Chapter Seven
seven
hope
Adrian has been gone for a really long time. Okay, five minutes, max. But five impatient minutes spent steaming in the Southern heat I’m not reacclimated to feels like an eternity. Especially when I’m trying to push away the memory of Adrian’s grip on my water-slick skin as he tugged me to the surface—the way his touch made me gasp, the press of his fingertips the reminder of everything I haven’t let myself desire for years.
To distract myself, I move into the shade next to the helm and take stock of my surroundings. Most of the boat slips in this small marina are empty, but a guy in a nearby sailboat is having a one-sided conversation with his labradoodle, and nineties pop music blares from a crowded pontoon boat motoring out toward the Intercoastal Waterway.
I could leave too. Get an Uber back to Marissa’s condo, grab my stuff, and hightail it back to Michigan. Find a job with no complications. But when the engine noise fades, I become aware of voices, and glance over to see Adrian and Marissa heading toward me, arguing. I freeze, straining to catch their words.
“No, what? She’s already here,” Marissa says, walking quickly to keep up with Adrian’s long strides.
“Under false pretenses,” Adrian snaps.
So they don’t need my help, after all. I drove across the country for nothing.
Fuming and ready to demand answers, I slide past the wheel and barrel out onto the deck. The boat shifts as Adrian climbs aboard, and I try to course-correct, but momentum propels me straight into his chest.
Arms flailing, I slip on a puddle. He makes a wild grab for my hand, but all he catches is air. I topple backward and land, butt-first, inside...a cooler? I’m wedged into the plastic container, thighs against my belly, feet jutting sky-high.
I take a cautious sniff to gauge whether I’m sitting in a bunch of fish—if this is a bait cooler then I’m officially calling foul play—and catch sight of Adrian’s face above me. His lips are rolled together against the smile threatening to break through. Laughter rises up from my own chest, but with my diaphragm constricted like a panini in a press, it emerges as a gurgle.
Adrian’s expression turns serious. “Don’t strain yourself.” That only makes it worse, and soon my whole body is shaking with painful laughter. He joins in, and maybe that should make me mad, but his chuckle is so buoyant I can’t fault him for it.
When I finally catch my breath, I attempt a stern look, straining my neck to glare up at him. “First you accuse me of taking a casual swim in the marina, now you expect me to keep a straight face in this situation?”
His teeth hook into his bottom lip, apologetic, and oh gosh, I used to find that irresistible. His gaze flicks down my body, assessing my position, and my skin prickles with heat. He crouches down, the furrow between his brows making another appearance. “This might be worse than the time you got stuck in Gran’s rocking chair.”
“You would bring that up.” I keep my scowl in place, even though it’s hard not to smile at the memory. His grandma had an antique cane rocking chair on her porch when he brought me to meet her for the first time. It looked so inviting that I plopped down while he rang the doorbell and found out the hard way the chair was purely ornamental. I broke through the seat like Goldilocks, and after that first impression, I’m pretty sure his grandma isn’t sad I never moved back down South.
He lifts his eyes to mine, dark and deep, framed by jet-black lashes. “Okay if I help get you out?” His voice is exactly how I remember it. Warm. Deep. Luscious.
I nod. Adrian tucks his arms around me in an unexpectedly tender hold, and my heart pounds into overdrive. This pseudo-embrace shouldn’t leave me breathless. I try to visualize a scuba ascent or something equally focus-intensive as he tightens his grip and hoists me into the air.
The cooler comes with.
Goodbye, all semblance of dignity.
One of his arms is hooked under my knees, forearm rigid with muscles, biceps pressed against my thigh. “Let’s try again. Ready?”
Another nod, though the details of what I’m agreeing to are hazy because the irrational portion of my brain is soaking up the close contact with the objectively sexy man—emotional baggage aside—endeavoring, for the second time, to rescue me from a tricky situation.
He shifts, widening his stance, and pushes against the cooler with a rough exhale. I squeeze my eyes shut, though whether to capture the sensation of his breath against the delicate skin of my neck or block it out, I’m not sure. The next moment, my legs tumble free and he tightens his grip, holding me against him as the cooler clatters to the ground.
My cheek is pressed to a firm chest that feels like he’s been doing nothing but bench presses since I’ve been away, and I inhale the familiar scent of cedar and brine. Adrian. My eyes drift closed in reflex, savoring his embrace for one heartbeat, then another—the rhythm of his breath calming as the ebb and flow of waves at the shoreline.
Then he lowers me to the deck, the slide of my body against his leaving me breathless all over again. He steps back with a sharp inhale, bending to pick up my fallen towel. He shakes it out and wraps it around me, and the gesture is so caring, so like the man I used to love, that I don’t protest. But his next words shatter the illusion that there’s anything left between us.
“You can’t stay.” His sympathetic tone makes things a thousand times worse. I’m the out-of-work ex-girlfriend about to be fired on my first day.
The sound of someone’s throat clearing behind me has me whirling around. Marissa, Iris, and the guy who introduced himself earlier are all standing on the dock. I thought it wasn’t possible to be more humiliated. The past hour has been far worse than any of my night-before-an-exam nightmares.
“Iris, hi.” I do an awkward two-handed wave, like I’ve entered an in-progress video call. If only I could feign tech problems and log off.
“Just grabbing my purse,” she says, leaning across to snag the strap. “Evidently I picked an eventful day to visit my brother’s boat for the first time.”
Her words sink in, and I glance toward Adrian. His face is pained, forehead bunched, mouth a tense line. “So it really is yours? You just went out and bought a boat?”
Iris glances sidelong at me. “Perks of being an influencer.”
This is making less sense by the minute. I’m tempted to tip my head to the side in case I’ve got water in my ear, messing with my hearing. “Influencer?”
Adrian looks me up and down, but it’s an altogether different look from before. No heat, all cool assessment. “What exactly did my cousin tell you about what we do?” He says the word cousin as if he’s wishing he could disown Marissa.
I shrug, dislodging the towel, and drag it back over my shoulders, wanting the semblance of protection. “Marissa was going to fill me in on the details this morning, but she told me you’re conducting a survey of coastal shark populations. Tagging individuals in order to track them in long-term studies.”
“Yes, but I guess I’m just surprised you’d want to be a part of this.”
Is that a dig at me returning to shark research? But he said it so earnestly, like he’s genuinely curious. I force myself not to get defensive. This is work, and I need to keep things professional. “I’m sure you’re aware my work over the past few years has been with bony fish, primarily in the lab, but my plan has always been to get back into shark research.”
I’m not sure why I phrased it that way, like an accusation. Like I expected him to wait for me. For three years? When I’m the one who got cold feet?
But his brows draw together. “I wasn’t talking about your dedication to the research. I meant you’re sure you want to be with me—” he tugs at his collar “—us, on camera? You’ll be a part of every video we share. You’re okay with that?”
“What videos?” I’m missing something key here, desperate for him to fill in the blanks. I’m starting to think Adrian not knowing I was coming is the least of my worries.
Confirming my fears that I’m missing out on key information, he blinks at me, mouth slightly agape. Instead of answering, he turns and glares at Marissa, arms crossed, Poseidon gearing up for a sea storm. “You didn’t tell her?”
She mimics his pose, and the effect is equally intimidating, despite her smaller stature. “She’s here, she’s well-qualified. That’s all that matters.”
Iris clears her throat. “Y’all clearly have some catching up to do, so I’m going to head out.” Disappointment lodges in my chest at the realization I might not see her again, which is absurd, because I didn’t come here to rebuild a relationship with Adrian’s family, I came to make sure he stays in my past.
“Let me know when you want me to look at those numbers,” she tells him.
He shakes his head. “I think I’m good on that.” Something akin to hurt tinges his words, but I push aside my concern. Whatever’s going on between them is none of my business.
“You sure?” She frowns, concern for her brother obvious, but at his nod, she sighs. “All right. Call me though.” She turns to go, clearly not planning to tell me goodbye, but something prompts me to speak up.
“Good to see you, Iris.” What happened between Adrian and I doesn’t change how I feel about her. It’s impossible for us to be friends, but there was a time when I thought of her as a sister.
“Be well,” she says, and my heart gives an unexpected lurch.
The moment she walks away, Marissa steps closer. “I’m sorry about all this, Hope. I thought we’d have the boat to ourselves. I wanted to tell you everything in person.”
“Like the fact that he didn’t know I was coming?” I lift my chin toward a very silent, very close Adrian.
“Among other things.” Her dark brown eyes are full of remorse. “I just want you to keep an open mind.”
“I drove across the country for this, knowing he’d be here.” Humiliating, in retrospect. “I’d say my mind is wide open.”
Gabe lets out a surprised chuckle, which he covers with a cough. “Can I just say that I’m really glad you’re keeping an open mind?” I ought to feel awkward, knowing what he’s witnessed, but his smile is wide and disarming. “If you stay, it means I get to spend less time hands-on with the sharks, and more time behind the camera.”
“Less time with the sharks is a good thing?”
“Since I’m a photographer, yeah. Guessing Marissa didn’t mention me either?”
Add that to the tally. “Are you with the university?”
“Nope, I’m on staff with Shark Science Crew .”
“The Shark Science Who ?”
His mouth falls open. “Wait, you don’t know about the show?”
My face must make it clear that I do not, and he rubs the back of his neck, eyes wide. “You don’t follow Adrian, like, at all?”
A laugh escapes me, but no one joins in. The queasiness erupts into all-out nausea. “Um, no. That would be weird, right? Because he’s my ex.” My voice rasps out, throat tight. I’ve just remembered Zuri’s words about celebrities and mega-yachts and wonder suddenly if I shouldn’t have been so flippant when she tried to divulge the results of her digital sleuthing.
Marissa watches me with raised brows. “See why I wanted to tell her without an audience?”
“Too late for that.” I dig in my pocket for my phone, ready to find out for myself since everyone’s talking in circles. No point in avoiding his socials any longer, not with the real Adrian standing right here, his touch fresh in my mind, on my skin. But my screen is blank. Fully waterlogged.
I hold it up. “You owe me a phone,” I tell Marissa. “And an explanation.”
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Fiddles around on her own phone, head down. “I didn’t want you to find out this way. But best-laid plans and all...” She passes it over.
She’s pulled up Adrian’s Instagram page, and I scan it, searching for answers. The grid is filled with shark close-ups and stills of him in the lab, on the boat, behind a podium. His profile picture is no longer a shark’s tooth, but a well-framed selfie. His eyes are crinkled at the corners, one hand holding his locs away from his face, the backdrop a blue sky and navy sea. Well, that’s an improvement.
What’s also improved since we were together is his follower count. It no longer numbers in the hundreds.
Or the thousands.
Or the tens of thousands.
Holy crap. Adrian has over a million followers.
This is far worse than a prank. My ex-boyfriend is an actual celebrity.