Before We Say Goodbye

by Michelle Pennington

  “No way. I just want some silver fox snow and I’m good.”

  But she was relentless. Instead of letting me order, Piper introduced me instead to the tall guy with messy bleached hair, a very square chin, and a lean but nicely muscled chest revealed by his unbuttoned shirt. Piper watched me expectantly after we exchanged names, clearly expecting me to be impressed with this guy.

  Both of them waited for me to make the next move, but at that moment, the Collins’ boat came around from behind one of the dolphin cruises. I smiled at Wyatt. “Yeah, so can I have a medium Silver Fox and a medium with grape and blue raspberry?”

  “Wait,” Piper said. “That’s Tate’s favorite.”

  I nodded back at the boat. “Yep. You want one too? I’m buying.”

  “No. Why are you getting one for Tate though?”

  The moment of truth had arrived. Should I tell her? No. Not a chance. Maybe she could sort of just figure it out. “Because he’s going to be hot and thirsty.” I ignored Piper’s confused expression and turned back to her hunky ice guy. “Hold off on making those for about thirty minutes, okay? I’ll be back for them.”

  Then I walked away.

  Piper followed me of course. It kind of felt like I had a little black rainstorm at my back that was going to strike me with lightning any second.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “You aren’t even a little bit interested in him? He’s so cute.”

  “Yes. For sure. But not really my type.”

  “How can you possibly know that? You didn’t even talk to him.”

  I could have pointed out that his one big flaw was not being her brother, but that would go sideways on me quickly. “He waxes his chest.”

  “That’s a problem?”

  “It can be. I don’t like it when a guy knows how cute he is.” Not precisely true, of course, but she’d believe it was.

  By the time we got over to the boat, Tate was already jumping off the deck to tie it up. “Hey girls,” he called, catching sight of us. “What are you doing down here?”

  “Trying to get a date for this ingrate,” Piper said.

  I shrugged and sat down on a bench to watch him work.

  When the boat was secure, he jumped back on board and attached the little silver ladder to the stern to help their clients get back on dry land without falling into the gross harbor water. It was a group of two older men and three guys about my age. They all looked tired and sunburned, but excited. They must have had a good catch.

  Sure enough, Tate opened the ice well and tossed ten red snapper and six other smaller fish out onto the cement. Other tourists gathered around, taking pictures and murmuring to each other about how they needed to go deep sea fishing. This whole part of the gig was pure advertising for their company.

  Tate’s dad was still up top in the captains’ cabin, so it was up to Tate to take care of the fish. One by one, he skewered them on nails through their heads under the sign with the name of their boat, then stepped aside while the men took pictures of their catch. When they were done with their trophy shots, it was time for Tate to really get to work. He had to clean and fillet the fish and bag them.

  Watching Tate’s supreme mastery and confidence handling the fish and an extremely sharp knife was… really attractive.

  “Eww, gross,” Piper said. “I hate this part!”

  But I wasn’t the only one admiring Tate’s skill. The men were standing behind him, watching in awe and joking that they could do it that fast too. But only people who process fish every day are able to filet nearly twenty big fish in as many minutes.

  Once he had the fish all packaged up in their customer’s ice chest and accepted the wad of cash they gave him as a tip, I went back to get our snow cones. Tate was washing down the dock with a hose as I came over. When he saw me, his whole face lit up. “Is that for me?”

  “Who else, fish man?”

  He looked down at himself and wrinkled his nose. “Yeah. Hold on.”

  He dropped the hose and clambered back on the boat, ducking inside the first deck cabin. While he was gone, his dad came down the ladder. “Hey girls! What are you two doing here?”

  “Just hanging out,” Piper said. “Looks like you had a good catch this morning.”

  Mr. Collins grinned. “Yeah. Could have been better if we hadn’t had bass fishers out there jerking on the poles every time they felt a bite. Tate just about cured them of it by the end though, so maybe next time they’ll be easier to work with. You guys want to take a quick trip out? I have more gas in the tank.”

  “No way,” Piper said. “Kat would probably fall overboard and I’d melt.”

  Tate came out of the cabin then, drying his hands on a paper towel with his shirt off. Mr. Collins motioned to him. “Tate hasn’t so far, and he’s out there every day.”

  Piper wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, well, I’ll leave that to the men in the family while I stay home in the air conditioning.”

  Mr. Collins ruffled her hair affectionately then moved away to talk to the small group of men gathering near his boat.

  Tate jumped from the boat to the dock. “I get better tips though,” he said, picking up the conversation.

  “And more hooks in your flesh,” I added, looking at a new gash on his forearm. He was always injured somehow. I tried to keep my eyes from drifting over Tate’s perfection as I handed his snow cone to him. “You’d better take this before it melts completely.”

  “Man, this is just what I needed,” he said, digging his spoon in. “So, Piper’s trying to hook you up with somebody, huh?”

  “Not because I asked her to.”

  “Who?”

  Piper rolled her eyes. “The snow cone guy.”

  “Wyatt?” He shook his head. “She’d need to gargle with germ-x if she kissed him. That guy has been around, let me tell you.”

  Piper put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “What, like you?”

  He didn’t even look annoyed as he drank the melted slush the snow cone had turned into. “Not at all like me. I have standards.”

  I poked at my snow cone with the straw and sipped it while I watched them fight. It was funny because I knew how much they loved each other, but they fought like cats and dogs. That was probably why Tate and I clashed so much since he considered me an extension of his sister.

  What would I have to do to get Tate to look at me differently?

  “So…” Tate crossed his arms as he turned toward me. “Which is it?”

  “Huh?” I asked, realizing I’d lost track of their argument.

  “Piper says she’s doing this to help you out, but I don’t think you want anything to do with this first kiss mission. So which is it?”

  It struck me as interesting that he even cared.

  This very grown-up, capable, devastating man-version of the boy I’d always crushed on seemed so far out of my reach, even if he was drinking purple sugar water at that moment. What a little girl thing to have done… to get him a snow cone. And that was when I knew what I needed to do—make him see me as a woman.

  Because I was one, right? Or at least, very nearly.

  How would woman-me respond? I shrugged. “I could get a man to kiss me anytime I wanted.”

  Tate’s eyebrow twitched up. “A man?”

  Pretending a coolness I was nowhere close to feeling, I shrugged. “You heard me. You may not like it, but Piper and I are adults now.”

  He crushed his empty Styrofoam cup in his fist. “You’re not yet. Not for five more days.”

  He knew when my birthday was? To the day?

  I smiled at him, my confidence growing. “You honestly think any guy is going to ask or care if I’m eighteen if I flirt with him?”

  Tate didn’t answer, but his jaw tightened. He turned and threw his trash in a big barrel a few feet away. “If he’s smart, he will. And if you’re smart, you’ll be careful. You might have the body of a woman, but you’re a baby where it counts.” His nostrils flared. “I’ve got to ge
t back to work.”

  He turned away then and jumped back on the boat, striding across the deck and into the cabin, shutting the door behind him.

  “Wow,” Piper said. “What got into him?”

  I had no idea, but I was crazy enough to hope that he didn’t like the idea of me dating older guys.

  Or any guys at all.

  Yes, this was definitely a good plan. This wasn’t a first kiss mission—I didn’t really care about that. This was a make-Tate-want-me mission. I needed to bring out the big guns.

  Chapter Five

  My big gun was a swimming suit.

  Not just any suit. This one had a deep V-cut, halter neckline with a scalloped edge, and a low back. It was black and showed off my assets well—what few there were.

  And it was Sunday—Tate’s only day off. He didn’t hang out with our group often, except for our weekly trip to the beach on Sundays, so I was sure he’d be coming with us.

  When I showed up at the Collins’ house after lunch, I wore the suit under a sheer floral kimono with flip flops, over-sized sunglasses, and my hair down in loose curls that took me all morning. Yes, that seemed like a stupid thing to do when going to the beach, but this was all about effect when he first saw me. That was also why I’d put on waterproof Eye-liner and mascara with my usual lip gloss.

  And it worked.

  When I walked into their house and Tate saw me, his eyebrows shot up. “Where are you going? The beach or prom?”

  I winked at him. “I’d look smokin’ hot at either one. But I probably wouldn’t show this much bare leg at prom.”

  Feeling like I’d dealt with that one well enough, I pushed him to the side with a hand in the middle of his chest. He stepped back to let me pass, but I swear I could feel every inch between us.

  “Why are you messing with me, Kat?”

  His words stopped me just as I was about to turn down the hallway to Piper’s room. His tone was deeper and…more serious than I’d ever heard it before. And there was a pleading note as well.

  Turning back to look at him, I put on an innocent expression. “How am I messing with you?”

  He ran his hands through his hair in an agitated way, and stared at me, confused. “You know what I mean. Don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t. You’re the one who stole my shoes.”

  “Cut it out. That’s just a joke and you know it. Kinda like you stole my Salt Life t-shirt.”

  I almost laughed. No, I was sure that his stealing my shoes was nothing like me stealing his t-shirt. For one thing, I seriously doubted he slept in my shoes. I took a few steps closer to him and lowered my voice so Piper wouldn’t hear. “Then why do you think I’m messing with you?”

  He didn’t answer, just stared down at me like I was a puzzle he didn’t have the key to. The muscles of his jaw flexed and his eyes swept over my face.

  “Okay. How about a different question?” I asked. “Are you still dating Amber?”

  “Amanda. Yes. Sort of. For now.”

  “Then why did you offer to kiss me?” My heart rate nearly doubled as I waited for him to answer. When he did, however, it stung.

  “Because I knew you’d never take me up on it.”

  I poked him in the chest. “Then don’t offer again, because I will. And you might just like it.”

  Nearly choked with panic over everything I’d just said and likely revealed, I spun around and tried to walk smoothly to Piper’s room. I managed to stub my toe on her door—again—but I pressed my lips together and repressed the scream rising in my throat. Hazy with pain, I shut the door behind me and leaned against it. Piper, who was sprawled out on her bed, scrolling on her phone, squealed in surprise. “What the heck?”

  “I think your door has something against me.” I said, limping over to the bed.

  “Why’d you slam the door?”

  “I didn’t. Are you ready to go?”

  She shook her head and sat up. “What’s the rush?”

  “I don’t know. I probably only have this one day left before I have to start working, so I don’t want to waste the whole day. Come on.”

  “Fine.” She got up and took her swimsuit into the bathroom to change. Less than ten minutes later, we went to the kitchen and loaded up a small cooler with sodas and water, grabbed a box of Cheez-its, suntan oil and beach towels. Piper wore one of Tate’s t-shirts tied in a knot in the front to shorten it —I wasn’t the only one guilty of swiping them—and cut-off shorts. Her hair was back in a ponytail and threaded through the back of her rhinestone-studded ball cap that said, “Mermaid Hair, Don’t Care.”

  When we went out to the garage, Tate was loading paddle boards and beach chairs in the back of his truck. “Good. You guys didn’t take forever getting ready.”

  Piper shrugged and tossed the cooler in the back. “Just because Kat was in a big hurry for some reason. Maybe she’s finally ready to find a cute summer fling. We are window shopping for guys today.”

  Tate didn’t look up from securing a rope around the paddle boards. He muttered something I couldn’t make out. If Piper hadn’t been there, I would have forced him to tell me what.

  Piper and I got in the back of the truck since Tate had the AC blowing full-blast so we wouldn’t melt.

  When he finally got in too, Piper asked, “Do we really have to pick Amanda up?”

  “Yep. Chill out, it won’t take long.”

  He put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway. I focused on the pink oleanders that bordered their property to keep from looking like I cared at all—even though I wanted to be anywhere but in his truck right then.

  “Seriously, Katriel. What the heck is wrong with you?” Piper asked. “You look sick or something.”

  “I’m fine. Why is everyone paying so much attention to me?”

  “Maybe,” Tate said in a dry tone, “Because you’re wearing next to nothing.”

  Oh, now he decided to talk clearly. “Um, we are going to the beach, remember?”

  Piper turned sideways in her seat until she faced both of us. “Since when did you start caring what Kat wore?”

  Tate stopped at an intersection with his blinker on. “I don’t. She can do what she wants.”

  Piper exchanged a look with me, clearly expecting me to agree with her that he was weird, before reading the text message she’d just gotten. “Oh good, Zane and Cooper are coming. And they’re bringing Liv.”

  I smiled. “Cool. So everyone is coming?”

  But Piper was frowning now. “Yeah. But Dante says he’s bringing some girl named Brooklyn.”

  We frowned at each other. Outside girls were always a vibe killer. It made all the guys act stupid if she was pretty. And Dante wouldn’t be bringing her if she wasn’t.

  “She’s probably just a tourist and won’t be here long,” I pointed out. “A week, tops.”

  “Yeah, kinda like Amanda,” Piper said, mocking Tate as he pulled up in front of a million-dollar beach house. A thin girl with… shall we say…surgical enhancements rushed out of the house in nothing but a skimpy bikini and a sun hat.

  “She’s been here for a month,” Tate said, jumping out to open the door for her.

  While he was out of the car, I turned to Piper. “How does someone afford to stay here for a month?”

  She shrugged. “I’m telling you…some people have more money than they can spend.”

  We stopped talking then because Amanda got in. She looked back at us but didn’t say a word in greeting, and neither did we. I’d seen her once, but not since all this first kiss craziness messed me up in the head. It took about ten seconds for me to compare every part of me to every part of her and understand just completely how lacking I must be in Tate’s eyes. If this was what he liked, no wonder he still saw me as a baby.

  He got back in the car and smiled all around, but something about his posture looked awkward. Tate never looked awkward. “Okay, let’s hit the sand.”

  That was a whole lot of false cheerfulness.
<
br />   Well, what did I expect? I’d clearly just imagined all the subtext to our earlier conversation. Or invented it. And he was probably freaking out because he didn’t know how to deal with his little sister’s annoying friend crushing on him.

  Which I understood because I didn’t know how to deal with it either.

  Chapter Six

  It never ceased to amaze me how changeable the ocean was. Just yesterday it had been wild with high surf. Today it was smooth and glassy with gentle swells that barely stirred my paddle board. It wasn’t as much fun as the challenge of surfing or paddling out over cresting waves, but there was something golden and lazy about chilling in waist-deep emerald water with my girls.

  Sadie had taken chilling a step further. She had a paperback copy of some vampire romance open in front of her as she lay on her stomach. Piper and I had long since given up trying to get her to talk to us. Apparently, we couldn’t compete with some hot dead dude with a blood fetish. Even funnier was that Sadie was in charge of watching her seven-year-old niece, Madison, for the summer, but Liv was the one paddling the little girl around.

  Between us and the shore, Cooper and Zane played catch with Ridge and Dante. They had a neon-colored football so it was easy to watch it go back and forth. Usually, we might have played with them, but not today—not with the gorgeous red-head Dante had with him. She stood between him and Ridge, not really doing much, just standing there looking pretty. It was kind of amusing to watch the boys all showing off for her.

  Mostly though, my eyes were on the shore.

  I sat cross-legged using my paddle to keep my board close to the others while my eyes focused on the shore. Hopefully, with my dark sunglasses, Piper wouldn’t realize how closely I was watching Tate and Amanda.

  “Sadie,” I said, trying again, “Why bother reading about fake love when there’s such a romantic couple right in front of us?”

  “Hmm?” But it was clear Sadie didn’t really want to be bothered because her eyes never left her book.

  “Gross,” Piper said, her whole face bunching up in a grimace. “If they start to make out, I’m going to barf.”