36. Scarlett
Scarlett
T he sun bled gold across the water, a final warning—last light, last chance, last fucking sanity.
And we were too far gone to care.
“Another round!” Sloane shouted, holding up a bottle of something clear.
“God help us,” Kane muttered, grinning.
I was barefoot, cross-legged on a lounge cushion with Sloane on one side and Lena on the other, our shoulders pressed together. Music thumped from a speaker someone had barely kept dry, while Rhett danced badly on the bow.
Trace hadn’t moved from his spot, but his eyes hadn’t left me.
“Okay, okay,” Sloane said, tipsy and flushed. “New rule. You drink twice if you refuse to answer.”
“And you have to take your shirt off if you lose a round,” she added, already down to her bikini top.
Lena choked on her drink. “This is getting dangerous.”
“Danger is the point,” Kane said, winking.
Trace kept his distance. As if he was memorizing the moment. Or waiting for it to implode.
I looked over at Alden sprawled out on a beanbag chair, shirtless, tan, and smug. He raised a brow when he caught me watching.
“Your turn, Monroe,” he said, voice rough from laughing too much.
I licked salt off the rim of my cup. “Most likely to—Most likely to fuck someone they shouldn’t.”
The group lost it.
Lena let out a sharp gasp. Sloane screamed, and slapped her hand over her mouth, already halfway laughing and horrified.
I turned my head slowly, meeting Trace’s eyes across the deck.
“No comment.”
The silence roared.
“Two drinks!” Sloane yelled, losing it. “That’s two drinks, and a shirt comes off!”
I stood slowly and raised my drink in surrender, letting the moment stretch before I peeled off my cover-up skirt instead. The red bikini clung to me, heat rising as I sat back down without a word.
Trace’s gaze dropped, slow and scorching, then snapped back up to mine. Unapologetic.
He didn’t look away.
I wanted him to sit in it—the tension, the want, the goddamn chaos we kept pretending didn’t exist.
It wasn’t fair, how good it felt to make him unravel. To watch him fall apart without laying a single hand on him. No apology in my eyes. Just the heat rising from my skin and the fucked-up satisfaction knowing I had that kind of power.
“Okay,” Lena said quickly, trying to recover. “Let’s keep going. No more softballs.”
Kane nodded, pointing at her with his drink. “Lena. Most likely to survive a zombie apocalypse?”
Her face went bright red.
“Uh—” she laughed. “Definitely Sloane.”
Sloane beamed, mock flexing. “Damn right.”
“You’re all evil,” Lena muttered.
“But we’re fun,” I whispered, topping off her drink.
The sun slipped below the horizon. The music faded. Trace stood, finally.
He stretched, slow, spine cracking.
“Where you going?” I asked.
He looked at me for a long second. “Bathroom.”
But it sounded like: Run before I do something I can’t take back.
***
The night had gone sideways.
Sloane was dancing on the damn table—drink in hand, hair wild, shouting lyrics no one remembered. Lena was doubled over laughing, tears streaking her mascara, while Kane had taken it upon himself to DJ from someone’s phone, playing the worst possible remixes at full volume.
Barefoot and tipsy, I was halfway spinning when Alden caught my hand and tugged me closer.
“C’mon, Love,” he said. “Give me one good twirl.”
I laughed—too loud, too loose—letting him pull me into a ridiculous half-dance near the railing. The music pulsed, the boat rocked slightly beneath us, and the stars were just starting to spill across the sky like glitter.
My bikini top clung damp against my skin, the air cooler now, sharp against the heat of my flushed chest.
Alden twirled me again, this time slower, his hand sliding briefly to my waist.
It wasn’t serious.
But it looked serious.
And fuck, sometimes I wished it could be.
He made it easy to pretend none of this was complicated.
Like I wasn’t the problem. Maybe I could just exist in this moment—barefoot, flushed skin, spinning in his hands without unraveling.
He held steady—smiled through the ache, never demanding more than I could give, and somehow that ruined me more than all the chaos ever could.
That’s when Trace walked back in, just reappeared like he hadn’t just vanished for twenty minutes, but the second his eyes landed on me— us —the whole vibe changed.
The sun was low, sky streaked in molten gold and fading coral, stars just beginning to push through the haze. But all I saw was him.
His gaze locked, cutting through the music, the laughter, the sunset.
Alden didn’t notice. Or maybe he did, and didn’t care.
He leaned in, his mouth brushing my ear. “He’s not the only one who knows what to do with you.”
My spine locked, breath tangled, somewhere between shock and heat. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to slap him or kiss him. Both, probably.
Trace stepped forward, just one slow step, his gaze still pinned to mine—fucking lethal.
Sloane whooped from the table, breaking the moment. “Scarlett, you better dance with me next!”
I smiled, pretending nothing had happened and slipped away before I drowned in it.
But I felt Trace’s gaze burning into my back the whole way down the steps.