Chapter Nine Cammie #4
“Well, next time you’ll have to bring back your sweethearts,” Graham offers in the awkward pause that follows, his grandfatherly way of defusing the tension—or covering up the fact that for a moment there, everyone was anticipating some kissing cousins action.
“Ha ha, yep,” West plays along, literally saying “ha ha” like they’re words, instead of laughing. This, in turn, makes me laugh for real.
When the engine starts up again, I lean close to him and ask, “Is my cousin a robot or an alien?”
“I don’t want to hear it from you, Knee Fondler,” he snarks back.
I gasp, trying to sound indignant despite my cheeks glowing red-hot. “I was not fondling your knee!”
He shrugs. “Tell it to the jury.”
“Oh my god, we should have just said we’re friends,” I mutter.
“Would that have been more accurate?” West asks. His voice is suddenly earnest. So is his expression, his dark eyes pinned on me with unreadable emotion in them.
“I mean,” I say with an awkward laugh, “we’re at least in the free-trial stage, right?”
His mouth tips up on one side. “The free trial?”
“Yeah, like, testing it out before we commit to the…lifetime membership.” Not bad for a metaphor I completely pulled out of my ass, I think with surprised satisfaction.
West looks dubious but plays along anyway. “How do you think the trial’s going so far?”
I study my hands where they fiddle with the frayed hem of my shorts, contemplating how to answer.
“Well, what you’re doing right now, going on this outing with me even though you apparently hate boating on the ocean and that’s literally the whole plan for the day—it’s something only a pretty good friend would do, isn’t it?
” My eyes flick hesitantly up to his face. “So I’d say it’s going well.”
The tension on his thoughtful face slowly melts until his eyes crinkle at the corners and a smile, small but genuine, tugs his lips upward. I feel an answering leap in my heart rate, then tell myself there’s no way the two are related.
“Glad to hear it, Cam,” he says softly.
But as our gazes stay locked, and the moment stretches on, it doesn’t feel particularly friendly. It feels like something stronger, and so much scarier.
I look away first, shifting so my back is to West and I’m peering out toward the sea. For all anyone knows, my entire focus is on the stunning scenery as we cruise around the island.
My eyes are taking it in, but my mind is floating farther away in both place and time. Salty mist sprays my face as we bounce across the waves, calling up a sense memory from three years ago that I usually try my best to suppress.
The mist that day hadn’t been a cool reprieve from the hot summer sun.
It’d been part of the chilly drizzle under gray skies I’d grown used to, in the few months we’d lived in that sleepy English coastal town.
Mom and Dr. Danny had been working on some Roman ruins found on nearby farmland, while West and I had been living—at least in my mind—the cute, cozy, falling-for-my-best-friend love story that dreams are made of.
We had daily teatime at one of our families’ quaint rental cottages and always had a jigsaw puzzle in the works on someone’s kitchen table.
We became regulars at the coffee-and-bookshop down the lane, where we’d do our online classes together with long breaks to browse for new reads and get caught up in discussing our favorite stories.
We’d walk and talk for miles up and down the rocky beach, dressed in layers to account for whatever the moody weather decided to do each hour.
And every day, my feelings for him had grown harder to hide.
There’d been signs he’d felt something, too—his gaze that always fell on me when he thought I wasn’t looking, a gradual shift in the ways we touched, from accidental or casual to brimming with meaning and significance.
Then finally, we’d sat on the beach late into the night, under the guise of waiting for the clouds to clear and reveal some stars.
Cuddling for warmth had escalated bit by bit, until I’d tipped my face up to his in question, and his lips met mine in answer.
Not even twelve hours later, I could hardly believe I was back in the same place, tainting the site of our perfect first kiss with what I feared was becoming my first heartbreak.
“Tell me it isn’t true, West,” I demanded, the shake in my voice barely detectable over the rumble of thunder in the distance. “That it…That I misheard, or something, and your dad wasn’t just telling my mom about his new job. About plans for your family to move back to Indiana for good.”
West wouldn’t even take his eyes off the dreary horizon to look at me.
His throat bobbed on a heavy swallow, and I thought I saw the slightest tremble of his chin but decided I imagined it when he set his jaw in a firm line again.
“It’s true, Cammie. We’re moving home, at least until I finish high school. ”
A choked sob escaped me. “That’s…I don’t even…How long have you known?”
His silence was answer enough.
“So what was last night? That kiss?” I pushed a clump of wet curls back from my forehead, where they’d escaped the confines of my rain jacket hood.
There was little point in the garment, in this kind of rain that was almost like standing in the path of a sprinkler.
But I was grateful for it anyway, as it helped disguise the tears that were spilling down my cheeks at an alarming rate.
“Or, like, everything between us these last few months? I thought we were…that we’d… I don’t know, be a thing now?”
It sounded so juvenile and silly when I said it out loud, and what I felt for him was anything but that. It couldn’t be anything but love—I was certain of it. Had I been fooling myself, believing he felt the same?
West finally managed to meet my gaze, and his eyes brimmed with so many emotions, I couldn’t name them all.
But frustration was predominant in his voice when he said, “There’s been a lot going on that’s bigger than you and me, like my dads”—he shook his head to flick back the brown hair dripping water into his eyes under his own pointless hood—“they need this change. We all do. Some stability and normalcy for once. It’s what I want, too. ”
My hands flew out to my sides. “Then why did you make me think you wanted me?”
His hands went to the top of his head as he started to pace in a slow circle.
“I didn’t mean to—You’re my—” A low growl escaped through his clenched teeth before he collected himself and continued.
“Whatever I made you think, I can’t do a relationship right now.
Anything else that’s happened between us or anything more that happens in the future, it’s as friends only.
That’s the only ‘thing’ I can be with you. ”
The memory after that grew blurry. I knew that I’d pleaded with him to give us a chance, even willing to try long-distance, but he’d been insistent it had to be this way.
I’d grown angrier the longer we stood there—not to mention soggier and colder—and by the end, there was a lot of me yelling and him silently taking it.
Then West had walked away. Days later, we hadn’t tried to talk again when he and his dads had left for the States.
I’d expected he would snap out of whatever temporary personality transplant he’d undergone, regret being so cold, and try to reach out some number of days or weeks later.
But after months of silence, I gave up that hope and deleted his number.
I blink rapidly, tipping my face toward the sunny blue sky above to remind myself where I am now, to keep any new tears from contributing to my saltwater facial this time. But the memories have effectively dampened my spirits.
Paolo announces that we’re approaching our next stop, the only place where we’ll get a chance to swim, and I join in the cheers from my fellow passengers, even while keeping my face turned toward the sea until I’m sure no sadness lingers there.
I tell myself a dip in the cool blue waters is all I’ll need to reset and recenter on what’s important about today.
While Paolo drops anchor, I put all my energy toward readying to swim, whipping off my T-shirt and shorts, applying another layer of sunscreen to supplement this morning’s, and determinedly shutting out anything or anyone else on the boat.
Then I turn around and am faced with an image I couldn’t shut out if my life depended on it, one that threatens my balance far more than the gently rolling waves below.
West Jacobs—shirtless.