Chapter 10
The ocean crashes against the ship, endless and indifferent as sunlight scatters across the waves like nothing in the world has ever been broken.
It’s almost insulting.
Out here, everything keeps moving. The tide rises, the wind shifts, the sun burns bright like it hasn’t witnessed me making a complete mess of my life.
The ocean doesn’t care about my problems.
It most certainly doesn’t care that I almost kissed Zach last night and then fled into my cabin like the coward I am.
You’re dangling yourself in front of him.
I shake my head, pushing away Olivia’s words, annoyed that she might be right.
I can’t seem to change the way I act when he’s around, but it’s not my fault he’s here.
Actually, that’s a good point. If anything, he’s the one dangling himself in front of me.
He knows I love him and he’s just patiently waiting for me to choose him, never giving me a moment of peace.
It would be easier if he didn’t look at me like I’m the answer to every question he’s ever asked, but Zach has never made leaving easy. He just stands there, loving me through it, waiting for me to get tired of running and accept that home has been standing in front of me the whole time.
As if I don’t already know that.
That’s the part that frustrates me the most. I’m supposed to be here figuring out who Honey Sanderson is. Not falling backward into the version of myself that only exists when Zach Evans is in the room.
The goal is mental clarity. Purpose. To develop some kind of internal compass that doesn't swing immediately north every time Zach so much as growls my name in a way that he knows makes me feel hot.
I pull my robe tighter and take a long sip of coffee, letting the warmth of it settle in my chest.
The sea air is thick and sweet out here, and as I take a deep breath of it, I can feel it work its way into my lungs, through my bloodstream. The feeling is nothing like Hope, or Atlanta. It’s freeing and almost makes me believe that I’ll finally have enough space to think.
When I open my eyes, I reach for my phone, wanting to talk to only one person.
Honey: Good morning. How's the baby? How's Mike? How's your guilty conscience?
The reply comes back almost instantly, which means she was waiting for it.
Olivia: Good, fine, and nonexistent because I stand by what I did. Good morning, by the way. How are you? How's the ship? How's Zach?
Honey: You don't get to ask about Zach.
Olivia: Oh, come on! I technically paid for him to be there, so I have a vested interest.
Honey: The ship is beautiful. I'm having coffee on the balcony, breathing in the ocean air. I'm fine.
Olivia: That's three sentences and none of them answer my actual question.
“Because I don’t want to answer it,” I say out loud even though there is no one around to hear me. Shaking my head, I type out a response.
Honey: We had dinner. It was fine. He was... him. I'm going to focus on the reason I came here and stop letting this become a distraction.
Olivia: Okay, I support that, but I’m just saying figuring out what’s going on between you and Zach might, just might, make it easier for you to heal.
I stare at her message.
Heal?
As though Zach is a wound I just haven’t dressed properly yet. Zach isn’t a wound. He’s the band-aid that I’ve been using to hide all my problems underneath.
Honey: that’s not how healing works, Liv.
Olivia: Isn’t it? Because from where I was standing at that wedding, the only time you looked like yourself was when he walked into the room.
Honey: I was terrified when I saw him.
Olivia: Exactly. You felt something. That's more than I've seen from you in months, Honey.
Here comes the Olivia hate train. I’ve been her friend long enough to know when I’m about to get a succession of texts coming through.
All lecturing me on what I need to do with Zach.
I know what I need to do. I don’t need a heavily pregnant bestie to tell me, so I put it on silent and stuff it in my robe pocket.
I’ve done enough thinking about Zach to last a lifetime. It’s time I started focusing on what I need.
I reach down beside the chair for the book I packed when I genuinely believed this was going to be a trip about me. Not me running from Zach.
It’s a craft book on writing that I bought months ago while with Olivia. She’d dragged me out of the house and said I needed some perspective—and a hobby that didn’t involve wallpapering her house since she’s running out of walls.
I’ve been carrying the book with me ever since, reading it whenever I can.
I open it to the last page I was on.
Your main character’s motivation is straightforward.
It’s why your character acts. What’s harder to write is the gap between what motivates them and what they actually do about it.
A character can be fully aware of what they want and why they want it and still find a hundred reasons not to reach for it.
That gap is where the story actually lives.
“—yeah, I know, Dave.”
I freeze when I hear Zach’s voice drifting through the dividing wall between our balconies. I’m pretty sure Tiff has mentioned Dave is Zach’s agent. My ears prickle with interest.
“I said I’ll be there,” he continues, the frustration clearly rising in his voice. “Yup. Uh-huh.”
I lean back, ready to push my chair out and go inside, but something stops me.
“I’m out for less than two weeks now. Just tell Coach Masters I had a family thing, and I’ll be back in time for the start of training.” There’s a pause. “Fine. I’ll call him myself tomorrow.”
He’s lying to his coach about where he is. All because he wants to wait for me in person.
I sit back, frustrated that he’s not only lying to his agent but also his coach and team just to be here.
What the hell is he doing?
Anger and guilt course through my veins because he shouldn’t be here. He’s the first overall NFL draft pick. He should be training with his new team, getting to know Rome, Georgia—his new home for the foreseeable future. Instead, he’s risking it all to follow me around on a cruise ship.
That is crazy. It’s reckless. It’s so Zach it’s infuriating.
The chair scrapes across the balcony floor and I’m on my feet, stalking through my cabin before I’ve thought better of it. When I’m in the hallway, I head straight for his door.
Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.
I step back, folding my arms and tapping my foot as I wait for him.
“Coming,” a muffled voice from inside says.
When the door opens, I catch my breath.
Gray sweatpants. No shirt.
I repeat: no shirt.
His phone is still pressed to his ear as he takes me in slowly, the way he always does when he’s reading a situation before deciding how to react.
Meanwhile, I’m standing here in my robe, with a messy hair knot that gave up halfway through, and whatever scraps of dignity I managed to salvage from last night.
I tighten my belt, hoping it makes me look more confident than I feel.
“I’ll call you back, Reese,” he says, his voice low and distracted, lowering the phone before Reese can even respond.
His eyes stay on me the entire time. Then the corner of his mouth lifts.
“Hey, Honey. Thought you wanted me to give you some space.”
I plant my palm flat against his bare chest and push.
It’s not exactly effective force considering he’s built like a wall, but he goes with it anyway, stepping backward into the room to humor me.
A low, surprised laugh slips out of him, and I hate how much I like the sound of it.
“Okay,” he says, the laugh still warm in his voice.
“Stop laughing.”
He raises his hands. “I’m not laughing.”
“Yes, you are. You’re doing the thing where you—” I stop. “That’s not the point. I heard you on the phone.”
“How did you—” He goes still and then looks over his shoulder at the open balcony doors. “From your balcony?”
“Yes. We share a wall, and it’s not my fault your voice carries.” I wave a hand, already feeling myself get flustered. “Anyway, that’s not why I came here.”
Zach’s eyes track the movement of my hand, and his head tilts slightly.
“What’s that?”
I glance down at the book in my hand, realizing only then that I brought it with me.
Before I can answer, he reaches for me, his fingers closing gently around my wrist. He lifts my arm just enough to tilt the cover toward himself so he can read the title.
Then he looks back up at me, a warm, knowing smile spreading across his face.
“Are you writing again?” His voice drops. “I’m so proud of you, Honeycomb.”
I step back, shame filling every part of me because I’m not writing again.
I bought a book. I carry it around. I read a few pages here and there like that somehow counts, but I haven’t actually written anything.
Not really.
No pages. No chapters. No proof that I’m becoming the person I keep saying I want to be.
So when Zach says he’s proud of me, it feels wrong. Like he’s proud of a version of me that doesn’t exist yet.
The brave version. The one who actually starts and stops being afraid.
All I can feel is how far away I still am from being her as he stands there, looking at me like that.
“That's not—” I shake my head, not even wanting to go there with him. “Zach. You're ignoring your responsibilities.”
He tilts his head, unbothered. “No, I’m not. I'm on vacation.”
“Then why are you on the phone faking family business for your absence?”
“Well, it’s not really fake anymore, is it, Honeycomb? You are my family. You just haven’t stopped fighting me long enough to let yourself admit it.”
“I am not your—”
“I know.” He says it simply, cutting underneath the argument before it can build. “You've mentioned it. Several times. What exactly is your concern here, Honeycomb? That I'm missing some voluntary workouts, or that you don't know what to do with the fact that I'm here?”
“Both,” I say, because he deserves the honesty even when it costs me. “But mostly the first one.”
He stares at me for a second. Then he exhales through his nose, something almost like a laugh. “At least you're consistent.”