Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Bellamy
Me: I can’t sleep.
I stare at my phone to see if Larissa will answer. After ten minutes, I call it quits. But because I’m not a total quitter, I change recipients. And tactics.
The only light in my bedroom is the glow from my phone. I scroll through my Favorites List until I find Boone’s name.
Me: Are you up?
It doesn’t take long for him to text me back.
Boone: You better be dying or in another state of emergency to text me this early.
Me: That’s mean.
Boone: So is waking me up at six in the morning for nothing.
Me: You don’t know that it’s for nothing.
Boone: So, are you having a real emergency and just not one of your famous existential crises?
Me: I wanted to wish you good morning.
Boone: My point remains.
Me: Don’t you have a job that you have to go to anyway? I’m probably doing you a favor by waking you up before your alarm. I mean, who wouldn’t want me to wake them up instead of a buzzing sound.
Boone: Me.
Me: You don’t mean that. This is the sleep talking.
Boone: I mean that. I really do. See? Now you’ve already projected your meanness on me. Good work.
With a laugh, I sit up in bed. I get situated against the headboard as my fingers fly across the phone again.
Me: I went to bed hateful. It has a long-lasting effect.
Boone: Noted. Can I go back to sleep now that you’ve cast your lousy juju on me?
Me: You could. Or you could come over for breakfast. Or an even better idea—I’ll meet you at Judy’s for apple fritters.
Boone: I’m going back to bed. Find someone else to entertain you.
Me: Come on, Boonie.
Boone: Ask Riss.
I stick my bottom lip out.
Me: Riss won’t answer.
Boone: I’m not going to again because I’m turning my phone off. Good luck with your breakfast situation.
Me: Don’t! Don’t leave me.
But he does. My last message shows delivered but not read.
“Ugh,” I say, dropping my phone on the blankets.
I waited until six in the morning to text my friends. I wanted to message them at three but held off out of respect for their normal-people sleeping habits.
I haven’t slept well in years. For some reason, my brain just decides to turn on as soon as the sun goes down, and I replay everything I’ve ever said, everything I didn’t say, and every missed opportunity and humiliating event.
Strangely, a large percentage of those things all involve Coy.
My shoulders sag against my pillows.
He’s the singular thing in my life that I can’t rectify. He just hangs out in my head like a perpetual mental hangnail—festering and unresolved.
“But there’s nothing to resolve,” I admit, my voice piercing the darkness. “It is what it is.”
It’s a natural progression of our friendship if I really think about it. And I’ve really thought about it.
Our connection was always different than mine and Boone’s. Boone and I are like brother and sister. Never once have I wanted to kiss him or gotten jealous when he dated another girl. Heck, I’ve set him up on dates lots of times.
My first regular kiss was with Coy when I was twelve. It was behind his dad’s shed after a game of flashlight tag. My first real kiss—tongue and all—was also with Coy when I was thirteen. We were on Tybee Island, and it was the first time I realized that I liked what he looked like with no shirt.
As we got older, things remained the same—just more.
Boone and I went to the movies. Coy and I would wind up at the creek behind our properties in the middle of the night to talk. I’d divide my homework up with Boone and spend the time I saved trying to see if Coy was around.
I liked Boone, but I loved Coy. Always.
It hurts when I let myself realize that.
It’s uncomfortable and embarrassing because I let myself believe that Coy looked at me differently.
I trusted him when he said there was something between us.
I gave him my virginity in a tent in his backyard when I was seventeen and my heart on my sleeve on my twenty-first birthday three years ago.
I got nothing back either time but heartache. Watching a phone screen for a comforting text when you need it the most was more painful than I thought possible.
I need to accept the situation for what it is. The blame going forward lies on me.
I know that you can’t believe everything you see in the tabloids, but sadly, there have been too many Coy photos with too many women not to see a distinct pattern. He’s carefree, careless, and reckless—not someone I should ever pin any hopes on.
Nor should anyone else.
My conversation with Lauren is on my mind as I yank the blankets off my body. The air is cold, prickling at my skin, so I slip on a robe before heading to the kitchen.
“What am I going to do?” I ask the empty room.
I find a coffee pod and plop it in the Keurig. The delicious aroma of caffeine fills the air.
“Why do I let him have this kind of power over me?” I pour creamer into my cup. “Why do I let him bother me so much?”
I sip my drink as I sit at the table. The stillness of the kitchen helps to center me despite my lack of sleep.
My gaze scoots across the kitchen. It slips over the refrigerator filled with images of my friends and me.
It skips the sink and the dishes that still need to be done from two days ago and over the countertop riddled with mail.
It doesn’t stop until it lands on the built-in desk at the end and the calendar hanging on the wall behind it.
A circle encompasses the last day of the month. A more optimistic version of me drew a smiley face inside it—the day I was supposed to have completed my introduction to manifestation.
“That must’ve been a vodka version of me,” I say before sipping the coffee again.
Late one night a few months ago, Larissa and I watched a video on YouTube about manifesting happiness.
You’re supposed to be able to bring good things into your life through attraction and positive thinking.
There were steps to take and a prettily colored journal you could order from an Etsy shop—which I did, complete with the cute little stickers—to help you manifest the life you always wanted.
I don’t know if Larissa went all-in and ate the high vibrational foods and spent time in nature or what, but she manifested herself Hollis Hudson. All I can say is that my junk food diet and time spent with a pre-teen and Netflix did not give me a Division One tight end.
“Maybe I was onto something,” I say before finishing my coffee. “Maybe I need to clear my head and start fresh.”
The more I think about it, the more I like it. The more it makes sense.
It worked for Larissa. She’s in bed with the man of her dreams right now. The only thing in my bed is a remote control with dead batteries.
Standing, I take my cup to the sink. The bills and envelopes scattered on my counter only reinforce my newfound hope for the future.
Sure, things are a mess right now. My life is definitely on hold because of Dad.
But maybe I need to open my chakras and invite positive energy in.
Perhaps that will bring clarity and direction.
And dick, but that’s a close third on the priority list.
I head toward my bedroom and change clothes in a hurry. I try to remember the things the guru told us to do. The only one that seems doable at this hour is to reconnect with nature.
I toss my hair into a misshapen bun, and I ignore the stain on my sweatshirt as I head out the door.
My breath billows in front of me. I shiver against the chill in the air. This temperature might freeze my chakras before I open them.
Not knowing what to do and feeling very out of my element, I sort of amble around the yard. I remember someone saying to touch the ground with your bare feet, but it’s too damn cold for that. Instead, I find a chaise by the pool and sit.
I shiver again.
My hands slip between my knees as I try to keep them from shaking. I move in the seat in an attempt to stay warm.
Immediately, I regret this decision.
I stand, ready to abort my mission, when I look toward the gate and see Coy. He’s leaned against the post in gray sweatpants and a black hooded sweatshirt looking downright edible.
“Morning,” he says.
“Yes, it is.”
He grins. “Why are you up so early?”
“Why are you standing there like a creep?”
He rolls his eyes as he walks toward me.
My body stops shaking, and I don’t shiver anymore. Instead, a warmth fills me that heats more the closer Coy gets.
“I was standing there because I heard a noise from over here,” he says. “I was making sure no one was breaking in.”
“We have cameras.”
“Good for you.” His grin gets wider. “Why are you up?”
“I already told you.”
He comes to a stop only a few feet in front of me. “No, you didn’t. You called me a creep.”
Oh.
I lift my chin and try to resist the pull of his body. “I was getting in touch with nature.”
“On a plastic chair next to a swimming pool?” He laughs. “This is not nature, Bells.”
“What do you want me to do? Go on a hike at dawn and get eaten by a bear?”
“Maybe.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Which is it? Hiking or getting eaten?”
“I don’t know.” His grin turns into a deep, unsettling smirk. “Do you like getting eaten?”
My entire body clenches at the way the words fall off his kissable lips. His eyes hold mine, and I can’t pull them away even when I try.
Damn him.
“You don’t have to answer that,” he says. “I already know.”
His arrogance is just the break I need to gather myself again. I ignore the fact that he’s right—he does know. And he knows so, so well.
He looks at me with amusement laced with desire. It’s like he knows he has my brain turned to mush.
But that’s not true. And two can play this game.
Especially if one of us—that one being me—remembers to keep her chakras closed.
I face him and fire a dirty little grin right back his way.
“Oh, I know you know,” I tell him. “I remember that night on the boat very, very well.”
His eyes betray him. A glimmer of excitement shines through.
“Do you now?” he asks with his typical cocky sway to his voice.
“Uh-huh. How could I forget?”
Even though I’m bringing all of this up in some twisted power play, it just might backfire. Because while my brain remembers, so does my body. Acutely well. Normally, I replay this in the privacy of my bed. Alone. Not in front of Coy when he’s wearing male lingerie and a smirk.
He takes a step toward me, encouraged by my cooperation in whatever little game he’s playing.
“What was your favorite part?” he asks, his voice husky.
“There were two.”
He raises a brow in a silent prod for me to elaborate.
I try to hide my grin as I whip together a response.
“Well, first,” I say, licking my lips and watching his eyes shoot to my tongue, “I loved seeing your head between my legs.”
I can’t believe these words are coming out of my mouth. I don’t think he can either. His pupils go wide as his eyes darken.
My insides squirm as he takes me in—both of us brought back to the night on the boat.
I should stop there. I don’t, though, because I’m a glutton for punishment. I’m also determined not to let Coy walk away from this, thinking he has a hold on me.
I bite my lip and then let it pop free. Coy’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as our breaths cause a frenzy of fog around us.
“I’ve never gotten off so hard in a man’s mouth,” I tell him, my voice just above a whisper. “And to watch your eyes while you spread me apart with your fingers and licked my body …” I let him see me shiver.
“Damn, Bells,” he growls.
“But that was only one of my favorite things.”
The lines of his face seem deeper, sexier in the early morning light. His jaw appears more angled, his neck thicker. My fingers want to dig into his back while my fingernails claw their way down his skin, leaving marks for him to remember me by.
It takes everything in my power to restrain myself.
“What’s the other?” he asks, clearly fighting the same internal battle as me.
I take a deep breath of the cold air and will it to extinguish the flame burning in my core. I face Coy head-on and let him watch as logic overpowers my lust.
I smile. “It was when I woke up, and you were gone.”
All the oxygen in his lungs evacuates in one rushed, strangled breath.
“Have a good day, Coy,” I say, turning toward the house.
“What the fuck was that?”
“What was what?” I ask, still walking away.
“Bellamy, dammit. Stop it.”
I do. I pause next to the sidewalk that leads to my house and look at him. “What do you want?”
He runs a hand down his face. “That’s a loaded question right now after that little speech you just pulled off.”
I snort. “Oh, please. It was a loaded question for you to ask me to start with.”
“Maybe.”
“Come on, Coy.” I narrow my eyes, relieved at the frustration coursing through me. It’s a feeling I know what to do with. It feels safe. “You’re just pissed you didn’t get the rise out of me that you wanted.”
“I was just fucking around with you.”
I look him right in the eye. “Me too. It doesn’t hit the same when you’re the one getting walked away from, does it?”
“Bellamy …”
“Don’t Bellamy me. It’s fine for you to mess with me and then scamper away like it’s some sick joke. I figure it’s fine for me to do the same thing.” I flash him a disingenuous smile. “Have a good day.”
“Will you stop it?”
My answer is the sound of my door closing behind me.