28. “Boys” - Alfie Jukes #2
“All done,” he says. I try not to shiver as he gives my back one final swipe. He hands the bottle back to me, and my fingers accidentally graze his. It feels even more intimate than him rubbing my back.
My eyes flit up to his, but he’s wearing sunglasses, and I can’t read his expression. “Thank you,” I say quietly.
In the distance, Maeve calls something to the guys. Until she arrives, for these few trapped seconds, it’s only Heath and me, holding onto the same sunscreen bottle and staring at each other.
“God, I would kill for a cocktail right now.” Maeve dumps her bag onto the chair next to mine.
The moment is broken, and Heath releases his grip. I quickly look away and stick the bottle back into my bag. By the time I finish, he’s already on his way back to the water.
“What was that?” Maeve asks. She’s wearing high-waisted red gingham bottoms and a matching bandeau top. A pair of huge cat-eye sunglasses obscure her eyes.
“What?” I reach for one of the novels in my bag.
She motions between me and Heath’s retreating back with a rolled-up magazine. “ That. ”
I recline in my chair. “Nothing. ”
“That was not nothing,” she says.
Lux, thank god, chooses that moment to join us.
“Isn’t the weather glorious ? Tell me I’m a genius for suggesting this.
” She dumps three totes onto the sand and spreads her arms wide.
Her silk kimono opens to reveal a white bikini with braided gold straps that look like chains.
Her giant floppy hat hangs so low I can’t even see her face.
“You’re a genius,” I say.
“If only we had something to toast with.” Maeve groans, forgetting the interrogation she was about to put me under.
Lux unpacks her bags. “The liquor cabinet is stocked.”
“I would hope so,” Maeve says. “I’m just too lazy to go in and fetch anything.”
“Pierce!” Lux calls.
He’s tossing a football with Rhett, classic perfection in his striped trunks and Wayfarers.
“We need booze,” she calls.
He throws the ball back to Rhett and heads our way. “What are we drinking?” He stops directly beside Maeve’s chair.
“Anything that will make me forget I’m outside.” She swats at a bug crawling on her arm with her rolled-up magazine. “I’m getting eaten out here.”
“That’s because you’re wearing a tablecloth,” Pierce says. “They think they’re at a picnic.”
She whacks him with the magazine. He laughs and runs up the beach toward the house.
Maeve pulls an iPad out of her bag. “We need a real vacation,” she says. “I’m thinking Rome, Golden Triangle, or Nice. Thoughts?”
“You are the only person on the planet who plans a vacation while on a vacation,” Lux says. She has shut her umbrella and is lying on her back, eyes closed to the sun.
“It’s not a vacation. It’s a day trip,” Maeve says, already distracted by something on her screen.
“I vote Rome,” I say. “An air-conditioned museum sounds amazing right now.”
“I was dreaming of a hot romance with a Frenchman, but Italians are sexy,” Maeve muses.
My gaze travels to the water, where Heath is surfing and Rhett is doing something that I think is supposed to be body surfing, although I can’t be sure. He looks an awful lot like a cat trying to skateboard.
I should read. I pull my book onto my lap, but Lux and Maeve are arguing the merits of the French and the Italians, and the sun is so bright, seeping into my pores, and Pierce comes back with our drinks, complete with little umbrellas, and it’s all just so much.
I wish I could bottle up this feeling right here, the way my heart feels so full, like I’ve found my place in the world and don’t need to wander anymore.
Which is nonsense, because I’ve already established that Oxford is my place in the world, and if I can spend the rest of my days there, I’ll be the happiest girl on earth.
So why have I never experienced this kind of bliss in Oxford, the kind that threatens to overwhelm me when I’m with these people? Even sitting here under the brutal sun with bugs flying around and sand stuck between my toes, I think I’m happier than I’ve been any time in the past two years.
Maybe it’s not the setting that counts so much as the people beside you.
I open my book. I need to read if I want to justify this beach trip, because it feels like cheating on my research project to be here. Tuesday is the earliest I’ll be able to get back into the Archives, so I should make the most of the time between now and then.
I try. I really do. But there is too much going on for the book to hold my attention. One bare chest in particular continues stealing it away .
Heath drops his board onto the sand and takes the beer Pierce is holding out to him. His skin is slick, and the sun hits all the angles of his muscles, highlighting them as he tilts his head back and drains the beer. Droplets of water glisten at the ends of his hair.
I drag my eyes back to the page in front of me, the same one I’ve tried to read eight times. I finally absorb enough to allow myself to flip it, but my attention is soon focused on the figure moving toward us.
He’s like a god walking across the beach, the sun at his back, lighting him from behind. I hold my hand up to shield my eyes. He drops to the sand beside me and takes my other hand. My book closes and drops between my bent knees as he places something in my palm.
I bring it closer for inspection. It’s a tiny clamshell tinted varying shades of purple, like coffee rings on a book. “It’s beautiful,” I breathe.
He grins at me, and then he’s gone, just like that.
I wrap my fingers around the shell as he retreats to the water. Maeve’s gaze sits heavy on me, but I ignore her and return to my book.
Heath brings me three more shells over the next hour. He used to do things like this all the time, before everything changed and he was no longer the person I knew or loved.
The guys get restless as the afternoon comes to a close.
My phone buzzes from the bag beside my chair.
I pull it out to find a text from Dr. Riordan, asking how my research is going.
I have yet to send him my notes, partly because I’m embarrassed by how few there are, but mostly because I’ve forgotten.
My mind couldn’t be any further from Oxford.
“Volleyball!” Rhett calls to us as he runs past our chairs to the court further up the beach.
Maeve and Lux leave their things and follow him. I open the text message to respond to my professor. The cursor blinks back at me, reminding me how difficult it is to focus on anything but this moment. It’s like being in a different universe. Maybe the sun has that effect out here.
Before I can type out anything beyond an apology, Rhett returns. He bends over and tosses me across his shoulder like I’m nothing more than a small child. I laugh in surprise and toss my phone onto the chaise lounge as he bolts across the sand with me.
Heath directs a stormy look at Rhett when we arrive at the court. Everyone else is as blissed out as I am, encouraged, I’m sure, by the alcohol that’s been flowing and the gummies Rhett passed around earlier. We divide into teams, and it hits me.
I miss them. I miss this.
Oxford is wonderful, but it doesn’t have this. It will never have this again. Which means I have a choice to make: School, with all of its books and academia and security for the future. Or my friends, my life, my heart, in all of its tripped-out happiness.
The choice seems blatantly, painfully obvious.
If only it were that easy.