“Would you have slept with her?”
Emery swallowed, the lump in his throat bobbing with the notion. “Before you, maybe. But not after.” Then he lifted my chin again, his lips finding mine. “Never after.”
Those words, that kiss, it was the more than I could have asked for from Emery in that moment. It wasn’t a promise, but it was a confession, an openness I wasn’t accustomed to from him that I wanted more of. I could get drunk on it, that transparency, and I fisted my hands in his shirt, pulling him closer, savoring every drop.
Kalo didn’t let us kiss for long before she tugged against the leash still in Emery’s hands, making him grin, his mouth still on mine. “I think she’s hungry.”
“So am I.” My stomach growled with my confession, making Emery chuckle.
“I saw some food trucks up there,” he said, nodding toward the area where we’d found a parking spot. “I think there’s some sort of festival going on.”
“You had me at food truck.”
It was a busy Friday night on the beach, considering it was the middle of November, with local vendors and street performers gathering crowds in different areas on the boardwalk and grassy area beyond it. Emery and I took Kalo back to the car for her dinner first, before grabbing two giant slices of pizza from one of the trucks and perusing the vendor tables. There was beautiful local art and pottery, homemade soaps and candles, jewelry of all kinds, and t-shirt designers galore.
We wandered past each of them eating our pizza and enjoying the cool evening breeze before we stumbled on a man juggling sticks of fire near the volleyball courts. Kalo moved excitedly between our feet, trying to find the best view as Emery polished off his slice, but my eyes were drawn to a small table near the end of the boardwalk.
The woman manning the table smiled when our eyes met, waving a hand softly to invite me over. She didn’t look much older than myself, her skin a creamy white, though it was barely visible through the dark ink that painted her from the neck down. Her hair was jet black and shaved on one side, eyes just as dark, and even from where we stood I could see her ears were gauged open with metal rings.
“What do you say?” I asked, nudging Emery and nodding toward her. There was a cosmic sign hanging from the front of her table that read TAROT CARDS. “Want to see what the universe has in store for the last leg of our trip?”
I peered up at him, and he was already rolling his eyes. “You’re joking.”
“Nope. Come on, humor me.”
He shook his head as I slid my hand into his, already dragging him away from the fire and toward her table. “You owe me for this.”
“And what exactly do I owe you?”
At that, a salacious grin spread low on his lips. “I’d tell you, but there are children around.”
I laughed, smacking his arm before taking Kalo’s leash from his other hand. She hopped around in the sand the entire way up to the table, and once we’d reached it, I bent down to pet her fur and give her one of the treats I’d tucked in my pocket. Once she settled by my feet with it, the woman greeted us.
“Thanks for stopping by my table, I was starting to nod off over here,” she said. It was then that I noticed the bull ring pierced through the middle of her nose, the bottom of it grazing her top lip when she smiled. “I’m Melina. What are your names?”
“Aren’t you supposed to tell us that?” Emery piped.
I elbowed him, narrowing my eyes before extending a hand for Melina. “I’m Cooper, and this is Emery.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said, not seeming fazed in the slightest by Emery’s comment, though she did narrow her eyes at him before gesturing to the two small, cushioned stools in front of her table. “Take a seat.”
I sat in the chair on the left, Emery on the right, and I watched his skepticism grow more as Melina grabbed her deck of cards from the corner of the table.
“You don’t look like a psychic,” he said, giving her a once-over.
“And you don’t look like an asshole, but appearances can be deceiving, can’t they?” Melina smiled sarcastically, shuffling the cards between her hands as I stifled a laugh.
Emery lifted a brow at me. “Oh, you think that’s funny, huh?” he teased.
“I do. Now be quiet, you’re disturbing my chi.”
He chuckled, shaking his head like I was ridiculous and bending to pet Kalo on the head.
“So, you two want a card reading, yeah?” Her voice was light on the breeze, yet she held herself in a manner that demanded attention, her posture straight, chin high. If I could only use one term to describe her, it would have been badass.
“We would.”
“She would,” Emery corrected. “I’m just here to watch. And occasionally roll my eyes.”
“Emery,” I scolded.
Melina smiled, her eyes on her cards as she shuffled them before she met my gaze. “It’s all good. Let Mr. Macho Pants stay skeptical, if that’s what he wants. Receiving a message from the universe is a purposeful thing. If he comes into a reading with a closed mind and heart, he’ll receive nothing, and in turn feed his belief that nothing is all that exists.”
Emery eyed her then, but said nothing.
“Here,” Melina said, handing me the deck. “Shuffle ‘em up, buttercup. You can move cards around on the table, shuffle like a normal deck of playing cards, or whatever else feels right. And when you’re ready, hand them back to me.”
I did as she asked, closing my eyes and feeling the cards in my hands as I moved them around. I focused on centering myself, on opening myself to the possibilities, and then I handed them back to her with a calming breath.
“You practice yoga and meditation,” she mused when the deck was back in her hands. “You’re very spiritually open, and you identify with your zodiac sign.” Melina paused, tilting her head a bit. “You strike me as a very curious person, and a giving one, too. Are you an air sign?”
I nodded. “Aquarius.”
“Ah,” she said with a smile. “Makes sense.”
Emery’s attention had been pulled from Kalo and the beach to our table then, and he watched me curiously as Melina laid out the first three cards.
“These first three cards represent your past,” she said, spreading them a few centimeters apart. “This first card, The Five of Cups, it represents a great loss you experienced.”
A phantom pain numbed my left leg, as if it recognized itself in the card, and I massaged the thigh of it gently as she continued.
“But see how it’s reversed? That represents an acceptance of that loss. You were at peace very quickly, which allowed you to move on, and that brings us very symbolically to The Ace of Swords. Mental clarity. It seems that the loss you endured centered your mind to your innermost desires, to what you want most in this life.”
Bastyr.
Her eyes met mine briefly before her index finger tapped the final card. “The Two of Wands. The Wands are tied to the element of fire, which ties, of course, into determination. This card tells me that you took that loss and that mental clarity and you transformed it into a plan, into a strategy. You made a goal, or perhaps multiple goals, and you’ve spent a great deal of time in your life actively pursuing those goals over all else.”
I thought about the diner, about Bastyr, about how my entire life had been spent in Mobile, Alabama, just planning my way out. I’d saved up, I’d studied, I’d done everything I could on my own to make the journey to Washington.
My eyes found Emery’s, and he cocked one eyebrow as if he understood. He leaned in toward Melina, just a little bit, but enough to tell me he was curious.
Melina flipped three more cards, explaining that they represented my present, but when they were all laid out, her brows tugged inward as she studied them. “Interesting.”
“What is it?”
She shook her head, tapping the first card. “I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start here. The Page of Cups symbolizes a sort of messenger in your life, something or someone wh
o brought you clarity in a new way. And since this card is followed immediately by The Fool,” she said, moving her finger to the second card. “I sense that this messenger helped you begin a new journey recently, one you’re on now. It can be a physical journey or a spiritual one, but either way, you are experiencing new sights, new experiences, and in turn, discovering new truths.”
I smiled up at Emery, who was still eyeing the cards skeptically, but he smirked in my direction anyway. “You saying I’m your Page of Cups, Little Penny?”
“I’m saying it’s possible.”
“Probably more likely that he’s a fool,” Melina murmured playfully, throwing him a wink.
Emery squeezed my right knee with one hand, sending a wave of chills up that thigh. He followed the line of them, his eyes trailing slow and purposefully up over the bare skin under my shorts, up more over the fabric of my sweater, until his gaze landed on my eyes, smirk still in place.
I flushed, ripping my eyes away and back to Melina, who was studying the last card with concern etched on her face.
“So, this is the card that perplexes me,” she said, tapping the final card. “The Seven of Swords. If it were turned the other way, if it were reversed for you and upright for me, then it would make sense — it would mean you were overcoming a challenge, breaking old habits and starting anew. But the way it sits right now, it symbolizes deceit.”
The color drained from my face.
“Now, this can be read in many ways, of course,” she clarified. “Someone could be being deceitful to you, someone you feel you can trust when actually you can’t. Or, it could be that you are partaking in sneaky behavior, acting in a way that you know is wrong for personal gain.”
Emery’s hand left my knee, the spot where his skin touched me turning ice cold as he stood. “Okay, I think it’s time I remove myself from the equation before I start making rude, sarcastic remarks.” He smiled as if it were a joke, but his eyes were strained as he bent to kiss my forehead. “I’ll take Kalo down by the water, come meet us when you’re done?”
I nodded, but my eyes were still glued to the card, to The Seven of Swords. If Emery were paying attention, if he believed, he would have asked me what I was hiding.
And I could never tell him.
So, in a way, I was relieved as he took Kalo and crossed the sand down to the water, and Melina sensed it.
“It’s you who’s hiding something, isn’t it?” she asked, though she didn’t wait for my response as she flipped three more cards and spread them out below the present ones. “It’s unlike you. You wear your guilt like a scarlet letter.”
I just swallowed, eyes scanning the new cards.
“Your future,” she said, setting the rest of the deck to the side. “The Lovers.”
Her finger tapped the first card, her long, pointy black nail resting there as she lifted her eyes to mine.
“This card can be taken in many ways, and most of us want to believe it means true love, that it symbolizes that fairytale romance we often dream of. However, this card is reverse for you, which shows me that, perhaps as a result of your present deceitfulness, you will quarrel with a loved one over an imbalance — different values, different beliefs.”
My focus stayed on the card, but I was all too aware of Emery on the beach, though he was the opposite — blissfully unaware, his shoes in his hands as he kicked through the edge of the water with Kalo barking and nipping at his ankles.
My heart ached.
“This next card, The Nine of Wands, again tied to fire. You will be tested, Cooper,” she said, and my eyes flicked to hers then. She seemed to be looking right through me, to my innermost self. “You must come into this test with persistence and determination to gain the outcome you desire, and it will not be easy. You may have to come to terms with a loss you didn’t foresee, one you can’t imagine, in order to move forward and emerge on the other side of this test.”
My heart raced under my ribcage, thoughts dizzying as I wondered what the test could be. My first thought was that it tied to Emery, to our time together. We hadn’t discussed what would happen when we reached Washington. In fact, I still didn’t even know where he was going, or if he’d stay. Was that my test? Would I have to give him up? Or was it the test of a new life, of Bastyr and a new job and a new home?
“This last card,” she said, sliding it just a little closer to me. “Is Death.”
My eyes jolted to hers, wide and no doubt showing the fear I felt at the indication, but she laid her hand over mine in reassurance.
“Calm down, it doesn’t mean a physical death,” she said, her voice low and kind. “But it does symbolize the end of an era, the death of a chapter, and perhaps even the death of who you once were. Something tells me that this test, whatever it is, will change you indefinitely. You’re on the brink of a new start, and how you begin this next part of your journey will depend greatly on how you walk into this test, and even more so, how you emerge on the other side of it.”
I scanned the cards again, heart in my throat, unable to do or say anything. My hands deftly reached into my back pocket and I pulled out the twenty-dollar bill I’d stuffed in there after purchasing our pizzas. I slid it over the table toward her, still in a daze. “Thank you.”
“Hey, don’t be scared, okay?” she said, ignoring the cash and squeezing my hand still in hers. She leaned down to catch my eyes. “Without the cards, I can still see your strength, your spirit, your light. Hold onto that, onto the person you are inside, and you’ll be okay.”
I nodded, a faint smile finding my lips as I squeezed her hand in return before standing. She watched me as I crossed the beach to Emery, and even when he turned to me with a goofy grin, Kalo covered in sand and water by his feet, I felt Melina’s eyes on me.
“Well, how does your future look? Are we going to drive off a cliff on the PCH and fall to a terrible death?”
I laughed, but it was dry and short. “Probably,” I joked, because it was easier than trying to explain the truth, to tell him the weight I felt on my shoulders after the reading.
I wanted to ask him right then what we would do once we hit our final destination. I wanted to know where we would go from there. But we hadn’t even discussed what we were, or what we would be. All I’d asked of him — all I could ask of him — was that he try. And in order to let him try, I had to give him room to fail, space to succeed, air to breathe.
I needed to have patience.
But I was finding out very quickly that patience was a virtue I did not possess. At least, not anymore.
We checked into a room right on the beach, our patio overlooking the water, and I took the first shower before joining Emery where he sat outside. The wind whipped his hair as he wrote in his journal by the small porch light, and I took the seat next to him, crossing my prosthetic over my right leg.
“She’s all yours.”
Emery finished his thought, dropping his journal on the table between us with a thud. “Good. I smell like wet dog and Vegas.”
“You should bottle that,” I joked, and he ruffled the fur on top of Kalo’s head as he squeezed past, heading inside.
When I was alone, I inhaled a deep breath, taking in the salty ocean breeze. There was no moon that night, so the beach was dark, but I could hear the waves rolling in over the rocks and the sand, and I closed my eyes, letting it all wash over me.
I hadn’t read Emery’s journal since the morning we left Colorado Springs, and even though I knew I should never read another page of it, my hands were in tight fists at my sides to keep me from doing it anyway. Nora had told me to be patient, Melina had told me my actions would catch up to me, and still, I wanted so desperately to know what he was thinking.
We’d had such a good day together, I hadn’t bothered asking him what he was thinking or how he was feeling about the night before. There was a line we crossed, one we jumped over willingly, and now that we were on the other side of it, I wasn’t sure how to act. It hadn’t just been a g
ood day, it had been a new kind of good day — one with touches and kisses shared between us. It was a complete one-eighty from the day before, and now that I was finally sitting still, I felt the whiplash. I wondered what would happen next, not just when we got to Seattle, but when we woke up in the morning, too.
Today was a good day, but what about tomorrow?
I peered over my shoulder into the room, but it was empty, and I heard the faint sound of the shower kicking on through the open sliding glass door. My eyes found the journal next.
I reached for it, pulling the leather into my lap and running one thumb along the binding. Kalo whined at my feet, as if she, too, was telling me no, but I couldn’t help it. I leaned down to pet her long fur, and then I grabbed hold of the ribbon bookmark and opened to the latest entry.
His familiar handwriting filled only half of the page, and it felt like a welcome home sign. He hadn’t gotten much down before I’d come out and told him it was his turn to shower, but even the little that was there comforted me, a small glimpse inside his thoughts.
I wish I believed in something.
I feel stupid even writing that, being that I make fun of anything that isn’t science, but in a way, I wish I could believe in something bigger than myself. I don’t get on my knees and pray to anyone when I’m scared, and I don’t have any big man in the sky who I thank when something good happens. I don’t read my horoscope and I don’t study Buddhism. I guess you could say I believe in Karma, but really, I mostly just believe that some way or another, we’re all bound to get what we have coming to us.
Really, I don’t believe in anything.
We left Vegas today and landed in Laguna Beach for the night, and Cooper had her tarot cards read. The way she watched the woman read her cards… it was like she was hanging on to every word the woman said, looking for hints and clues as to how to make the next step in her life. I wanted to tell her she was the only one in control of it, but I could see it — she believed. And who am I to tell her not to?
Tomorrow we’ll start driving the Pacific Coast Highway, something I’ve wanted to do ever since Dad drove me a small leg of it when I was younger. Grams had it on her list of things she wanted me to do, too.
Summer Romance Box Set: 3 Bestselling Stand-Alone Romances: Weightless, Revelry, and On the Way to You Page 75
