Wilder Love

by Rose, Emery

  Which brought it home all over again, just how much our lives had changed and how far apart we’d drifted.

  “Thank you,” Remy said as I handed her the surfboard. “For the board and for getting me out there today.”

  “No problem.” I climbed back into my Jeep and she came to stand by my open window.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow?” Her voice was hopeful. I didn’t turn my head to look at her face.

  “I’ll be there.”

  She was still lingering outside my open window like she didn’t want to leave. I watched her from the corner of my eye as I shifted into reverse. Her lower lip was clamped between her teeth. Those poor damn lips.

  I remember those lips, Remy. I remember your kisses.

  “Gotta run,” I said. Yeah, I was being a dick. But like falling in love with Remy, I just couldn’t seem to stop myself.

  Her face fell in disappointment, but she plastered on that smile again. It must have been something she learned from the modeling gig. Smile and pretend everything is fine even when your world is falling apart. “Yeah, okay.”

  She took a few steps back and watched me reverse out of her driveway. As tempting as it was, I didn’t even glance at her as I drove away. Being around her again was hard. Being without her was harder.

  But then, nothing about me and Remy had ever been easy.

  32

  Remy

  I didn’t need an excuse to hang out with Jimmy, but on the Monday after Shane gave me the surfboard, I came up with one anyway. “I thought the three of us could have dinner together. I bought some steaks. I know you guys don’t eat meat that much, but you used to love steak sometimes, right?” I was blabbering like an idiot as I unpacked my bags onto the kitchen counter. “We can grill them. And I’ll make a big salad. I wasn’t sure what vegetables you had from your garden, so I bought some, but we can use yours.” I stopped and took a breath, noting the amused look on his face. “In other words, I’ve just invited myself to dinner.”

  Jimmy chuckled. “I’ve worked that out. You’re always welcome.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that, but I didn’t set him straight. Jimmy set two chopping boards on the counter and tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers from his garden. I took the knife he handed me and started chopping vegetables.

  “Is steak okay? I could go buy fish or…”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  When I worked for Jimmy at the surf shop for those two years, he used to ask me that question all the time. Nine times out of ten I used to say no. Back then, I kept a lot of secrets. I hadn’t wanted him to know about my mom or my relationship with Shane or what was going on with Tristan. And now… I didn’t have a lot of secrets but my problem, of course, was Shane. I still couldn’t believe he made that surfboard for me. It was a beautiful board and even Dylan was impressed. Since then, we surfed together twice but only because I drove down to the break and he was there. So, it wasn’t like we were really together.

  I added my chopped tomatoes to the bowl of mixed greens and set an avocado on the board. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  He chuckled and shook his head as he added his chopped cucumber to our bowl of salad while I ran the blade of my knife around the avocado, halving it.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You and Shane.”

  I didn’t really see anything funny about me and Shane, so I steered the conversation away from me and Shane. “How was your day? Did you go out on Sam’s boat?”

  “I had a good day. And yes, I went out on Sam’s boat.”

  “Good. That’s good.” I’d been reading up on brain tumors and I wasn’t sure that was good. I could understand why Shane was worried about Jimmy. What if something happened to him when he was diving? The avocado half slipped out of my hand when I tried to whack the pit with the blade of my knife.

  Jimmy nudged me aside and took the knife out of my hand. “You looked like you were about to lose a finger.”

  I leaned my hip against the counter and watched Jimmy remove the pit and the skin from the avocado. Bob Marley was singing “Three Little Birds” and the ceiling fans whirred above our heads. Jimmy and Shane had never liked air conditioning. They preferred to sweat out the heat rather than breathe artificial air.

  “Shane’s never been good at dealing with his emotions,” Jimmy said, the blade of his knife slicing the avocado I’d mangled. “After Zoe died, he refused to talk about her. This went on for months. At first, I didn’t notice. I was too caught up in my own shit. I thought he was okay, that he was handling it better than most nine-year-olds would. But he wasn’t handling it at all. He was trying to block it out. Until one day, about six months after she died, he lost it.” Jimmy shook his head, remembering back to when Shane was a kid struggling to come to terms with his mother’s death.

  “What did he do?”

  “I couldn’t find him anywhere. It was getting dark and his bike was gone from the garage. I found him down at the beach. The break where he surfs now. He’d snapped his board in two. Smashed it right on the rocks. I was furious, yelling and screaming at him for taking off without telling me and for breaking his board. He loved that board. It was his most prized possession.”

  “But he broke it. On purpose.”

  Jimmy nodded. “He was so angry with me and he didn’t know what to do with all his anger.”

  “Why was he angry with you?” I couldn’t even imagine Shane and his dad getting angry with each other. Their relationship had always been so easy.

  “Because I wasn’t there for him. I wasn’t there when Zoe died. When I got the call about the accident, I was in Rio for a competition. I booked the first flight home. Thirteen hours on a plane. Zoe died before I got to the hospital and he’d been left to deal with that alone. Even after that, I wasn’t there for him. Not in the way he needed me.”

  “I’m sure you did your best.” And I was also sure that Shane would argue that Jimmy was always there for him.

  “That’s what I tell myself.” He looked lost in his own thoughts, so I tossed the salad, not wanting to intrude on his memories.

  Jimmy went outside to get the barbecue going, and I set the patio table for three, thinking about the story Jimmy had shared. When I’d first met Shane, I never would have guessed that he had a temper. He had seemed like a chilled-out surfer dude and most of the time, he had been chilled out with a positive outlook on life. But even back then, there had been things that set him off and made him angry. When he caught me riding my bike late one night with no lights or reflectors. The time he asked me for more information about Russell, as if he was planning to hunt him down and make him pay for what he’d done to me. The time we’d gone to In-N-Out for burgers and shakes (a cheat day for him) and some guy had bumped into me, knocking the shake out of my hand. Kind of like the Frappuccino incident at school. Shane chased after him and made him come back to apologize. And then there was the time down at the break when Tristan dropped in on me. It was all those little things that had prompted me to keep Tristan’s bullying to myself. My rationale had been that Shane had too much to lose and couldn’t afford to lose his temper with Tristan. Obviously, that had all ended in a catastrophic way.

  But Shane reacted to all those things the way he had because of what happened to his mom. He had seen his mom get hit by a white van that took off without stopping and she’d been left to die. He believed that people had to be held accountable for their actions. On our very first date, he’d shared the most defining moment of his life with me. So, it didn’t surprise me that Shane had broken his board or that he’d refused to talk about his mom. It was what he was doing now. Shutting down his pain instead of dealing with it.

  I needed to be more patient with him. Or get him to open up and talk about it.

  “What happened to Shane wasn’t your fault, Remy,” Jimmy said a little while later when he threw the steaks on the grill. “He made that decision to act on his anger. And he paid the price for it. But so did you
.”

  When Shane went to prison for manslaughter, I’d lost my mind. Six years. Six years of his life stolen from him. It hadn’t seemed real. I didn’t know how I got through those first few months. It felt like a death. I used to wake up in the middle of the night crying, the thought of him in prison unbearable, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. And he wouldn’t even let me visit him.

  “Jimmy… I just… I feel so guilty.”

  “I know you do. But I’m telling you that you shouldn’t. Shane doesn’t blame you for that. He blames himself.”

  “Is that why he took that demolition job? To punish himself?”

  “Maybe that’s part of it. But he had a hard time finding a job after he got out of prison.”

  My stomach sank. My remarks about his job had been so insensitive. It was ironic, really. I’d once accused Shane of treating me like white trash, for looking down his nose at me. He never had. My accusation had been unjustified. And yet, what had I done to him? Made him feel like shit for doing a job he felt lucky to get. I hadn’t stopped to consider how difficult it was for an ex-con to get a job. And it didn’t help that John Hart owned half of Costa del Rey. He had a lot of power and influence in this town.

  “The surfboard he made me is beautiful.”

  Jimmy smiled as he flipped the steaks—four thick T-bones. The fat sizzled and flames leapt up. “It is. He looked happy when he was making that board for you.”

  That gave me hope and brought a smile to my face. I lifted my hair off the back of my sweaty neck and twisted into a topknot, securing it with an elastic.

  By the time Shane came home, I was feeling better about everything and had forgotten that I was an uninvited guest. Jimmy and I were chilling out, drinking ice cold Coronas with lime wedges and tripping down memory lane. I loved hearing his stories about Shane’s mom and about Shane’s childhood. Up until Shane started school, he and his mom used to travel with Jimmy on tour. The world’s best beaches had been Shane’s playground since before he could even walk, let alone surf.

  Shane stopped short when he rounded the side of the house and saw me and Jimmy talking and laughing. He planted his hands on his hips and glared at me. “What are you doing here?”

  Just like that, my good mood vanished and so did all my lofty plans to be patient with him. I was tempted to punch him in the face, but I gave him a sweet smile instead. “Joining you for dinner. Is that okay with you?”

  He didn’t answer the question. I wasn’t asking for permission anyway. Seven years apart had rendered him mute. Was it my imagination that we used to talk about everything and anything? His eyes darted to the salad and the steaks, and the three glasses of water with lemon slices on the table set for three. “I need a quick shower.”

  With that, he left his dusty work boots by the door and strode into the house, leaving me to stew over his personality transplant. I pressed the cold beer bottle, slick with condensation, against my sweaty forehead, and peeled my loose tank top off my body, trying to cool off. He was getting me all hot and bothered. I wanted to scream and shout, tell him what an asshole he was being, and just get it all out there. All the pent-up anger and resentment and frustration that he was bottling up instead of dealing with.

  “I’m just what he needs,” I told Jimmy sarcastically.

  “I didn’t say it would be easy, but you’ll get there eventually.”

  Jimmy sounded so confident, like he truly believed that. “How can you be so sure?”

  “I know Shane. I know how he acts when he’s hurting.”

  “Like an ass?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Shane was back five minutes later, freshly showered and barefoot in a faded T-shirt and shorts, bringing with him the scent of summertime and citrus. His blond-brown hair was damp and finger-combed. Messy and disheveled, the way I loved it. And even though I wanted to be mad at him, I couldn’t stay mad because Shane disarmed me with a smile and a gentle squeeze of my thigh under the table. A nonverbal apology for his rude behavior. Heat spread through my body just from that simple touch and he smirked as if he knew the effect he had on me.

  Shane ate enough to feed an army and even Jimmy ate most of his steak, so I considered the dinner a success, even though I hated the way Shane was making me feel.

  At nine o’clock, Jimmy said he was tired and excused himself. I wasn’t sure if he was making excuses, trying to give us time alone or if he really was tired. Shane watched him go before he turned his attention to me, not bothering to conceal his worry. He looked so tired, like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. The patio lights illuminated the dark shadows under his eyes that I’d missed earlier.

  I stood up from the table and came around to stand behind his chair, placing my hands on his shoulders. “What are you doing?”

  I didn’t answer. My fingers kneaded the knots of tension in his rigid shoulders, and eventually, I felt him relax under my touch, a sigh escaping his lips.

  “I’m putty in your hands,” he said, with a little laugh and then a groan when I continued my shoulder, neck and head massage. His eyes closed as I massaged his scalp and the base of his skull, working my way down his neck and returning to his broad swimmers’ shoulders.

  “I wish I could make it better,” I said. I didn’t even know what I wanted to make better. Him. Us. Jimmy. But none of it was within my control.

  “I know, Firefly. Me too.” His hand wrapped around my wrist and he pulled me around the chair, so I was standing between his legs. Clasping both of my hands in his, his thumbs rubbed the sensitive skin on the insides of my wrists and now I was putty in his hands.

  He lifted his eyes to mine and I wanted to kiss away all the pain and the heartache. Fix everything that was broken. Give him back the six years of his life that he lost. Put the smile back on his face. But I didn’t have the power to do any of that.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” he said quietly.

  My heart cracked wide open for him and then broke into a dozen pieces. “I’ll be here for you if you let me.”

  His hands gripped my waist and he pulled me closer, pressing his forehead against my stomach. My body curled around him, my hands sliding through his thick hair and I held the back of his head. His hands slid down to the backs of my thighs, and I closed my eyes and cradled his head, feeling his soft breath through the thin fabric of my tank top.

  We stayed like that for a few long moments, the crickets chirping in cadence and the moths beating their wings against the domed lights while I tried to hold his broken pieces together. Then Shane lifted his head and pushed his chair back to give himself space before he stood up and cracked his neck, those moments of intimacy vanishing into the night air like they’d never happened at all. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  My heart deflated, but I masked my disappointment. It was obvious that he didn’t want me here and the whole “walking me to my car” offer was a joke. Shane strode briskly like he couldn’t wait to get rid of me, ten paces ahead while I trailed behind, being made to feel like a second-class citizen. If I wanted to catch up, I’d have to jog. He’d always been so good at walking beside me, making sure I didn’t feel like I was being left behind. Not anymore.

  Gritting my teeth in frustration, I yanked on my seatbelt, annoyed that my hands were shaking. Damn him. I rolled down my window and called his name, halting him in his tracks. He stopped and turned around, raising his brows. “Did you need something?”

  Infuriating. Internally, I was screaming, but I kept my voice even and measured. “I came back for you, but I’m staying for your dad. So, you’d better get used to having me around.”

  Without waiting for his reaction, I reversed out of his driveway, feeling smug and slightly vindicated. Remy St. Clair was not a doormat.

  * * *

  “So he made you a surfboard?” Bastian asked, trying to get the lowdown on my rollercoaster relationship with Shane Wilder. He didn’t sound overly impressed by the gesture.

&nbs
p; “Yep.” I smiled at the barista and mouthed ‘thank you’ as she handed me my tall Americano.

  “And?”

  “And… we’ve been surfing together.” I pushed the door open with my hip—every single time I got my nails done, I messed them up and today I was determined to preserve my stupid manicure, since nothing else could be salvaged—and strolled down Main Street.

  “That’s it? Just surfing? No angry sex?”

  I rolled my eyes. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Cradling my phone between my ear and shoulder, I climbed into my Rover, set my coffee in the cupholder and slammed the door shut. “We haven’t even talked. Not about anything real.” I turned the key in the ignition and waited for the Bluetooth to kick in then tossed my phone in the cupholder and checked my indigo blue nails. All good. “There’s so much we don’t know about each other. We just… I don’t know… I feel like we need to clear the air. Get it all out there.”

  “And then you can have angry sex.”

  “Why do I even talk to you?” My eye caught on two women walking down the street—a blonde and a brunette with designer handbags in the crook of their arm, eyes hidden behind enormous sunglasses. I slunk down in my seat and watched them through the windshield instead of pulling out of my spot. “Not all relationships are based on sex. He just needs a friend right now.”

  “So you don’t want to have sex with Shane.”

  “I do. But he’s not…” I let out a frustrated breath. “It’s complicated.”

  I heard him take a drag of his cigarette and exhale, the sounds of New York traffic and a horn blaring in the background. “So, uncomplicate it.”

  Yeah, right. That was pretty funny coming from a guy who was so complicated he didn’t even understand himself. The two women disappeared inside the nail salon and I let out a shaky breath. Dodged that bullet. One of them was Sienna’s mother and the other one was Tristan’s. They were still friends, getting manicures and pedicures together. This town was too small. No wonder Shane had tried to stay away. Last night at dinner, I found out that he’d gone to Sonoma after he’d gotten out of prison and he’d been up there for six months.