Chapter 20
Jonah
I was hardly aware of my surroundings. My vision tunneled to the enchanting body skipping away from me down to the water. Her brown hair hung past her waist and rippled with waves I far preferred to watch than those of the ocean in front of which we sat. The curve of her hips was only accentuated by the hot sunlight that bounced off them, and the contrast of her tan skin to her viridescent string bikini was just…
I was at a loss for words.
“Jonah.” A stern voice sounded behind me. My focus was immediately broken as I swung my head around to look at Oli. “It’s not nice to stare.”
He and June snickered at me. I humphed as I folded my arms and nestled into my cross-legged position atop the tapestry. Kai had just finished asking us permission to go see the water, and I had just finished grumbling to myself about it as my attention shifted to her shining backside.
I rubbed my hands over my face and once again turned to stare at the heavenly girl standing by the tide. I shouldn’t have even been looking at her that way. She was feeling off today, yet here I was being the worst friend in the world. It’s just that her body had changed in the two years since I saw her last. Even if it hadn’t, I would’ve been staring. It was hard not to observe it, not to fall in love with it. The hundreds of thousands of people following her on the internet said as much.
She had always been perfect. Ever since the day I met her. And of course, she was much more than a body. But I’d given up long ago on pretending like I didn’t notice it. I loved it just as much as I loved her personality, and her positivity, and her thoughtfulness, and her talent, and her eloquence, and how she cried every time she watched a dance performance, and the way her ears poked out when she pushed her hair behind them, and the way she cut strawberries with four cuts in the exact same directional pattern every single time… I love her, I love her, I love her.
I gazed at her on her way back to our spot. Her hair swayed behind her as she smiled, watching me watch her. She approached and tugged at the shoulder of my black cut-off, maneuvering her legs to plant herself in the sand and help me up.
“Come on,” she said. “Walk with me.”
Pulling on her arms, I lifted myself to meet her. We turned toward the water, leaving Oli and June to be totally weird and snuggle on a public beach. Kai made it a total of ten steps before piping up with the usual questions about myself, not her, even though I specifically said we would take a walk and continue our conversation about her.
“How have you been lately, Jojo? Since you’re off the pills and all.”
It was cute that she tried to play it off as a question. She gave me the opportunity to answer, though she knew the truth. Over the last couple of weeks, she’d been watching first-hand as I walked in and out of the room at night, distracting myself when I couldn’t sleep. She always checked in during private moments throughout the day, reminding me that my brain just needed to get used to the changes and that there was no shame in any decision I made. I believed her. I somehow felt better and worse all at the same time. The miracle was that I felt anything at all.
I looped her arm under mine, pulling her closer to my side. “I’ve been doing wonderfully ever since you arrived.”
“Funny.” She flicked my shoulder. “You know you can’t depend on me to be okay.”
“See that pier up ahead?” I asked, stretching my finger to the rickety structure in the distance.
She tugged once on my extremity. “Do not ignore me, Jonah Alexander.”
“Do not ask questions you know the answer to, Kailyn Vitale.”
I looked down at her as she snorted loudly. I never called her by her full name. Matter of fact, the number of times I’d ever used the name Kailyn could’ve probably been counted on a single hand. That name was only used to belittle her, like when her mother was pissed. But how could I so blatantly belittle someone so superior? No, I used her preferred name with intention, paying my respects every time it left my lips.
She swallowed her grin and pushed us back to the topic at hand. “I’m serious. We already talked about me, and now I want to talk about you.”
We walked at a steady pace, the hard, wet sand sinking slightly with each even step.
“We didn’t finish our conversation,” I reminded her.
She tutted. “I think I’m old enough to work my shit out on my own, don’t you?” So, the sun had helped. “Tell me why you’re sad. Tell me why you pace at night.”
A complex question. I lurched to a halt, my arm trapping hers as I did so. She faced her back to the water to look at me, and I returned the gesture in her favor.
I looked at her collarbone, which poked out from her skin quite noticeably. Her emerald bikini strap was twisted, and I was suddenly desperate to fix it. After a moment’s thought, my pointer hooked into it. I let myself run one slow finger underneath the strap, dragging up to allow it to straighten itself. One indulgence. That was my reward for opening up about this just a bit, I told myself. I finished my movement and offered my compensation. “There is a weight on my shoulders, Kai, that I’m not entirely sure how to carry.” That’s all I wanted to say. That’s all I really could say. My life had become truly wonderful. I had a nice apartment, excellent friends, and a career I mostly enjoyed, but there was a large, gaping hole.
I’d be lying if I said Kai’s lack of romantic reciprocation was the only thing weighing on me, though I certainly did a good job of excusing it as such. My head simply did not let me enjoy things as it should have. My experiences had drained me of all hope. Humanity had taken away my will to keep trying. People never understood a thing I said or did or intended anyway, so to keep trying seemed almost pointless.
“And that’s where you come in,” I continued. “You help me carry it.”
Each time I emptied out, she filled me back up. What was so wrong about that? I couldn’t keep myself going all the time. Sometimes, I needed a hand, which I didn’t see as a crime. And I wished she would see it, too. I wished she would lean on me more instead of brushing her problems off and letting them steamroll her insides. I don’t mean the many things she had openly come to me about. I mean that which was dimming her smile. That hollow distance in her gaze.
“You make me sound like a tool,” she said. “An object.”
My eyes met hers once again, and she smiled. She wasn’t offended, though it wasn’t my intention to make her feel that way.
“See that pier up ahead?” I repeated, continuing our walk along the sand and turning her gently to do the same.
She humored me this time. “I do.”
“See how far the walkway goes?”
She nodded. “It’s quite a long pier, Jo.”
“If you took away all those rickety legs it’s standing on, how far do you think it would get?”
“Not very far, Jojo.”
“Sometimes two legs are not enough.” And that’s truly how I felt. It’s not that I wasn’t trying. I was, very much. But I was running in quicksand, constantly winding my legs up only to be brought nowhere.
“I tell you I feel like an object, and you compare me to rotting sea wood. Is that what I am to you?”
“Yes.” I immediately scooped her up in my arms and started toward the ocean. “Now you’ll go back to where you belong, sea thing!”
She yelped as we quickly neared the cold, shallow water. My stomping feet splashed droplets over my legs and her backside, the icy contact causing her to clench onto me tightly.
“Do not drop me in there, Jo, do not let me go! It’s dark and freezing!”
“Oh, but you belong to the tide,” I teased.
Kai loved the ocean about as much as she feared it. If it were warm and clear, she’d spend the entire day swimming around. Though she’d touch the bottom as little as possible, of course, likely wearing the dorkiest pair of water shoes known to humankind. The Pacific wasn’t as forgiving as those beaches she so adored off the coast of Corfu or Caracas. Dangling feet in the dark expanse was the very image that haunted her nightmares.
I wasn’t going to let her go, but I certainly was going to scare her. We continued trudging deeper. Finally, the backs of her legs, which hung in my arms, hit the water. We were waist deep.
Again, she yelped, wrapping herself around me like I was keeping her alive. “It’s so cold!”
“I want to go under.” I was unable to hold in my smile as she trembled, her arms tugging my neck and her knees curling up as tight as they could.
“No!”
“Fine, then I’ll put you down for a minute and go under myself.”
“No!”She scrambled higher on my torso, wrapping herself around my chest. “Do not put me down!” I could feel her heart racing as her skin pricked with goosebumps. “It’s so dark, Jo. Something’s under there. I can feel it. Oh, I’d just kill you if we get eaten.”
Her nervous eyes inspected every inch of the ocean around us as I spun slowly, splitting us through the cold liquid.
“For a piece of wood, you’re not very seaworthy.”
“Jojo, that’s not funny,” she muttered. Her voice was officially choppy.
I pressed my nose to her temple. “Come under with me just once and I’ll take you out.”
She grabbed my neck tighter, wedging her forehead under my ear. “Make it fast.”
I closed my eyes and breathed in. For only a moment, I bent my legs and submerged us in the freezing water, making it fast as she requested, though gentle. I bent my head back as we rose to push my hair behind me with the rush. The gulp of air she inhaled upon returning to the surface was more of a shaky gasp as she used one hand to push wet strands of hair from her face.
I snickered and walked us back toward the edge of the shore. When the water reached just to my knees, I kneeled in the sand, bringing her down with me.
“Jo! What are you doing? I don’t want to sit here. The ground is soft. Something will crawl through and pinch me!”
I sat back on my heels and placed her in my lap, allowing her to lie back and look over the horizon. No part of her touched the terrifying sand, and her body remained half above the surface, floating in my hold. My arms held beneath her knees, allowing her to sit in me like she was sitting in a basket. My entire world in my embrace.
“Don’t you trust me?” I asked with a smile, looking down at her over her shoulder. “You’ve been stuck in Madrid for years. Don’t you want to enjoy the ocean now?”
I would’ve released her if she was uncomfortable. Ofcourse, I would have. But her body relaxed into mine as it shivered, her backside nestling into my front. I think she might’ve even…liked it.
“Y-yes.”
She stared at the horizon, her uneven breathing still jerking through her. The entirety of her being stood on edge, wet bumps covering her from head to toe. It was an effort not to dwell on the two beneath the thin fabric of her green bikini top. I wanted to lick every inch of her chilled skin until my taste buds were destroyed by the salt.
Thank god my bottom half was frozen.
◆◆◆
Kai
Until now, allowing someone inside my cramped, desolate intimacy sounded like absolute torture. Hands on me made my insides harden. I barely had my head on straight enough to feel even a spark of anything down there. But I wanted to find it again. And sitting here with Jonah, my naked skin sensitive and powerless, gazing at the enormously beautiful world stretched in front of me, something started to bubble deep in my lower abdomen.
I sat half-submerged in freezing water with his arms wrapped around me. My eyes fixated on the contrast between the blue sky and the navy ocean, the sun glinting in the corner of my vision. The cold eased into me, turning every single atom into a ball of sensitivity. I could hardly begin to comprehend the size and power of the vast expanse I gazed at.
Jonah maintained me in one arm as a hand lifted to touch the top of my bicep. It was an effort not to dig my hips back as he stroked the entire length of my skin before reaching across my stomach and pulling me into him. The detail was breathtaking, and the bubbling feeling inside of me grew.
“I feel so small,” I said with a shudder.
“And that’s where I come in,” he whispered, pressing a small kiss to my wet hair.
We sat for a silent moment as I mulled over what he meant by that.
“You seem like the most independent person on the outside,” I said. “Mostly alone, always working, always thinking…”
“Yet I’m not.” His chest vibrated behind me as he spoke, and I found myself leaning into it, skin to skin. “And you seem like the most dependent person, complying to avoid solitude. Yet you’re not.”
I shrugged. “I’d consider myself very dependent. I need you just as much as you need me.”
“No. You need me because you want to. You like to have me. I need you because your absence feels like being dropped in the cold, dark ocean.”
I stiffened immediately. That sounded...serious. That sounded like...more than friendship.
“And what does that mean for us?” I asked, grinding slightly as his fingers adjusted around my waist. I may or may not have wanted one of them to slip under the hem of my bathing suit. Just to see what it would be like.
“That we both have attachment issues and should seek therapy immediately.” His smile sounded in his voice, and I laughed aloud. The odd spell was broken, and it was a welcomed break in the confusing tension building in my body.
“What’s so bad about needing people? I’m happy with the set-up. Aren’t you?”
“Now you see my point, sea thing.”
His chin landed on my shoulder as he adjusted me in his grip, a gentle hand swiping over the left side of my ribs when— “Oh, fuck.” I immediately slapped a hand over my mouth as my body twitched. Did I just say that out loud? And why the hell did his fingers on my ribs feel so good as to provoke me to say that?
Jonah quickly steadied me, his body rigid beneath mine. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” My answer was hardly audible. I just kept staring at the freezing expanse in front of me, eyes gaping. Perhaps it was the cold, or the moment, or my painfully deprived body that was suddenly disagreeing with my shielded mind, but Jonah’s fingers grazing the left side of my ribs provoked a sensation inside of me that I hadn’t felt in years. A sensation I had both missed and hated. It was like a button of sorts, sending energy straight through my center and down to my toes, flooding me in vulnerability.
A deep gulp of air rushed through me as Jonah placed his fingers back on my side. He touched the spot once again, though softer this time, watching me over my shoulder and observing my reaction. The sensation returned, shooting straight between my legs. I couldn’t help but melt into him as my eyes fluttered. “That… Jonah. Oh, god,” I whispered.
“Did you know about that spot?” he murmured in my ear.
I shook my head.
He dropped his left hand from my ribs and placed it over my waist, removing his right hand from its position and attempting the same touches in the same spot but on my right side. I kept still, staring ahead as he dragged his finger over each bump in my ribs, drew lazy circles with his pointer finger, grabbed it with a full palm… Nothing.
“Is this okay?”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure what possessed me to cross such a line, and with Jonah, for fuck’s sake, but he’d discovered something. Something I needed to know more about. The key to a box that had been locked for so very long.
Jonah’s caress returned to the left side of my ribs, and my body answered immediately. He slid delicately over my freezing skin as my head dropped back on his shoulder, my eyelids shutting out the view in front of me as if my body chose to focus solely on my newly discovered weak spot. The bubbles that had formed in my abdomen now spread freely through me. My hips dug into Jonah’s legs shamelessly as he kept me tight with his supporting arm. I was sure his gaze was following every movement I made. I could feel it.
“Shh, Kai.” Jonah’s whisper reached my ear from what must have been only millimeters away. “The people around us don’t get to hear you make those sounds.”
I perked up quickly. I hadn’t even realized I was making any. “Jonah, stop.” His hand lifted from my ribs in an instant as my good sense slammed back into my brain. What the fuck just happened? “Oh my god. Oh my god. Jonah, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said, a small giggle ending his sentence. He kept my stiff body seated properly between his arms, no part of me exposed to the dangerous sand. “It’s good for you to learn about those things.”
“Fuck, that’s fucking mortifying.” I couldn’t even turn around to look him in the eye. Holy shit. I wanted to lock myself in a closet and hide there forever.
“It’s just me, Kai.”
“Exactly.” I fussed, pushing his arms away and searching for a safe way to stand. I needed to exit this situation immediately, but I did not want to step on a crab. He chuckled once again and curled me tighter in his embrace, lifting me up and carrying me out of the water. When my feet finally hit the ground, it was on dry land.
I crossed my arms nervously and tried to play it off. “Per usual, you have successfully avoided a difficult but important conversation about your mental health.”
“Like I said, we should seek therapy immediately.”
The hot air around me warmed my cold skin, and the heavy ends of my waves grazed over my bikini strings, releasing cold droplets that slid down the backs of my legs. Jonah smirked at me, his long, wet hair pushed back and his black shirt clinging to him.
Oh god…maybe he was kind of handsome. He looked the same as always except…not. His eyebrows were still unkempt, his nose was still the exact same shape as the day I met him, and his eyes were still green. But—
No.
“Do not look at me like that!” I said, splaying my hands over my chest and stomach, covering my mostly naked body.
“I’m just surprised no one’s been able to find that before.” His grin grew to an obnoxious size, making him look almost joyful. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him so amused.
“Shut up, Jo. Don’t make this weird. And please don’t tell anyone.”
His hands crossed at the hem of his cut-off. He pulled it over his head, revealing the tattoos across the side of his torso, and handed it to me. “Why would I ever allow another person to know such an intimate detail about you?”
I snatched the sopping pile of shirt from his fingers and pulled it on quickly, shielding my body from any onlookers lurking in the outside world. Before I could dwell too much on his admittedly attractive inked skin, my feet began working to continue our walk back to our spot where June and Oli were likely waiting.
A firm hand on my wrist stopped me, tugging me back. I swung around to face Jonah.
“Do not scrape your nails,” he said softly, wrapping my wrists in his hold. “We’re in public, and the consequences would be…humiliating at best.” Jonah took both of my hands and lifted them to his neck, spreading my fingers on either side, just beneath his hairline. He then dragged them down, allowing my touch to glide all the way out to his shoulders. I observed our movements carefully. His breathing stopped for a moment as I slid over the curve of his bone structure.
Finally, he released me, rolling his neck once with his eyes closed to regain his composure. It was weird knowing something that turned Jonah on. Not only because I’d been under the impression that he wasn’t exactly one to turn on at all, but because it felt like a secret. Our secret. I liked that he’d sympathized with me as such, though I can’t say I wasn’t totally confused by everything that had happened in the last fifteen minutes.
“We are the weirdest pair of friends,” I whispered. He smiled. I did too. “Dead puppies. A room full of flies. Moldy cheese…”
He rolled his eyes. “Knock it off, Kai.”
I continued to blurt obscenities to make sure his sea wood wasn’t showing. “A sock you’ve just pulled from under the couch that’s covered in dust and hair.”
“I’m not that weak. And you’re not that good at touching me.”
My mouth dropped open. “Oh, you—”
He turned me around with two hands and pushed at the center of my back, sending me into a forward stumble.