Chapter 16 #2
“I said we’d be killing a few hours,” Nate reminded him with a chuckle.
Olivia popped open the bottles of wine while Isabella laid out a blanket on the sand. “I like to be overprepared.”
When they’d filled their bellies with a sampling of everything, the others waded back into the water while Evan pulled on his sandals. He was curious to explore this little paradise, and the adventure gave him an excuse for some solo time.
He couldn’t seem to shake the lingering weirdness from before. Tormenting everyone with terrible jokes had helped a little, but he could still feel it rumbling beneath the surface. It was disconcerting. And that felt like something Lennox would say, which made it even more disconcerting.
What the hell was going on? This honeymoon was supposed to be a battery recharge before getting back to his life, and that meant his life as it had been, just minus the wife. Right?
Right?
Then he’d gotten here and thought maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing to turn his public persona off for a couple of weeks.
This was a rare opportunity to just exist, and he’d be crazy not to take it.
Though he’d have thought differently if he’d known every day would bring him closer to an existential crisis.
Things had been going just fine. After years of busting his ass, he’d nearly reached the top of the food chain, and that meant Lucy could shove her opinion of his priorities into the back of a Volkswagen. He wasn’t letting her judgment or anyone else’s send him rolling back to the bottom.
Evan stubbed his toe on a branch and hissed through a litany of curses. The foliage had grown dense farther from the beach, and though it was passable, it required more concentration than he was currently capable of.
The bouts of emotional introspection were distracting and becoming more frequent. They needed to fuck off before he lost a toe to something bitey in the underbrush. Or worse, developed a conscience.
He took several more branches to the feet and face before eventually breaking through at the base of a jagged path that ascended a steep but climbable hill.
He wasn’t at all dressed for hiking, but going back and pretending to be in the mood for polite conversation sounded worse than skinned knees.
Plus, he figured the view at the top would be worth it.
There, his thought process had come full circle.
He traversed the path of loose rocks, sand, and dirt, grateful for something to focus on that didn’t involve his failures as a son or husband—fake or otherwise.
Less than twenty-four hours had passed, and he’d made a fucking mess of what had started to resemble a tentative friendship.
He and Heath had finally been acting like normal people without a comic book vendetta.
Then he’d gone and reminded the guy of why the chip on his shoulder had elitist assholes carved into it.
He reached the top with only a few minor scratches and took in the 360-degree view of clear sky and sparkling water. As expected, totally worth it. If only he could apply that confidence to everything else that lay ahead of him.
A boulder surrounded by sandy grass made for the perfect lookout spot. He climbed onto it, pulling his legs into his chest so he could hug his calves and rest his chin on his knees and just be.
When he’d been a kid, he’d take off into the woods surrounding his father’s house and lick his wounds in the shade of the massive trees. This felt similar. Instead of the quiet solitude of shade and songbirds, he had a sea breeze and the crashing of waves.
The echo of voices from below reached his ears in fits and starts, but the surf garbled whatever they were saying. All he heard was boisterous laughter. Pure, unfiltered happiness.
“You mind some company?”
He startled, unaware anyone had followed him. “Yeah. Sure.”
Heath approached, taking a seat on a smaller rock about a foot away.
Just far enough to be out of cooties range of the rich dickhead.
He looked like he wanted to be anywhere else, so why was he there?
Had someone put him up to it? Probably. Isabella and Olivia and their well-intentioned meddling, trying to get the newlyweds to kiss and make up.
“They tell you to check up on me?”
The corner of Heath’s mouth curled a fraction of an inch upward. “No, they’re three sheets to the wind and looking for shells. I don’t think they even noticed you’d left.”
Ouch. “You really know how to make a guy feel special.”
“I brought you some sunscreen.”
Double ouch. His streak of being an asshole remained intact. “I’m fine, but thanks.”
Heath’s eyes met his, and the processing of Evan’s thoughts came to a grinding halt. They were so goddamn blue. Even more so against the backdrop of the sky and water. Swirling prisms peering out from beneath windswept dark hair.
“You’re really not.”
He blinked. “Huh?”
Heath gestured broadly at his upper body, spurring him to look at himself more closely.
He’d brought a couple of sun shirts knowing he’d end up burning, but while helpful, they weren’t infallible.
Beneath the thin sage green material, he could tell his skin was a little pinker than at the start of the day. “Shit.”
Heath held out the bottle, and Evan grabbed it, this time being careful to avoid any accidental contact.
“You need a hand?”
“No, I’ve got it,” he grunted while peeling off the shirt.
The direct sun made his bare skin sizzle, but the sunscreen hit him like another of Heath’s tea towel concoctions. It was ice cold, having obviously traveled in one of the coolers, and he suspected Heath was responsible for that too.
“You really don’t.”
Evan shot him a scowl as he slathered up both of his arms, then his face, neck, and shoulders. His lower back wasn’t a problem, but the middle just wasn’t happening. With a sigh, he held the bottle back out.
“Fine.”
He scooted over to make room for Heath on his rock, letting his legs hang over the edges while he leaned forward to allow better access to his back. The first squirt of lotion hit his searing skin, and he stifled a groan. It felt really fucking good.
“You looked kind of freaked out on the boat. Everything okay?”
Heath had noticed? When? He hadn’t been aware he’d returned from below deck after their argument. Probably because of how freaked out he’d been.
“Let’s just say I have a checkered past with sailing.”
“You leave a boat in dry dock after a spirited regatta?”
Evan blew a raspberry against his own arm as a laugh burst free. “Kudos. That was good.”
Heath hmphed and Evan suppressed another moan as slick, chilly hands fanned across his back, over the tender places he’d failed to reach before.
Christ, it felt good. Not just the chill, but the touch. The lightest massage on muscles that hadn’t properly relaxed in years.`
“Did you sail often?”
“Not by choice.”
“Oh.”
He wanted to ask whether Heath had always been a fisherman, or if his life story was a well-stocked lake too tempting to ignore. After the way they’d left things on the boat, however, it seemed wise to shut up and be thankful they were speaking at all.
“My father had a boat a little bigger than Nate’s. He competed with a team for several years and wanted my brothers to take over when he got too old.”
“But you didn’t want to?”
A less mirthful laugh escaped. That was an understatement of the century. “It wasn’t really my thing, no.”
“Was your father disappointed?”
Only every fucking day of my life. “Not really. My brothers were better at it than I was. They took home a few trophies over the years.”
Evan sighed into the chill of the lotion across his ribcage, the press of Heath’s thumbs along the dip of his spine a splendid agony against the tender skin and the knotted muscles beneath.
He was good at this. Really fucking good, but saying so struck Evan as weird. Too personal. Too… intimate.
Was it because his first thought had been to consider how much dick Heath must get with such talented hands? Because Evan’s was having some considerations of its own.
“What’s your dad like?”
Evan’s own fingers dug into the indentations on the surface of the stone. What did he say to that? If he were honest, he’d probably have to elaborate. Did he want to have that conversation? Then again, if he lied and said great, he might vomit himself to death.
“He’s a prick. What’s yours like?”
Heath’s hands stopped moving. “My dad’s been gone for many years, but he was… you know, I’m never sure how to answer that, because my mother says I’m his carbon copy. I thought he was really great, but—”
“But then you’d sound like an egotistical asshole?”
A puff of laughter danced across Evan’s back, raising the fine hairs on his neck.
“Something like that.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a little ego.”
“I suppose you’d be the authority there.”
Evan let his head fall forward, his smile too huge to hold up. Damn, but he really liked this guy. He’d never had a sparring partner who didn’t go for the low blow when things got heated.
He’d also put zero thought into the double meaning potential of that sentence, but now he couldn’t think of anything else. Maybe spending more time in the sun had been a bad idea.
“I’m sorry about your dad, Heath.”
“I’m sorry about yours, too. Evan.”
“I’m also sorry about what I said earlier. About the Spencers.”
Silence fell and lingered. The rhythm of Heath’s breathing synced with the waves below, and Evan matched it without effort. His hands remained at rest, fingers loose and relaxed, the pads of his thumbs pressed into the divots on either side of Evan’s tailbone.
An electric current ran through his body, putting every muscle on high alert. He wasn’t even sure what he was waiting for, but the suspense was excruciating.
“We should probably get back.”
The hands disappeared, and God help him, but he whined at the loss. If Heath noticed, he said nothing, which was probably for the best.
No, it’s definitely for the best, because what the hell, man?
“I’ll be right behind you. Wanna chill a little longer.”
He kept his back to the trail, but heard Heath’s grunt of acceptance and the crunch of his feet in the dry earth as he went back down the hill.
He’d been wrong. The existential crisis wasn’t imminent; it was ongoing. Their strange energy and his sidetracked emotions might not have been enough to clue him in, but the unmistakable hard-on now raging in his pants absolutely was.