Page 52 of Green Flag (StormSprint #2)

To get what he wanted most.

To make his cousin proud.

And he did.

But I couldn’t bring myself to go and see him in the winner’s box.

* * *

Livie had told me how to access the key to her and Nix’s second home in Australia. I used my French-tip nails to press the buttons on the outdoor lock one at a time.

My nail tech had questioned my decision to replace what she called my ‘lover nails’ with the 68.

I’d given multiple excuses, including multiple weddings.

As if I could celebrate love even if I were invited to such an event.

The house was huge. I’d had to wave some sort of key at the gate and then speak to a security guard to even be allowed into the property grounds, but when I saw the building, hidden behind the exotic plantation and bright flowers, I understood why.

Damn Nix’s pay was good.

It was a mansion. Intimidating in its size and beauty.

It screamed ‘Livie’ by the neutral colours throughout the house and I knew I was going to get lost in the week I spent here.

And lonely.

They wouldn’t get here until Thursday as her brother was adopting a baby.

And when I’d told Livie how everything with Luca and I had fallen apart, she offered her and Nix’s home for me to stay instead of pretending in a hotel room with a man who’d once known every inch of me.

Sometimes, I was overwhelmed with my new friendships. It stunned me—how generous people could be without expecting anything back.

Arabella was my first true friend. She gained nothing from our friendship.

We may have to work together and she might have no choice but to be my friend, but she’d also offered to share a room with me every week to avoid Luca, without prying for details.

Though her affinity for a bottle of perfume a day definitely encouraged me to find accommodation elsewhere.

I found one of the bedrooms and started to unpack my clothes, hunting for a bathing suit to go straight into the pool.

Or maybe even the sea.

With no one around to see me or care, I might even wear a bikini.

There was no one to judge me and some sun always helped my psoriasis.

“Just one little dip in the seawater won’t hurt,” I said aloud to myself.

I found a bikini with the tiniest straps for the lack of tan lines and changed, singing a tune from some new music I’d started recording the other week.

My psoriasis was particularly bad as I hadn’t been great with my lotions and potions. Whenever I went through a depressive episode — which wasn’t particularly often anymore — I neglected my health.

My psoriasis was one of the first things to no longer care for.

Even when it was one of the first things to trigger a depressive episode.

It became a vicious cycle. Neglect it, flare up. Flare up, spiral. Spiral, neglect it again.

I shoved my Kindle and a towel into a bag, slipped on my sandals, took off all jewellery other than my mother’s ring and headed down to the sandy beach, a bowl of strawberries from the packed fridge in hand.

I was going to relish in this little retreat for one.

One thing I’d always wished to have the confidence for was a solo holiday. But lying there on my towel, snacking on strawberries, I wasn’t flexible enough to rub SPF into half of my back - how did people do this? Ask strangers?

There weren’t any strangers.

I was completely alone.

Maybe that was good for me.

Over the last few months, I’d filled my calendar and social media with people I didn’t really care for, falling back into bad habits and starting to care about their opinions.

Lying there, soaking in the sun and getting into a smutty novel, my mind travelled back to Luca.

Because, of course, any mention of ‘cock’ or ‘fuck’ or ‘cum’ made me think of the man that I imagined the male main character to be.

In every scene, there he was, making the protagonist blush.

But he was a little too dark for my liking.

A little too serious.

My Luca wasn’t. He was perfect.

Yes, he should have told me about the report. But I understood it. It wasn’t an excuse.

I sighed, angry at myself and shoved another sand-splattered strawberry into my mouth.

There was nothing left to do but to think about Luca.

And to promise myself that the next time I saw him, I would talk to him.

Because I hadn’t gone into that night of fucking with the intention of it being a one-off or the end of our friendship.

I’d gone into it wanting to please him and myself.

I’d wanted to get as close as I could to Luca Mendes.

Because I loved him.

And that tore my heart apart.

Because I loved him .

There was no hiding it from myself anymore. I didn’t know what love was, but this had to be it. I couldn’t imagine any other feeling hurting or blessing me so badly.

“I’ll talk to him,” I said to myself, willing it to be true. “Next time I see him, I’ll talk to him.”

In the mean time, I’d plan what on earth I intended to say. The waves of the sea were almost soothing, but they couldn’t stop the chaos crashing in my head or the worry that, to him, I’d been a conquest.

“Everly?” a voice called over the crashing waves.

I froze, mid-bite of my strawberry.

Eyes on the beautiful, clear sky above me, I swore because of course some higher being heard what I said aloud and decided to push that business long before I was ready.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I snapped as Luca jogged over in nothing but gym shorts.

He should be wearing his Crocs. The sand was blisteringly hot.

He frowned, hands on his hips. “Why are you here?”

“Livie said I could stay here instead of the hotel.”

He sighed, shaking his head. “Nix said the same to me. Looks like we’ve been tricked.”

“Livie wouldn’t—”

“But Nix would.”

I nodded. Yep, that was more than likely.

“Well, that means there’s a hotel room for you to go to,” I told him, wiping some sand off my beach towel.

“Hey, I’ve been here for a day already. When did you get here?”

“Two hours ago.”

“If you want me to go, I will. But I can play friendly.”

“Play?” I snapped, my voice as aggressive as the physical blow of his words. “Are we not friends anymore?”

He blinked and slid his hands from his hips. His shoulders relaxed. “I don’t know,” he said. “Are we?”

My nostrils flared. “Get on the bloody towel before you burn your feet off.”

He did so and sat beside me, stealing a strawberry from my bowl.

In the silence that followed, I lay back down and ate another two fruits, picking up my Kindle and not reading a single word.

The awkward tension filled the length of the beach.

When the quiet prolonged and my body locked up, I couldn’t find the words, which had never happened between us.

“You didn’t come to see me after last week’s race,” he said, looking out at the sea.

His voice didn’t break, but there was a false casualness in it. That meant a lot to him.

My swallow was audible.

“I… I went home,” I said.

The smile on his face was soft and sad. “You could have congratulated me.” He looked at me finally and shrugged. “Even if I cheated.”

“You did not cheat,” I said quickly, sitting up, ready to shove some confidence into that silly, handsome head of his. “You played the game. Nix was right.”

He sighed deeply, picking the leaves off the stem of the fruit he’d eaten. “It’s tainted, though. I wouldn’t have won otherwise.”

I settled on my heels and threw the stem out of his hand and onto the sand. “You need some confidence drilled into your head, Luca.”

Another shrug and he looked to the ground at what I’d snatched from him.

“My family are finally proud of me, though,” he said. “And it’s nice to live close to them again. But…”

His sentence drifted off into the chorus of waves and I reached to touch his hand.

“But?”

“I missed you,” he said. “I’m not in the habit of confrontation, nor do I like avoiding things that make me happy.”

“I’m a thing?”

He chuckled and took my hand in his. “That’s what you took from that? Our relationship makes me happy. And if you regret what happened—”

“I missed you too,” I cut him off before he could tell me how he regretted it as well. “But I guess neither of us missed each other enough to reach out.”

His head jerked back an inch. “Right.”

Sand kicked back onto the towel as he stood and I tried to swat it away, Kindle still in my other hand.

He left footprints as he walked back to the house, his feet sinking into the sand with every step.

My heart thundered and I blinked away the tears before they really manifested.

“I’ll go to the hotel,” he called over his shoulder.

“Okay.”

In my peripheral vision, I saw him stop, arms flailing and then hitting his sides. “Everly, what the fuck? What is happening?”

It was my turn to shrug.

He stormed over with quick steps. I doubted it was in a hurry to see me, probably just the burning sand.

“Why are we like this?” he asked, face twisted in confusion. “Is this because of… because I fucked up? I am so sorry, Everly. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not… it’s not that.” Over the break, I’d thought about it. I knew it came from a place of… care.

“I wanted to reach out. I wanted to see you. I just worried you wanted space after… after I fucked up. We haven’t been right since the last race when… you left so fast.”

“And then, over the break, there was no need to see each other.”

His frown and blink made him look like a startled, unsure puppy. “There was. There was a need to see each other. I wanted to. I missed you.”

I picked up the leaves he’d strewn over the towel. “But you did nothing about it.”

“Neither did you!”

I scoffed. I knew it was ridiculous, but I had to protect my heart.

“I think the date for our diary has come,” I said, voice firm, but I could feel the tremor beneath it. “I don’t want to play pretend anymore.”

Because it hurts too much.

“What?” he whispered, the disbelief in his voice cutting me deeper than I thought possible. “You don’t want to… Everly—”

“You’ve got your PI,” I said, drawing squiggles in the sand to not look at him. “We’ve been pretty awful detectives. You don’t need me.”