Chapter 6 We Love a Nature #2
The lead had a whole thing he was going through, with his dad not being his actual dad.
He gets the chance to rewind and do the twenty-four hours of the breakup with his high school girlfriend who he was engaged to, over and over, whenever he wants.
But he can never save the relationship. It always ends.
He does mend the relationship with the father he grew up with.
And there’s a new love interest by the time the last chapter rolls around.
He learns that yes, relationships can end and cause you pain, but it doesn’t mean they’re a waste of time or memories or effort.
The protagonist comes to terms with the fact that he’s changed for the better from the heartbreak he went through.
That really moved me as a twenty-one-year-old. It was the first sad-ish book I didn’t hate. My rave review in The Minute is sitting at home, framed, in a box of art and photos I haven’t unpacked. It’s hung on the wall in my room ever since that issue went to print.
Am I on an air quotes date with Derek Roosevelt?
Reed smiles thoughtfully up at the sky as we reach the top of the grassy knoll. The moon is full: A stark bright hole punched through the deep-indigo night.
Guilt clangs through me. Did I write the review that’s stanched his ability to finish a book for the past seven years?
He looks over and catches my eye. “You’re gorgeous.
And super intuitive and smart, and I’m really enjoying this impromptu birthday-crisis date.
” He says this casually, but the words hit me like a hot flash, burning over my skin.
My brain spins, trying to process the book dots I’ve connected in the last thirty seconds.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, tone shifting.
I shake my head. “Nothing.” My mouth is dry. I rearrange my features, letting my flushed smile rise to the surface. “Thank you.”
He steps closer, studying me. “You really have trouble with compliments.”
“I don’t have trouble with them, I just don’t know how to respond because my first thought isn’t that you’re being truthful, it’s ‘Are you blowing smoke up my ass to manipulate me for one reason or another.’ Especially when it’s coming from a hot dude.”
A grin breaks across his face. “So are you calling me a hot dude, or are you blowing smoke up my ass for one reason or another?”
I hold his gaze, pursing my lips harder than I’ve ever pursed in my life as I try to maintain some semblance of a chill smirk. Hold. Stay cynical.
He tilts his head toward the lake. “Shall we?”
I nod, conceding to put a pin in this possible author revelation. “We shall.”
I break eye contact to look down at the water. The other side of this hill is considerably steeper. There’s a thin strip of sand hugging some areas of the lake, but the majority of its edges are grass. I take a step down.
I make it four steps before my foot gets caught on my skirt. Five before I’m airborne.
Reed yells my name in a panic as I instinctively throw out my arms and tuck my chin to my chest. Something tears. A groan rips out of me as I tumble into the grass palms first and proceed to roll horizontally downhill at a speed yet unknown to man. Goddamnit.
My forehead slams into my biceps as I attempt to reposition my limbs to better grapple with the ground flashing by my eyes. I grit my teeth and press my fingers into the earth, thrusting my nails into the cold dirt. My body yanks to a hard vertical stop just as my legs and ass splash into the lake.
A slow-motion millisecond passes before I see Reed, rolling at top speed straight for me.
A “fuck!” flies out of him as I rip my nails from the ground and lunge out of the way. My feet squish into the lake’s muddy bottom as he goes soaring in beside me.
I gape at the spot where he disappeared into the water. What the actual fuck.
Reed surfaces with a frantic gasp, ten feet away, sopping wet, hair flopped forward across his left eye like an emo kid from 2010. “Rikki—this wedding is trying to kill us. Are you okay?” He yanks on his wet vest, shaking it out.
A laugh explodes out of me. My upper body flops forward with the force of it as giggles fizzle through my teeth.
Reed shakes his head, a grin breaking through his distressed expression. “Glad you’re finding this just as hysterical as the fire.”
“I’m—a slut—for an adventure,” I hiss back, my voice escaping in delighted, jolting bursts.
He lowers into the water, submerging himself to his collarbone. “Yeah. I mean, same.”
That sends me into a fresh cackle.
“Steer for the deep waters only,” he says fondly.
I sink down, letting the water swallow my torso, so I can match his eyeline. “Did you just quote Walt Whitman? After I said I’m a slut for adventure?”
His eyelids droop as he rolls his pupils upward. “It basically means the same thing.”
“I can’t believe you just quoted poetry. How unexpectedly pretentious.”
“Astute,” he corrects.
“Obnoxious.”
He grins at me across the two-foot span of water between us. “I like literature. Sue me.”
That takes me out for a second. I study him, treading water. He studies me back, turquoise eyes searching mine.
“So, are you okay?” he asks.
I nod, a chill skittering through me as my body finally registers the water temperature. It’s cold. “Yeah, I think I tripped on my skirt.”
His lips twitch. “You think?”
“How did you end up down here with me?”
He clenches his teeth. “I made a dive for you and caught your skirt.”
“Ooooh noo.”
He bites his lip, nodding. “Note to self: Don’t dive after someone on a steep incline. It will not end well.”
I snort as he slinks underwater.
He emerges, inches away, directly in front of me, hair slicked back. Droplets stick to his light reddish-brown lashes. Roll down the straight edge of his nose.
“Note to self,” I say quietly. “Trotting down an incline in an oversize skirt may lead to death.”
“Note to self: Rikki makes a shitty outlaw.”
My mouth falls open, feigning annoyance as his knee parts my thighs under the water. Heat twirls up my center. “Excuse me, it was your idea to go down to the lake.”
“You’re forgetting you wanted to jump the balcony.”
I shift the slightest bit, and my chest brushes against his. “You’re forgetting you wanted to stroll around this grassy park. I was making that happen for you, podcast boy.”
His crystalline eyes slide to my lips.
They hover there, static crackling in the space between us.
Tickling my skin. Want blooms, expansive and insistent, in my chest. I raise my arms in the water, just enough to drape them over his sturdy shoulders, and lock my hands around his neck.
I can feel his strength radiating under my forearms. It sets my heart running.
He tilts his forehead into mine. Our noses touch at the tips as his warm hands slide against my lower back.
I let my legs drift through the water and secure them around his torso, pressing into the heat of his abdomen.
I feel each individual muscle tense against me as he sucks in a breath.
The moment hovers like a bead of water on the edge of a knife.
The static builds, penetrates my skin, rises to a roar in my ears.
“Have you murdered anyone?” I whisper.
Reed’s laugh is soft against my cheek. “Negative. Have you?”
His left hand tightens on my waist. His right slides up my spine to the nape of my neck.
The pressure in my chest is overpowering. I can barely breathe. “No.”
“Great.”
We collide. It’s a match setting off a series of small explosions down my torso, sending an iridescent wave of euphoric energy jetting through my nervous system, eviscerating any lingering semblance of rational thought. The kiss is hot, wet, frantic, intense, debilitating.
We shift, tongues flirting. Exploring. He catches my lip between his teeth and tugs.
I gasp into his mouth as my nails dig into his shoulder blades.
When he pushes me up against the damp earth wall that lines the lake, truly deepening the kiss, the desire roaring through me solidifies into a need.
An ache. My thighs grip harder, plastering his body against mine as I spear my fingers up into his hair.
I don’t give a shit that we’re trespassing on what might be a golf course during someone’s wedding, and we’re in a random artificial lake wearing matching Disney costumes. We’re out of sight, hidden by the hill. I will have this man now. Happy thirtieth birthday to me.
My hands travel down his back, fingers skimming along the edges of his pants, brushing against the searing hot strip of skin at the bottom of his taut, sturdy torso.
The pad of my thumb lands on the button of his brown pants.
I’m a millisecond away from stripping him down, when a shriek echoes out from the venue.