Chapter 12
ELLA
Two mornings in a row now, I’ve woken up alone in that big honeymoon bed.
Which should feel normal. After all, I’m a single woman on a solo vacation.
Alone in bed pretty much describes my life in general.
Except the bed in question still smells like Alec on his side, and the dip where his body slept next to mine is still there like a chalk outline at a crime scene.
On the nightstand, his phone charger is still plugged in even though he’s been sleeping on the couch since the incident on the veranda.
Neither of us has acknowledged the couch sleeping arrangement.
We’d have to say the word “kiss” out loud to do that, and apparently we’d both rather chew glass.
These past couple of days, we’ve been running an avoidance operation so precise it could have its own military code name.
I know his morning running schedule to the minute.
He seems to have memorized when I shower.
We’ve passed each other exactly twice in the suite, both times managing the kind of polite, hollow smile you give a coworker you accidentally made eye contact with in the bathroom.
He said “excuse me” once. I said “no worries” once.
It’s not ideal—not that anything about our forced cohabitation has been remotely close to ideal.
So now I’m on the beach, trying very hard to have a good time.
The sun is warm on my shoulders and I’m stretched out on a chaise with a book I’m not reading and a passionfruit juice I’ve been nursing for twenty minutes.
I keep telling myself to relax. To just be here, in my body, on this beautiful beach.
The problem is that every time the sun heats my skin, my brain replays the slow press of Alec’s palms rubbing sunscreen across my shoulders at the pool.
And every time the breeze hits the back of my neck, I’m on the veranda again with his smoldering gaze incinerating my good sense, and his mouth, God, his mouth…
firm, kissable lips and a tongue that still has me imagining all the places I want him to lick me.
But then there was the pull-back. The curse that hissed through his gritted teeth. The way his face closed. I can’t do this with you. This was a mistake.
Obviously, it was. Because two days later, the memory of Alec’s kiss won’t leave me alone. It shows up at random, like a song stuck on repeat. I let out a groan and flop back against my beach chair, desperate for a distraction from my spiraling thoughts.
A surf instructor named Kai is out on the water in front of me.
He waves, and I lift my hand in greeting too.
We met on the path to the beach this morning, where he offered me a free lesson.
He’s attractive and athletic, with a mane of blondish-brown hair and a golden tan over smooth skin and perfect eight-pack abs.
Normally, he’s the kind of guy I like. Friendly, easy smile, outgoing.
Genuinely nice. So, why am I sitting here dwelling on a grumpy, antisocial, uptight man like Alec Beckett?
I’m quite sure I don’t want to know.
No more than I want to admit how much the other night hurt me. It still hurts.
Not only my pride, but something deeper.
The familiar, unwelcome ache of wanting something the other person decided wasn’t worth the trouble.
I know this feeling. It sits behind my ribs like a stone I swallowed.
I don’t want to give the feeling a name.
Naming it gives it an address, and I am not letting it move in.
Then I see Alec.
He’s jogging up the beach about a hundred yards out, running with the long, efficient stride of a man who doesn’t know the meaning of the word relaxation.
It’s late morning, which means this must be his second run of the day.
I shake my head, exhaling a sigh. The man has been in paradise for four days and has not once, to my knowledge, simply sat and enjoyed it without also punishing his body.
My pulse speeds as I try not to stare at him.
My stomach does a slow, warm turn that I refuse to dignify with analysis.
He hasn’t seen me yet, and for three full seconds I consider the escape plan.
Earbuds in, eyes closed, play dead like a possum on a highway.
Pretend I’m asleep. Pretend I’m someone else.
Pretend I didn’t just spend two days avoiding him while also overanalyzing every moment of our kiss.
But I don’t hide from things. I also don’t want to give him the satisfaction of watching me flee like he’s the approaching storm and I’m a lawn chair that didn’t get tied down.
I force myself to stay put and not react. I keep my book open. I sip my juice.
He spots me and immediately changes trajectory. Not away from me—toward me. Oh, God. If he apologizes again, I may die from embarrassment.
I surreptitiously watch his deliberate course correction, first slowing from a jog to a walk, then pulling his earbuds out and tucking them into his palm as he continues my way. The distance between us shrinks, and the air gets heavier with his every step.
His gray T-shirt is damp around the neckline and down onto his firm chest. There’s that flush across his cheekbones from exertion, the same one I noticed the morning he came back from his run and caught me in the bathrobe.
I hate that I find it attractive. I hate that my eyes trace the line of his broad shoulders before I can redirect them.
I hate that even now, even hurt, my body keeps a running list of everything about him that it wants and isn’t allowed to have.
He stops at the foot of my chaise. Neither of us speaks for a beat that lasts about four years.
“Morning,” he finally says.
“Morning.” I keep my voice pleasant. Neutral. The register of a waitress greeting a customer she doesn’t remember from last week.
He glances at the water, then back at me. “How’s the beach?”
“Wet. Sandy. Very beachy.” I gesture at my setup with my juice glass. “I’m having a great time.”
His mouth twitches. Not a smile. The scaffolding of one, quickly dismantled. He shifts his weight, and I can see the gears turning behind his eyes. Obviously, he didn’t walk over here to discuss the sand quality.
“Ella, I think we should talk about the... arrangement. Going forward.”
There it is. The thing he actually came to say, and by the solemn tone of his voice, this is going to be worse than another apology. I set my book down and look up at him, shading my eyes with one hand.
“The arrangement,” I repeat.
“Yes. The suite situation. Sharing the space.” He crosses his arms, which pulls the damp fabric tighter across his chest, and I look at the ocean instead because I need somewhere safe to put my eyes.
“I think it would make things easier if we established some clearer guidelines. Lay down some roommate protocols. Keep things friendly, but... defined.”
I feel my brows inch up on my forehead. He wants to define us. Now. Like we’re negotiating a corporate lease agreement, not facing off on a public beach with the memory of his tongue in my mouth.
“Makes sense,” I say, even though it doesn’t. “Totally.”
“Good.” I can practically hear his inward sigh of relief. “It’s just practical. That way we can avoid any future misunderstandings.”
Misunderstandings. The word lands on the bruise I’ve been pressing all morning.
And right on cue, a voice I thought I’d left back in Arizona slides in under my skin like a splinter.
Jake’s voice, quiet and familiar and absolutely not invited: You always come on too strong, Ella.
You read too much into things. You’re a lot, you know that?
I smile. It feels tight on my face. “Sure. Clean slate. No misunderstandings. Roommates.”
“Exactly. Roommates.” Alec nods, and the relief in that nod stings more than the speech. “I think that’s best for both of us.”
Best for both of us. There’s a phrase I’ve heard before. Jake used to build that same neat little fence around his retreats: I’m doing this for both of us, Ella. I think we both need space.
And now Alec is standing here with his careful boundaries and his measured words. His diplomacy is just a smoother way of singing the same old chorus: You’re too much. You always have been. You wanted this more than he did, and now he’s trying to let you down easy because you made it weird.
“Absolutely,” I say, and my voice sounds so breezy, so perfectly fine, that I almost believe it myself. “Consider the protocols established. Roommates. Friends, maybe.” I tilt my head. “I mean, if friends is within the approved parameters?”
He looks at me, and I see the flicker. Just a small one, at the corner of his mouth. “Friends works.”
He extends his hand.
I stare at it. This hand. The same strong, tender hand that cupped my jaw two nights ago, that tilted my face up to his, that tangled in my hair while his mouth opened against mine. And he’s offering it to me now in a handshake. A freaking handshake. The formality is so absurd I almost laugh.
I take his hand, which engulfs mine. His palm is warm from the run, slightly rough.
Mine has sand on it from adjusting my chaise.
His grip is careful, brief, yet I feel the contact like a jolt of electricity straight into my veins.
I still want him. I still like him, even though this truce he’s just declared has stung me more deeply than he can possibly know.
When he lets go of my hand, the absence registers as a cool patch in my palm that won’t quite close.
Roommates. Friends. Two people who woke up fused together in a honeymoon bed and kissed on a moonlit veranda, now shaking on a platonic agreement like they’re closing a real estate transaction. Lisa would tell me this is something I’ll laugh about one day. Maybe I will, once it stops hurting.
He doesn’t leave. He stands there, looking at me, and the expression on his face is not corporate. Not defined. It’s the look of a man convincing himself he made the right call while his eyes say the opposite.
That is almost worse than if he’d just walked away. Cold I can handle. Indifference I can dismiss. But this—this reluctant, visible effort—tells me he doesn’t want this either. He’s choosing it anyway. And I cannot stand here and watch him choose it for one more second.
“Well,” I say, standing up from my chaise, “now that we got that out of the way, I’m going to hit the water.” I reach for the knot on my sarong and unfasten it. The wispy fabric falls off my bikini-clad body, and I toss it onto the lounger. “Unless you had something else to discuss with me?”
He opens his mouth, maybe to respond, maybe to say something human. But his gaze is snagged on my body, doing a slow glance that I can feel in every nerve ending. “No. That was everything.”
“Good,” I reply brightly. I’m already looking past him. I lift my hand and wave to Kai. He’s out near the break with his board. He catches my eye and sends a wave back at me.
Alec notices. His gaze follows mine to the water and his expression tightens.
A micro-shift I wouldn’t catch if I hadn’t spent five years at Red Rock Diner reading the faces of people who want things they haven’t asked for yet.
He looks back at me, and there’s a question in his eyes that he has absolutely no right to ask.
Not after the handshake. Not after he just spent ten minutes trying to “define” our “situation.”
“Hey, Kai!” I call out across the water. “Is that lesson you offered still good?”
Kai’s response carries across the sand, friendly and enthusiastic. “Anytime, Ella. Come on out.”
I catch the way Alec’s shoulders pull back half an inch as he glowers in Kai’s direction. The way his mouth sets into a line that wasn’t there thirty seconds ago.
Maybe it’s petty of me to feel some satisfaction that he’s jealous. It also feels pretty damn good. Some of the hurt I was feeling fades as I glance over at Alec and offer him a cheerful smile.
“See you around, roomie.”
The warmth of the sun hits my bare shoulders and stomach all at once as I take the first step onto the sand.
I don’t look at Alec again. I don’t need to.
I can feel his gaze on my back the way I can feel when a trucker needing a coffee refill is watching me cross the diner floor.
That specific weight of attention between my shoulder blades. I’ve never once been wrong about it.
I walk toward the water at a leisurely pace.
Not fast, not slow. The walk of a woman choosing forward motion over standing still.
Because here is what I know. I know the feeling of a man deciding I’m too much.
I know the choreography of shrinking yourself to fit inside someone else’s comfort zone.
Tucking in your edges. Dimming your voice.
Making yourself smaller and quieter and less until you disappear into a version of yourself that doesn’t scare anyone.
Jake taught me every step of that dance.
Alec wants to pretend there’s nothing between us? Fine. Let him pretend. But I refuse to waste my vacation obsessing over what he thinks of me or why it stings this much. I came here for sunshine, not for some man to make me feel like I’m too much. Again.
The water touches my feet and I walk in without looking back.