Chapter 22
twenty-two
CARINA
I tried to put Orion out of my mind when he left Paradise on Thursday night. And Haley and Sienna are my priorities, as much as I want to follow Orion.
Sleeping with him again wasn’t a mistake. I don’t think that. But it’s not going anywhere and I shouldn’t get in any deeper than I am already.
Not that I wanted to do it again. Absolutely not. He can keep his attentive penis to himself.
That’s at least what I’m telling myself.
He’s a distraction from work and a distraction from the wedding planning. Beckett isn’t much help, claiming he doesn’t have any opinions on floral arrangements. “Sienna can do whatever she wants. It’s important to me that it’s her vision.” So we’re packing as much in-person planning as we can into this one weekend, all the things Sienna can’t do from a distance. We go to her first dress fitting. Both her mom and Beckett’s break into tears when she walks out. We all smile. She looks so happy and ready to be married.
Then we’re shopping for her undergarments and choosing the table settings.
By the time Friday night rolls around, I’m so fucking exhausted. I don’t want to move.
We end up at Paradise because Sienna loves the food, and we won’t have to make any decisions since we know the menu like the backs of our hands.
Orion sits at the bar, and I’ve never been so relieved to see someone. He’s an oasis in my energy desert. The barstool next to him is empty. He rests his foot on the bottom rung. We’re on our way to a booth at the back when I stop next to him, letting Haley and Sienna continue without me for a moment.
I try to move the stool. Not because I need it, but to start a fight with him. His foot presses down.
“I mean, Cancun would be fun. Just a lot of open water between here and there,” he says to Bristol. I can’t listen to what he’s saying.
“Can you move your foot so I can sit?” I say in an even voice. Bristol rolls her eyes and shifts to the other side of the bar.
He knows what I’m doing. Knows I’m not sitting next to him. “Plenty of other seats.”
It’s true. I want to fight with him because it feels like the only safe way to connect.
“I want this one.” My hands grip the backrest.
He raises an eyebrow. “If you can move it, you can have it.”
It’s performance. I pretend like I can’t move it. He pretends like he’s putting in some resistance. I call him a selfish asshole. He calls me a cold princess.
I head to my table and pretend I wasn’t thinking about warming everything up for him.
On Saturday, I decide if I get married, I won’t have the over-the-top event Sienna’s planning.
She doesn’t even want this. But her in-laws want to make it a big deal, and they’re paying for everything. I’m sure Sienna would be pulling her hair out if she wasn’t concerned about how it’d look in a few weeks. Beckett’s mom, Lisa, is wonderful and more than happy to help with planning and doting on Sienna while she’s home.
His parents own Coastline Beach House, a luxury resort at the southern end of the island. The family has been an institution for generations. I have always been surprised by their kindness and the responsibility they feel for their property and the surrounding environment. They were the first to give me a job teaching yoga when I was in college and had gotten my certification. I loved starting my days with sunrise yoga on the beach with their guests.
I’m a little jealous of the bond Sienna and Beckett’s mom share. I’m not close with my mother, and I can’t imagine being close with a mother-in-law.
I fight the urge to text Orion and ask about his mom.
I will not spend the day imagining what my and Orion’s wedding would be like. It’s a terrible idea to even have these thoughts, and I don’t know why my mind goes there. I want to believe there is a chance for a future together. But no matter what happened between us on the boat the other day, this is only temporary. It won’t happen again. We said it was a one-time thing.
With my mother’s negative attitude toward commitment, it was a surprise to her that I even bothered to be serious with Hamilton. I was trying to make my father proud, trying to do something that would make good business sense and open doors for me.
Neither parent thought a partner would be responsible for my emotions or feelings.
Sienna, Haley, and I have dinner reservations, but I have a little bit of time to unwind first. I head home, grateful Sienna isn’t staying with me. I need some time to decompress and rest before I can deal with people again. And I feel fucking terrible for wanting that. I should appreciate the people around me more. I believe life is fleeting and we should take advantage of every moment. But I just want to drink a glass of wine alone and watch reality TV.
I scroll through my streaming services but my attention is torn when Orion plays music loudly in his backyard. Does he have people over? Why didn’t he invite me? Panic creeps into my thoughts. But I don’t hear any other voices outside.
Maybe I missed something. Did he text me he was kayaking, and I never acknowledged, and something happened? Did I drive over one of his plants?
I flip through our texts. He’s been silent since Thursday.
He might have been sailing the last two days. Would it be weird if I asked for his schedule? I watch out for him when he kayaks. It should be the same when he’s sailing. Someone should always be waiting for him to come home.
I stop avoiding it and look out my window. He’s sitting in his backyard with a drink in his hand.
He’s provoking me. This is bait. I should let it go. But maybe he needs me like I need him.
I want to be the person he turns to when he needs something, at least for now. He’ll eventually move on. But I’ll hold on to him for as long as I can.
I want to see where this is headed.
I storm out of my house. Our back fence is low and it’s easy to see across each property from the porch. I’m in his line of sight but he doesn’t react.
“Does it have to be so loud?” I yell.
“I can’t hear you,” he says.
I let out a breath and go around so I’m in his yard. He has a smug grin on his face, and I notice the drink in his hand isn’t a beer like I assumed.
“Now you’re blocking my view,” he declares.
“Does your music have to be so loud?”
“It does when I’m trying to distract myself,” he says.
“Have you heard of headphones?”
“Then I couldn’t hear the ocean.”
“It’s not the ocean. It’s the gulf,” I say.
He shrugs. “Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters. You’re a sailor. Doesn’t it mean something to you? What if I called your boat a canoe?”
He stands and narrows his eyes. “Don’t ever call her a canoe.”
“It’s basically a life raft.”
I can’t quite tell if he’s annoyed with me or if he’s playing our game. I can’t imagine he would be upset with me. But I don’t know him well enough. I need more.
He turns and heads into his house.
I follow. This is a game. He wants to yell at me and maybe he realizes he can’t yell in public. Or at least as public as our yards are, where sound carries over the waves. All the houses around us are rented out and I can smell something cooking on a grill nearby.
“You can’t just come in here,” he says.
“Fine, I’ll leave.” I turn. If I can’t figure out what’s happening, then I won’t play. Not when I don’t know the rules.
They changed when we slept together the other night. We agreed it’s temporary. We did it before and had a friendship afterward and we can go right back to where we were. That was the point: we got it out of our system.
He’s not out of my system.
But I can’t tell him. Not now and maybe not ever. Not when it’s admitting a weakness.
“No, wait.” I catch a hint of vulnerability in his voice.
Something inside me breaks. This has always been about me—he’s always been the strong one. I don’t know how to be if he isn’t strong. Something was off with him the other day too. He didn’t tell me, and I didn’t even ask.
Fuck, I’m so selfish with him.
My back is to the door as he strides toward me. He places his hand on the door above my head. As if that little bit of resistance traps me in the house.
I trust him. If I want out, I can get out.
He’s not even touching me. I feel the heat off his body and his breath on my neck. I feel him everywhere, and the memory of his skin on mine goes straight between my legs.
If he asks what I’m thinking about, I’ll deny it. We’d both know I’m lying.
Of course I’m not wearing underwear, and I feel myself getting ridiculously wet.
I know where this is headed for him. What he needs.
Am I ready to give it to him, knowing I’m in too deep to be a fling?
I lift my face to his. His brown eyes pierce mine, and I do what I can to make myself smaller. He needs me, and I’m too willing to give myself to him.
This will dissipate for him. Our passion will become remnants. While I don’t know how not to be caught up in him.
“You can’t keep ordering me around,” I say.
“I haven’t ordered you to do anything,” he replies.
“You basically summoned me here,” I say.
“I don’t think you take orders from anyone. You’re here because you can’t stand that something fell out of your control. You couldn’t control me, or my music, and you had to end it.”
“There are plenty of things I can’t control. I know better than to attempt to control you because you are a fucking storm.”
His lips find mine and his body presses me against the door. His hands reach for my back and pull me closer to him, as if the air between us is offensive to him.
“Boat?” I manage to moan as his kisses travel down my neck. I don’t know what this means if we have sex here. On the boat, it doesn’t count. We have a truce on the boat. This isn’t that. This is his house and presumably his bed and none of the rules apply. It doesn’t matter that he’s a storm and I was perfectly happy before he blew into my life and made a natural disaster of everything.
This house is his space. It means so much to him, and I don’t know if I can look at it every day for the rest of my life knowing I had sex here and then lost him. I could move, but my house means too much to me.
“No. Either bed, or you go home,” he says.
I don’t want to go home. “Bed.” I’ll deal with the fallout later.
He looks me in the eye. “Can I be a little caveman with you?”
I nod. I don’t know what he means but I trust him. He picks me up, throwing me over his shoulder.
“Oh fuck no. This is not happening,” I squeal.
“You don’t know where you’re going, and as much as I would love to race you to the bedroom, this is faster.”
I could struggle but I don’t. I have complete faith that he has a firm grip on me. There is nothing I can do that would cause me to fall. He would never put me in danger.
He climbs the stairs to the second story and passes two doors before he tosses me onto his bed. Like mine, his wide windows face the water, and the curtains are open. It’s early enough in the evening that I’ll experience this in the light. I’m so excited for what happens next.