Chapter 30
Thirty
Mid-afternoon, and the sun is ruthless. Heat slams off the sand, searing my skin, and I duck behind my sunglasses, chasing the dim.
“God, that was a whole workout,” Aspen groans, rubbing at a shoulder blade.
“Tell me about it.”
What started as a casual game of beach volleyball spiraled into a sweaty showdown with two strangers who played like it was the Olympics. Fun? Sure. Comfortable? Not even close.
Aspen turns smug. “At least we won. That final serve? Chef’s kiss.”
“Couldn’t have done it without you, partner.”
“We make a good pair.” She stands, brushing sand from her legs. “I need something ice-cold. You want?”
“Water. Please.”
I lean back on my elbows as she heads toward the beach house. Involuntarily, my gaze drifts to the horizon. Where the waterline winks, glittering like a dare.
For a second, I almost consider it. Running to the edge and letting the waves crash over me. The thought makes me smile. Weeks ago, I would’ve recoiled at the mere thought. Now… maybe I’m changing. Healing in the way my parents hoped I would.
Only, this was never meant to be mine alone. It was supposed to be some shared reset for all of us. Instead, they drift through like ghosts I brush past, as if we live in the same house but not the same world.
I bite the inside of my cheek, shoving the thought back down.
A shout cuts across the beach, pulling my head sideways in search of a distraction—only I land on something else entirely.
A camera.
Pointing straight at… me?
I peer past the glare of my shades. It’s one of those thick, retro Polaroids. From here, it looks like the lens is trained right on me, but that can’t be right. If it were, wouldn’t he look guilty? Flinch? Instead, he lowers it at his own pace and strolls off unbothered.
A breath leaks out of me. I draw my legs up, cheek to my knee, letting the waves hush everything else. Thoughtless thoughts. Empty sky. Sun on skin.
Then, that feeling. A shift in the air. A tingle in my spine.
I look, slowly.
Not the landscape. He hadn’t been taking pictures of the landscape.
It was me. Me, half-bare in a bow-string bikini, captured on film.
I know because he’s there again. Closer. Close enough that I catch his stare, pale and wrong, lit with a glint I don’t trust. A leer that sticks like tar. My palms go slick.
By the time my brain catches up, I’m already moving, rushing away like the sand underfoot is on fire. I don’t look back, not once. Only when my name tears through the haze do I stop.
“Brielle!” A second later Aspen’s at my side, scanning like she expects to find damage. “What’s wrong?”
Relief hits, but I’m still rattled when I risk a glance behind. “There was this—” Nothing. Just sand and strangers. Did I imagine it? My gut twists, whispering no. I didn’t. “Never mind. Can we just sit?”
“Yeah, of course.” She doesn’t press, but I sense her concern as I fumble my way into a cover-up. “You sure everything’s okay?”
I force steadiness as I work the buttons. “Fine.”
She doesn’t look convinced as she passes me a water. “Where’s Carson?”
“Training?”
She knows that. The guys have been gone ages.
“They’re back. Carson said he was coming to find you.”
I twist the cap on my bottle, scanning the area. “I haven’t seen him.” What I do see is Reese, closing the distance in long strides.
Aspen spots him too. “Maybe Reese will know where he is.” She lifts her arm to wave him down. “Hey, Reese, have you seen—”
But he’s already dropping in front of us before she can finish. No hello, no grin, just hunched shoulders and a phone gripped too tight.
The look Aspen and I trade says it all. I’ve never seen Reese like this. Not even when he was bloodied and bruised.
“Reese?” Aspen’s hand lands on his forearm. “Are you okay?”
His head lifts and his scowl is something fierce. “Fuck no.”
Her thumb moves slow circles over the ink on his arm. “What happened?”
“Sienna’s got a boyfriend.” It comes out more exhale than speech, so thick with venom it hangs in the briny air for a second so long my chest locks around it.
Sienna? Who is Sienna? Someone he likes? Someone more than that?
Aspen’s laugh derails the thought before it can settle.
“Cut it out, Penny. It’s not funny.” His glare drops. “Who’s this little punk, anyway? Never even heard of him.”
Actual tears glimmer in Aspen’s eyes when she pulls back and turns to me. “Sienna is his younger sister. She’s fifteen.”
“Little sister,” Reese snaps. “She’s my little sister, and she has no business being in a relationship.”
“Says the guy who probably had his first relationship at what, thirteen?”
“A relationship?” His scowl breaks, just enough for a smirk. “Nah.”
“Gross.”
“What do you think, Bri?” He spins on me. “Should I go pay this kid a visit? Knock some sense into him?”
He’s such a textbook older brother.
“I think you should give your sister some credit. She’s figuring things out. Just… be there for her. Don’t smother her.”
A groan rumbles. “You’re supposed to add fuel to the fire, not spew sense, Bri.”
Spoken like a hot-blooded male. Only that’s not really Reese. His eyes lift, snagging on something over my shoulder. “Yo. Perfect timing.”
A shadow falls over me. I don’t have to look to know; the buzz at my nape already tells me. But I do.
Carson’s gaze meets mine. Nearly. My shades blur the edges, but not enough to hide the flicker of softness there. Unguarded. Then, like a switch flipped, it hardens to flint as his attention drags lower. Heat stirs beneath my cover-up.
I haven’t been on the receiving end of a look like that in a while. By the time he sinks down beside me, hands buried deep in his pockets, it’s smoothed into calm unreadability.
“What’s up?” he asks Reese.
“Sienna’s got a boyfriend.”
“No shit?”
“No shit,” Reese echoes tightly.
“Didn’t think she cared about anything but school.”
Aspen chimes in. “I know. I’ve never met a kid smarter.”
“Tell me about it.” Reese’s thumbs fly over his phone. “All she’s ever cared about is school. This doesn’t track.”
“Maybe it’s good for her.” Carson rolls a shoulder. “Aspen’s right, she’s crazy smart. Have a little faith.”
“It’s not her I doubt. Say it’s Hannah. Fifteen, dating some guy you don’t know. You good with that?”
I hold my breath, waiting. Carson’s response doesn’t come right away, but when it does, it draws an honest smile.
“I’d let her do her thing.” The glimmering ocean in the distance reflects in his eyes. “She’ll always know that she can come to me with anything. That’s all I need to keep her safe.”
My pulse stutters. His gaze shifts to me. He makes it sound so easy. Like nothing is unfixable if it reaches him first.
What if it’s true?
Temptation, simmering under sun-touched skin.
“You’re a good brother, Carson,” Aspen says, cooling the moment. She’s firmer when she pivots to Reese. “So are you. Sienna adores you for a reason. But she’s got enough on her plate without you piling on more pressure.”
Reese’s shoulders sag after a beat. He shoves his phone into her hands. “Fine. Fuck. Hold onto that, then.” Aspen glances at the screen, lips twitching. “Mute it.” When the demand falls on deaf ears, he growls, “Penny.”
“I love your family.”
It’s meant as something light, but the wistfulness buried in it lands square in my chest. I curl my fingers into the beach towel to keep from rubbing at the spot.
“You know they love you too.”
She flips the phone face down and hums. “How’s your grandma?”
“Good. She asked about you guys when I went back.”
Aspen sinks onto her towel, and I lie back too, letting the sun drape over me. It doesn’t feel so harsh now, not with Carson close. The tension I’ve been carrying since morning finally starts to unwind.
I don’t have to look to know he’s smiling when he asks, “She still causing chaos?”
“Oh yeah,” Reese chuckles. “She bought a whipped cream dispenser for Josh’s birthday. Didn’t tell a soul. Next thing we hear is this loud hiss and a screech. Kitchen ended up looking like a snowstorm hit it.”
Laughter ripples through the group, and I picture Reese’s grandma smack in the middle of a sugary crime scene. “She sounds like fun.”
“Oh, she is. There’s never a dull day with her. I bet she’d love you.”
Another pang.
Heart in my throat, I sling an arm over my face. “Yeah.” The word is steady, by some miracle, even if I’m not.
“That must’ve been boring,” he muses. “Growing up with no siblings.”
I didn’t.
I had a twin.
The kind of bond you don’t explain, you just feel. In the shared breath, the mirrored heartbeat, the glance that says it all. She was my other half, my other whole.
We did everything together, until we couldn’t. Until she was gone, and I was left to rot.
And she didn’t leave quietly. She tore a hole through me so wide I still fall through it. She’s taken laughter from walls, conversations from dinner tables. My parents even though they’re still alive.
She’s taken me.
Some days—God help me—I hate her for it.
Beneath the crook of my arm, behind the lenses of my shades, tears spill, one by one, leaving hot trails. Hidden maybe, but no shadow can mask the ache carving me from inside out.
“How many siblings do you have?” I force out simply to distract, redirect, breathe.
“Four. Big, messy, never-shut-up family, especially once you add my extended crew.”
I want the sand to swallow me whole. “That’s nice.”
“You’ve been to Briar, right, Bri?” Aspen asks.
The tears keep falling, no matter how still I hold myself. “A few times.” Each one with her.
“Come after summer’s up. We’ll show you around properly.” A shuffle, then a sigh. “I’m gonna miss seeing you every day.”
My throat spasms. A gaze slides to me, and settles with weight.
“The feeling’s mutual.” The end of it splinters mid-air, and my breath seizes.
Did they hear it? Am I caught?
When the current of chatter continues undisturbed, relief rises. I wish it was enough to stop the tears I try swiping away, but it isn’t.
“Mind getting my back, Brielle?” Carson’s question slices through it all.
The rare use of my name should’ve warned me, but it doesn’t. It’s not until after. After I sit up, blink at the sunscreen in his hand, watch him settle in front of me, that I realise.
He caught the hitch.
Because the way he’s angled himself, broad shoulders blocking me from Aspen and Reese, it isn’t casual. It’s deliberate.
He’s giving me cover.
I don’t know if he knows I’m crying, but he’s about to.
Gratitude swells like a wave too big to contain. I push up my shades and let my forehead fall against the solid breadth of his back.
His spine jerks once beneath me, then goes utterly still.
He mutters something to Reese, but the rough vibration never reaches me, not with my ears ringing like this. All I know is the hand that reaches back, searching until it finds mine. When I catch it, he doesn’t let go.
For a while, it’s only salt on skin and the space closing between us. He doesn’t move an inch, letting me siphon strength, remaining a wall between me and the world.
And even though I want to stay in this fragile pocket of time forever, forever never lasts. “I still don’t know how that even happened,” Aspen’s words float through.
“Wasn’t me,” Reese grumbles.
I peel away too fast, swiping at my cheeks. Mortification burns where grief left me hollow.
Carson starts to turn, and I drop my shades just in time, hiding behind the excuse of sunscreen. The dollop lands cold in my palm. I rub it slow, stalling, until the chill fades. By then, he’s already facing forward, a clipped “Okay” tossed Aspen’s way. His back is taut lines, ready to snap.
My hands hover.
Then lower, pressing into skin.
He stiffens at first, then again when I begin to move. I work carefully, tracing the ridge of muscle along his spine, circling the knots at his shoulders. Each stroke is deliberate, as if I’m smoothing more than sunscreen.
Little by little, he begins to yield beneath my touch. By the time I reach his neck, he dips his head forward in offering.
I draw in a breath, finish the last sweep, but my hands linger longer than they should. That’s all the invitation he needs. He catches one, firm and sure, and tugs me up.
I’m instantly aware of Aspen and Reese. Before either can speak, Carson cuts in, “We’ll catch up later, yeah?”
The walk to his deck blurs, but my heartbeat doesn’t. It pounds against my ribs the whole way, louder with every step.
Then he stops. Turns. Tentative hands reach for my face, lifting shades and uncovering what I tried to hide.
Whatever he sees, it wrecks him. His face slackens, and my name leaves him on the faintest breath, “Brielle.”
That one word hurts.
“What’s wrong?” It barely carries over the breeze. “Talk to me.” I open my mouth, but the only thing that comes is another tear slipping down unwanted. His thumb catches it, swiping it away slowly. “Tell me.”
I shake my head, starting to pull away.
“Please.” The plea stops me dead in my tracks. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong, Bri.”
He sounds so earnest, so desperate, I almost fall into the space he’s holding for me and let the secrets spill. Almost. But the sight of his knuckles details all thought.
They’re cracked like glass and dark with bruises.
“What happened?”
He jerks his hand away before I can grab it. “Doesn’t matter.” His eyes harden on me. “Did someone do something to you? Is that why you’re crying?”
I hesitate, then shake my head again. I see it; the instinct in him to dig, to fix, to fight. But I can’t. Not now. Not when my heart is splintering like this. “Please,” I whisper. “Don’t make me lie to you.”
His whole face falters. For a moment, the ocean of pain he carries is on display. Then, he patches it right back up.
“Alright.” His hand brushes my arm, a fleeting tether. “Come on.”
“Where?”
“You’ll need to change first.” He’s already turning away. “We’ve got somewhere to be.”