Page 8

8

LIFE’S A BEACH

SHILOH

“ S o you…”

“Yeah.”

“Then he…”

“Yep.”

“And you saw…”

“Mm-hm.”

Laughter erupts from Aeris’ mouth as she shakes her head, a few ringlets tumbling free from her messy bun. She carves out two identical holes in the sand for her boobs—which make mine look like mosquito bites in comparison—and she wiggles into place to assume a good suntanning position.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. That’s just…that might be even worse than my first date with Hayes,” she says, handing off a bottle of sunscreen to Lila.

In hindsight, I can’t even be mad at her for laughing. Everything was my fault. And after I fought the fissure of guilt splitting open inside me, I tried to downplay the whole fiasco for Fulton’s sake, but I think me trying to relate to his… bodily functions …dampened his mood. He Great Wall of China-ed me! All ni ght. He probably would’ve slept on the couch if I hadn’t insisted that we share the bed.

We haven’t really spoken much at all today. Sure, we’ve engaged in some small talk here and there, but it’s obvious he still feels humiliated. I wish he could see that it doesn’t matter to me. I wish he knew how incredible that kiss was. It was like a replenishing breath of life, a memory so profound that it’s somehow written itself into the double helix of my DNA.

For the first time in years, I wasn’t thinking about work or my obligations or those pesky little worries in the back of my head; I wasn’t thinking about where to run to next. I wanted to stay still, to relish the moment, to soak up every smile and laugh and look that Fulton tossed in my direction. It’s like he single-handedly sutured the scars of my past with hope, allowing me to finally heal.

But whatever Fulton and I have…it can only be a vacation fling. It can’t exist outside of Cabo, no matter how much I want it to. Because if it takes on a living, breathing, disastrous life form of its own, it’ll dismantle my entire future, and everything I’ve worked so hard to achieve will slip through my fingers before I even know what hit me.

Love’s not in the books for a workaholic like me. Marriage and children all come second to prosperity, because without a financially stable foundation, how else will I be able to sustain a family? I have to be able to take care of myself before I can take care of another person. I have to be able to repay my parents before I can start living my own life.

And I know what you’re thinking—I sound an awful lot like Fulton’s absent, shit-for-brains dad. But I’m not like him.

I’m not.

I rub at the corners of my sleep-crusted eyes, braving a glance over at the attention-garnering throng of hockey players spotlighted by the sun’s glaring rays. Alternating shades of honeysuckle and saffron bounce off the ocean’s glittering surface, and foamy spumes lap at a shell-littered shore in their routine ebb and flow. Packs of loving families and doublets of infatuated couples mill about the beach, raucous laughter competing with the caws of faraway seagulls, the horns of nomadic boats, and the constant crash of well-behaved waves. It’s…well, it’s nothing short of paradise.

“Earth to Shiloh?” Lila’s voice prods, dragging me back to the temperate present where she slathers sunscreen on her best friend’s back.

Even though I’m toasting out here—and soon to be the unfortunate “after” picture of a painful sunburn—the lighting at least covers the embarrassment setting up camp in my cheeks. “Sorry. You were saying?”

“The night of our first date, Hayes kissed me and then basically said it was a giant mistake afterwards,” Aeris continues.

I try to keep my judgment at bay. “He said that?”

“Okay, he didn’t technically say it, but it was implied.”

And here they are, getting married in two weeks.

Lila pauses from her sunscreen application and whispers, “He also screwed her over and broke her trust, but we don’t talk about that part.”

“Lila!” Aeris reprimands, her arm flailing in a half-assed attempt to whack her.

The blonde manages to evade her with minimal effort, and the two of them start bickering with one another while my attention gets carried away by the sea’s incoming tide. Back and forth. Monotonous but mandatory.

My gaze involuntarily drifts to Fulton’s far too delectable, breathtaking form, and I don’t realize I’m ogling his oiled-up muscles until Aeris and Lila both catch my unabashed perving. I didn’t realize that hockey could carve such a physique; I thought all it was good for were black eyes and broken noses. His back looks especially grabbable, a lattice of discipline, dedication, and definition that spans his mile-wide shoulders. Not to mention that the same muscle distribution twines up his arms.

“Fulton’s definitely a looker,” Lila comments, following my line of sight with a knowing half grin. “Way too young for me, but he has this boyish charm about him that I can appreciate.”

“Yeah,” I agree dreamily, watching the way he rubs a hand over his pecs.

He’s laughing at something Gage is saying, and God, does it make basal want ripple through my belly. I can almost taste his searing kiss, and I touch my mouth under the guise of fixing my nonexistent lip gloss. I’d sacrifice all my working eggs for him to tongue-fuck me right here, right now.

“You should go talk to him,” Aeris proposes, and although I appreciate the support, my heart’s one shudder away from crumpling my body into a sad, pathetic accordion. I can’t go up to him when he’s looking like… that …and I’m looking like a preteen stuffed into a Justice one-piece bathing suit.

I frantically glance around for a figurative lifeline, but Faye’s in her hotel room with Eda, Casen and Josie are probably partaking in some bed-breaking activities, and Cali’s waist-deep in the ocean.

“Come on, Shiloh. You guys are going to be sharing a bed for three weeks. Don’t you think you should clear the air?”

My mouth is inconveniently dry. Not only that, but I’m sweating, the overly rich lunch in my stomach is turning, and I have baby hairs popping up around my face like a lion’s mane. I’m also pretty sure that the humidity has thinned the foundation covering the gigantic pimple on my forehead.

It's just Fulton, Shiloh. I’m sure he doesn’t care what you look like. Just go talk to him. What if he thinks you’re purposefully avoiding him because of what happened last night and not because you’re intimidated by literally every aspect of him?

I don’t have much experience navigating a crush, even less so when said crush is a world-famous hockey player who has millions of adoring fans willing to commit heinous crimes just to breathe the same air as him.

It’s like there’s this invisible string pulling me toward him, and against my better judgment, my body moves of its own accord without any self-preservation instincts whatsoever. As I slowly amble over—granting him enough time to see me coming—the world throws me a nasty curveball by sending a child sprinting in front of me at sixty miles per hour. It’s practically attempted murder as someone’s unauthorized kid is about to bowl me over, and I’ve already accepted that I’m going to eat shit in front of Fulton and all his friends. But although I brace myself for impact, I never feel my body slam against the ground.

I hesitantly peek out of one eye to assess the damage, only to find myself safely embraced in Fulton’s arms, the sun imitating a glowing halo above his mop of messy, brown hair. I’m beginning to think he’s a literal angel who’s been sent down from heaven to grant every repressed wish of mine. If this was a cheesy romantic comedy, “(I Just) Died in Your Arms” by Cutting Crew would be playing somewhere in the background.

“Hi,” he says in a gritty purr—the kind that unleashes a kaleidoscope of butterflies in my belly.

His eyes are even more enticing than I remember—melted pools of caramel that foster tiny branches of gold in the innermost rings—and they’re framed by long, thick lashes that have no business being on a man. Up close, I can see he has a constellation of freckles scattered across his cheeks, which are much more prominent now that his skin’s developed a bit of a tan.

“Hi,” I greet breathlessly.

Being this close to Fulton is not good for my sanity or the state of my stupid, ridiculously tight swimsuit. And not tight in a sexy way, but more like tight in an I-haven’t-broken-this-baby-out-since-I-was-twelve-and-still-honing-my-backstroke way .

His lips wrench into a lopsided grin, and if my retinas weren’t temporarily scorched by the sun, his Colgate-white smile would’ve blinded me instead. He also smells really good. There’s an underpinning of saltwater and sweat, but his citrusy, overly clean scent is unmistakable. That’s probably not all from his cologne, either. I bet his natural man musk smells that good all the time.

Oh, this is bad. I should’ve let the kid torpedo take me out.

I don’t think he realizes it, but his fingers tighten around my sides, and he doesn’t rush to prop me upright. The way he’s staring at me right now—like I’m somehow more beautiful than one of nature’s most wondrous creations—has something unnamable gnarling around my heart, akin to the way roses grow thorns to protect an untouched underbelly. It’s constructing this delineation between us, and I hate that I’m so aware of it.

I deserve to be happy, don’t I?

At the expense of your parents’ happiness? They need you. The business is failing. It will fail without you.

But I’m so tired. I’m trying my best.

It’s not good enough.

Even though I don’t want to, I extricate myself from our position anyways, scrambling to a stance as embarrassment rolls down the notches of my spine. “I’m sorry for falling on you,” I mumble, head bowed and eyes downturned.

Fulton— stupid, beautiful, clueless Fulton —hooks his index finger under my chin, promptly lifting it until I obey the sleight of his hand and meet his gaze. “You can fall on me whenever you want.”

Hubba, hubba.

Since we’re both still amateurs when it comes to reading the room, we speak at the same time, and whatever pointless gibberish that was going to fly out of my mouth is swamped beneath Fulton’s “Do you want to go for a walk? ”

I slam my lips shut and nod.

As we branch off from his group of friends, I can hear Aeris and Lila whistling at the two of us from their spot on the beach, and Fulton’s thankfully too swept up in his train of thought to witness them pulling sex faces as they pretend to dry-hump each other. My eyes flick down to my sand-flocked feet, and I watch the deep imprint they leave behind with every step.

He slices through the silence before it even has the chance to marinate. “I wanted to apologize. Again. For last night.”

“No, Ful. It was my fault. I should’ve?—”

He halts in his tracks, and considering he’s got a longer stride than me, I find myself stopping too, just a few inches from him. I think he swallowed too much saltwater today because he grabs my hand and holds it for a no-longer-platonic minute, as if the distance between us has become physically unbearable.

“You were perfect, Shi,” he whispers, his longing stare searching my expression for God knows what, his thumb coming to kiss the mountain range of my knuckles. The eye contact alone is enough to galvanize my anxiety, but his touch has my heart fully ricocheting off my ribs.

How does he always know just what to say?

“I hope you know I don’t think any less of you,” I tell him quietly.

“Because I shit my pants?”

“Yeah.”

He chuckles. “You don’t seem like the type of person to judge someone for something they can’t control.”

I’ve had my fair share of fights with control, so no, I’m not the type of person who’d do something like that.

It looks like Fulton’s lips part a centimeter, but I’m already resuming our aimless stroll and narrowly dodging a gaggle of kids that zoom past us in a colorful blur—who are then followed by equally colorful expletives .

We walk for a few uninterrupted minutes, soothed by the inner and outer workings of the beach—the hardcore surfers paddling out on bodyboards, the lost tourists taking advantage of the numerous shops lining the dock, the surround sound of conversations intercut with murmurs from local wildlife, the heave-ho of breaking waves, the rustle of palm fronds in a salt-steeped breeze. On paper, it should all be overwhelming, but with Fulton, it’s like I can observe the chaos from a safe distance.

I’ve never felt that way with anyone before.

I’ve always been the dictator of my own safety. I got used to only relying on myself because others were too unpredictable. Ace was unpredictable. My parents were unpredictable when they paid my way through college without my knowledge. I’m a control freak. I need to be in control because it’s the only way I can regulate my expectations, as well as my disappointment. I don’t like feeling blindsided. But now Fulton’s knocked my very foolproof way of living off-kilter, and I’m not sure he’ll be able to catch me this time.

“I want a redo,” Fulton says out of nowhere.

Confusion spikes inside me. “What?”

“I want a redo of our first date.”

He does? He’s still interested in me…even after I poisoned him?

I trap my bottom lip between my teeth in contemplation, and I’m not sure how Fulton can understand me so well already, but he ghosts the back of his hand over the curve of my face, coaxing me to lean into his touch.

“You’re thinking too hard. I want this, okay? I want you . And before you tell me I’m being an idiot, no, you didn’t try to kill me, and no, I didn’t think the entire night was a disaster,” he reassures me, security blanketing me in a warmth unrivaled by the sun itself—a warmth that seems to cauterize my raw fears.

“I just thought…”

Fulton drops his hand and shuffles the tiniest bit closer to me, a whimper concentrated in the pit of his chest. “Please, Shi. Don’t make me beg.”

Swoon. That nickname does things to me…unladylike things.

He’s so close to me that I can practically feel the heat radiating off his body, and the implication of another closed-door date with Fulton hardens the peaks of my nipples underneath my one-piece. “I would love a redo,” I acquiesce, watching—or more like torturing myself—as his tongue sweeps the seam of his perfect, plump lips.

“That’s amazing, because I really don’t think I could handle getting rejected by you when you look like that.”

“Like what?”

He groans, then pulls me in by my waist so I’m flush against his chest. “Like you’re the most beautiful girl who’s ever graced this planet.”

Emboldened by his flattery, I can’t help but snort. “I think you may be exaggerating.”

“Not even a little bit,” he declares, tiptoeing his fingers up the curves of my sides, his woodsmoke voice burning a hole of anticipation straight through my belly.

I want to kiss him so badly right now. I need to kiss him. And judging by the cut of his jaw, the straining of his arms, and the desperation entrenched in his darkening eyes, he needs his very own pick-me-up. He’s limned in a striation of warm hues beneath a marbled sky, beads of sweat shimmering over the planes of his muscles, his impeccable bone structure contoured by sun-cast shadows.

“I know I’m not normally good at communicating my feelings, but with you, I don’t have that problem at all. You bring out this side of me that I never even knew existed before. When I’m around you, it feels like I’m experiencing life for the very first time again. I’m not ready to give that up yet,” he explains.

My traitorous eyes stall on his lips as hellfire blusters through my veins, and I’m no longer thinking about the logistics of my loveless future. No, I’m thinking about right here, right now, and selfishly, what I want for a change.

“I know exactly what you mean. When we kissed, I felt like I could finally catch my breath. Nothing else mattered in the moment except you. And my brain’s pretty much in a constant state of anxiety, so it’s rare when the world goes quiet.”

“Do you need to catch your breath again?” he asks, ducking his head down so my face is only a few inches from his mouth—from finally being able to breathe clean, fresh air unsullied by a thick swath of smog.

I rise to my tiptoes, teasing him with the humble beginnings of a kiss. “Yeah, I think I do.”