Chapter 5
FIVE
PRESENT DAY
Ian
I watch the indecision play across Josie’s face over my invitation to stay at my house for this week of wedding activities, and I can’t help feeling a shot of frustration.
She needs a place to stay, and I have a house with a guest room.
If she’s not nervous about me being a stranger, then what’s going on here?
“Look, I don’t really understand the problem. You and I were—” I pause. What were we? Something that could have been amazing. I settle on “friends,” though that doesn’t even scratch the surface. “I don’t know what happened with you that summer, but I’m not the one who…” I stop talking.
Josie’s head jerks up. “The one who what?”
The one who took off when I needed you the most.
Sweat trickles down my back. I do not want to be having this conversation in this hellishly hot motel room. Or at all. It was a long time ago, and that entire summer is a blur. I moved on. Got over it. We were dumb kids. Shit happens.
I don’t need an explanation from Josie. Or at least I didn’t think I needed one.
But now she’s standing here with that short white dress clinging to her curves, the humidity curling her hair in the kind of wild waves that conjure the memory of a perfect afternoon on a sailboat.
Her green eyes lock onto mine and the air between us feels thick, heavy with everything we never said.
And it turns out that maybe I’m not over any of it.
Maybe I’m not over her.
I blow out a heavy breath and drop my hands to my sides. “Nothing. Forget it.”
She opens her mouth as if she’s going to argue with me but then snaps it shut. Still not talking all these years later.
“Look,” I say, running a hand through my damp hair. “We’re melting here. The noise is unbearable.” As if to accent my point, another a round of “Chug… chug…” rises from the pool area.
Josie shoves a lock of sweaty hair out of her eyes and fans her face with her hand.
Her gaze shifts from the silent air conditioner unit to the balcony door and then lands on me, uncertainty clouding her expression.
From outside, the sound of water splashing drifts in, and it’s so hot in here I could dive off the balcony directly into the pool.
A trickle of sweat drips down Josie’s neck, and my gaze follows as it slides into the top of her dress. My breath catches.
I really need to cool off.
“You know what we ought to be doing?” I say, tearing my eyes away from her soft curves.
“What?”
“Come on.” I swing open the motel room door and step outside. “Trust me.”
Warily, she follows me downstairs to where the podiatrists are doing a conga line around the pool.
“Excuse me,” I say, taking Josie’s hand and ducking between two men swinging their hips to the beat of Bob Marley while trying not to spill their margaritas on the deck.
We come out on the other side of them, at the edge of the pool.
Another podiatrist dances by, jostling Josie, and I grab her before she stumbles into the water.
My chest presses against hers, slick, and sweaty. She grabs me by the shoulders.
“You’re not going to push me in, are you?”
“Of course not. You’re the one who pushes people into the water,” I joke. But maybe she doesn’t remember shoving that asshole Cal into the ocean when he was harassing her, because for a moment, her expression grows distant.
I take in her expression. Did I say something wrong? Is she afraid of the water? But no, that can’t be it because a second later, she shakes off whatever thought had darkened her features. A slow grin spreads across her face. She grabs my hand and turns toward the pool. “Let’s do this.”
And the next thing I know, we’re jumping in together.
The cool water closes over me, a relief after the sweltering motel room and even hotter looks that have been passing between me and Josie all afternoon.
Her hand is still wrapped in mine, and we bob to the surface together.
The skirt of her dress floats around her like a soft cloud, and the bodice sticks to her chest, revealing a pale pink bra and just a hint of what’s underneath.
The activity on the pool deck screeches to a stop, and I realize the podiatrists are staring at Josie, her red hair shimmering in the sun, those wet, inky lashes turning her green eyes the color of moss on a forest floor.
Something protective and primal comes over me, and I want to tell the men to look away.
But she just grins and gives them a wave. “Anyone have an extra beer?” Four men stumble over each other to fill a red plastic cup and hand it down to her.
She takes a long drink and closes her eyes, letting out a slow, satisfied sigh, her chest rising and falling.
I guess I’m no better than the podiatrists because I steal the opportunity to stare openly while she leans back against the wall of the pool and lets her legs drift upward in gentle sway of the water.
I noticed the new tattoos on her arms when I first spotted her on the side of the road, but now I can see an elaborate flower etching on her hip, just below the thin fabric line of her underwear.
I’m grateful for the cover that the water provides me because the effect that floating next to this woman has on me is about to be evident to everyone on the pool deck.
Her eyes open slowly, lazily, as if the alcohol has finally hit her bloodstream, but her slightly satisfied expression calls to mind all kinds of other ways I could have helped her to relax.
I’m suddenly regretting hurrying her out of that broiling motel room and irrationally considering all the ways I could get her to go back there with me.
But then she turns her soft gaze to mine and says, “I’d love to stay at your place. Thank you for inviting me.”
And just like that, I’ve been handed an unexpected gift.
A week with Josie. Something stirs in my chest, a feeling that’s distant but unmistakably familiar.
This woman knocked me off balance the moment she crashed into me in the sailing club parking lot, and this unplanned encounter with her today is making me realize that maybe I never quite landed back on my feet.
I’ve never been one for sentimentality, and I know relationships come and go.
But something never felt finished about ours.
Maybe it’s the way it ended with no explanation.
One minute the possibilities were like the ocean stretching in front of us, endless and deep, and the next minute…
The next minute she was gone.
Maybe this is my chance to find out why.
But deep down, I know that this sense of hope buoying me is more than just the prospect of finally resolving whatever happened all those years ago.
I’m as intrigued by this woman as I ever was.
And as I watch a kaleidoscope of emotions shift across Josie’s features, from hesitation and doubt to something that burns hot beneath the surface, I get the feeling she feels the same way about me.
Maybe the smoking rental car, the broken air conditioner, and—I shoot a glance at the conga line—even the podiatrists’ frat party have cracked open an opportunity. Josie and I were so good together. We could have had something special.
And maybe… we still can.