Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Phoebe
A n hour after finishing our food, we were both on our third bottle of beer, although Henry had insisted I drink some water in between.
Apparently, he was responsible like that.
Whether just with me or with everyone he spent time with, I didn’t know, but the fact he cared enough to make sure I stayed hydrated warmed my chest almost as much as the sun warmed my skin.
The same skin Henry couldn’t stop trailing his eyes over whenever he thought I wasn’t paying too much attention.
The fact he wanted to be here, asking questions about my life, made me worry this ‘thing’ between us might turn out to be a little more dangerous than I first anticipated, because Henry made it far too easy for anyone to fall under his spell.
I thought of Andy’s sister then. Of how deeply it sounded like she’d fallen in love with him, and how he’d eventually had to tell her he didn’t feel the same way.
The thought came to me like a splash of cold water to my face. I couldn’t become another version of her. I couldn’t let myself get carried away or share too much— feel too much.
He said something I had to fake a soft laugh at, having gotten lost in my own head.
“Where did you just go?” he asked, pulling my attention back to him and seeing his narrowed eyes and tilted head.
“Nowhere.” I smiled tightly. “Shall we get the bill? It’s getting warm out here in this midday heat.” I fanned my face, turning to look at the ocean.
“Phoebe?”
“Hmm?”
“Did I say something wrong?”
I turned back to him quickly, taking in the concern he didn’t even try to hide. “No… No . Nothing.”
“You sure?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Tell me if I do. I’m not exactly an expert at all… this. Being carefree with what I say around someone.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I chose to stay quiet instead of saying anything wrong, honouring him with the same silence he often gifted me with.
He turned to look at the ocean, too. “You know, it’s rare I feel moments like these.
Moments where I’m really present, not always thinking about the past or the future, what I don’t have, what I could lose.
I didn’t realise all that until just now, here with you,” he admitted, turning back to meet my gaze.
His admission felt like a gift from a man who rarely handed out gifts.
He smiled that soft smile of his that had my heart stuttering in my chest, hoping no one else ever got to see it but me.
We were playing with fire more and more by the minute. Or maybe that was just me.
“Your shoulders are going pink,” he said, trailing his eyes over the top half of my body. “Time we cooled down a bit.”
I couldn’t have agreed more.
Without saying another word, Henry gestured to the waiter for the bill. When it arrived, I opened my bag to retrieve some euros to pay my half. He didn’t even look at me when he held his hand up to stop me as I tried to place the notes down on the little tray that held the receipt and two mints.
“My treat.”
“That’s not necessary. I can?—”
“I said my treat, Phoebe. I didn’t ask if it was necessary.”
Despite the urge to argue, I’d already learnt which battles to fight when it came to this man, so I slid the notes back into my bag and closed the zip—just like he’d warned me to that day when he rescued my purse. “Thank you. I’ll get the next one.”
While passing the money and the tray back to the waiter, Henry side-eyed me with a look that said “never gonna happen”, telling me what he thought of that without having to say a word.
He tossed one of the mints my way before he threw the other into his mouth.
I caught mine and slipped it between my lips slowly, unable to miss the way Henry tracked my movements until my cheeks hollowed out and I sucked the mint in my mouth.
That single look he gave me would make me end up like Lillie. So suggestive. Filled with so much promise.
I just had no idea how much his promises really meant yet.
When he stood, he came to my side and held his hand out for me to take again, as though this was our natural response to each other now. Him waiting to pick me up and guide me. Me willing to fall into his embrace and let him take me wherever the hell he decided we needed to go.
I should have been scared how easily we were falling in to these roles.
Roles we’d have to walk away from sooner rather than later.
Still, I slid my fingers through his anyway and let him pull me to my feet, making sure to thank the waiter over my shoulder as we stepped out of the tavern, back into the warm breeze of the island.
Henry and I strode hand in hand down the little pebbled street, taking in the bright blue sky, the white-washed buildings capped with colourful domes, and the sound of the waves not far away from us.
After a few minutes of silence, he eyed my shoulder before reaching over to run a single finger over the pink skin there. “About that cooling down I mentioned…”
My skin prickled at that simplest of touches. “I’m listening.”
“Follow me.”
Henry squeezed my hand and smirked that smirk of his before facing forward and picking up the pace.
Less than ten minutes later, we passed a small sign that pointed to a beach we hadn’t been on yet.
He guided me down the pathways between more white-washed, single-level buildings, with their bright blue roofs, until we were on the sand again.
When we made it down to the shoreline, I immediately took off my sandals and slipped my feet into the cool water, enjoying the caress of the waves against my skin.
“I’ll never get tired of this feeling.” I sighed to myself.
“Give me this.” Henry slid my bag off my shoulder and glanced down at my denim shorts. “You might want to take those off, too. Denim and water mix about as well as you and I did five days ago.”
“Are we swimming?”
“Not exactly.”
I glanced out at the ocean, a kaleidoscope of butterflies roaring to life in the very pit of my stomach before I looked back up at him and began to remove my shorts, just as he’d instructed.
“Anything else?” I asked, holding them out to him once I’d stood tall again.
Heat blazed in his eyes as he took them from me. “The nudist beach is a good twenty minutes up the road. I can walk you there if you’d prefer.”
The very thought of it did things to me I couldn’t explain. Nudist beach? Me? I never would have thought of it before that moment, but with Henry looking at me the way he was, the desire to be naked in front of him so openly didn’t scare me as much as it should have.
He had a way of making me feel worshipped without uttering a single word.
“Here’s good for now,” I said instead, despite my wayward thoughts.
“Wait right here.” He casually jogged over to where an old guy sat on a beach chair, a bumbag around his waist. The two of them exchanged words before Henry pulled out a few notes and handed them over, only for the old guy to nod and pocket the money.
Henry also removed his phone and wallet from his pocket before dumping them inside my bag and zipping it closed, then handed that over to the old boy before jogging back to me.
“Did you just pay him to watch our things?” I asked when he came to a stop in front of me. “What if he runs off with it all?”
“Does he look like he can outrun me? Seriously?”
I took another glance at the old man, who had tucked my bag beneath his plastic seat, then gone back to staring out at the ocean as though the day bored him more than prison would.
“Fair point,” I said.
Henry entwined our fingers again, the normality of it all already strange because, actually, it didn’t feel strange at all. Not even a little bit.
Be careful here, Phoebe.
“Now, about that cooling down,” he said smoothly before that train of thought could really take off.
With a gentle tug on my hand, he had me following him into the water, the contrast of it against my overheated skin a welcomed distraction.
“Fuck, that’s cold.” He sucked in a breath, his mouth morphing into a little “O” shape the moment his balls went beneath the surface. “Jesus.” He hissed.
I let go of his hand and sank into the ocean until my shoulders were under without saying a word. “I thought you were a tough guy.” I chuckled.
He eyed me, still sauntering in slowly. “What is wrong with you? How do you adapt to this ice so easily?”
“Because I’m not a big baby?”
“I’m a…” He sucked in another breath. “Man,” he blew out.
“Yeah, real tough.” I laughed. “It’s not even that cold.”
“Lies,” he mouthed and closed his eyes, while mine roamed down his tanned, toned body until it disappeared beneath the water, and he released a small “brr” that had me shaking my head.
“You look impossibly adorable for someone so tough,” I told him.
“Manly, Phoebe. Manly .”
He definitely had that going for him too.
The calm waves made my body rock from side to side while I waited for him to look at me again, and when he did, it was as if a switch had been flicked, the cool temperature no longer bothering him.
“Get over here,” he said in a voice that brooked no argument.
I thought about all the sarcastic responses I could give. The resistance I could show. Instead, I did the one thing I knew would make me happiest: I went with what I desired, and I took the few steps over to Henry until I stood before him, our chests knocking together as the waves pushed us closer.
For a few perfectly blissful moments, I stared up into his eyes, and he looked down into mine, just the two of us, a world away from everything we thought we knew, everything we thought we were, everything that held us back.
Henry brought his wet hands out of the water and pushed them both through either side of my hair, clenching it in his fists. “Here’s to breaking our promises to ourselves.”
“You’d better be worth it, Henry.”