Chapter 14
Fourteen
A bottle of vodka. A blanket of stars. And the sad symphony of waves humming against the shore.
That’s how I plan to soothe the ache in my soul tonight.
Losing myself to liquor haze is back on the cards, because it feels like my insides are spilling out every hidden part of me. I’m thinking thoughts I buried under bolts and padlocks, feeling feelings I duct-taped and outran for weeks. If I can’t drown it all in this swirling, stinging fog…
I take another swig.
It’s liquid fire in my throat, roaring flames down my chest, but the truth is—vodka is easier to stomach than the fact she’s never coming back.
My twin sister.
My other half.
Bryce.
There it goes again, that twist in my gut. So wrong it makes me nauseous, but so real I can’t pretend it’s not there.
I blink fast, hoping to snuff the burn travelling up to my eyes. If even one tear falls… that’s it. I’ll crash, and that can’t happen, not when there’s no one to help cement all the broken pieces back together.
Even the black pull of the ocean feels like a safer choice than tears.
I swallow another mouthful of firewater. Wonder how Reese is faring.
Shame keeps me from asking anything beyond the message I sent Aspen earlier. When the sting faded and the adrenaline bled out, I couldn’t deny it. Carson was right.
It was me. It was a chain of bad decisions on my end that led Reese to that exact place, at that exact moment.
And I know I’m a broken record when it comes to these thoughts, but I can’t stop free-falling. Life’s become a nightmare on loop, and something has to give, but what when I have nothing left?
My shoulders curl inward, as if to ward a chill that doesn’t exist.
One, two, three. I breathe in long drags of air.
Three, two, one. I let it out. Again. And again. One, two, three… one, two—
My spine locks.
My heart stumbles.
Not a wall of black, but carved planes and eyes like thunderclouds.
They fall to the bottle white-knuckled between my hands. I dig deep, bracing for the scathing remark I know to expect… only it doesn’t come. There’s no ice. No judgment.
Right now, Carson Eli is someone else entirely. A man wearing bleary exhaustion like second skin. And me? I’m just a woman feeling something kindred spark, the crumbling edges of me reaching out in recognition.
He says nothing as he lowers to the sand, just lets his eyes fix to the horizon.
The rise and fall of my chest is bated, each one asking, is this when the shoe drops?
But when minutes pass and nothing comes, I force myself to let it go and, out of common courtesy, tip the bottle of vodka toward him.
I expect a no. Maybe the sideways shake of his head. Or a response that isn’t even a response
What I don’t expect is the brush of his fingers against mine, a flicker of warmth before he lifts it. It’s not even insane of me to anticipate the swoosh of liquor spilling onto the sand, but the respectable swig he takes is.
The muscles in his neck work with the swallow, while mine tighten beneath the hinge of my jaw. For someone that doesn’t drink, he takes the straight liquor like a champ. No wince, nothing.
I don’t say anything. Everyone has their moments of indulging. Some of us just have more.
Time blurs as the bottle passes between us, arms brushing with each trade.
I find that I don’t hate it. The silence. Usually it reduces me to an anxious mess, my mind spinning a rapid soundtrack, but something about Carson’s presence keeps the noise at bay.
It’s almost like his blow-up never happened. Maybe a part of me is braced for him to ignite again, but if that fuse exists, I can’t feel it.
Is my fight-or-flight too tapped out for the night, or is it something else entirely?
When he finally speaks, his eyes remain pinned to the velvet-dark sky. “You know anything about stars?”
“No.” It comes out hoarse.
There’s a pause, then he points. “See that cluster right there?”
I squint, but all the twinkling stars jumble together. “No.”
“It’s shaped like a kite. Three in a line for the string, four forming a crooked square. Look for that.” His tone carries instruction, but beneath it there’s patience.
I search and search, seeking what he describes like it’s a lifeline. It takes longer than I’d like to get there, but all that matters is I do.
“I see it.” It’s a whisper on its own accord.
“That’s the Big Dipper.” He’s barely louder than the waves. “You see the two stars that make the end of it?”
“Yes.”
“Trace them up. The first bright one you hit—that’s the North Star.”
I find it, sparkling like diamond dust.
That’s when his gaze finds me, an unmistakable pressure on my profile.
“They call the North Star a symbol of hope. That due to its fixed position it’s a beacon of guidance. Something to fall back on when you can’t remember your path.” I absorb every piece of it. “Someone once told me if I’m ever feeling lost seek it out. I’ve done it ever since.”
A quiver along my lower lip. Emotion coiling my vocal cords.
“Does it help?”
His chin dips. “Grounds me every time.”
Mist blurs my vision again, smearing the stars, but somehow, in the blur, they glow brighter too.
I can’t will my eyes dry this time because right here, Carson still watching me, I feel seen. For the first time since she left.
Brielle Jameson.
It jars me, but it’s beautiful too, like a shard of light slicing through the dark from a place I never expected. Like he heard my plea and came over to offer an outlet. One without side-effects and crash landings.
I pat my pocket, remembering too late that my phone is dead. Hesitation flickers, but I just go for it. “Do you mind if I use your phone to snap a picture?”
I want to capture this moment. Tuck it against my heart, and carry it with me.
And the whole if you don’t ask, you don’t get thing proves itself true; he hands it over without falter.
My hand trembles as I take it, but steadies once I open the camera. Thumb flicks to Night Mode. I frame the Big Dipper, trace upward to the North Star. Tap to focus. Drop the exposure. Snap. Then I stay still, holding my breath so the lens can drink it in without distortion.
This is my element. Or… it was. The urge to fall back into it has been buried for so long, but tonight it stirred. I don’t dwell on the why. I just send the photo to my number and hand his phone back with a heartfelt, “Thank you.”
If I was expecting silence to slide back in, I’d be wrong. Carson’s playing by a different rule book tonight.
“I was wrong for flipping my shit on you earlier.” A completely new rule book, in fact. He’s apologising?
My shoulder brushes his as I lift it. “You had every right to.”
“Nah,” he denies on the sharpest of exhales. I catch the drag of his palm down his jaw. “Reese told me what happened. That it was an unprovoked attack. A case of mistaken identity. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”
Conclusions. I might be in the dark about details, but one thing I know for sure—Janson has a starring role in them.
I remind myself it’s none of my business. Not my place to pry.
But what is…
“How’s… Reese?” I ask it like one wrong move might splinter this fragile truce. I can’t take anything scathing right now. But, more than that, I don’t want him to leave.
Yet. I don’t want him to leave yet. Right?
He grunts. “He’ll hurt like a motherfucker for a few days, but nothing serious. Should’ve been worse, honestly, given the odds. But he knows how to fight.”
An understatement if I ever heard one. Somewhere between the smirks and quips, I must’ve forgotten he’s all muscle and ink. I don’t want to imagine what would’ve happened if that wasn’t the case.
“His nose isn’t broken, then?”
“No.”
“He was bleeding a lot.” The image replays for the hundredth time.
“Trust me”—Carson lifts the bottle again, bicep flexing hard with the motion—“when your nose is broken, you know. Hurts like a bitch.”
Moonlight slopes over the faint bump breaking the line of his nose. He’s speaking from experience. It should ruin the symmetry, but somehow it doesn’t. The opposite, even.
“You must’ve been really scared.”
Terrified. But that’s not what haunts me.
“I couldn’t help him.”
That’s the part I can’t shake.
Even though it’s barely more than a breath, Carson hears it with perfect clarity. Every trace of fatigue drains from him, replaced by ferocity.
“There’s nothing you could’ve done, Jameson. You hear me? Nothing.” It lands like fact, not comfort. “And don’t forget, you stayed. When most people would’ve bolted, you stayed. That’s brave as hell.”
Brave. Yeah, right. Tell that to every mirror I avoid. “I thought you’d say it was reckless.”
“It was.”
The speed of it nearly gives me whiplash.
“You should’ve ran. You don’t know what people like that are capable of.”
Strain locks his hands into fists, and I fixate on the way he forces them to uncurl.
“But I can’t fault you for staying. Don’t beat yourself up over it. None of it was your fault. Just… wrong place, wrong time.”
Wrong place…
It leaves me before it even has time to formulate.
“I didn’t know that was Janson’s place.”
He turns, so deliberately slow, like he needs the extra few seconds to recalibrate. Then, even slower, “you didn’t?”
“No. That was the party Connor invited me to.” I turn. “You know, the frisbee guy from this afternoon?”
Stillness overcomes him so fast. But as fast as it comes, it’s not long-lasting at all, swallowed by something wilder. Something that drops me directly in the eye of a storm.
All I can think is: truce, over. But I’m wrong. So wrong.
Because as quick as his hand shoots out, his fingers only graze my cheek.
It hits. Somewhere between sinking into my sorrows and seeking solace with him, I forgot about the bruise blooming across my cheekbone. No idea how, not when I’d been so hyperaware of hiding it before. Hoodie pulled tight. Head tucked low.
Now it’s all he sees. Fury chisels itself into his features as he studies it, first with his eyes, then with the faintest drag of his fingers. The touch is so charged I can almost taste it.
“This happened then?”
I nod. My palms are clammy.
“How?” He catches my hesitation and his throat works over a warning sound. “Brielle.”
Damn it.
“One of the attackers went to hit Reese in the back of the head. Really hard. Stopping him meant I caught an elbow jab to the face.” I try for a smile, but it wobbles. “Worth it, though, because right after that, they realised Reese wasn’t their guy so…”
I trail off, unable to form anything else as the full weight of his eyes fix on mine. From beneath dark lashes, he studies me with something I’ve never seen from him before. It feels like a shift—like the way he sees me is changing, raw emotion fighting for space in that one look.
He traces the outline of the bruise, each featherlight stroke a contradiction to the stark fury he wears. And I’m so, so, so touch-deprived I can’t stop my eyelids from fluttering shut.
God help me.
I’m seeking comfort from Carson—and he’s giving it to me. The arch of my cheekbone, the curve of my jaw, he maps it all like he’s searching for hidden damage.
Through it all, I don’t dare open my eyes.
It’s impossible to ignore how safe I feel beneath his touch, how carefully he maps each line of me, like he’s guarding what he can’t undo.
When his hand finally falls away, I let my eyes lift, hoping he’ll catch the silent plea there. The rigidity holding him hostage snuffs it right away.
“You didn’t see how any of them looked? At all?”
I shake my head. “They wore some kind of bandana over their faces.”
He leans in a fraction. “You sure? You didn’t catch anything? Eyes, hair?”
No. And no.
“What about their—”
“Carson.” He stops. A muscle in his cheek twitches, his jaw clenches, but he stops. “It’s fine. I’m fine, and so is Reese. Whoever they are, they’ll get their karma.”
I mean it. Mostly.
Still, I can’t say his concern doesn’t touch me. He’s usually so cold with me, and now here he is, burning on my behalf.
He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, then thinks better of it, rolling his lips together. The silence stretches, heavy, until he jerks his chin. “You put anything on it?”
“What, like makeup?”
He’s not laughing, but I am—and thank God. If I’m joking, I’m not drowning.
“I had to. You did call me an airhead, remember?”
“Did I now? When?”
I deepen my voice, trying to mimic his dismissive delivery. “That’s what he just said, didn’t he?”
His brows pull together, and I want to say this is his chance to set the record straight, but his gaze locks on the bruise again and I know he’s not in the mood.
“Just a cold compress,” I say. My mind and mouth aren’t synced though because the next thought slips out before I even process it. “I don’t know what I’m gonna tell my parents.”
His head snaps up. “They don’t know yet?”
“No.” As late as it is, they’re not at the beach-house.
Something thoughtful passes over him, and it prickles along my skin because I’m the center of his focus. Only when I shift does he let up, giving that energy back to the North Star. Silence falls again.
He doesn’t let it stretch.
“You know,” he starts, and I can’t explain it, but my breath snags, “sometimes it’s easier to face the music than keep running from it.”
It’s hits like steel-tipped bullets. I close my eyes. “I can’t.”
He must hear the hurt, because when he answers it’s so unlike him, gentle, “okay.”
Later, when he’s walking me back to the beach-house, he leaves me with something. “If you really need a story, tell them you got hit by a frisbee. It’s not exactly a lie.”