Page 15 of Hearts Adrift (A Texas Beach Town Romance #4)

I jerk awake.

Eyes fly open.

A strange living room. TV on the wall reflecting a ray of sunlight straight into my eyes from the window. Coffee table in front of me with an empty bag of hot Cheetos.

I sit up, confused, and find a blanket on top of me. Still blinking sleep out of my eyes, I clutch the blanket and look around me.

Oh. Did I …

Did I seriously fall asleep in the bungalow?

The house is quiet. I rise to my feet, still clutching the blanket, and slowly move through the room.

River isn’t in the kitchen. The containers of take-out I brought from the Easy Breezy are stacked neatly by the sink appearing cleaned, even though they’re totally disposable.

I go to the hall next and check the larger bedroom.

He’s in bed on his side, facing away, sleeping on top of the sheets. Barely audible, all I hear are his soft inhales and exhales. Watching him like that, seeing him so peaceful, I find myself swept away a bit by the idea.

Peace is a precious thing I don’t think either of us have enjoyed for a while.

Then I remember he saw my erection.

And massaged me into a coma on that damned couch.

How could I let myself fall asleep like that? Either I really must’ve been more exhausted from everything going on lately than I realized, or River did pick up a trick or two from his time in Thailand.

I decide to leave a note. I snatch Brooke’s letter out of the welcome basket—which River left out on the coffee table—and think about what I might say. Thank you for the massage? Sorry for conking out? Your eyes are beautiful, too? Every idea I come up with is lamer than the last.

So I decide not to write anything at all.

I put the note back where I found it, leave the pen next to the basket, and see myself out through the back door.

A quick check of my phone tells me it’s barely seven o’clock as the rush and pull of waves fills my ears and the sea air blasts against my face.

I make my way around the corner of the bungalow—swinging bench is having a lovely morning as it lets the wind do with it what it wishes—and head back to my car on the curb.

I stop for a second, sensing something, and peer over my shoulder. Just the nearest bungalow on the corner of the intersection, appearing silent and still. And the stop sign at that intersection creaking in the wind. And a plastic bag in the air, fluttering around like it dreams of being a seagull.

No one’s there.

I’m probably becoming as paranoid as River.

I get in my car and go.

The second I’m home, I head straight for the shower—narrowly avoiding Heather in the kitchen making herself a coffee—and wash away the night. When the water hits my body, I’m reminded instantly of the unparalleled pleasure of digging fingers, crotch in my face, and my own moans.

And I’m stunned that that isn’t describing sex.

We didn’t have sex .

We had massage .

Massage on the couch. Massage all over my shoulders, all over my face, all over my aching, worn-out soul.

And now I’m hard again. Hard in the shower. Hard as I feel River’s fingers all over me—in more places than just my shoulders. He’s become a goddamned obsession. Every thought I have begins and ends with his handsome smirk.

Brooke told me once that I fall fast and I fall hard.

For all my alleged strength, it’s such a huge hole in my armor that it leaves me vulnerable to situations like this.

And while I’m already vulnerable, reeling from Theo.

It’s a dangerous cocktail I’m downing by the mouthful.

Now I’m thinking about cocks in that cocktail.

Mouthful of cock.

Cocktail.

Massage.

River’s smirk. His fingers taking control. Taking over.

Taking me in every way there is to take me.

I don’t even realize I’m jerking off until I’m almost there, one hand on my dick, the other teasing and twisting my nipple—another weakness of mine, gets me there every time—and now it’s my own fault I can’t contain the vocal sighing issuing from my body right now in the rising steam of my early morning shower.

Then release.

Explosion.

All over the shower wall.

Every ounce of frustration that built up last night in the presence of that intense, beautiful man.

I’m literally out of breath as I collect myself after my orgasm, the hiss of the shower filling my ears, still gripping my dick as it pulses in the aftershocks of our time together.

Not often you take a shower and feel dirtier after.

The worst part is, I’m still horny.

I’m still obsessed.

I’m afraid I’m never gonna get him out of my mind.

I hole up in my bedroom in just a towel, my bed right against the window, sunlight warming one half of my body as I watch the video again, this time on my own phone.

I’m glued to the screen, over and over while the video repeats, and I pay attention with the full story in mind.

River’s side of it. The video is annoyingly shaky considering it’s being held by a presumably stable hand.

And it focuses more on River and barely captures the director in it except for the last few seconds.

I keep hearing the rush of gasps at the end, like no one saw the punch coming, like it was the most offensive thing they’d witnessed.

Scandal , their gasps say. Shock and horror , their gasps say.

What an evil thing to do . What an unhinged actor . What an atrocity …

I can’t help but feel like there’s something off about it.

Something … borderline artificial.

Manipulated.

Could this video have been edited?

Now I’ve got a new thing to obsess about as I lie back on my bed, phone held over my face, as I keep examining the video, pulling it apart frame by frame. Who’s holding the phone? Who is it that captured this altercation? Could it be someone sympathetic to the director?

Someone hired by the director?

Could this scene, in its own way, be yet another thing that this director … directed?

I turn the volume way up, listening for anything else.

It doesn’t help, so I hop off the bed, grab my earbuds from atop a pile of laundry, then curl into a chair and listen again at top volume, squinting, desperate to hear something that no one else has paid attention to, something that’s evaded the millions who’ve watched this video.

Try as I might, I’m certainly no Sherlock Holmes—to use River’s reference—and can’t ascertain anything useful past just a hunch that something isn’t right.

Strangely, this was the same gut feeling I had when I first saw the video on Chase’s phone last night long before I even talked to River and got the full story.

But how is River going to get out from under this?

What are his “industry professionals” doing for him?

Why did he run away from it all?

I’m still turning it over in my mind when I find Brooke at the Fair later in the day.

She’s still setting up the inside of her kissing booth.

I decide to both check in with my sister and distract myself.

“Not sure about his,” I say after I approach the window, startling her.

“Should we just cut to the chase and call it our mononucleosis booth?”

Brooke snorts at me and rolls her eyes. “If you’re not going to support my dream, you can just sashay away.”

“Your dream is to spread disease? How ambitious.”

“To spread love .” She stops in the middle of hanging a rainbow banner across the back and turns. “Keep sassing me and I’ll volunteer you to spend a whole day in this box of love .”

“Think I may have you a volunteer already. Chase.”

“Chase? You kidding?” She laughs. “He’ll get so much business, either the booth alone will break our fire codes or his lips will fall off by noon.”

“Sounds like all the more reason to utilize him. We can always use the …” I hear Dad’s worried words. I shut them out “… extra money. Income’s income, right?”

“Hey, where were you last night?”

Last night.

Not the first thing I thought she’d bring up.

My face makes a face—the faciest face a face has ever made. “Huh?”

“You weren’t home.”

The thing is, I can bullshit Heather all day and night. I can bullshit my dad. But Brooke reads me like every single thought I have prints itself in bold ink across my face.

“Oh my gosh! ” She stops her work entirely. “You met someone? Already? Oh, it was just a hookup? Was he hot? Wait, at the club? I thought you swore off clubbing!”

She’s going a mile a minute, reading every shift in my face. I swear it’s a superpower. “I didn’t do anyone. Uh … any thing ,” I quickly correct myself. “Didn’t do any thing .”

“So it wasn’t clubbing? Well, if you didn’t shake it at El Amado, what’d you do? I waited up all night! We still haven’t watched that movie. I’ve waited for months …”

“We’ll have our movie night, I swear.”

“Was it the Tylers? Did you stay up with Kent too late and crash on his couch again? No, that isn’t possible, not since Jonah happened. Also, Eden is a handful on a good day. You didn’t crash at Adrian’s either. Wait … you just said … Oh, did you crash with?—No! You and Chase ??”

“I didn’t stay at—” Actually, that isn’t the worst alibi. “I mean … yeah, I hung out with Chase at the Easy. Until he got off. And we talked a lot. It went pretty late.”

“More than just ‘pretty late’! You never came home.” She draws so close to me, I can smell her cotton candy lip gloss. “Tell me … are you and Chase … a thing? A secret little hot thing? Are you seriously secretly rebounding with Dreamwood’s beach town island babe? Tell me. Please .”

She won’t stop until I give her an answer. And I can’t give her the real answer. I can’t tell her I crashed after our high-profile, fugitive, celebrity bungalow guest massaged my back and gave me the world’s worst case of blue balls that I quickly eradicated in the shower this morning.

What else can I tell her? I swallow. I don’t feel good about this. But … “Please don’t tell anyone,” I squeak.

The next ten excruciating seconds are spent watching Brooke make that squirmy, over-the-top groan of delight as she wriggles her body and dances all over the interior of her mononucleosis booth like she just struck gold.

She stops abruptly. “I promise I won’t tell.”

“Not even Chase,” I go on, covering my tracks. “If he finds out I told anyone, I’m done for. I’ll be … super sad. Even sadder than I am right now about the Theo thing.”

“Yeah, you look super broken up about Theo still,” she agrees, voice marinated in sarcasm.

“No one,” I insist again, committing to my role of the desperate spurned ex with a secret lover who is neither the person she thinks nor actual lover. Now who’s the actor?

No sooner does the thought run through my head that I catch sight of him again—across the way, near the entrance to the Parrot, the guy in the leather jacket and shades. He peers over a shoulder at me, then slips right into the Parrot.

I am not crazy. That has to be River, right?

What the hell is he doing here? Getting a bite to eat? In public? Is he fucking nuts?

“Finn, Finn …” sings my sister, smacking my ass with such dedication that I jump as she passes by on her way out of the booth. “I didn’t know you had it in you to be such a bad boy, sneaking around town. I think I like this side of you—late-night Finn, sassy Finn, salacious Finn …”

“I’m none of those,” I say distractedly. “I gotta go.”

“But I was the one going,” complains Brooke. “ I was the one making the cool exit.”

I’ve already left her side, heading across the way to the Parrot—the entrance of which is an enormous Parrot beak.

Inside, our guests are welcomed (or assaulted) by a bright, tropical-bird color scheme mixed with vague pirate décor and a plastic palm tree against which children can measure their height before boarding the Booty Bridge, a somewhat tame rollercoaster next- door that is our most recent (and most expensive) addition as of this summer.

I didn’t vote on the name, but it kept making Brooke giggle, so my dad and his little committee of investors went with it.

The long, wooden, picnic-style tables are mostly empty today.

There’s no sign of him. I move slowly down each of the aisles, scanning the room.

There’s a family enjoying an afternoon lunch here.

A couple of lovebirds feeding each other fries there.

A group of skaters thumbing through their phones, looking bored—one of them is Kent and Adrian’s younger brother Skipper, I just realized.

Two workers at the counter in their pirate uniforms are talking and cracking up— an act Heather wouldn’t stand for, were she here .

No sign of River.

Or rather, the guy I thought was him.

I’m just about to accept that I hallucinated Mr. Leather Jacket Guy when my arm’s yanked from behind, whipping me through the back door to outside behind the building.

River’s face appears in front of mine, whipping off his shades. “You’ve gotta help me,” he breathes, frantic.