Page 19 of Hate Wrecked

ROWAN

“Follow me.”

I didn’t often allow myself to be alone with Riley Williams. We had places we could go when we wanted to spend time together without prying eyes or eavesdropping ears. The laundry room with the door open. The pool. The cliffside where we screamed into the sky when life became too much.

And the garden, where I followed her. Follow me.

It was a fine line, and I was towing it. I knew that. And I knew she was off-limits. Taken…kind of. Barry Waterstone liked to get around, and Riley wasn’t the only one who warmed his bed.

I wanted to tell Riley that, but I didn’t know how to say it in a way that didn’t scream jealousy. Because it wasn’t just that. It was the intense need inside of me to take care of her. I couldn’t turn it off. I needed to make sure she was okay. Always.

Riley sat next to me on the bench in the garden, her head on my shoulder. It was new, and the way she touched me made me wonder where her feelings were. She was pushing boundaries, too.

“I think I'm going to Italy with my dad this summer. He’s shooting a movie there, and I can’t stand being around my mom right now.”

“That might be good,” I said, running my palms over my jeans. It would be good for her to get away from Barry. That’s what I was thinking, but I wouldn’t say it.

“Yeah. I need a change of scenery. I’ll miss this, though,” she said, leaning her head back so I could see her eyes.

I shifted, and her head fell into my lap.

It was intimate, not what friends did, and I resisted the urge to brush the dark hair from her eyes.

She fluttered her eyelashes and smiled at me. “Won’t you?”

I cocked my head, already forgetting what she had said.

“Won’t you miss this?” she asked again.

“Yes. I’ll miss you,” I ruffled her hair like she was a little sister. Because that's what I needed to do at that moment. I also needed her to move her head before I got hard, and she noticed.

Instead, she turned, pressing her face into my stomach.

“What are you doing?” I laughed.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled as she wrapped her arms around my waist. Riley was touch.

She needed touch. I could see it in how she and her sisters interacted.

They had touchy feelings, touchy love. But the rift between their mother and them meant they weren’t getting that at the house Desi shared with Asa.

They were getting air kisses, and I missed you girls before being ignored by the shiny object in the room. Their stepfather.

I let my palm rest on Riley’s head and stroked her hair. It was long and soft, shiny in the fading dusk light. And when she sighed, it made me feel like she was content there, that I could make her happy in some way.

Though I thought it was painfully obvious, I couldn't tell her how I really felt.

“Have you ever been to Italy?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No. I’d love to go one day, though. I’d love to travel to a lot of places.”

“Like where?”

I racked my mind, and it landed on the book on my nightstand at home. Maybe that's what sealed our fate. “Elderslie Atoll.”

“Where is that?”

“The Pacific.”

“Why there? I’ve never heard of it.”

“You’ll have to ask your parents about it. I bet they’ve heard of it. I’m reading a novel about the double murder in the 70s.”

“And you want to go there because there was a murder there?” she asked.

I looked down at Riley, at her green eyes, and quickly looked away before my gaze could go to her lips. “It’s more than that. They say the island is cursed. I just wonder…”

“If you're immune?” she edged.

I laughed. “No.” But maybe I was lying to myself then. Perhaps I wanted to tempt fate. I took the same job my father had to see if I was immune to his mistakes. If it was the man and not the magic. Maybe I wanted to go to the island for the same reason.

“You couldn't pay me to step foot on a cursed island,” Riley declared.

“Well, it’s probably a dream. I don’t know when I would ever get the time off or have the funds to fly to Hawaii for that trip.”

Riley sat up, dangerously close to me. “Please tell me my stepfather is paying you well.”

I nodded. “Yes, I just…my mother was frugal. She rarely took time off or prioritized stuff like vacations and travel. Maybe it's hard to shake.”

Riley groaned, laying back down in my lap. “And here I am talking about taking off to Italy. You must think I’m insufferable.”

She was begging for a compliment. And I fell right into it. “No. I definitely do not.”

Riley reached up and grabbed the chain that hung from my neck. The wedding ring dangling from it was worn. “Why do you keep this?”

I looked down at her, my eyes transfixed on her long fingers as she moved the ring around. “I don’t know. Someone had to. My mother couldn’t bear to look at it.”

“Rightfully so,” Riley replied.

“Maybe it brings me comfort.”

“It ended. I wouldn’t want anything to do with my parents’ wedding rings,” Riley grumbled.

“I don’t blame you. And maybe I’ll put it in a drawer one day. But right now, it makes me think of home. And that's not bad in a city like this.”

Behind us, we heard a door slam. Riley scooted off my lap and sat on her side of the bench. I glanced over my shoulder, seeing her mother and stepfather by the pool talking. They didn’t look toward us, often forgetting the garden existed.

Often forgetting anyone existed when they were together.

“They don’t care that we’re friends,” Riley whispered, her eyes also over her shoulder, watching them. “They don’t care what I do.”

“They would probably care what I do.”

“Lucky,” Riley whispered, staring back into the ocean before us. “I could probably disappear into the ocean, and it would take them months to even notice.”