“Yeah, but you have to keep it clean,” Beckett says.
“What?”
“Your wound.” Beckett shakes his head. “Weren’t you listening to what the doctor said?”
I giggle.
Beckett gives me a weird look. “Are you sure they didn’t give you any painkillers?”
“I’m sure. It’s just funny, you being the responsible one.”
“Oh, yeah? Why is that funny?” He reaches behind him and grabs a lime-green pillow that’s sitting on the chaise and puts it behind his head. He leans back so he’s reclining in the chair, and I turn onto my side so that I’m facing him.
“I don’t know. You just don’t seem like the responsible type.”
“How would you know what type I am?”
“Well, let’s see. You ride a motorcycle, you kissed me when you knew I had a boyfriend, and now you’re making me hang out with you on the beach when it’s definitely closed.” I tick off his infractions on my fingers.
“Fair enough.” He leans his body back even more and stretches his arm out behind him. The top of his T-shirt sneaks up just a little bit, revealing a smooth strip of tanned skin that makes me feel woozy. I quickly avert my eyes. “But I’m responsible in the way it counts.”
“Yeah, like what?”
“Like I’m doing a pretty good job taking care of you, aren’t I?”
“Let’s get through the night first,” I say. “And then I’ll tell you.”
“Why, you think I’m going to screw it up?”
I don’t say anything, just give him a smile. He shakes his head. “Ah, ye of little faith.”
We sit there listening to the waves crash up against the shore. A weird feeling of peace washes over me. Which makes no sense—by all accounts, this should be the worst night of my life. I cut my leg open after smashing my phone in a fit of rage. My boyfriend dumped me in an emergency room after finding out that I cheated on him. And now I’m sitting here by the ocean with the only person who seems to care about me, and he’s dangerous and bad for me and I can’t stop thinking about his abs.
But there’s a certain calmness that comes from hitting rock bottom. A certain kind of security in the fact that things can’t get any worse. A lot of times the anticipation of bad things happening is worse than the bad things actually happening. And right now everything bad’s already happened. So when you think about it, things have to get better. Right?
“So what’s the deal with that email?” Beckett asks.
“I told you, it was something I sent to myself when I was fourteen.”
“And you told yourself you wanted to learn to trust?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you say you needed to learn to trust?”
I shrug. “Probably because my parents weren’t really speaking to each other. And so I felt like everything was spinning out of control. I was fourteen, I had to write something. Quinn and Aven were doing it, so I went along with it, too.”
“Ah.” I don’t like the way he’s saying “Ah.” He’s saying it like there’s more to the story, like the thought of me writing that down just because my friends were doing it doesn’t make any sense. Like I have to have some deeper thought inside me, some deeper reason for writing that.
“I don’t have trust issues,” I say.
“I didn’t say you did.”
“I didn’t say you said I did.”
He laughs, then turns over and scoots himself down so that he’s lying next to me.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.” I fall into his eyes all over again. I have a flashback to him kissing me on the beach, the way his mouth felt against mine, the way the sun brushed against my skin, his hands on my hips, his body pushed against my chest.
He reaches up and pushes my hair back from my face, then trails his fingers all the way through my hair and down to my neck. He leaves his hand there, massaging my skin gently.
His touch sends electricity through my body.
“Lyla,” he murmurs.
I love the way he says my name. He makes it sound exotic and sexy and feminine. I wonder if he says Katie’s name like that, but I don’t care. I don’t care what he’s done or who he’s been with or how bad he is for me. All I know is that I want to be here right now, with him, and I want him to kiss me so bad I might jump out of my skin.
But he takes his time. He strokes my hair and massages my neck and runs his fingers over my shoulders and then finally, when I feel like I’m going to explode, he puts his lips on mine. His body presses against me, and there are only two thin layers of clothes between us but it feels like too much. I rub against him and let myself get consumed by the kiss.
It goes on forever.
All night.
The two of us, kissing and looking at each other and talking.
He doesn’t try to take it further, even when I’m so turned on I would have let him do whatever he wanted. Instead, he keeps me at the edge. It’s so hot and sexy, like nothing I’ve ever thought could exist or anything I could imagine.
And finally, right before the sky starts to lighten, I fall asleep in his arms.
FOURTEEN
I’M IN THE WATER. I MUST BE. OR I’M DREAMing that I’m swimming. Either way, there is something wet on my cheek. I push it off.
“Go away,” I mumble.
“No, I will not go away,” an angry voice says.
I open one of my eyes, and the morning sunlight blinds me. There’s a crick in my neck, and the side of my face feels funny. My foot is asleep, and I struggle to sit up. In the next second, it all comes rushing back to me. The club. Cutting my foot. The hospital. Breaking up with Derrick. Beckett. The beach. The kissing. Oh, god, the kissing! My lips suddenly feel swollen and raw.
I look over to where Beckett is lying next to me. He sits up slowly and blinks. He looks adorable—his hair is messy and his clothes are wrinkled and god I want to kiss him again.
“Hello!” the same angry voice says.
I shade my eyes from the sun and look up into Derrick’s face. “So this is where you’ve been,” he says. “I’ve been trying to call you all night.”
“My phone’s broken,” I say. I stand up and almost fall over because of my sleeping foot.
“I thought your phone was still working.” Derrick’s giving me a suspicious look, like he thinks the whole phone thing is a ruse, even though he saw it all smashed up.
“It was, but then it . . . then it stopped working.” It sounds lame, even to me. But then I realize I don’t owe him anything. Yes, I kissed another guy. But he left me in an emergency room with a busted-open leg!
“How’s your leg?” he asks as if he’s reading my mind.
“It’s fine.”
“Good.” Derrick looks at me and then sighs. He glances at Beckett, who’s just sitting there, not saying anything. Beckett picks up a handful of sand and lets it filter through his fingers. I expected that if this moment ever happened—the two of them being in close proximity again—it would be more explosive. I expected yelling and fighting, especially since Derrick just found me out here with Beckett, sleeping together on some random lounge chairs. But it’s not like that. The moment has tension, don’t get me wrong—but it’s more of an uncomfortableness, not the kind of tension that is going to turn into a full-blown fight.
And that’s when it hits me that it’s over. Like, really over. Me and Derrick. My heart jumps into my throat.
“Can we talk?” Derrick asks, his voice softening.
I nod, then turn to Beckett. “I’ll be right back, okay?”
Beckett shrugs. “Sure.”
Derrick and I walk a little ways down the beach. It seems criminal that we’re about to have a serious talk on such a gorgeous day. This kind of day should be reserved for fun talks and happy memories, not breakups. We walk for a while without saying anything, and then finally, Derrick stops and picks up a rock that’s sitting o
n the beach. He throws it into the water, and we watch as it skims over the waves before disappearing.
“Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t happy?” he asks. “We could have . . . I mean, we could have worked on it.”
“I don’t know.” I swallow. Until I got here and met Beckett, I didn’t know I wasn’t happy. But if I’d been completely happy in my relationship with Derrick, then I wouldn’t have been so drawn to Beckett. “I guess I didn’t know I wasn’t happy.”
Derrick nods. He takes in a deep breath through his nose and then purses his lips and moves them to the side, the expression he always makes when he’s thinking hard about something. “I need to tell you something.”
“Okay.” I hold my breath and brace myself.
“Juliana.”
“Yeah?”
“Last night. She came over and we . . . I don’t know, I guess we hooked up.”
I’m about to ask if he slept with her, but I don’t want to know. What does it really matter? He’s not mine anymore, even though it still stings. Who he has sex with is really none of my business. “You guys . . . I mean, did you always like her?”
“I don’t know. I guess we always had a little bit of a thing. I liked her when she was going out with Brock, but then I started seeing you, and . . .” He trails off.
“Is that why you kept stalling last night?”
“What do you mean?”
“You kept stalling. About sleeping with me.”
He shakes his head. “I was afraid to sleep with you. I mean, yeah, it would have been amazing, and I wanted to, don’t get me wrong. It was just, you. I wanted it to be perfect for you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “I guess it was like, our relationship needed to be perfect.”
I nod. I kind of understand what he means. I put all this expectation on him and on us to be perfect. But at the end of the day, perfection doesn’t really exist. So all you’re left with is a shallow, surface-y relationship with no substance whatsoever.
Derrick reaches for my hand and my eyes fill with tears. We stand there like that for a moment, just watching the waves.
“Friends?” he asks finally.
“Of course. Always.” But even as I’m saying the words, it seems almost impossible—being friends with him. How can you turn the boy you thought you were in love with into a friend?
“I really mean it,” Derrick says, like he can sense my skepticism. His eyes are serious, and the way he’s looking at me makes it hard to talk. He was the first boy to ever look at me like that, the first boy to ever make me feel special, the first boy to ever really matter.
“I really mean it, too,” I say honestly.
“And if he hurts you . . .” He lets the threat trail off.
“Oh, we’re not . . . we’re not together.”
“Still.” He leans down and kisses me softly on the cheek. “Take care of yourself, Lyla,” he says.
“You too.”
He wraps his arms around me, and I close my eyes and hold him tight. It’s the last time I’ll feel his body next to mine, and even though I know this is right, that it’s how it’s supposed to be, I don’t want to let him go.
Finally, we pull back.
He gives my hand one more squeeze.
And then he walks away.
I sit down in the sand for a moment, pulling my knees up to my chest. I pick up a rock that’s sitting on the sand and throw it into the water, just like Derrick did. I watch as it falls, then lay my head over my knees, letting my hair fall around my face.
“Good-bye,” I whisper softly.
And then I stand up and go back to find Beckett.
He’s not there.
There’s a little sign hanging on our lounge chair that says RESERVED FOR PAM, and a woman—who I can only assume is Pam—is sitting on it. She has magazines and drinks spread out all around her, and she’s wearing one of those bathing suits with a skirt on the bottom. I glance around, wondering if maybe they kicked Beckett out and he’s waiting for me somewhere else. But I don’t see him.
I check the snack bar. I check the bathrooms. I check the sandbar, just in case he decided to go out there for a walk. I even scan a group of people who are huddled by the shoreline, looking for dolphins. Dolphin watching doesn’t seem like it would be Beckett’s thing, but you never know.
He left.
The words echo through my brain.
He left, he left, he left.
He must have gone back to the hotel, I tell myself. I decide to go to his room and find him.
When I get to the cobblestone walk in front of our hotel, I realize I’m walking way too fast for my injury and the shoes I’m wearing. (Stupid heels from last night. Who even invented heels, anyway? They’re one of those things that mankind would just be better off without. Once you know they exist, they’re so awesome that you’re willing to get a clubfoot or lose a toe just to wear them. But if they hadn’t been invented in the first place, everyone could just wear flats and not even know they were missing out.) I guess it’s my penance for staying out all night in the same outfit I wore to go clubbing.
I look around as I walk, slowing my pace so as not to call too much attention to myself. A man wearing a striped suit walks by, and I wonder if he can tell that I’m coming home from a hookup. Well. Not really. I mean, sleeping on the beach is not really coming home from a hookup. Is it? Am I having a walk of shame? The man gives me a disapproving look and then shakes his head. Oh my god. This is my walk of shame! I’m having a walk of shame! I wonder if it still counts if I’m walking to the room of the guy I hooked up with so I can yell at him. Probably it does.
When I get to the hotel lobby, it’s deserted. Hopefully everyone is out on the beach, enjoying their last day of the warm weather. Because if people from school are around to see what I’m about to do, it’s definitely going to be embarrassing.
When I get to Beckett’s room, I raise my hand to knock, but then I stop. What if Derrick’s in there? What if Derrick came back from the beach and he’s lying on his bed crying over me or something, and then I knock on the door, looking for Beckett? That would be so mean and cruel.
The longer I stand there not doing anything, the more I’m starting to think this is a bad idea. I’m about to turn around and head back to the elevator when I hear it. A girl’s voice, coming from the inside of Beckett’s room.
She’s talking in a low, serious voice, and then I hear her laugh.
Katie.
It’s unmistakable.
It’s the same laugh she did last night in the bathroom, a sarcastic little laugh like she’s made a joke and she’s the only one who thinks it’s funny.
Then I hear another voice. A male voice. A male voice I would know anywhere, because it was whispering sweet nothings into my ear last night. Okay, not sweet nothings. What is a sweet nothing anyway? I guess it’s something sweet that means nothing. In that case, it is definitely applicable.
Although Beckett didn’t really say anything sweet. But he was saying my name. Over and over again until I felt dizzy.
Rage fills my body. I knock on the door.
Everything inside goes silent, like they’ve been caught.
Ha! They have been caught! If he thought he could just leave me on the beach while he snuck up here with Katie, well then, he has another thing coming.
I knock again.
“Who is it?” Katie calls.
I think about lying. But who would I say it was? Besides, they know my voice. But if I tell them it’s me and they don’t answer the door, it would be completely embarrassing. Hmmm. Probably better to just not say anything.
Half a second later, Beckett flings open the door.
“Hi,” he says, looking happy to see me for some reason.
“Well, well, well,” I say. “Look what the cat dragged in.” It makes no sense. Obviously. I mean, I came here. Not the other way around. If anything, I could be talking about myself being dragg
ed in. Which is really humiliating.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he says.
“Oh, it makes perfect sense.” I peer past him and into the room. No sign of Derrick, thank god, but I figured as much. No way Derrick was going to be here while Beckett was with Katie. And if he was, he probably would have texted me to let me know. Because Derrick is nice. Not right for me, but nice.
Katie is sitting on the bed in the corner, a smug look on her face. She’s leaning back with her legs stretched out in front of her. Her feet look small and perfect, and her toes are painted bright pink. I hate her so much.
“Hello, Lyla,” Katie says. “What are you doing here?”
Beckett steps out of the room and shuts the door behind him. “Lyla,” he says. “Listen, she just—”
“Stop,” I say. “Just stop.” I turn around and start walking back to my room. I don’t even want to yell at him anymore. I just want him to be gone. But the stupid bastard starts following me.
“Lyla,” he says, putting his hand on my arm. “Wait. Let me explain.”
I whirl around. “Explain what? How you left me on the beach so you could be with her?”
“She came and found me,” he says. “She asked if she could talk to me, so I decided to bring her back here. It’s not a big deal. I was telling her that—”
“Right,” I say. “And that’s why you brought her to the club last night.”
“What? I didn’t bring her to the club last night. We ran into each other outside. I went to the club because I heard you were there, and I wanted to see you. I ran into her outside, she took my hand, she came in with me.”
“And you couldn’t have told her no?”
He shakes his head like he’s trying to clear his thoughts. “You’re right. I should have. I guess maybe some part of me wanted to make you jealous. But that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I brought her here so I could tell her to leave me alone.” He takes a step toward me, but I move away.
Heat of the Moment Page 18
