Chapter Sixteen
Peyton stuck the key into the ignition and started the car when her cell phone rang.
It was probably Madeline, ready to scold her for taking so long when she was risking her life by covering for Peyton. Or Gabby, who wanted to know if Peyton had changed her mind about the bingo evening next week. She had not.
But the name on the screen said Josie.
Frowning—since Peyton had literally just said goodbye to her thirty seconds ago—she glanced through the windshield.
Josie was hurrying across the street, phone pressed against her ear and a sly smile sitting on those lovely lips.
She waved in Peyton’s direction and pointed at the phone mouthing, “Answer it.”
“I don’t want to answer it,” muttered Peyton out loud, knowing well enough that Josie couldn’t hear her but also that she would persist in the charade until Peyton picked up.
Josie gave another wave and, even more cartoonishly than before, pointed at the phone.
Groaning, Peyton answered. “I knew I shouldn’t have given you my number.”
“I think you giving me your number is the nicest thing you could do for me.”
“Really? Is that all it takes to please you?” quipped Peyton, wondering how the hell she had gotten herself into this pickle. Yet she was smiling. A huge, gorgeous smile had crept its way onto her face and was refusing to be bitten back.
And she wasn’t smiling just because she was amused at watching Josie—who was clearly bad at multi-tasking—struggling with her car keys while simultaneously dropping the picnic basket to the street.
Nor was it simply because Josie’s breath was huffing and puffing through the speaker.
But because Peyton had felt a burst of warmth, a spark of something cosmically bright in the center of her chest when she had first spotted Josie ambling across the park.
It was like seeing someone you cared about for the first time in ages and feeling a profound, indescribable sense of relief. As if you couldn’t imagine saying goodbye again. As if the very thought was like a sharp pain in your side.
The last time she felt that way was with Sorel, but even then, it hadn’t felt this pronounced, this strong. If Peyton could cut out that feeling with a knife, she would, no doubt.
Feelings be gone.
“Consider it my birthday present,” exhaled Josie, finally managing to open the car door and slip inside.
“Your birthday present?” Peyton gulped, wondering if the whole picnic thing was actually a celebration. “Is today your birthday?” Her voice sounded far too panicked for her liking.
“Don’t worry,” Josie chuckled, noticing the terror. “I’m a December baby. I actually just wanted to know if you wanted to go on a date with me tomorrow night?”
“And you couldn’t have asked me that earlier?”
“You scare me, Peyton. It’s far safer to ask you these questions from a distance.”
Peyton cleared her throat twice, hoping she could push down all these new feelings and forget about them while she figured out a way to distance herself from Josie. But no amount of throat clearing could dislodge this brightness in her chest.
“So, what do you say?” asked Josie when Peyton hadn’t yet replied. “A date with me. Tomorrow at seven pm in Morro Bay.”
“No thanks.” Peyton shook her head. A coffee-turned-picnic was already a big step out of her comfort bubble. A date, well that sounded like the perfect start to a bad idea.
“Great. I’ll pick you up. How about you text me your home address?”
If only saying no to Josie meant she’d actually listen. Peyton rolled her eyes, ignored the tiny sparkle of pleasure that seemed to whizz around in her brain, and said, “I’ll meet you at your house.”
“Fine,” chuckled Josie.
When the call ended, a hot flush spread through Peyton’s entire body as she tried to wrap her head around the entire conversation. It was impossible. The feeling of desperate longing and a need to get as far away from Josie was too difficult to untangle.
Fanning herself, Peyton checked her reflection in the mirror and tried to bite the smile away again. She was unsuccessful, so she simply started the car.
~~
“I hope you like long romantic walks on the beach,” said Josie, stealing a glance in Peyton’s direction.
“Because this is the epitome of a romantic beach walk. And don’t forget about the dinner I’ve planned afterward at Archie’s.
Candlelight and bacon carbonara. What can get more romantic than that? ”
The sun started its dramatic descent, painting the sky with an explosion of pinks and oranges. Morro Rock looked like it was basking in a golden sea.
“If you say romantic one more time, I’m going to run into the sea and drown myself,” muttered Peyton, struggling to keep a straight face.
Josie feigned shock and then made a show of zipping her mouth shut.
But the woman was right.
Everything about this moment was romantic.
Only the foolish would disagree. Even Peyton, who had tried to avoid romance after the whole Sorel thing, couldn’t help the fuzzy, dizzying feeling in her head, or the flapping in her belly, or even the annoying weakness in her legs like she might keel over in a second.
It was all made worse by Josie’s hand tucked in hers and by her constant giggling.
Who was she kidding—their constant giggling. Peyton hadn’t been able to stop laughing ever since they had parked at North Point Beach and the warm sand had covered their toes.
And it wasn’t because Josie’s jokes were good—they were terribly flat—but because that same cosmic lightning from before made her feel all floaty like she was high on something.
“By the way, my station is having a Christmas in July party this Friday and I was thinking it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if you came.”
“Like a plus one?” Peyton would have stopped dead in her tracks if Josie wasn’t already two steps ahead, tugging her along like she was a puppy on a leash.
“Yes,” said Josie, glancing back. She was smiling that gorgeous smile that brought a flutter to her skin like butterfly wings skimming pleasantly across her arms.
How could anyone say no to that smile? Not that it even mattered. Josie would probably coerce her somehow, anyway. The woman seemed to have a ton of tricks up her sleeve.
“Do I have to dress up like a sexy elf?” asked Peyton, who was weirdly fond of dress-up parties. Every year Gabby and Harry hosted a Halloween party at their house and Peyton would spend weeks prior coming up with the perfect outfit. Last year she had gone as the Corpse Bride.
“Probably,” said Josie. “James is dressing up as Father Christmas.”
“Will there be alcohol?” Peyton couldn’t possibly survive the Christmas party without at least a drink or two flowing through her system.
“Plenty.”
“Alright then.” She sighed. “I’ll be there. But only because I want to see James-the-Serious in a Santa Claus suit.”
The conversation easily shifted on, just like at the park. The conversation flowed just like earlier when Peyton had parked her car in Josie’s driveway and Josie had kissed her on the cheek, eager to tell her all about a fire they had put out just that morning.
They talked about Peyton’s childhood, her lack of siblings, how she had turned out fairly normal thanks to her cousin Harry, who was more like a brother. And then they moved on to Josie’s childhood in Morro Bay, her yearly vacations, and then finally landing on her parents.
“My parents were shocked when they found out they were expecting twins. Dad actually ran away for a day and a half. Mom said she nearly divorced him after that but was just happy he came to his senses.”
“How old were they?”
“Young. Both were twenty-two.”
That was young. At twenty-two Peyton hadn’t even started at the academy. Heck, she had barely even moved out of her parents’ house. The only adult thing she had done at the age of twenty-two was work in Colorado as a ski instructor during the winter months.
That was where she had met Sorel. The woman had torn her ACL coming down Highland Bowl and Peyton had been there to say, ‘I told you so.’ The memory burned a hole in her brain.
She shook it out of her head and focused on the sound of the waves crashing against the shore and Josie’s soft voice beside her.
“I guess it was a different lifetime back then,” Josie said with a shrug.
“People got married pretty early on. Although I guess they ended up getting married because of Kelsey and me. Not that they ever complained. Growing up they were just always in love…” She grew quiet, her fingers tightening slightly, and Peyton knew exactly what that meant.
She wasn’t an idiot.
Josie was going to bring up the whole ex-fiancée thing.
Of course she was. The conversation Peyton had started the other night, but not completed, was like a cloud looming above them.
It was like a shadow dimming the lovely moment––even making Morro Rock, which stood high and mighty in the distance, look trivial and unimpressive.
Peyton was eager to get away, to run across the beach. She even tugged a little on Josie’s grip, which only tightened on her wrist. A shackle she couldn’t break free from.
Maybe didn’t even want to break free from.
“What happened between you and your ex-fiancée?” asked Josie predictably. She sounded so sincere and genuine that it only made Peyton that much angrier.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said sharply, losing all of that fluffiness from before. She wrangled her hand free and clenched her fists. “Can you just drop it, okay? I shouldn’t have said anything.”
She expected Josie to let it go, to somehow grovel her way back into Peyton’s good grace by changing the subject. Instead, Josie grabbed onto Peyton’s wrist and spun her around until they faced each other.
“You can’t keep doing that.”
“Doing what?” frowned Peyton.
“Pulling away,” said Josie, her voice sharp enough to cut bread. “You’ve been doing that from the very first minute we met, and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of putting in eighty percent and getting less than ten.”
She closed her eyes, looking beautifully miserable, and then exhaled.
When she opened them again, she drew Peyton closer until their hips were flush.
“I want to know you, Peyton. And I can see that you want to know me too. But you keep fighting it and I just don’t understand why.
I’ll never understand until you open up to me. ”
“You can’t see anything,” Peyton muttered, feeling guilty, and just as miserable because Josie was right. Peyton did want to get to know Josie, but there was this wall she couldn’t break. It was a wall she herself had built, towering so high that even attempting to scale it felt like a defeat.
“I can see a lot more than you think,” said Josie, her eyes staring so intently, so piercingly and painfully, that Peyton had to look away. Except she didn’t. She accepted the pain and believed that she needed it.
But it wasn’t pain.
Josie was a plaster that healed. She took the pain away and lessened the prick of every ache accompanying the memories of Sorel.
Sorel had been her kryptonite and weakened her resolve, but Josie was the one who could fetch the sun and warm Peyton from the inside.
She didn’t even have to know Josie well to recognize that; it was just common sense.
Something she had noticed the moment they had met.
It was a fact as undeniable as gravity. Peyton could feel it in the way her pulse quickened every time Josie was close, or in that warmth that spread like hot honey through her veins whenever Josie touched her.
“Let me know you,” said Josie softly, moving closer and closer until her lips brushed over Peyton’s. That sweet, meadowy scent filled her nose like a drug.
It was then that Peyton’s heart exploded.
All she wanted was to be with Josie at this moment, to tell her everything, to cry on her shoulder and lie on her lap while Josie ran her fingers through her hair.
The kiss was fierce and deep and wonderful.
Teeth and tongue and lips all moving fast and impatiently.
Breaths mingled together, arms roamed about, desperate for a closeness that couldn’t come in such a public space.
All Peyton really wanted was to rip off Josie’s clothes, slip her fingers deep into the woman’s heat, and lick every bare surface of Josie’s body she could find.
But it wasn’t the time nor the place.
When a car backfired somewhere nearby, startling them both, the kiss broke apart, leaving everything raw and exposed. Peyton felt as if she had been peeled back like an orange, her protective skin removed, and segments laid bare.
Yet she had never felt better.
Blinking the haze away, Peyton took a deep breath in and felt cold when Josie stepped back. The cold disappeared when Josie smiled and stuck out her hand. “What do you say we get closer to the rock before it gets dark?”
“Deal.”
They carried on walking, the soft sand beneath their feet. The sun sank lower in the sky, nearly ready to disappear and the closer they got to that volcanic plug the readier Peyton became to share.
With her eyes on the rock, and her hand safely tucked in Josie’s warm grip, she said, “Her name is Sorel. She left me at the altar exactly one year and one month ago...” Thereafter, Peyton spoke every little detail about her life, all the while Josie listened patiently, held her hand tighter, and made Peyton feel both seen and heard.