Page 34

Chapter thirty-one

Finn

I left Foxx’s apartment a few days ago, and even though CLU isn’t officially back to business yet, OCC is.

So, I may have to share him tonight with a classroom full of people, while I pretend that I don’t know what he looks like naked.

But I’ll take it. It’s a form of torture I had no idea could also become an addiction.

He’s up there in a slate-blue shirt and a navy waistcoat today, sleeves rolled just enough to show the veined curve of his forearms. And he knows exactly what that does to me.

He’s doing it on purpose, I’m positive, because the slacks hug his legs perfectly.

Every color he’s wearing somehow makes his skin look warmer, his hair darker.

It’s honestly a miracle anyone’s paying attention with a teacher who looks like that .

“Mr. James, do you know the answer?”

I jerk upright in my seat, yanking my gaze away from where it was lingering. Lusty, traitorous eyes. Focus, Finn.

“Sorry, could you repeat the question, Professor?”

One of his eyebrows arches knowingly. He turns to gesture at the board behind him, which just makes me zero in on his ass.

What a beautiful ass it is, too.

I somehow tear my eyes away to read the equation on the board and briefly remember something he said earlier in the lecture before I got distracted. “Uh, is the answer x equals negative two?”

He smirks. “Correct. Good to see you are paying attention.”

The rest of the class goes off without me ogling Foxx too much, and I actually manage to pass the pop quiz test. Once everyone has left, I push myself to my feet, move to the door, flick the lock, and close the distance between us, practically jumping him.

His hands immediately frame my face as he devours me. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to focus when you’re in the front row?” he growls through kisses. “I shouldn’t be this distracted.”

“Do you have any idea how difficult it is to pay attention when you have an ass like that?”

He chuckles, then pulls back to rest his forehead against mine. My pulse thrashes in my throat, my chest, my everywhere, desperate for another touch from him. “So, I’ve been thinking…” he starts.

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Remember when I said I’d take you to the coast? Let’s go to this weekend,” he says, surprising me. I fall back a little to see his face, his swollen lips shining with temptation, but I’m taken aback by the reality of being near the ocean again.

“It won’t be surfing weather,” I mutter on instinct, even though my mind feels like its scrambling. “It’s January and freezing.”

“I know,” he says, pecking the side of my mouth. “I just thought it would be good to go there. You seemed to like the idea when Eugene brought it up. Plus, it means we can relax somewhere away from campus.”

Panic seizes my chest like a vise, and I cough to clear my throat.

I blink at him, unsure what to say because I did like the idea, I do, it’s just…

what if I lose it? “I haven’t…” I trail off, my thoughts careening somewhere I don’t want them to go.

A hot sweat breaks out beneath my skin, and I think maybe I’ve stopped breathing.

Shit, I’m about to start naming colors when his thumb brushes the edge of my jaw, bringing me back to him.

“You don’t have to surf,” he says, reading me too well. “I wasn’t even thinking about that.”

“No, I know,” I say quickly and unconvincingly, my fingers fidgeting with the edge of his waistcoat.

“It’s just… It’s been a while.” I inhale deeply, like that might steady the spinning in my chest. It does a little, but I still feel like a brisk wind might shove me over the internal cliff I’m dangling from.

He nods. “Okay. So maybe we go anyway. Just you and me. Walk around, eat something fried and greasy, maybe make out in a parking lot like teenagers.”

A laugh breaks free, rough around the edges, tinged with something else I can’t stop. I realize that my eyes feel a little watery, but I focus on him instead. “You trying to seduce me with fried food and awkward car sex?”

“Absolutely.” He grins, and it’s all assurance and sweetness. “Is it working?”

I hesitate. Not because I don’t want to go. I want to go places with him. But the idea of being near the water again... Hearing the waves crash like they did that day… I’m not sure what it’ll do to me. If I’ll feel grounded again. Or if it’ll splinter me wide open.

“I’ll think about it,” I say, quieter this time.

His fingers curl gently around mine. “That’s all I’m asking.”

***

Water swirls around me, endless and cold. I kick harder, but it’s like swimming through cement. The blue deepens into black. My chest aches. Air escapes in silver bubbles, rising but leaving me behind. The pressure builds. My body screams. Then—

I wake up, gasping, lungs dragging in air until it burns. My hand flies to my chest, where my heart ferociously kicks against it. I’m alive. I’m safe.

“Shit,” I hiss, running my hand through my damp hair. My body feels heavy, wrung out. Pushing myself upright, I lean back against the cool wood of the headboard, sweat coating my skin. It’s been a while since a nightmare felt that vivid.

Dr. Hale said this might happen. I went home yesterday and thought about going to the beach, and I hated the idea that fear is stopping me still.

But the issue is, my brain may react to a known trigger.

She reminded me in our session this afternoon that my nightmares are just memories trying to work themselves out.

That facing the water, in small steps, is how I start to take back things I’ve lost.

The edges of the dream still cling to me as I stand, my legs shaky beneath me, my limbs heavy like they’ve absorbed the weight of the ocean.

I cross the room to my closet, not even sure what I’m doing until I’m pulling the old duffel out from the back.

The one I shoved in there months ago without even looking.

I’d come home and buried it like that would keep everything inside it forgotten.

But every time I’ve pulled out clothes, I see it and choose to ignore it.

I lower it to the floor and kneel in front of it, pulling back the zipper.

The smell hits me first—salt and wax and that faint, almost metallic scent of wet neoprene that clings to the material even when it’s dry. I hesitate, my hands hovering over the opening, then take a deep breath and push the flap back.

Everything’s still here. My old wetsuit, balled up instead of folded. A tangled leash. A couple of fin keys, a crushed tube of zinc. My favorite tie-dye rash guard. And at the bottom, tucked between a towel I haven’t used since Sydney, is a bar of wax that isn’t mine.

My body lags as I reach down to pick it up. The edges are worn down, label peeling at the corners, and I know exactly who this belongs to.

Jared had lent it to me the morning of our last heat, tossing it my way with that stupid grin he always wore when he was riding a good streak. And he was always riding a good streak; the guy was insanely talented.

“Take the good luck bar,” he said, already half into his wetsuit, laser focused on the water. “I win every time I use it.”

I remember laughing. Rolling my eyes. But I took it.

I sit back on my heels and hold it in both hands, letting the rolling emotions approach me. The panic creeps in, like it always does. The pressure in my chest. That sharp little twist of guilt that says if I’d gotten to him faster, if I’d been watching more closely, if I’d—

I close my eyes.

Breathe.

In through my nose. Out slow. My fingers grip the wax to ground me.

Dr. Hale always tells me that if I can, then I should try to stay in the moment. That memories are allowed to show up. That I don’t have to shove them away to survive them.

So I don’t.

I let it come. The image of Jared on the beach, squinting into the sun, slathering zinc across his nose with no finesse whatsoever.

The way he laughed when he ran away from me toward the water.

The glint of pure excitement he’d get in his eyes when it was our turn to paddle out.

There was nothing more incredible than watching him catch a wave.

He moved effortlessly with the water, almost making it yield to him.

I exhale, deep and slow, feeling that ache bloom behind my ribs, but not letting it drown me this time.

It’s strange how something can hurt and heal at the same time. How a little bar of wax can punch a hole in your ribs and fill it in the same breath. I run my thumb along the edge of the wax as tears prick my eyes. “I miss you, dude,” I whisper. My voice cracks, but I say it anyway.

Streaks of tears stain my face as I sit in the darkness of my bedroom, and I just exist in this feeling, the loss, the hurt, and it’s the first time I’ve been able to do this alone.

Grief isn’t something you fix. It’s something you carry, and sometimes, it carries you.

Right now, as I set the wax on my nightstand, I don’t feel okay, but I feel steady.

And when I think about Jared, for once, I don’t feel like I’m breaking. I just feel close to him.