Chapter 39
Luke
Let’s.
It was the last thing we said before I lost my mind. Before the reminders of our circumstances came crashing in. Before I woke up in our bed two minutes before the alarm, alone.
I was staring at the ceiling, unable to decide whether to wait the full two minutes or return to reality earlier and avoid prolonging the inevitable. My sweet girl was nowhere to be found. Not in this room or the bathroom.
I’d caught some serious feelings for Hazel, and yeah, it freaked me out.
I was right after all—it did mess me up.
It only made it clearer how much it would hurt once this ended.
Because it always ends. Okay, not always.
Alex and Ava made it work. And Norah, Logan, Summer, Ethan.
.. But they were the exception, not the rule.
My parents showed me the rule. They still made an effort to show it.
After thirty long minutes in the scolding hot shower, I wasn’t any more relaxed. Instead, I was now a steamed vegetable with anxiety, spiraling over basic human emotions and wanting to both leave and stay in this stupid country.
I went to the living room, hoping—foolishly—that Hazel might be there. Instead, I found all my clothes neatly folded and packed. Yesterday, when Hazel confronted me, I was in the middle of doing that.
That damn woman.
However, Hazel’s yellow suitcase was still there by the door.
It seemed silly now, but I knew she had left it for me.
With our bags in hand, I headed downstairs, where Ava and Summer had already prepared breakfast for everyone.
Ethan and Alex were packing up the car. Only Norah and Logan seemed to take longer than expected.
I scanned the room, but Hazel wasn’t here.
“Hi, buddy,” Ava said with soft eyes, handing me coffee. I yawned and muttered a half-hearted thank you. I wasn’t ready for a morning conversation, so I downed the coffee and grabbed our stuff. Outside, a soft breeze brushed my face.
“Work?” I asked Ethan, who was scrolling his phone. Right next to him on the couch, Alex was snoozing in his sunglasses.
“Yes, the team’s losing it. You haven’t checked?” he said, surprised.
“Wanted to enjoy my last day a bit longer,” I mumbled, scratching the back of my head. Another cup of coffee somehow appeared in my hand.
“That doesn’t sound like you,” Ethan noted, eyes still on his phone.
“Yeah, well. People change.”
My words trailed off as Hazel walked through the gate. She had her linen jumpsuit on again, perfectly hugging her hips, shoes in her hand, and her beautiful blond locks in a bun.
“Hey. Where are you coming from?” Norah stepped outside.
“I wanted to see the ocean one more time. Dip my toes in the water.” She shifted from one foot to another, looking down, breeze tugging at her clothes.
I would have gone with you.
“FOOD’S READY,” someone yelled from the kitchen, and the girls went inside. Right before Hazel stepped into the house, we locked eyes, and the side of her lips curled up slightly.
“Luke,” Ethan pulled me back. I shot my eyes back to him. He was watching me, concerned.
“Listen, man, I’m sorry for—”
“I know,” I said. “Water under the bridge.” He patted my shoulder, and we clinked our mugs.
An hour later, we were all packed and ready to go. Hazel was all sunshine and sparkles during breakfast. Her usual bright, happy self. Too happy. It almost made no sense. Maybe she was happy it ended. That we ended.
But her laughter came too quickly, her stories too rehearsed, her smile just a little too wide. Maybe it was her survival technique. Maybe I needed one, too. But the problem was I couldn’t follow her lead. I didn’t know how anymore. Not after last night.
She glanced at me a few times while talking, but there were no lingering glances, no stolen looks, no hesitation. I watched and watched and watched her, but there was nothing. Nothing to show we’d ever happened. It bothered me. She bothered me.
“So, are we ready to go?” Norah asked, guiding everyone out.
“Oh! I think I left my sunglasses in the room,” Hazel suddenly said. “You go, I’ll be out in a minute.” She ran up the stairs.
Everyone headed to the car, but I hesitated, one foot outside the door. And before I could think, I was running up after her. When I got to the room, she was on her knees in the bedroom, checking under the bed.
“You okay?” I asked, confused. Her head whipped up, bun unraveling.
“Yeah, found it.”
She ran her hands through her hair, letting her lion’s mane fall loose again. I loved her hair. Like a scented cloud was around her. She stepped closer, and for a moment, we just stared at each other. It was the look I’d been searching for all morning.
I exhaled and leaned back against the wall—that wall. The one against which yesterday we did unspeakable things. My hands stayed buried in my pockets, the only thing keeping me from reaching for her. Hazel glanced at her hands, then up at me.
“One last for the road?” she asked softly, a small, hopeful smile tugging at her lips.
Last. The word hit me like a train.
I nodded. She rose onto her toes, pressing her palms gently into my chest to steady herself. Her kiss was soft and just a second long, like she was afraid to ask for more. Like she’d already asked for too much. The second her lips left mine, the absence was immediate and painful.
“Let’s go?” she asked, still inches away.
A kind, polite face smiling at me. No trace of the wild, angry, insatiable woman I witnessed yesterday.
The one that demanded to be respected, as well as pleasured.
Who demanded the painful truth and offered one herself, honest to the bone.
In a way, I missed that Hazel. Now it was just this shell of a person, hiding everything inside.
She leaned back, but I placed my palm on the back of her head, stopping her. I rested my forehead on hers, as my fingers slid through her hair.
“Not yet,” I murmured. Hazel closed her eyes, and we stayed like that, enjoying each other’s touch, breathing each other in. I closed the distance and brushed my lips against hers again. Her bottom lip quivered, and I finally felt it.
I felt her.
Her leaning in more. Her squeezing my arm. The soft moan, I swallowed with pleasure. Her tongue demanding more. Her mouth opening to mine. Everything I was afraid to lose.
“There she is,” I whispered with relief.
My tongue met hers, slow but firm, as I savored the way her lips trembled, the way she gasped softly as I slid my hand to the small of her back, pulling her closer.
But no matter how hard she tried to keep herself together, I could feel it in her touch—she was already starting to unravel, unable to hide how much she needed it.
“I was right after all,” I said, grazing her cheek with my knuckles as she raised her eyes to meet me. “You were the best part of the trip.”
Girls often had unspoken expectations that our one-night stands would lead to the love of their lives.
Instead of pretending, I’d thanked them for the good times and wished them the best in their future endeavors.
They knew what they were getting into, so it wasn’t my fault they felt something that wasn’t there, so I never pitied them.
I was always upfront from the start, and that honesty gave me the comforting illusion that I was always the good guy.
But Hazel didn’t ask me to stay, and that broke me more than if she had.
She just looked at me, accepting the pain.
Not because she believed she deserved it or thought I was a lost cause or simply an asshole (I was, though), but because Hazel understood something most people didn’t: you couldn’t change someone who didn’t want to change for himself.
She took what people offered, loving them anyway, even when it was tearing her apart.
And somehow, that quiet kind of love hurt worse than goodbye.
On the drive to the airport, she slipped into polite conversation like armor.
She laughed at Ethan’s jokes, asked Summer about the villa, offered Norah gum.
Her hands moved, but her eyes avoided me.
Because I saw her now, in a way no one else ever had.
And once you see something that alive, that raw and beautiful, you can’t really unsee it. You can’t pretend it didn’t touch you.
The feelings I had for her terrified me to my bones. And no amount of life before and after this trip would erase the memory of her radiant smile and golden hair glowing in the sun.
Even at the airport, Hazel’s eyes looked everywhere except at me. But once we took off, and the plane engine thundered through my earbuds, her hand found mine. She gave it a gentle squeeze, calming the storm inside me, and I squeezed back, brushing my thumb across her palm.
Fuck! This wasn’t supposed to happen.