explained that I was naked on the beach and needed them to bring me some clothes.
Only a few minutes later, him, Josh, and Benny came racing across the beach with a brightly patterned Hawaiian type shirt and a pair of swim trunks. They were talking and laughing over each other, but I had to cover up my junk before I answered any questions. I took the trunks from Benny and pulled them on, shaking my head at the pink and yellow flowers on the crotch. The shirt wasn’t much better.
“The hell is this?” I asked as I grabbed it from him.
“It’s what was available at the hotel gift shop,” David said with laughter in his voice. “What happened, bro? Did you get robbed?”
“I went for a swim,” I told him as I jammed the shirt over my head without bothering to undo the buttons. “Long story short, I played with fire and I absolutely got burned.”
“You got burned in the water?” David asked, clearly tipsy. “That’s messed up, bro.”
“Was this Abigail’s doing?” Josh asked, chuckling as he looked up and down the beach like he was expecting her to still be around here somewhere.
Quickly running my hands through my hair a few times to flick off as much of the water as I could, I shrugged and started walking back to the hotel. “Who else has spent the last ten years hating me enough to create an opportunity to humiliate me?”
“To be fair, there are probably more people than you think who fit that bill,” David supplied between barks of laughter. “Karma was bound to find you.”
Benny snorted. “Bro, you had it coming with her.”
“Yeah, but she better be careful.” I was freezing in the breeze, still dripping wet. “Too many games and I’m going to turn back into a player.”
“Uh, when exactly did you stop being one of those?” Josh asked, matching his stride to mine. “Just this morning, you asked us to take you down if Ashley came by the beach volleyball court.”
“Yeah, I stopped being one after that.” I realized how lame that sounded. It’d only been a few hours, hardly enough for them to believe that I’d ever even considered changing my ways.
What I didn’t care to tell them, however, was that I’d been way too busy recently to play any kind of games anyway—and I hadn’t missed it at all. “Look, there’s no way I’m going back into the party dressed like this, so I’m heading back to the hotel. I’m done here anyway.”
“We’ll come with you,” Benny said without hesitating. “We’ve got an early flight out and the party isn’t as good as I thought it would be.”
“I’d rather hear what the fuck you did to Abi to make her leave you stranded naked on the beach,” David said from my other side, a wicked grin on his lips as he glanced up at the hotel. “I didn’t think she had it in her.”
“She never used to,” I ground out. “It looks like she’s grown some teeth since we knew her, though.”
“Good for her.” Benny smirked at me. “You really did have it coming. Care to share exactly how you got naked, though?”
“I told you. I went swimming,” I snapped, close to losing my sense of humor entirely as the cool breeze picked up and chilled me to the bone. Sand was sticking to my legs. I’d officially stopped having fun. “Let’s just get back to the hotel. I’m not telling you any more than I already have. But thank you for the clothes.”
My friends howled with laughter as they speculated about exactly what had gone down. They weren’t too far off the mark with some of their suspicions, but I didn’t say another word about it.
Abigail and everything that had happened between us were mine. Just like she always had been. I loved these guys like brothers, but they had never understood the complexity of my feelings for her. I’d also never really bothered trying to explain it.
The only person I’d ever actually opened up to about it—outside of Abigail herself, obviously—had been Brooks. My twin. The lost half of my soul.
Pain sliced through the center of my being and my breathing shortened, my shoulders hunching as I ground my teeth and tried to shove it all back down. After today though, it was more difficult than it had been in a long time.
I was rubbed raw emotionally and I needed to hit the reset button. Abigail always had made me feel in extremes, and after so long of deliberately feeling as little as possible, I was just fucking done with this shit for today.
The next morning, the guys and I packed up early and headed to the airport for our flight back home to New York. We grabbed some coffees and bagels, and then we found a space to sit while we waited for our boarding time.
“That was a pretty cool event,” Benny said after swallowing a bite of his food. “I like some of the ideas Fit Gal has as a company, but there’s also a lot of work to be done.”
“Agreed,” I said, drumming my fingers on the lid of my coffee as I stared at the travelers around us. There was no sign of Abigail or the others, though. “Especially that catchphrase about how everybody can be a Fit Gal or a Fit Guy. It’s cheesy as hell. It needs to change.”
Benny laughed. “Totally. I’ll work on a list of ideas we can include in our pitch to them, but I’m feeling confident.”
I turned my gaze back to my friends instead of searching for a girl who probably wasn’t even here. A familiar surge of determination shot through me. I’d had a few ideas of my own for the client and I was excited.
I had to win this contract. Even more so after Abi’s little stunt on the beach. Now, I had to do it for my dad and for my pride.
David and Josh consulted for Astor and Co sometimes, and they had a few suggestions for us too. Benny eventually hauled out his laptop for our impromptu brainstorming session, and by the time we had to board, the guys and I had put together some solid plans for the pitch I’d be making.
As we got up and started gathering our things, my phone rang. For the barest of seconds, I thought it might be Abigail. Then I remembered she didn’t have my number and that despite the fact I was still stinging after yesterday, I wasn’t a teenager anymore.
It was way more likely this was business, and I pulled my phone out of the inside pocket of my jacket to a reality check I’d probably needed—but hadn’t really wanted right now. Waving the guys ahead, I turned and took the call.
“Hey, Dad,” I said after I pressed the phone to my ear. “We’re just about to board, but I’ll give you a full rundown as soon as I get back.”
“How did it go?” he asked. “Give me the highlights.”
A command, not a request. Thankfully, I knew how to hold my own with him these days. “The event was great. We got Silver and we’re already starting conversations for the pitch next week. We’re all good.”
“All good?” Dad scoffed. “Why the hell didn’t you get Gold, Simon? I thought you went there to win. Silver is not all good . These ideas you’ve got for the pitch better be worth Gold, or else you and the boys are out and they’ll find someone else to do the job you should’ve been able to get done.”
I let out a long, slow breath. “Good talk, Dad. We’re boarding now. Talk later.”
I hung up without another word.