Page 114 of As the Rain Falls (Sainte Madeleine #1)
ASK her head fits perfectly against my chest. I tilt her chin up and kiss her forehead, tasting the salt of the ocean left on her skin.
I love it.
I love this.
I love us.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t even know anymore. I just really don’t like what just happened over there,” she mutters, frowning cutely. “You were all over her.”
“Mmnn.” I trace the soft lines of lips with my finger, fighting the urge to kiss them until they get all swollen against mine. “Is this really what happened?”
“Well, yes,” Cassandra promises, green eyes going round and beautiful. “I was watching you, you know.”
I scoff, listening to Angelina yelling Mateo’s name not so far from us. A few pigeons gathering around fly away as she does, her voice a strident sound that is scaring them off.
“I know I’m being silly.” Cassandra shyly intertwines our fingers together, and I kiss her knuckles just like I always do. “But I just kind of thought, well, you know.”
“No, Cass.”
I let out a short snort, understanding dawning on me that this is one of the things we might struggle with for a while. She has this habit of thinking I just know what’s in her head. I have to remind her that I don’t work like that.
“I don’t.”
She rolls her eyes at me, her face going all red and flushed.
“We had that talk in the car, and I thought—” Her eyes lock with mine, revealing some insecurity. “I thought that it meant that we kind of were into each other only . Like, exclusively.”
“We are.” I answer immediately.
Cassandra gives me a tiny, hopeful smile. It is the most beautiful thing in the world to me. “Really?”
“Yes,” I promise. “I was not that interested in what she had to say, actually.”
She glances at me, and I play with her hair, rolling it around my finger.
“The whole time I was thinking about you,” I speak quietly because it’s a secret.
“You don’t regret it?”
“Regret what exactly? Asking you out?” I shake my head. “No, baby. I don’t.”
“Really?” she asks again, like she can’t believe it. “I thought I was being too forward, and being so desperate again...”
“Desperate?” I wince, now feeling unsure about how I’m coming across. “Cassandra, have I not reciprocated every single one of your advances so far?”
“But what if you were thinking something else?”
“Hey, listen. You really need to stop guessing,” I cut her off gently, not wanting her to keep going on making assumptions about me. “What you see is exactly what you get, okay? We’re taking things slow and spending time together. I’m not planning on seeing anybody else but you.”
I’m not thinking about anyone else, or planning anything else. I don’t have second thoughts. I don’t have hidden meanings behind my words. In fact, it really pisses me off how other people often do.
Do they not know that I have to spend half of my time going above and beyond just to figure out if they really want to hang out? Or if the coffee was really to their taste?
“But I need to be certain.” She presses her lips together, trying to find ways to explain herself to me. “I feel like if you don’t say it, I start to get in my head.”
“Okay,” I nod quickly. “Just ask me.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “What?”
“Start asking questions, Cassandra,” I breathe out, pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head. “Whatever it is you want to know, if you feel unsure about something, just ask me. I’m your friend, aren’t I? Take a shot and let me in. Let me be your best one.”
Her comeback is immediate.
“Do you like me?”
“Yes.”
“Do I annoy you?”
“No.”
“Do you want to kiss me?”
“That’s all I’ve been thinking about since this morning, yes,” I answer all her questions with a straight face, fighting the urge to smile.
“Mnn.” She raises her head from my chest, keeping our hands intertwined still. “We’re alone now.”
I pretend to look around, fake gasping. “I think that we are.”
“And you can kiss me,” Cassandra adds shyly. “If you want to.”
The way she says it is so lovely, like it’s the only thing she’s been thinking about too. It makes me want to angle her head just right and press her lips to mine, and so I do.
Cassandra melts almost immediately, a deep sigh of relief coming out of her. I find myself grinning, her scent doing all kinds of things to my head and heart. I can even hear it going ca-boom in my chest.
“Okay.” She breaks the kiss suddenly, leaving me wanting more. “You can go back to talking to your little friend now. I don’t care if you do anymore.”
“I’d rather be kissing you,” I admit it, because it’s the truth. “Beach kisses are now my favorite; I hope you know that.”
“You two are so corny.”
Mateo is back, taking his sunglasses off and stretching his limbs, the folding chair under him making noise. Angelina sits on his lap, applying another layer of sunscreen to his face and leaving a terrible white cast over his forehead.
Not so far away, I see Kayla running towards Antony, holding some kind of plastic bag in her hands, what I assume to be our ice creams.
“Hey!” Tony waves at me from afar, pulling her into a hug. “You’re back!”
“I thought you were supposed to help Kayla out.”
“I did, but then we split to look for the ice cream man.” He grins, letting Kayla go before dropping to his knees, right next to Cassie.
“Angelina found me asking this old lady if she’d seen any of you around,” Mateo tells us, making weird faces as she tries to add more sunscreen to his cheeks. “It took me, like, two minutes to realize the woman wasn’t answering my question because she fell asleep.”
Cassandra facepalms. “You’re so fucking stupid.”
“Be nicer to him,” Angelina chuckles, a happy smile stretching across her face. “Mateo is such a young soul. I bet this is his very first life on planet Earth.”
Kayla rolls her eyes at them, making a disgusted noise when Angelina presses a quick kiss to his mouth.
“Well, just because you called me stupid, I’ll show up to all your dates with Beckett from now on!” He whines, thin lips pressed together. “I’m like if you two had a son!”
“Or more like a dog who won’t let go of the bone!” Cassandra groans, and Mateo’s smile immediately fades. “Even Pepé knows when to back off.”
“You’re being mean.” I chuckle, surprised to witness this side of her. I like it, though. She’s funny.
“What?” She pouts. “It’s the truth!”
I shake my head and kiss her again to shut her up before they start arguing and things get out of hand.
My girlfriend sighs deeply, relaxing and falling against me, and my stomach does that weird thing it often does whenever she’s around.
I think I hear Mateo gag.
***
The sun is coming down, and I’m walking back to the shore after spending an hour or so surfing.Some guys are dancing near the shore to Sweat by Inner Circle. They give me a thumbs up.
“Little fish in the water, eh?”
I grin. “Yeah, it’s getting cold, though!”
“A la la la la long!”
The tide is low, a blue ocean filled with smaller waves that are perfect for the children. I see a few of them running wildly around me, trying to jump over them whenever the water comes around.
“Yo Beckett, who are you betting on?” Antony yells out.
My friends are playing poker, or at least I think they’re trying to.
I’m not allowed to be part of the game anymore, mainly because poker is a lot less about bluffing and a lot more about probabilities to me.
It really drives Antony insane how I can’t stop being logical, but at least I’m not the one losing money. In fact, he is.
“He’s betting on me!” Cassandra shouts while waving at me.
“Oi, that’s not fair! He’s always betting on her!” Antony starts complaining, but I tune him out to drop the surfboard.
“Catch me!”
It falls over the damp sand, right on time for me to catch her.
I open my arms, and she runs towards me with golden hair flying down her back.Her body hits mine, making me take a few steps back. Grains of sand splatter over my legs, dirtying my shorts.
“My tongue gets tied, and that’s no lie. I’m looking in your eyes!”
I kiss the top of her cheek.
Her kiss tastes like the ocean.
“She’s a winner!” I yell back, making sure to remind him of the fact. “Cassandra won three times; you didn’t!”
“That’s because she cheats!”
“There’s no way to cheat in poker.”
Cassandra glows.
She fucking glows.
“The game is all about bluffing!”