Outside

by Michelle Mankin

  He dropped onto his bed flopping backward, forearm over his eyes. He didn’t even bother taking his shoes off. “She didn’t say anything. Her father hardly lets her out of his sight. It’s weird.”

  “Did she read the note?” I leaned forward elbows on my knees.

  “I’m not sure, Linc.” He removed his arm. “I gave it to her. She slipped the envelope back to me right before we closed. I can’t really tell if she opened it and she didn’t say anything about it.”

  Shit. My gaze dropped to my bare feet on the rug. I heard the rustle from Ash’s side of the room and knew he’d sat up.

  “Hey,” he called, tapping my knee with his fist. I looked up to see eyes like my Aunt Maggie’s brimming with empathy. “Number sixteen and the best small wave surfer on the qualifying circuit doesn’t give up when the ocean looks flat. You need to be patient. Winds change. You know she’s not immune to your charms. But you hurt her, so she withdrew. Right now she’s probably wondering whether loving you is worth the risk of getting burned.”

  My eyes widened at his insight and at his use of that particular word.

  “C’mon, Linc.” He noticed. “I love you like a brother. You think I can’t see how it is with you and her?”

  I didn’t confirm or deny it.

  “Do another one. I’ll pass it on. Don’t press about the Kit thing. You said your bit about it. She’ll either believe you or she won’t. Just show her how you feel with the pictures and tell her with words. She needs to know why she should put herself out there for you.”

  I mulled that advice over finally leaving Ash alone. Honestly he fell back on his bed and crashed the minute I stopped pimping him for details about Simone.

  I left the house, my mind playing the final part of our conversation as I wandered by the restaurant Hurley cap and hooded sweatshirt shadowing my features hoping to catch a glimpse of her.

  I remembered the first time I had seen her there. How she’d looked at me as if she really saw me, as if she admired me, maybe even needed me in her life.

  Ash had mentioned that she seemed different to him.

  “How so?” I had prompted.

  He had shrugged a far off look in his eyes. “Conflicted,” he had finally admitted. “At a loss.” He had gotten quiet and I had thought he was finished when he added, “Like maybe she’s got all these intense feelings rumbling around inside of her that she doesn’t know how to express.” His voice was low as if the words vibrated from somewhere deep inside his chest. “Feelings that maybe she’s never felt before. Maybe she’s afraid to unleash them because maybe they won’t be reciprocated and she’ll lose the things she has for just a chance to have the one thing she’s always dreamed about.”

  I moved from table to table checking the salt and pepper shakers and refilling the sugar and artificial sweeteners that were running low, tasks that the servers performed but that I was doing today because I needed an excuse to be busy and because I was hoping to run into Ash before my father returned from his errands.

  A week had passed since Ash had started working at Napoli’s.

  A week of deliveries from Linc.

  A week for my resolve to be chipped away.

  After all, what good was a plan for escaping this life when I might miss out on a man I was pretty sure I wanted to share it with me?

  It was all so wickedly seductive.

  My beach. Him on it.

  Telling me how he felt about me in a lyrical fashion. I had memorized every word.

  I watch the sunrise

  The dark transforming to soft grey then lavender

  I hear the ocean’s steady roar

  But my souls a lonely island.

  The pure gold of your eyes

  Is more beautiful than the blue water

  Your smile had more allure

  Than the ebb and flow of the tide

  If only you were here.

  Your laughter refreshes

  Renews

  And energizes.

  The shore

  The sea breeze

  The rip and curl of the perfect wave

  Nothing is as it should be without you here.

  I sighed then jumped as Ash’s voice sounded behind me. I hadn’t heard him come in.

  “Hey, Mona,” he greeted. “You’re here early today. Waiting for me?” He leaned close. I could smell the ocean on him the same as Lincoln. “Or maybe just the postman?”

  I spun around. His eyes were glinting with teasing humor but there was something else in them lately, something that seemed a little sad. I hadn’t said anything about the envelopes though I readily took them every time he offered, perusing the contents over and over again any time I could get a minute alone until the end of his shift when I returned them to him seemingly unopened. But I was pretty sure my fingerprints were all over everything.

  Could the sadness he hid so well have something to do with Lincoln?

  Did he think I was going to end up hurting someone he obviously cared so much about?

  “You missed a table,” he said meaningfully setting his cell on the linen draped surface.

  I immediately covered it with my hand and slid it into my pocket.

  “Don’t leave him hanging much longer.” His eyes met mine, his expression all serious now. “He won’t say anything but it’s tearing him up. He’s off to the beach every morning by himself, staring off into space. Waiting.” He frowned. “Make a decision.” He stalked away his shoulders stiff, his movements abrupt.

  I had never seen him so worked up. But he was right. The summer was slipping away. Soon I would have to return to college.

  I ducked into the ladies restroom, clicked the latch closed on the stall and remembered the last note. Tears burned my eyes and fear surged in my heart. I knew what I was going to do.

  I found his number on Ash’s Nokia and called it.

  “Ash. What’s going on? Has anything happened?”

  Hearing his voice and the eagerness in it almost brought me to my knees. Only the fact that it was the public restroom and the restaurant kept me from doing it. Leaning heavily into the partition, I cleared my throat and spoke. “Linc. It’s me. Simone.”

  “Mona,” he exhaled and I heard the sound of running water being turned off. Was he getting ready to take a shower? My throat went even drier than before.

  “Where are you? How are you? It’s so good to hear your voice.”

  “Yours, too,” I admitted. “Listen I’m at work.” I didn’t want to tell him I was in the women’s restroom. “I can’t talk long. I just wanted to say that the things you wrote…that you…” I trailed off realizing there was no way I could manage this over the phone. Woman up, Mona. I straightened from the wall. “I need to see you.” Touch you. Feel you. “Can you meet me at the beach? The stairs where we met the first time?”

  “Sure. Absolutely. The sooner the better?”

  I told him a time and he agreed. My hands were trembling when I ended the call. I only hoped it would be late enough. That my mom would be passed out. That my dad would choose to remain home this evening instead of returning at dawn.

  I had good reasons to be afraid.

  My father would probably find out that I had defied him once again. Even if he didn’t, I might very well get my heart broken in the end.

  I knew those were both legitimate possibilities but I didn’t care. Not really. Not anymore. Not as much as I cared about Lincoln.

  I headed to the sandstone beach at the base of the stairs to her street an hour early.

  She hadn’t given me any indication about what she was thinking but I wasn’t going to leave anything to chance. This was about choice. I had chosen her. Now I needed her to choose me.

  I quickly quashed any thought that she might choose differently.

  I went all out on the presentation.

  And then she appeared. My water nymph, an otherworldly creature, the light blue gauzy dress clinging to her curves like sea foam. She had a silver band around her up
per arm that I assumed had her house key on it and flat sandals strapped to her delicate feet.

  Spellbound I stood at the bottom of the steps grateful I had my hand on the steel railing because I wasn’t feeling all that steady on my bare feet all of a sudden.

  She seemed hesitant as well until her eyes drifted past me to my preparations. She smiled brilliantly, that inner light of hers beaming out, warming my soul.

  “Mona, you look incredible, but you’ve been too far away for too long. Won’t you come closer and talk to me for a while?”

  She bobbed her head in reply her eyes glassy. Happy tears I hoped. I couldn’t help myself. As soon as her sandals hit the last step I swung her up into my arms and kissed her, just a touch, just for a heartbeat, my firm lips to her lush ones. A fleeting reminder of just how sweet it might be.

  “You can put me down,” she said when I lifted my head.

  “No thanks. I like you right where you are.” I hugged her tighter to my chest not thinking it could get any better but then it did as she placed her palm against my cheek. I leaned my face into her soft touch. Eyes full of wonder, their honeyed depths reflecting the glow of the hurricane candles I’d lit and arranged around the blanket, she stared up at me.

  “This is so beautiful, so romantic. And the notes and photos took my breath away.”

  “You are my breath, Mona and you take it away from me every time you leave. But,” I grinned to lighten the heavy, “don’t tell anyone about the hearts and candles. Ash already knows how far gone I am for you. But I’d rather not give Dominic and Ramon any ammunition.”

  She giggled and I treasured the sound and sight of her happiness. I let her down once my feet hit the blanket but I did it slowly savoring the feel of her curves sliding down my body.

  “Sit,” I prompted when she didn’t move and started to look uncertain. She lowered herself onto the edge of the blanket facing the ocean, tipping her chin into the ocean breeze the way she often did. I sank down beside her, tugging the hem of my tee that had ridden up from the waist of my Volcom cargo shorts all the while watching her, my body already mourning the loss of contact.

  Now that I had her here I didn’t know where to begin. Ash had cautioned me about mentioning Kit but I didn’t like leaving that hanging between us.

  “I missed this.” She turned to look at me, her smile wistful and her eyes a little sad. “And you.”

  “I did, too.” I scooted closer and took her hand curling my fingers around her. “Everything I said, everything I wrote is true.”

  “I know that now.” Her eyes brightened. “I’m sorry for the way I reacted. Sorry for misjudging you. I’ve got no right…”

  “You have every right,” I cut in. “If I had seen another guy kiss you. When someone suggested that you and Ash might be…” My fingers tightened on hers. She winced and I brought our joined hands to my mouth and brushed my lips across her knuckles in apology. “I would have reacted the same way,” I concluded.

  Her lips parted as if in awe of what I had confessed. I reached for her, the surface of my palm skimming her soft cheek and my fingers threading in her silky hair.

  “What do we do then, Linc?” Her voice was low and emotion filled. “I leave for school again soon and you leave for Fiji even sooner than that. I don’t see how it can work for us. I’m not grounded anymore but my dad…” She trailed off and I filled in.

  “It will work if we both want it to. It worked tonight.”

  Honeyed eyes wide, she nodded.

  “So we’ll be committed,” I confirmed.

  “We’ll have to keep our relationship secret. You’ll get tired of sneaking around. You said yourself that I’m not the type of girl you’re used to. I’m not experienced. I’ve only been with two other guys.” Out of excuses, she looked away withdrawing from my touch and untangling her hand from mine. I could see the sheen on her eyes. It wasn’t the type of bright glaze I wanted them to have.

  I moved placing myself in front of her so she had to look at me, had to see the sincerity blazing from my steady gaze. “I will never get tired of being with you.” I thought it best to alleviate that concern first. “And I believe that what I actually said to Ramon was that you weren’t the type of girl to be interested in his kind of shit. The temporary get laid without any emotional attachment type of crap. I’m glad that there have only been two other guys for you.” That meant there were only two murders I had to plan. “Now that I’ve met you, I wish that there had been no others for me. I don’t want my past to hurt you or come between us. I can promise you that there hasn’t been anyone else since the day I met you and that there won’t be anyone else as long as we’re together. Honestly, I only want you, Mona.”

  I framed her face and her lids fluttered closed, the tension in her face relaxing as if my touch and my words soothed her. “I want all of you. I want to know everything about you. I want to make you smile. I want to hear you sing again.” I brushed my mouth across her soft lips. Her eyes opened though they were a little hazy. “And I want you naked.” My voice lowered an octave as I imagined it in my mind. “I want to caress every single sexy inch of you. And I want you to touch me, too. But that will come.” My eyes burned with certainty. “I promise you.”

  I wanted everything he did and then some. I opened my mouth to tell him but I think he already knew. He could taste the surrender on my lips as his slick tongue traced and glided between them. He could hear it in the soft moans he greedily swallowed slanting his head to deepen the kiss before feeding me a long hot male groan of his own. He could feel my need for him in the tensed arc of my body and the way my fingers explored every hard male contour I could reach while he rained warm showers of desperate kisses across the exposed surfaces of my skin on my cheek, my neck and collarbones.

  His breath began to sound ragged matching my own. My breasts rose and fell with every one, the nipples tight points that ached for his touch.

  “Mona, we need to stop.” He drew back and framed my face again his thumbs stroking my cheeks his eyes as dark as the night beyond our island of candles on the sand. “I want you. Right now. So badly. If you could feel how fast my heart is racing, if you knew how hard my cock is, you wouldn’t even believe it.”

  Curious I moved my hands from his forearms. One palm I brought to the center of his chest and felt his rapid rhythm. The other I slid lower fingertips savoring each ridge of his abdomen holding my breath, biting my lip in anticipation as I went lower.

  “Mona.” He said my name on a shuddering breath. “Stop.” He snagged the lower hand first then peeled the other one from the perspiration dampened cotton clinging to his chest. Covering mine with his own he brought them up to his lips and kissed each while staring at me. “Not tonight, babe. Soon like I promised. Not because I don’t want to is the point I’m trying to make. Because I want to too much. You are special, Mona. More important than any other woman I’ve ever known. Worth waiting for.”

  He released my hands and laid back on the blanket, placing one arm behind his head for a pillow. “Come here.” He crooked his fingers and gave me that charming one dimpled grin. “I want to hold you for as long as I can before you have to go in.”

  “My sandals,” I protested bending at the waist to unclasp the straps. “I’ll get grit all over the blanket.”

  “Leave them on,” he commanded. “I don’t care, and I don’t want to waste the time it would take for you to get them off when I could already have you here by me.” He raised a brow. “I don’t want to waste any time that I have with you.”

  I turned and crawled toward him, the sandstone cool beneath the blanket but he was warm, a virtual inferno of heat as he drew me closer my body aligning to his. He threaded fingers into my hair cradling the base of my skull and bringing my head to rest against his chest.

  “Tell me what you did this week.”

  “Didn’t Ash tell you?”

  “Sure. But I don’t think he pays the same attention to the details as I would when it comes to
you.”

  I grinned against his chest. I was pretty sure he could hear the smile in my voice as I began to share. No one had ever been as interested in the mundane details of my life. He not only told me how important I was to him, he was showing me. “I re-supplied inventory with my dad in the mornings, balanced the books at night. Hostessed some. Managed a bit.”

  “Sounds tiring.”

  “It is. It was.” I yawned to prove it. “What did you do?”

  I listened to the rhythmic rise and fall of the tide as he shared how much he looked forward to taking the pictures for me, finding the right words. How he had surfed. How he and Ash had spoken each evening about me.

  Safe and secure in his arms I started to get sleepy and closed my eyes. I felt his body twist before he kissed the top of my head. His arms tightened around me. “Rest, Mona. Sleep a bit. I’ll wake you before the sunrise.”

  Dawn was just starting to turn the world from black to grayish half-light as I walked her up the stairs and back toward her place kissing her once more before reluctantly letting her go.

  I hated being parted from her.

  From my position several houses down from hers, I watched her sexy hips sway as she continued on the sidewalk and climbed her porch steps. Key inserted in the front door she turned back to wave, her lips lifting in a melancholy smile.

  I dipped my head to acknowledge it waiting as she entered, wanting to be sure that she was safe. The lights remained off in the foyer but I wasn’t leaving until she made it to her room.

  On the walk from the beach she had shared how she’d gotten caught after Dominic’s party and it troubled me more than I let on how her father had treated her. It was more than just being separated from her that bothered me about bringing her home.