Chapter 18 #2
A grumbled laugh. “All right. Can I get back to you on that?”
I nod, a knowing smile on my face. “It’s a tough one.”
“Do you have an answer?”
“What’s love to me?” I huff a laugh. “Not a complete one.”
“Give me the incomplete.”
I focus on the sky. Tiny pinpoints of light dust the smoggy onyx abyss.
“It’s . . . knowing that when you call them at 1:00 a.m., they’re going to pick up,” I say quietly.
“Flying home and knowing someone’s going to be there for you, waiting at the airport.
Knowing when something’s heavy, there’s someone who’s going to carry it with you.
Hard truths, warm comments, tight hugs, follow-through.
” I shiver, wistfulness slinking through me.
“Love’s a team sport. It’s the urge to recalibrate your entire life to line up with someone else’s so you can get from point A to point B in lockstep, even if it means taking a longer route. ”
I glance over at Reed as we reach the base of the lifeguard tower. His eyes are glassy.
“Are you okay?” I ask softly.
He coughs, looking out at the ocean. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
We stand there for a long moment while he studies the horizon, and I study him.
“Has she ever apologized?” I say quietly. “Was anything that happened in the second book real?”
In his second novel, his cheating fiancée has a redemption arc.
They end up trying their relationship over from scratch, and, in the end, they’re together.
Unfortunately, the emotional arcs didn’t feel realistic or genuine.
The relationship moments were half baked.
You could tell the author didn’t believe in their own story.
Reed shakes his head, mouth pressed in a tight line.
“Did she at least reach out after the second book was released?”
He shakes his head again. There’s more to it that he’s not saying. I see him holding it in the set of his jaw.
I take his hand and give his palm a squeeze. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what that was like. But I know how it feels to be hurt by someone you love and have the situation get brushed over, without acknowledgment.
“You have to forgive them to move on, but it’s so hard to move on without validation that your pain was real. That what happened, happened. It wasn’t the nothing that they’re making it out to be.”
Reed sucks in a shaky breath and turns away from the ocean to peer at me. His features look soft, sanded down. His eyes have melted to the clear blue of a watercolor sky.
He’s somehow more attractive than he was two minutes ago.
“I don’t do this,” he breathes.
I motion to the ramp. “Investigate lifeguard towers?”
A laugh slips out of him as I tug his wrist, leading him up the six-foot ramp.
“I don’t talk about the story behind those books—I’ve had that whole era locked up in a neat metaphorical box since they came out.”
I smile over my shoulder as we reach the top of the platform. “Proud of you for opening it. When you keep your emotions in a box, you never know when it’ll burst open and fuck up your life.”
He eyes me cheekily as his chin cuts forty-five degrees to the left.
I waggle my brows and spin away, turning to take stock of the tower.
A flimsy-looking wooden fence lines a two-foot walkway that circles a small roofed .
. . hut? Hutch? Not sure of the technical term.
The tiny indoor area’s closed up for the night.
The windows and doors are padlocked shut. I do a quick lap, scanning for Glenn.
No one’s around. Reed waits with his hands in his pockets at the top of the ramp, watching me with his lips quirked to the side like he’s hoarding a secret.
Probably thinking about the sex chapter. We still haven’t addressed it.
I plop down on the wooden porch and stretch my legs out in front of me, leaning against the hutch. Reed lowers himself to my right so our sides are flush, my bare leg against his jeans. We watch the waves crash for a few quiet moments.
“I—” we both start at the same time. We go quiet, smiling at each other. I shift, rotating to put my shoulder against the wood so I can see him better.
“What were you gonna say?” I ask.
“You go first,” he says, watching me carefully.
I lean my head against the wood, searching his eyes. “Sorry about the chapter.”
His lips turn up. “I’m not.”
I guffaw. “I’m so embarrassed. I’ve died of shame seventy-five thousand times since I sent it.”
Reed laughs. “Rikki, I just got choked up on a second date. I’m so embarrassed.”
“Men are allowed to have feelings!”
His warm, rumbly laugh bubbles up. “I lost my fucking mind, reading that chapter. I opened it at a business dinner. I had to excuse myself from the table. I read it in the hallway next to the bathroom. And then I had to go home and take a cold shower.”
I cough out a laugh, covering my face. “Noooo. I’m so sorry! Did I mess up the dinner?”
“No! It was fine. My brother was there to pick up the slack. It was great.”
I continue to hide under my hand.
Reed gently tugs my wrist, removing my palm from my face. He leans his head against the wood, inches away from mine, bright eyes beaming straight to my damn soul.
Reed Tyler is a master in the art of eye contact. He could convince anyone to do anything with those babies.
I watch his lips twitch up.
“What?” I ask.
His eyelids drop to half mast as his gaze skates down my neck. I feel it like a flame held inches from my skin as it teases over my chest.
“R. Tyler, what kind of smoke are you about to blow up my ass?”
His mouth kicks up one side of his face, eyes glittering as they slice back to mine. “Get over yourself, Rikki.”
I smile as those words lurch through me like an adrenaline shot. “Fuck off, Derek.”
His mouth captures mine. His hand comes to grip my neck, securing me in place as his chin shifts, stubble brushing my cheek.
I twist closer without breaking the kiss—sliding over him until my knees bracket the outside of his thighs.
My palms glide under his leather jacket and across the firm expanse of his chest as I settle into his lap.
His hands close over my hips, and he tugs me tight against his abdomen, sending a symphony of sparks spiraling out from my center.
This kiss is long, languid, shimmery, and wonderful.
When it finally breaks, Reed pulls back slowly, assessing me with those eyes. “Being a control freak is a cop-out flaw.”
“Bullshit—being a control freak is a universally acknowledged flaw.”
“It’s the flaw you tell the CEO interviewing you for a management job.”
My lip quirks. “Still a flaw.”
His hands skim up from my knees. “I’m a control freak. Does that bother you?”
A cone of shimmering light flips on in my chest as he playfully searches my gaze.
No, I instantly like him more. He must have charts and planners and a color-coded calendar. Labels. Organized bookshelves. Multiple sets of clean sheets. I shake my head slowly.
Something unclenches inside me at the thought of being able to relinquish control to someone who knows what to do with it. “No, it doesn’t. It’s actually kind of a turn-on.”
His hands close around my thighs, and I tilt forward, catching his mouth for another fathomless, heart-pounding kiss that billows through me. My hips roll against him, a bouquet of starbursts blooming in my stomach. He groans against my lips.
This man is getting straight As.
I break away, pressing into his forehead as my heart rackets against my rib cage. Last weekend wasn’t a fluke.
Sex has always been a crapshoot for me. Sometimes it’s good.
Mostly okay. On the very rare occasion, great.
You can tell when great is coming. You can feel it in the foreword.
You can gauge it in each touch. Greatness builds out of dazzling kisses, witty exchanges, and sparkling caresses.
It just comes to a crescendo in the sex.
The potential here is off the charts.
But we need to talk. I need to know what we’re doing. What the rules are. Because if we don’t communicate the complicated nature of whatever this is or isn’t, things are going to be that much more confusing when I leave the state and return to my normal Reed-less, unplugged life.
I exhale a steadying breath. “I actually think we should figure out—what we’re doing here.”
His arms disappear under my jacket. Two strong hands slide up my rib cage. Heat floods my center. “Looking for Glenn?”
“I think we need to have a weird chat.” I close my eyes as he dips under my chin, pressing his lips to the hollow behind my ear, along my neck. Electricity sings through my bloodstream. “We need rules.”
I feel him nod. “You’re right.” He straightens, gaze resting on my lips, hands on my waist. “I like you. A lot.” He says it softly. Like he’s talking to himself rather than to me.
“Easy to say as I straddle you on a beach.”
Reed’s mouth tips up into his closed-lip smile, dimple shining. “I’ll say it again later then.”
I sit back an inch, putting some space between us. “Are you talking to a hundred other women right now?”
He shakes his head, a lock of hair falling out of place. “I’m not talking to anyone else right now.”
“Am I going to see you again after tonight?”
Reed’s fingers tighten over my waist. “Rikki, if we lived in the same place, this would be date eight.”
I tip my head back in an eye roll scoff. “Reed, we’ve only known each other exists for nine days.”
“Exactly my point.”
“But we don’t live in the same place,” I point out. “And I like you too.”
He sighs, head falling back against the hutch. “If teleportation was a thing, I’d be all over this. But we can’t start something . . . real, with our lives so out of alignment. It’ll just crash and burn.”
I nod. “So what does that mean? Should we be friends? Do we talk after this? Cut off communication?”
He squeezes his eyes shut like he’s preemptively bracing for a jab. “May I propose a dubious experimental idea?”
I cock my head. “You may.”
His eyes crack open again. “I would love to keep dating you.”