Depths

by Liz Reinhardt

  I nod and we head back into the house where Whit and my loud, obnoxious family wait to eat with us. Conversation bounces from one subject to another like mad, and the food is beyond delicious, but I feel like I can’t hear or taste a thing.

  My mind keeps flipping between two scenarios. In one, I’m beating the shit out of Jason Nucci and making damn sure he doesn’t think about hurting Maren again.

  In the second, I’m doing wild, crazy things with Maren for hours on end in my bed.

  I can’t keep this girl out of my brain, but I realize it’s probably because it’s been so long since I got laid. I mean, I guess it hasn’t been that long in the grand scheme, but sex was pretty much a daily thing with Kensley, and now it’s been…too long. Much as I think I want her, I know any relationship is probably the recipe for rebound disaster. Good thing that by the time I make scenario number one happen, scenario number two will probably be out of the picture.

  But I tell myself I don’t care if Maren will most likely hate me for kicking her boyfriend’s ass. I can acknowledge that dating her is a stupid idea, but there’s no part of me that can be okay with seeing her get hurt.

  I make a decision to get going on my damn list so I can keep thoughts of Maren as far out of my head as possible.

  I’m wishing myself a lot of luck on that one.

  12 MARENI pull the large spiral-bound pad out of my bag and open it to the first page. The pages are heavy and still stiff because, even though I bought his sketch book two years ago, it’s the first time I’ve taken the time open it. I clasp a binder clip to the bottom of the pad to keep it open in the persistent wind and pull out the fresh pack of oil-based sanguine pencils, taking the time to roll one back and forth in my palm, feeling the familiarity of the rough wood before poising it to the pad.

  I used to draw daily, once upon a time. It was something I’d done since I was a kid. Almost every photograph from when I was a little girl features me with a crayon, paint brush or pencil in my hand, creating something.

  But then real-life happened and the instances of me feeling creative, or even thinking about expending the kind of energy creating something takes, just dwindled and faded away. The last time I’d drawn anything at all was first semester, when I still had hope things would change for the better and all my best-laid plans would finally work out. At least while I was still in school, I had an excuse to waste time on things like art. I made sure to work in some art class each semester into my schedule.

  Until I couldn’t afford those extra classes anymore…and then had to drop out of school altogether.

  I take a deep breath of the thick ocean air and start outlining. A rough uneven line to represent the shore, jagged peaks for rocks and squiggly lines for calm water. The surf isn’t great this morning, and one by one, I’ve watched the surfers give up for the day and make their way up the sand.

  I dig my toes in the sand and try to grasp just how much my life has changed from the time when I was a hopeful student with a shiny new set of classes and fulfilling future in front of her to a depressingly single, underemployed loser living with her alcoholic dad. Instead of getting bogged down in the inevitable suckiness of my life in general, I focus on this moment in particular and remember exactly why I used to frequent this spot on the beach when I needed inspiration. It’s perfect because the main crowds stay further south since the sand is a little rocky over here, but I don’t mind it. I just put down a double layer of towels and I’m good. Alone, peaceful, perfect.

  I did second-guess whether I should go to a different beach or even sit up on the pier this morning because now I know where Cohen’s place is—it’s less than one hundred yards from where I’m sitting now. If it weren’t for the huge rock formation next to me, I’d be able to see a straight shot to his gorgeous home.

  It was a risk picking this spot. But a calculated one.

  Maybe if I run into him, it’ll quash some of this awkwardness between us. We still haven’t had a normal conversation since his tongue was on my neck and his hands were…Christ…maybe seeing him will only make the awkwardness worse.

  I press my pencil back to the pad, but the line is all wrong. It’s too thick and dark and heavy handed. I close my eyes and let the wind swirl through my hair, transforming it to a knotted mess, no doubt, but I’ve got to relax. Since that night at Jason’s place, I’ve been wound tighter than ever. I feel like I wasted so much time on him. And for what? He’s called round the clock. He even texted me that he loved me last night, which I don’t think he ever said to my face.

  I didn’t reply.

  I can’t.

  I just want to forget that Jason and that chapter of my life ever happened.

  I need a clean slate.

  And a fresh piece of paper. I unclasp the clip and turn to the next page in my sketch pad, smooth it down, and re-clip.

  “Maren?” a voice I know so well says. I pause for a moment, wondering if I imagined it, but the wet droplets collecting on my towel say that, no, it did actually happen. I slowly raise my eyes, taking in the tanned and toned legs, the abs that no one has the right to have—at least if I can’t touch them—and that jet black hair dripping water onto his broad shoulders, down his chest, and… “What are you doing here?”

  I swallow hard. “Here? I’m just drawing.” I hold the pad up as evidence and start to blab like I’m guilty. It’s like I’m outside of my body watching myself act like a huge fool, and there’s nothing at all I can do to stop it. “I know you live nearby. I swear I wasn’t hoping to run into you or anything. Really, I just—”

  “Maren, it’s a public beach, you have just as much of a right to be here as I do. Even if your page is blank.” Cohen winks at me and I want to crumple myself up like a piece of paper to avoid this particularly hellish embarrassment. “Surf is terrible today. Do you surf?” He graciously changes the subject.

  “I do.” I watch the corners of his mouth twitch up into a pleased smile and I feel a flash of satisfaction. “I haven’t in a long time. Jason—” I start to tell him how Jason thought surfing was only for slackers and people with too much time on their hands. He didn’t appreciate how you experience both wild exhilaration and total serenity while in the barrel of a wave. But I decide against talking about Jason to Cohen. “Never mind.”

  “We’ll have to go sometime. I’m out here almost every morning,” Cohen says, running his palm across the smooth surface of his board. I’ve never wanted to be a surfboard so much in my entire life.

  “Absolutely. I’d really like that,” I say, keeping my voice steady and hopefully concealing the raw lust bubbling up inside of me.

  I hold my hand up in an attempt to block out the rising sun when Cohen locks his dark eyes on mine. We stare at each other for what should be an uncomfortable amount of time, but it isn’t, because I’d love to stare at him longer. All the time.

  “Listen, Maren. I need to talk to you about something and—”

  “Please don’t…” I pause and let my courage build for a few seconds. Which is totally necessary when I’m being faced with Cohen in all his wet, sexy glory about to tell me that the little perfection we had wasn’t good enough after all. It’s the last damn thing I need to hear today. I take a deep breath and dive in. “Don’t say that you regret the other night. Don’t say how it was a mistake, because I can’t take hearing that right now,” I confess.

  Maybe it’s too much honesty to lay out here, on a sunny public beach so many nights after our amazing, hot stolen moment, but I can’t keep it inside anymore. He’s got to know.

  “I wasn’t—” Cohen pauses to clear his throat. “I promise you I don’t think it was a mistake.” The sincerity in his voice, combined with the way his eyes rake over me, instantly convinces me that he doesn’t regret the scene in the kitchen.

  I nervously pull my bottom lip in, waiting for him to finish.

  “Can we just go somewhere and talk? I have some dry clothes in my car and there’s a place right up the beach with a
mazing Mexican food if you’re game. I’d really like to buy you lunch.” I let my eyes wander one more time on his exposed stomach, dreading the minute he pulls a shirt on, and nod. “That sounds good.”

  The restaurant is uncomfortably packed. They’ve crammed us into a booth that should maybe fit two toddlers, not full grown people like me and Cohen. Still, being close enough to smell the sand and ocean on him isn’t exactly a negative.

  I tap the edge of my cardboard coaster onto the mosaic table top.

  “Well, what’s good here?” I ask.

  Cohen presses his back against the booth and stretches his long legs out. One of his knees knocks into mine, but neither one of us flinch away from the touch. “Their enchiladas are killer. Not as good as my mom’s, but still awesome. The flautas are pretty bomb, too. What do you like?”

  You.

  I shake my head at myself and smirk.

  “What? What’d I say?” Cohen asks, propping his elbows on the table and leaning in close to me.

  Bad idea, Cohen. You’re hard to resist from afar, this close makes it almost impossible.

  “Nothing.” I shake my head. “I think I’ll just get the quesadillas. That sounds safe, right?”

  I love being here with Cohen, I do, but part of me feels like this is a really bad idea. I’ve been trying to convince myself to stay away from him, and then I all but stalked him out and now we’re at lunch, and it suddenly feels like I’ve maybe made this happen and it shouldn’t be happening.

  Cohen lets out a laugh that smoothes the creases in my mood.

  “I’m sure they’re great. Do you want a drink?” he asks, as the waiter approaches.

  “Bottle of Sapporo?” I ask.

  A smile stretches across his face. “Ah, that’s my girl. Good choice.”

  I know he doesn’t mean anything deep by it, but it feels good to know that he approves.

  Cohen orders for us, and it doesn’t feel possessive or weird. It feels like it should. Like a gentlemanly gesture. We both nurse our beers a bit before he finally speaks again.

  “I meant what I said on the beach.” His voice drips raw sexiness over the words that he says without a hint of hesitation. “What happened at my house, that wasn’t a mistake. At least not for me.”

  I glance up from the label on the bottle I’ve been picking at. I open my mouth to speak, but he isn’t finished.

  “You, Maren. You are so not what I expected to fall into my life right now. You’re beautiful, and smart, and you just get things… and Christ you’re so damn sexy.” His voice goes rough on the last few words and parts of me start throbbing that shouldn’t while in public. “I just… I don’t want you to think that that night in the kitchen was some rebound thing for me, because it wasn’t. You aren’t. But I get that, for whatever reason you’re with Jason, so I am sorry if I stepped out of line.”

  “Jason and I broke up,” I spit out.

  Cohen jerks his head back in surprise and then relaxes a bit and takes a long pull from his beer. “Why?” It’s a single word tight with control.

  “Isn’t it obvious? He was a complete douche. I don’t know why I was even with him for as long as I was. I mean, I guess I do, but still…”

  “And why was that?” Cohen asks, looking me in the eye. Forcing me to expose things I don’t want to, but I know I will because it’s Cohen.

  “Because it was easy. Safe.”

  Cohen shakes his head and scoffs. “Maren, what about Jason screamed safety to you?”

  I mull the question over for a minute while I pick apart a tortilla chip, feeling a little embarrassed. “I guess I mean that my heart was safe. Jason wasn’t always terrible to me like he was at the end, but he was never great. He was just enough. And it was safe because he couldn’t break my heart…because he didn’t have it.”

  Cohen nods knowingly, and I can’t help the relief that washes over me when our food arrives and puts a nail in the talk about Jason. For now at least.

  “Good?” Cohen asks, as I stuff a bite of tortilla and cheese into my mouth.

  I nod. “So good. Yours?”

  “Excellent. Always is. Genevieve used to date the cook here. I’m seriously glad he doesn’t hold a grudge, because I eat here at least once a week.”

  I love knowing little things about Cohen like this. Pointless things maybe, but still, it’s more information about him and what he does outside of the confines of Rodriguez Family Furnishings. Getting to know these little facts make me all tingly and fills me with an ache to be a bigger part of that outside life.

  “Speaking of exes—” he starts.

  I roll my eyes. “Please not this again.”

  He swallows hard and puts his food down, like he’s not remotely comfortable saying what he’s about to say. “I just have to tell you something, and I’m so glad to know that you aren’t together anymore for so many reasons…but this one most of all.”

  “What?” I lean in, unsure if I want anyone else in this establishment to hear whatever horrifying thing Cohen is about to tell me about Jason.

  “So, Deo, my best bro, his girlfriend is Whit, and she works at a tattoo place. Anyway, she put two and two together and realized that she’s actually met Jason before. I mean, I was just mentioning you and…”

  I feel a warm blush creep over my face, knowing that he must have been telling his best friend about our semi-hook-up. “It’s fine, Cohen, go on.”

  “Anyway, turns out Jason had been into Rocko’s tat shop a couple of weeks ago, prepaying for a tattoo. Of his name…for you.”

  I spit my beer out. I can’t help it. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry!” I say, grasping at the stack of cheap napkins and blotting every surface. “So, so sorry.”

  Cohen chuckles. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

  I’m mopping up the mess I made, and he’s helping, looking a little confused and relieved, and I have to explain things. Because Cohen needs to know that I may have been in a shitty relationship, but I always had boundaries. Firm ones.

  “Cohen, I would never. Ever. Ever in my life tattoo any man’s name on me, especially that slimy prick’s. I can’t even believe that he would think that I would want that. I just…” Even as tears stream from my eyes, and other patrons of the restaurant stare, I can’t control my maniacal laughter.

  “That’s good. Good. I’m glad to hear that. He said it was going to be your birthday present.” The relief on Cohen’s face is priceless.

  I know I made the right decision when I walked away from Jason, but it’s moments like these that reaffirm just how right a decision it was. “My birthday present? That’s insane. That’s the last thing I’d ever want. He really has no idea who I am at all. I guess he never really wanted to know.”

  “I want to,” Cohen says, his words suddenly making the tone of this conversation more serious than it has been before.

  “W-what?” I stutter out.

  “I want to know you, Maren.” The entire place just recedes, and it’s like all I can focus on are the words coming out of his sinfully perfect mouth.

  I grasp at frantic straws, trying to make sense out of what he’s saying, but not daring to hope he might mean what I think he means. “You do. We talk every day.”

  Cohen sighs. “Right. We talk about recliners and spreadsheets and both of our exes, but I want to know more about you.”

  “I’m not so interesting. What do you want to know?”

  Cohen rubs his hand across the scruff of his cheek and I fight back the urge to lick my lips.

  “For starters? Why someone so freaking intelligent and beautiful allows herself to basically be held hostage by her father. You have so much to offer and you’re just stifling yourself and your dreams to take care of your dad. I don’t get it.”

  “That was harsh,” I say, pulling back. This conversation right here is why I was with Jason. Because I never had to defend or explain myself or my choices to Jason. He didn’t ask complicated questions and he didn’t care. It was easier t
hat way.

  “I don’t mean it to be. I’m just curious. What makes you feel the need to take that on? It just seems to me that you’re too young to have that kind of load on your shoulders.” He slides his hand across the table and almost grabs mine, but not quite.

  Which is good. It’s hard enough to resist the urge to leap over the table and onto his lap, even when he’s butting his nose in where he has zero right. If he touches me, I know I’ll lose my will and just give up trying to resist him.

  I shrug, not all that excited to delve into the extremely tangled mess that defines life with my father. “I guess so. But he just doesn’t have anywhere else to go. I feel like I can’t let him down. I’m all he’s got.”

  “Fair enough. But do you know what I think?” He leans in, and I feel like I might be getting slightly hypnotized by him. I hope he doesn’t think I should get up and cluck like a chicken or something, because I don’t know if I’ll be able to deny whatever it is he thinks I should do. “I think you should make this year the year of Maren. The year you figure out what you want and only do what makes you happy.”

  His request actually makes a public display of the chicken dance sound like a fun time.

  “That sounds like a dream.” It’s cornball to put it that way, but that’s the sad truth. Just a dream, I should add. And one I’m not about to torture myself with. Real life is hard enough without lost dreams to make it more unbearably depressing.

  Cohen reaches across the table and brushes his thumb across my bottom lip. It’s a soft touch that’s over way too quickly and leaves me aching for more. “Make it happen.”

  The words sound like a demand, but the tone of his voice makes it more like a mantra, like advice or just plain old encouragement. God, what a simple thing encouragement is. Until Cohen said those three words, I didn’t realize just how little of it I had in my day-to-day life.

  In fact, it’s almost like the people around me have been dragging me down, drowning any hope before I could reach out and grab onto it.

  “I’ll try.” And I mean it. Cohen is right, and I’ve known it for a long time, long before he spoke up.