33. Nova
Before I even open my eyes, I know my body is sore.
Everything aches and I am hot. I blink against the morning sun and try to roll over onto my back, but I can’t. It’s then a strong arm tightens around my stomach and I realize, with some terror, that Reid and I fell asleep on the couch and now he’s wrapped around me, his arm banded around my front to hold me close to him.
No wonder I feel like I got run over by an eighteen-wheeler. Last night was . . . spectacular? Out of this world? Just dandy? Everything sounds childish and juvenile considering the noises I made the night before.
And now . . . I’m not sure where we stand. The line between Reid and I was always foggy. Now, I don’t even know where it is.
Carefully, I adjust so I can see him, his head on the throw pillow behind me and his hair a scruffy mess.
God, he’s handsome.
My chest burns when I think about how tomorrow, he’ll be gone. I’ll never see him again and this summer will just be a story I can tell when I’m old and gray, alone and tired.
Lonely.
Tears burn in my eyes, but I force them back down.
I won’t be lonely. I’ll have family. Friends. Maybe I’ll find a nice accountant or something to settle down with and he can help me figure out the books at the inn.
Except . . . I don’t want an accountant. The man I want is unobtainable and currently holding onto me like he’s afraid he might lose me.
Tomorrow, he will.
Am I in love again? Is this what this is, truly? As much as I want to deny it, I can’t escape the feeling that I have fallen for Reid despite all our baggage. Despite his leaving and despite the fact that I made a promise that I would never love again.
I could tell him, but then I know what that would do. He would either leave anyway or feel obligated to stay. I don’t know which is worse. The pain of losing him or the pain of knowing where he would rather be.
Not here in Port Nova, in a little cottage, cuddling on a Sunday morning.
Reaching up, I sweep the black wave from his forehead and he stirs. My heart lurches in my chest the single second those eyes open and meet mine.
My savior. Come back to me. Even if just for a summer.
“Good morning,” I murmur, my voice hoarse. Probably from screaming all night.
He scrubs a hand over his face and looks around, almost as surprised as I am that we fell asleep, still half dressed in our party clothes.
“Shit,” he grumbles, his arm around me tightening. “I didn’t mean to sleep here. Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I press a finger to his lips when he tries to speak again and just shake my head. No amount of grumbling is going to change it and I’m fairly certain I’ll start crying if the conversation veers toward him leaving.
“How are you feeling?”
“Sore. Thirsty.”
“Why haven’t you gotten up?”
I chuckle, my hand slipping up his exposed front to rest over his heart. It’s beating fast, like he’s unsure what to do.
“You were holding me too tightly.”
A wet nose touches the bare skin of my ass and I jump, letting out a squeak before Reid can say anything. He laughs; I struggle to pull my dress down as far as I can as Toast jumps up on top of us.
“Alright, alright,” Reid concedes, scratching him on the head. “Are you ready to go play in the water?”
“Water?”
Reid smirks at me, winking. “Remember our deal. Dancing for boating.”
My stomach sinks. Dammit.
“Are you sure we can’t just admire from here?”
He rolls me until I’m under him, all but forcing Toast off the couch, who trots away happily. Reid’s eyes burn as he looms over me, studying me.
“We’ll stick to the coast. We won’t go far. Nothing we can’t get out of.”
“That’s comforting.”
“Have I let anything bad happen to you yet?”
I know what he means. The wreck. He’s saved my life once and something about that gaze tells me he’d do it every day if he had to.
“Okay, fine, but I’m putting on the life jacket the moment we get to the docks.”
A wicked glimmer flashes through his eyes and he pulls me up until my mouth is mere millimeters from his.
“Deal.”
“Why did you say it like that?”
“Like what?” he asks, lips brushing against mine in the softest kiss.
Despite last night, heat coils in my stomach.
“Like you’re going to eat me alive?”
“I may. Better find your swimsuit,” he chuckles, kissing me roughly on the mouth. When he pulls back, his stubble leaves a burn that travels across my body, leaving goosebumps despite the morning heat. “Or don’t,” he shrugs. “You won’t need it for long, anyway.”
He’s crazy.
“No.”
“I’m right here.”
“Yeah, but what else is right there?”
“Toast,” Reid chuckles, looking over his shoulder to where the dog is doggy paddling around him in circles. “Look, he’s having the time of his life.”
Toast didn’t almost drown,I start to snap, but I force a deep breath through my lungs, instead.
I’ve done this countless times and way farther out. I practically grew up on the island.
So why can’t I move past that night?
“Nova,” Reid says quietly, his arms resting on the back of the deck. He watches me like he can read my mind. Like he can see all the fucked-up scenarios playing out in my head and they don’t scare him.
At least that makes one of us.
I want to be better. I want to move past it. I want to forget.
Anxiety roils in my stomach when I step closer to him. We’re just like yin and yang— so polar opposite, but so intrinsically intertwined it would take the force of the sun to pull us apart.
Unfortunately, the sun comes tomorrow, in the form of a goodbye.
This is my one opportunity to be better.
Carefully, I reach up and undo the restraints of the life jacket.
Okay. Step one.
Reid watches quietly, his eyes burning my skin when I lift my shirt over my head, then reach for my shorts.
Once I’m in nothing but my swimsuit, the breeze on my bare skin feels like a silent reminder that my heart is still beating. I can do it.
Reid holds his hands out to me when I sink onto my haunches at the back of the deck and gently, I let him pull me towards the water.
Everything in me begs to climb back to the deck when the waves lap at my skin, but I go with him because I trust him.
I would trust him with my dying breath.
He pulls me into him and I hold on, my life raft in the middle of the ocean.
“Alright?” His voice is deeper, huskier than usual. Like this is as big a deal for him as it is for me.
In reality, we’re just two people. Our problems don’t affect the world, but to us, they are the world. My fear of water isn’t going to change nations, just like his love won’t. But . . . in the end, even if neither of us make a big difference in the world, we’ll have made a difference to each other.
“I’m okay,” I breathe, pulse thrumming in my chest.
I focus on the beat, rather than how much water could be underneath me. I’m alive. I’m in the water and breathing. There’s no mud in my lungs. No one to save.
It’s just us.
How am I supposed to give this up? This warmth, comfort, healing. Everything good and bad in the world, wrapped into one to really make this life feel like it’s worth it. This person who really makes me feel like I’m living for the first time in my life, rather than just surviving?
How do I say goodbye when someone is actively choosing to go?
“I’m okay.”