Chapter 10 #2
“Want to go for a swim later?” Ryan asked, gently tugging on my arm.
I realized I’d stopped walking and picked up the pace again. “Yeah. Do you have plans or anything?”
“Plans? Dude, this is vacation.”
I squeezed his fingers. “I mean, you know, excursions or whatever. I’ve never done the tropical island thing. I don’t know what goes on here.”
He laughed and shook his head as he led the way along the curving walkway toward the main hotel building. “I was going to wing it. I’m not really a plans kind of guy.”
I loved that about him. I didn’t know why. I lived on plans. I survived on routine. And maybe I needed to change that. At least for now. For the time I had with him. “Then swimming sounds amazing.”
He brightened. “We can rent snorkel gear from the guy in the lobby.”
I held the door for him, and he gave me a shy, tiny grin as he walked past me, then snagged my hand as we headed toward the smell of pancakes. “That’s all on you. I’m not putting my mouth where god knows how many other germy kids put their mouths.”
He burst into laughter. “You’re missing out.”
“On what? Hand, foot, and mouth? I’m fine.”
Tugging me to a halt, he pressed both palms to either side of my neck. “As a former EMT, I promise you’ll be okay.”
“As a man who caught a literal mélange of plagues while on tour, I think I’m going to let you take that risk.”
Ryan’s eyes darted back and forth, and I wondered if he was looking for witnesses before telling me what a boring piece of shit I was. Instead, he darted in and stole a quick kiss. “Fine. I’ll do the snorkeling for both of us. Just promise I can still get kisses after.”
“Listerine,” I said.
He laughed again and rolled his eyes before hurrying us along. “I think I saw some mini bottles for sale in the gift shop.”
For just a little while, the entire world narrowed down to the sound of his laughter and the press of his palm against mine. Then we reached the restaurant, and the hostess smiled at us like we were welcome. Like we were absolutely nobodies.
“Inside or outside?”
Ryan smiled. “Definitely outside.”
The temperature was perfect, and there was a partial buffet set up not too far from the table she earmarked for us. “Help yourselves to the buffet, and your server should be by to get your drink orders soon.”
Ryan set his phone down, and I followed him to the lengthy tables full of cold selections. I wasn’t really in the mood for anything heavy. Not after how athletic we were the night before.
The fruit looked amazing—tropical and different from anything we could get on the East Coast in the winter. He handed me a plate, smiling over his shoulder. “You okay?”
For a moment, my heart sank. Not him too. Please, not him too. Don’t let him think I needed help with everything. That I was incapable of filling my own plate, and—
“You look a little lost.”
Oh. He wasn’t going to ask if I needed to sit down or if my legs would hold me up through the non-line. “I don’t eat a lot in the mornings. The fruit looks good, though I don’t know what half of it is.”
Grabbing a spoon, he piled pineapple on my plate, then something pink with black specks, some melons, and I think the last thing was chopped apples. “You’ll thank me,” he promised when I frowned.
I did trust him. It was such a strange sensation, but I couldn’t deny how good it felt.
We settled at our table, and my gaze fell out toward the ocean. The water looked inviting, though I hadn’t ever been much of a swimmer. Hell, I hadn’t been much of anything. By the time I had money to enjoy what I hadn’t been able to growing up, I didn’t have time.
We were either on tour or in the studio, and when we had those rare moments without some sort of promo obligation, I was sitting in my loft, staring at the wall and wondering why Raleigh wanted to be anywhere but with me.
He certainly enjoyed the fruits of our labor. Just…without me.
Christ, I needed to stop thinking about him.
“You okay?”
I glanced up at Ryan and smiled. “Yeah,” I said, because I was. It was not a lie for the first time in a long time.
“Regrets?”
I stared up at him, rocked by the question. “Do you have any?”
He smiled shyly. “At the risk of sounding like a prepubescent middle schooler…I asked you first.”
I snorted a laugh into my coffee. “No regrets. I think I’m just processing.”
“I get that. I mean, this time of year with the holidays, and then your anniversary,” Ryan said, trailing off a bit.
I pushed a bit of fruit around my plate. “I didn’t know how it was going to feel. The worst and best night of my life.”
Ryan’s brows lifted. “Best?”
“Well. You were there.”
“Oh.” He swallowed heavily.
“Was that more cheese than all of France?”
“No, shut up. It was sweet.” He covered a laugh with his hand. “Eat your breakfast so we can do tropical island stuff, okay?”
That was an easy ask. We sat in silence, feeling the breeze, listening to the gentle waves, existing in a sort of calm I hadn’t felt in so, so long. A few times, I went to check for my phone before realizing I’d left it in my room.
That had been on purpose. I still hadn’t spoken to my brother, and I didn’t want to. Especially not now. I didn’t want to hold back talking about Ryan, but I also didn’t want to hear him raining on my parade. I didn’t want him to think I was being reckless.
I didn’t need to hear that all of this was a dangerous mistake.
It might have been. I might have been leading myself toward having my heart ripped out of my chest. So far, we’d made no promises to each other about what could come next. We each had our separate lives, and I was still working on escaping the comfortable prison my brother had built for me.
I had no idea what I could possibly offer Ryan.
But I wanted this to at least be enough for now.
After breakfast, we went back to the room to change, and sure enough, there were fifteen messages waiting for me on my phone. I ignored all of them and sent back a single text.
Me: I’m safe and alive. Taking a vacation. We can talk about it later. Call The Winds hotel on Pierce Island if there’s an actual emergency.
It was maybe a bad idea to give him the hotel name, but I didn’t want to ice him out completely. I wanted him to sit with his discomfort until he realized that I could do this. That even if my body was in worse shape, I would have still been able to do all of this.
“Beach?” Ryan asked. He appeared in the doorway to my bedroom as I was unstrapping my orthotics, which were not built for seawater or sand. His eyes caught on them, and I could see questions lingering, but he didn’t ask them.
“Did you get the snorkel gear?” He’d run down to the activities desk while I was changing, and I could see he was still out of breath from power walking back.
He grinned and held up two masks. “Freshly sanitized, in case you change your mind.”
I was thinking about it. Every risk with him seemed worth taking.
Standing up, I pulled my shirt over my head, then turned toward the bed to grab my rash guard that still had all the tags on it. As I started to rip them off, I felt his presence—the heat of him at first, and then a touch up my spine.
“These look painful.”
Ah. My scars. I hadn’t really thought about them since I almost never got a good look at my back. He traced around spots that were too sensitive and a few that were entirely numb.
“There’s a lot of pins in there,” I told him as I pulled the shirt over my head. Glancing over my shoulder, I grinned. “Getting through airport security is fun.”
“Oh god.” He pressed a hand to the center of my spine, then dragged it lower.
There was a spot—right around the injury line—that always felt…
different. Pressing too hard made it feel like lightning was zinging up and down my legs, making my toes go kind of numb.
But a touch too light and I couldn’t feel it at all.
I sucked in breath through my teeth, and he wrenched his hand away like he’d been burned. Turning, I took him by the wrists and pulled him in, wrapping his arms around my waist. “I like when you touch me. The feeling can be a bit much, but I don’t mind.”
His eyes met mine. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure,” I said, because it was him. Then I leaned in and took a careful kiss. “Swimming?”
He pulled back with a grin. “Yes. And shells. I want to collect shells. I even brought a little bag for them.”
When he let me go, he grabbed a small vinyl bag shaped like a blue crab with a little shovel attached.
It was so fucking endearing, especially with the way he was grinning.
I didn’t know why that affected me so much, but I was unable to help myself.
I grabbed him around the waist, tucked him into me, and kissed the breath out of his lungs.
“Oh,” he said, breathing heavy as he pulled back. His eyes were a little hazy as they found mine. “What was that for?”
I shook my head. There weren’t really words to describe the way he made me feel and the things he made me want to do to him. And frankly, if I tried, I was scared they would terrify him. Instead, I brushed a few locks of hair away from his forehead.
“You’re very kissable.”
He blinked, bit his lip, then surged in and kissed me back just as hard. Just as desperate. I felt my toes curling against the floor, and my dick got a little thicker.
“I’m not going to be able to swim like this,” I warned him, “if you keep going.”
He laughed as he pulled back, and I made a big show of tucking myself into the waistband of my swim trunks while he watched with hooded, heavy eyes. He licked his lips. “Maybe staying in is a good idea.”
Laughing softly, I cupped his cheek with one hand. “Swim first. We have all day for everything else.”
He groaned, rolling his eyes back along with his head, and then he snagged my hand and tugged me toward the door. I followed, legs a little weak, but I’d never felt more steady in my entire life.