48. Summer
Summer
“You’re cold,” Jace says, nodding at the goosebumps on my arms.
“A little,” I admit.
“First cabinet on the right. Help yourself.”
He hangs a towel over the shower wall and disappears inside. The water starts running.
I leave my sandals by the door and go open the cabinet. A stack of T-shirts, a few pairs of shorts, a gray Quiksilver sweatshirt, another plain black one. I take the black one and shake it out. It’s way too big. I pull it on over my T-shirt, and right away, Jace’s scent wraps around me.
I sit down on the edge of the bed. The sheets are rumpled, the pillow tossed into a corner. I listen to the shower. Steam escapes over the top of the stall, warm, thick with the smell of soap.
The water stops. The towel vanishes into the stall and the door opens.
Jace steps out with the towel around his waist, chest bare, his dripping hair slicked back. The steam follows him. He moves toward the cabinet and the towel catches on the shower door.
It falls.
Jace is naked, his hand still reaching for the cabinet.
The scar, wide and ragged, runs down his left thigh, almost to the knee. The skin is bleached white in places, thickened and raised in others, with furrows gouged into the flesh.
Jace’s hands fly down—not to his groin, to his thigh. He presses both palms over it, fingers spread.
“Don’t look at me,” he breathes.
He bends to grab the towel and knots it around his waist in one quick motion. He keeps his eyes down.
Jace is naked, but it isn’t his nakedness he’s trying to hide. Any other time, I’d have smiled.
I stand and step toward him. The trailer’s so small that two steps are enough. Jace backs up, but the counter’s right behind him and he has nowhere to go.
I take the edge of the towel and pull gently. He doesn’t resist. The towel slides down his hip and falls again.
I crouch, and my fingers settle at the top of the scar, where the skin is smoothest—white, taut, a little cold. Jace stiffens.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not there. I don’t feel anything.”
I move down a little. The texture changes—thicker, uneven, ridges and hollows. Jace doesn’t move. His chest barely rises.
“And here?”
“Not there either.”
I move my fingers toward the inside of his thigh, where the furrows run deeper. Jace closes his eyes. His jaw tightens.
“There, yeah.”
My hand slides a little lower.
“And here?”
“That’s good.”
My fingers go back to exploring. I trace the border between the skin that’s whole and the skin that’s been rebuilt. The difference in temperature is sharp—the scar is colder, the rest of his thigh warm, tanned, alive.
Jace still won’t look at me.
“It doesn’t disgust you?”
His voice is barely audible. I think about the girl who saw and left.
“Look at me, Jace.”
He doesn’t.
I straighten and put my hand on his cheek. His skin is warm, still damp from the shower. He resists for a second, then gives in and finally looks at me.
“Of course it doesn’t disgust me,” I say.
He swallows.
“The shark could have torn your leg off, Jace.”
I shiver. The video comes back to me—the screaming, the blood, the board floating…
“It could have killed you. So your scar is nothing.”
He exhales; his shoulders loosen. His eyes shine.
I take his hand and pull him toward the bed. He lies back, one arm folded under his head, naked in the harsh light of the lamp clipped to the bed frame.
I sit down next to him.
My fingers return to the scar. I explore it again, top to bottom, gently. The tissue is strange—alive and dead at once, areas that don’t react at all, others where I feel the muscle flinch under the skin. Jace closes his eyes.
No one ever took the time to do this.
I lean down and press my lips to the scar, where the skin is numb. Jace goes still. I don’t move, my cheek against his thigh. His fingers slide into my hair. Neither of us speaks.
I hear the waves outside and Jace’s breathing settling.
“Summer…” he murmurs.
I lift my head. His eyes are open. He looks at me, vulnerable.
“Come here.”
I lie down beside him. He turns to me and kisses me. A soft kiss, almost hesitant. Then his hand slides down my back and the kiss turns more urgent.
He pulls the sweatshirt over my head, then the T-shirt. He tosses them to the foot of the bed. His fingers undo the clasp of my bra.
The way he’s looking at me… It’s too much. I look away.
His hands move down to my hips and undo the button of my shorts. The rest follows. There’s nothing left between us.
Jace moves over me and a flicker of a grimace crosses his face.
“Wait,” I say, putting a hand on his chest. “Let’s try it another way.”
“It’s not a big deal if it pulls…”
I shake my head.
“It is.”
I put my hands on his shoulders and ease him onto his back. Surprised, he stares at me. I move over him and brace myself on his chest.
“This okay?”
He nods. His hands come back to me. To my hips, my ass, my breasts. They linger, explore.
Then he reaches for the drawer under the bed, opens it, and feels around. He pulls out a condom and meets my eyes.
“You want to?”
“Yes.”
He tears the wrapper. His fingers shake a little.
We adjust. It’s slow, not quite smooth. But it’s the two of us against it, and that’s enough. Jace pulls me to him and kisses me again.
“You okay?” he murmurs.
The question takes me back six years. He’d asked ten times, and every time, I’d said yes.
Did he mean it?
I push the thought away, out of habit.
“Yes,” I say.
His eyes don’t leave mine. It isn’t perfect. Two bodies searching for each other, fumbling, stopping and starting again. Jace grits his teeth when it pulls. I change position when I need to.
Jace is tender, attuned to every reaction of mine. His hands are everywhere, slow, sure. He kisses my neck, and the way he presses his mouth just under my ear…
It’s the same.
A shark, a scar eating up his thigh, six years of loneliness and shame, and he still kisses that same spot the same way.
I’m a fucking bet.
The voice is fainter than before. An echo, not a shout. I let it pass the way you let a wave pass—it rises, it falls back, it doesn’t take me under.
He’s changed. We’ve changed.
I close my eyes and come back to the present.