Chapter 14
Laney
I should not be following Theo out of the resort, but I am so tired of should s.
Why can’t I have fun?
Why can’t I be irresponsible?
I hate missing Emma. Hate it. This is her week and I want to be here for her and see her for more than five minutes at a time.
But there are forty people coming to dinner tonight.
Forty . Parents, grandparents, the bridal party, aunts, cousins…
It might be a family dinner, but it’s still a lot of people.
I tell myself I’m helping Theo stay away from Chandler, which is better for Emma, whom I see all the time . That she had a great day today because I handled all things Theo-related.
But I also feel an utter thrill at knowing I’m doing something I shouldn’t do. Something forbidden . Something dangerous .
Something with potentially life-altering consequences bigger than me losing my bikini top in a pool.
Something that would give my mother a heart attack and a half.
And that makes it all the more appealing.
Not because I want her to suffer. But because I want to live . And I can’t live in the fear of the world that I was raised to cower in.
It’s happening.
I’m having my rebellion. And now that it’s started, I can’t stop it.
Nor do I want to. This can’t wait until next week.
It has to happen now .
Theo stops next to a red convertible. “Climb in.”
“Are you serious?”
He dangles the keys.
My jaw is on the pavement. A convertible ? “When did you get?—”
“Airport. When I landed.”
“But we took?—”
“Ride share to and from the clinic? Even I won’t drive when I can’t see, and no way was I letting you behind the wheel of this baby.”
He says it with the same flirty grin he was aiming at Claire earlier.
The one that reminds me of the smile he aimed my way when he nudged me into doing my cannonball.
“Because I have a horrible driving record?” I say like old Laney, and I immediately want to take it back.
But he grins wider. “No, because she’s built for speed . None of that granny driving you do.”
I look at the car again. Red. Shiny. Top down. A feral black cat peering at me from the passenger seat’s foot well.
And then I look at Theo again.
“I didn’t steal the car,” he says.
There’s cheek in his words, there’s something else too. Like he expects did you steal the car is the top question in my head right now, because it’s the first thing I would’ve asked him in high school.
But he’s not high school Theo. And I’m not high school Laney.
I swallow. “I didn’t say you had.”
“And I didn’t say I’ve never stolen a car. Just not this one.”
Oh, god. I’m running away with a bad boy.
Oh, god . I’m running away with a bad boy .
Maybe not the same kind of bad boy he was in high school, but still someone well outside my normal dating circles.
This is going to be fabulous.
I hesitate only the briefest moment before I open the door, shoo out the stray cat—he has enough cats, and this one has a clipped ear, indicating it’s wild and fixed—and slide in.
Theo doesn’t open his door.
He pulls a movie-star move and swings his legs over the side of the car, slides into the driver’s seat, takes a minute to unbutton his Hawaiian shirt all the way before buckling his seat belt over his dark jeans, and then punches the button to start the motor.
The car roars to life and makes my clit tingle.
Not. Good.
But I can ignore this.
I text Emma quickly. Turns out Theo actually DOES have gas. Have fun dancing! I’ve got this under control .
Theo looks at me. “Did you just tell my sister that I have gas?”
“Yes.”
Why is he aiming the flirt grin at me again? “Good. She knows how bad I can stink. Add that I had sardines for lunch.”
And then he’s tucking his arm around the back of my seat while he looks behind us and backs the car out.
Like there’s not a backup camera right there in the dash.
A thrill zings through the rest of me.
I’m being a bad girl tonight.
For just one night.
For good reasons.
I am absolutely going to be that person I’ve always been told I shouldn’t want to be, but that person that I’ve wanted more and more to explore every single day of the past year.
“Where are we going?” I ask over the engine as Theo heads out of the parking lot.
“Does it matter?”
The question shouldn’t stump me, but it does.
And not because I don’t know the right answer. No is clearly the right answer here.
But how often do I ever do things in my own life without purpose?
Never .
And that’s not wrong . But maybe it’s not enough .
“I want fish tacos,” I tell Theo.
It’s what pops into my head. I’m hungry. Fish tacos sound good.
No overthinking.
I just want fish tacos.
Fifteen minutes later, I have a bag of fish tacos in hand courtesy of a local drive-through place, and Theo’s driving us out of town.
I don’t ask where we’re going again, or why he didn’t get anything for himself.
Instead, I eat fish tacos and watch the sun dip lower in the horizon until he steers us up a road going inland, putting the sunset behind us.
Going nowhere.
Or maybe somewhere specific, and it’s a surprise.
Theo’s quiet. It’s an unusual side of him from what I expect. Almost like he can turn down the chaos dial sometimes and just be chill.
I want to ask him what he does for work, but that’s too Laney of me. So instead, I finish licking all of the delicious fish taco sauce off my fingers, then I pick a quite possibly more dangerous topic.
“Are you enjoying Emma’s wedding week?”
His gaze shifts to mine briefly, and I swear he knows it was on the tip of my tongue to ask him how he supports himself. “Could be worse,” he replies finally with that smile dialed up again. “Aunt Brenda could be babysitting me.”
Good thing I’m done eating, or I’d be choking on a fish taco right now. “I’m sure she wouldn’t have minded at all if you woke up with your hand asleep.”
“When you wake up with your hand asleep tomorrow, I’m going to laugh my ass off.”
“I don’t wake up with my appendages asleep.”
“Of course not.”
“I’m a good sleeper.” Shut up, Delaney. Shut. Up.
His lips twist in bigger amusement. “Was today your first time going skinny dipping?”
“ I was not —ahem. Excuse me. No. No, it was not.”
The car swerves. Like, actually swerves as Theo jerks the wheel while he glances at me as we leave behind the black lava rock landscape and head into a more desert-like area of the inner part of the island.
I hope I get to see the tropical rainforest side while we’re here too. I want to see all of it.
“When was the other time?” he asks.
Is that my imagination, or did his voice go a little hoarse?
My imagination, I decide. Or a side effect of the wind whipping around the open top of the car.
But I smile at him like his voice did go hoarse. “Much like Sabrina, I am a steel trap. Fish tacos cannot buy this secret out of me.” And yes, I’ll be paying him back for buying my food.
I didn’t grab my wallet before dinner. I have no credit card and no ID on me. I’m living on the edge .
“Ah,” Theo says. “You quickly pulled your suit down during senior dare night in the pool in the dark.”
“ No .” Okay, yes. I did that too. But I don’t count it.
I didn’t pull my suit all the way off. And it was like, half a second. I didn’t want to be the one with my suit down if we got busted. My parents would’ve died.
Bad enough I was there .
But I should’ve done it all the way .
“Being naked in your own bathtub doesn’t count,” he tells me with a grin.
“Just how often do you think about me naked?”
“Pretty much every day.”
My nipples tingle. I tell them to stop because this is not the kind of fun we’re having tonight, but they don’t listen.
And my mouth doesn’t get the message either.
“Like, once a day? Or is it breakfast-lunch-dinner, time to think about naked people time several times a day? Do you just flip through your contact list and picture everyone naked, or only certain people?”
“Only certain people. Usually several times an hour.”
“Do you say that to make me uncomfortable or because it’s true?”
“Do you really want to know the answer to that?”
Do I?
Usually, no.
Today?
“I want to know.”
He glances at me again. “Are you going to call me a dick if you don’t like my answer?”
“Yes. It’s my defense mechanism so I don’t notice you have very nice abs.”
Oh my god. I said that out loud.
I said that out loud, and now he’s flexing his abs.
The man is flexing his abs .
For me.
Today’s been a weird day. So weird. From the very unexpected wake-up with his personal problem looming between us, to watching him playing with a bunch of kids on the beach, to worrying over his eyes, to the kittens he rescued in secret and his confession that he used to like me, to the bikini mishap in the pool, to running away with him now?—
He puts himself out there.
For everything .
“What’s it like to not care what anyone thinks of you?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“Who says I don’t care?”
“If you cared, you wouldn’t be so…”
“Stupid?” he supplies.
“No, I was going to say whatever the word is for willing to jump into potentially dangerous and often unwise things without thinking them all the way through , but then I realized that sounds like Frumpy Dumpy Delaney, and I’m not her tonight, so please erase the question from your brain. It doesn’t exist.”
“You think I don’t care what anyone thinks of me because I’m spontaneous .”
“I think you’re forty-six steps beyond spontaneous. I also think you care what Emma thinks of you or we wouldn’t be in this car running away from her wedding together. You would’ve ditched me.”
“Maybe that’s my plan.”
I gasp.
Like, actually gasp.
He laughs but then stops as he seems to realize I’m taking him halfway seriously. “I’m not dumping you in the middle of the island.”
“But I know about your kittens. I could make life horrible for you.”
“I have way bigger secrets than kittens .”
“Like what?”
He cuts another look at me and chuckles again. “Dream on, Laney.”