by Abbi Glines
They hadn’t.
“I wanted to come home,” I said, unable to tell her the full truth.
Bethy’s shoulders sagged, and she crossed her arms over her stomach protectively. “We were happy. You ruined it.”
She didn’t have to explain. I understood. When I had walked up to Jace’s door and Bethy had answered it, it was as if all those years had vanished. The girl who had shown me that love really was worth fighting for had stood there, older but more beautiful than I’d remembered. She was my girl. And she was wearing my cousin’s T-shirt, looking like she’d just crawled out of his bed.
We hadn’t spoken. We’d just stood there and looked at each other. For a moment, I’d almost expected her to jump into my arms, but then Jace had walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, grinning up at me like the happiest man on earth.
The world had fallen out from under me at that moment. Although I had known I’d lost her, it didn’t hit home until then. All these years, I’d lived with a guarded heart. I never got close to a girl. My heart had been claimed years ago. Not once had I been tempted to give it to anyone else.
“I’m sorry,” I said finally. And I was sorry. I was sorry I had come home. Because she was right. It had ruined everything she had built. I hadn’t been able to stop eating her up with my eyes, had been unable to get my fill of her. When Jace wasn’t around, I’d watched her hungrily, like my last breath depended on it. We never spoke, but words weren’t needed. I’d said enough with my eyes.
“You will always remind me of what I lost. Twice. I only lose with you, Tripp. You leave destruction in your wake. I can’t handle losing anything more.”
More than once since Jace had drowned, I wished to God it had been me. If I had been there that night, I would have saved his life. I wouldn’t have let him drown saving Bethy. I’d have beaten him to those waves. It would have been me who drowned that night. And all would have been right with the world.
Hearing Bethy tell me what I already knew, and what I already dealt with every day when I opened my eyes, made it impossible to breathe. I wasn’t worth the air I breathed. Knowing that the woman I’d love until the day I died believed the same thing made life seem pointless.
Which was why I would continue to keep her safe. I had to make this life mean something. This life I didn’t deserve. Keeping Bethy safe didn’t just mean something, it meant everything.
She didn’t wait for me to respond. She turned and walked back across the street, then climbed into her car. I waited until she was on the road and headed home before I pulled out onto the road and followed her.
Bethy
I stood behind my curtains and stared across the street at Tripp. He was sitting on his bike with his eyes fixed on my window. Normally, he left when I turned out the light at night. Once he was gone, I’d turn it back on. Tonight he wasn’t leaving. I had turned off the light an hour ago, and he was still sitting there, watching my window.
I had been numb for so long that ignoring him hadn’t been difficult. But lately, it was getting to me. The numbness I had embraced was slowly fading away, and long-buried emotions were finding their way to the surface, past my shield.
There had been a time when I was angry at the world, but I thought I’d moved on from that part of the mourning process. I had cried out all my tears. When the numbness came, I held it close. I wanted that. I needed it in order to continue living. The guilt and pain were tearing me apart.
Woods hadn’t been able to look at me because of the role I had played in Jace’s death, and I’d held on to that. He hated me still. He knew it was my fault. I clung to that. I needed to be hated. I didn’t need pity. I didn’t deserve pity. I should be hated. I wanted to be hated. Woods gave me that.
Everyone else worried about me. I didn’t want them to worry about me. They all saw what had happened. They all should hate me. But they didn’t. I stayed away from them, because the pity was too much. It wasn’t me they should worry about. I wasn’t worth their worry. I wasn’t worth their sympathy.
Then there was Tripp. As much as I wanted him to, he wouldn’t leave. He wouldn’t go away.
He no longer tried to speak to me. He had stopped that a long time ago. But he was always there in my damn rearview mirror, following me. Standing off in the shadows, watching me like some insane protector. I didn’t need protection. Especially not his.
I pulled my wrap tighter around me and sat down on my sofa in the dark. This was my only refuge. My apartment. A place Jace had never been before. There were no memories of happier times here. Except that Tripp invaded this world each night by sitting out there, watching me.
After he’d ruined me, I’d used my body to find happiness. I’d told myself I was looking for someone else, but I’d really been trying to wash him from my memories. So I’d partied. And I’d slept with guys. I’d become someone completely different from the girl he’d left behind.
Each time I closed my eyes and gave my body to another guy, I hoped I would forget Tripp.
But I never did.
He was always there in the back of my mind. The sweet, gentle way he’d held me our first time, even as he reminded me that there was more out there. Then I would remember how much it hurt to lose that.
Jace had come along, and I’d wanted him simply because he looked so much like Tripp. He reminded me of him, too. He wasn’t like the others. At first, he used me for sex, but he kept coming back. He made me smile, and he said sweet things.
When I had decided to stand up for myself and stop giving my body away to whatever wealthy hot guy hit on me, Jace had made a move, and just like Cinderella, I’d finally found love with my prince.
I had been so scared to love Jace, but he’d made it hard not to. I’d been older than when I’d met Tripp, and I’d told myself that it had been different with him because that had been a young love. I’d fallen deeper and more intensely because I’d been young. I had lived in a fairy tale.
What I’d had with Jace was real. I’d held on to that, and for a brief time, I’d been happy. Then Tripp had come back to Rosemary Beach, and one look at him, and my heart had slammed against my chest. All that intensity I had told myself was a young girl’s fascination had swamped me, overwhelming me immediately. I hated that he brought that out in me.
I hated what he’d done to me.
I hated him.
But I faked it because Jace loved him. And Jace could never know what had happened between Tripp and me.
The sound of Tripp’s motorcycle roaring to life made me breathe a sigh of relief. He was finally leaving. I hated the dark. I hadn’t eaten all day, and I needed to fix myself something before I went to bed.
Sitting in the silence, I waited ten minutes before standing up and turning on the lights. Tripp was gone for the night. I wouldn’t have to see him again until the morning, when he’d return while I was getting ready for work.
Tonight I had acknowledged him. I had spoken to him. I had wanted to spew all the hate and pain I had inside me at him. I knew he would take it—I knew he wouldn’t look at me with sympathy. And I had been right. He was Tripp. Calm, solid Tripp.
The words I’d said tonight had been harsh and cruel. Guilt settled inside me. He didn’t deserve that, but I had said them anyway. His flinching at my words had been the only sign that they affected him. Jace would hate who I had become. But I couldn’t stop myself.
The numbness was finally gone. Life was sinking in. Reality was here. I had to move on.
Everything had changed when Harlow gave birth. Harlow was my friend and Grant’s fiancée. They’d accidentally gotten pregnant, even though Harlow had a heart condition that made pregnancy risky, and for a little while after the birth, we weren’t sure she was going to make it. We’d been camped out in the hospital lobby when Woods had walked up to me. He’d told me it wasn’t my fault that Jace was gone. He’d been wrong for holding it against me; he just hadn’t been able to accept that Jace was gone. He was still angry, but
he wanted me to be happy again and he knew Jace would want that, too. Then he’d hugged me.
The numbness had begun to fade in that moment, and I’d almost begged him to hate me. I needed his hate. But the sincerity in his eyes as he’d squeezed my shoulders and told me to find happiness again had rendered me mute. Della had broken down in a fit of tears and come up to me and hugged me after watching Woods forgive me. It had all been too much.
Since that day, everything was changing. My secure world of nothingness was crumbling. And Tripp was still there, following me.
I was scared of depending on him, because this would end, too. He would leave. And I’d be left with one more thing to move on from. He needed to leave now. I knew from experience that he would only find ways to destroy me. I couldn’t live again if I had to guard myself from Tripp.
Tripp
Eight years ago
“What the hell is going on down at the beach?” I muttered as we pulled up to the condo my grandfather had given me as a graduation present. My parents hadn’t been happy about it, but my mother’s father had informed them that I needed my own space apart from them. This was his gift to me. I’d moved out the next day. Having the freedom of my own place allowed me to get the hell out of my parents’ clutches. It offered a taste of what I could have.
“Looks like a bonfire,” Woods said, stating the obvious.
“And we weren’t invited?” Jace asked.
“It’s not our crowd. We’re real close to the town limits. That part of the beach isn’t Rosemary Beach. My guess is they’re from Destin. Locals, maybe,” Woods explained.
We got out of Woods’s truck, and I grinned back at the other two. I was leaving soon, and I wanted to spend as much time as I could with Jace and his friends before I left. I didn’t know when I’d be home again. I had my own friends, too, but I could visit them when I was on the road. None of them spent summers here. I always did, because I was close to the guys from boarding school. The one year I’d spent there with Jace, Woods, and Thad had been epic. The shit we got away with because of Woods’s daddy’s influence . . . Whenever Rush Finlay came to visit Grant, we really got to have some fun. No one wanted to piss off a rock god’s son.
“Let’s go find some trouble,” I suggested, and Woods laughed as Jace whooped and jumped down out of the truck.
“I bet there’re hotties in bikinis lookin’ for a good time in that crowd,” Thad piped up as he pulled his long blond hair back into a ponytail.
“That’s what I’m thinking. I haven’t gotten any since I broke up with London,” I admitted.
“Damn, she’s fucking hot. I haven’t figured out why you stopped tapping that ass,” Thad said.
“She’s crazy,” Woods told him. He knew the stories. He’d heard them from Jace.
I nodded my head in agreement.
“I’m going to go grab that six-pack out of the fridge,” Jace said.
“I gotta use some mouthwash,” Woods said, following him up to my condo.
“I’ll meet y’all down there,” I told them. Thad followed the other two; I figured he was going after the mouthwash, too. They were all sixteen, and I doubted any of them would be getting any tonight, but I didn’t break it to them. This crowd was probably my age or older.
I stepped into the firelight and looked around. The bikinis were gonna make Thad really happy. Smiling, I went over to stand on the outskirts of the party to watch from the shadows for a bit before seeing if this was anything I wanted to walk into.
A large piece of driftwood lay just up to the right, hidden in the shadows, and I could make out the silhouette of someone occupying it. I knew that piece of driftwood. I came out here often at night to sit and watch the waves.
Curious, I walked over to it. As I approached, the occupant of my seat turned to look up at me. The moonlight illuminated her perfectly, and I recognized the sweet face and big brown eyes watching me. Bethy.
I hadn’t seen her again since I took her to her aunt Darla’s last weekend, yet I’d heard she kept finding the parties in town. At least this time, she was alone and not fighting off a jerk.
“You always find the good parties?” I asked as I sat down beside her.
She didn’t respond at first, and I wondered if she remembered me. “Tripp,” I reminded her. “I gave you a ride from Rush’s party last weekend.”
She smiled and ducked her head. “I know who you are,” she said softly, but that husky tone in her voice gave me a little shiver. I had to remember this girl was too young for me.
“Good. Then I’m not that forgettable,” I joked.
She laughed and glanced back up at me. “I knew who you were last weekend.”
Interesting. But then, she’d grown up at the club. I’d seen her many times myself. “So, whose party is this?” I asked, looking out at the crowd before turning my gaze back to her.
She sighed. “People from school. Seniors, mostly. My friend got an invite from a senior guy she has a thing for. She didn’t want to come alone. So here I am.”
And she was sitting all alone in the dark. Not exactly safe.
“Where’s your friend now?” I asked.
“There, in that American flag bikini with that guy who has his hand down her bottoms,” she said, pointing to the couple openly making out in front of everyone. “She doesn’t always make smart choices,” Bethy said with a frown as she looked away from her friend and back down at her hands clasped in her lap.
She was also wearing a swimsuit, but she had a cover-up on. I could see the pink straps tied behind her neck. All she was showing off was her legs. Her really long legs.
“Why are you here?” she asked, looking back up at me.
I nodded my head back to the condos to the left of us. “I live there.”
She frowned. “I thought your parents’ place was on the other side of Rosemary Beach.”
She knew where my parents’ summer house was? That was surprising. I wondered what else she knew about me. “I moved out after graduation,” I explained.
She sighed wistfully. “That must be nice.”
She had no idea. But then, she didn’t know what I was about to run from. She didn’t have people trying to make life decisions for her. That was my hell to face.
Hoots and whistles stopped me from saying anything more. I glanced out at the crowd to see that Bethy’s friend was topless, and the guy she was with was sucking on her tits right there in front of everyone. The girl’s head was thrown back as she held his head to her chest.
“Oh, God,” Bethy said beside me.
“Your friend is a bit of an exhibitionist,” I said, looking away from the action in front of me to Bethy, who was watching, horrified.
“She’s lost her mind. I don’t know what’s gotten into her lately,” Bethy said, covering her eyes. “I do not want to see that.”
Laughing, I reached over and took her hands from her face. “Take a walk with me. Maybe they’ll be done with this when we get back. We can miss the actual public sex.”
Bethy sighed and slipped her hand into mine, then nodded. “OK. Yeah. Because at this rate, they’re probably going to do it.”
Woods, Thad, and Jace needed to hurry and get down here for the show. It was probably the only action they were getting tonight.
We headed away from the condo and further into the darkness. I kept Bethy’s hand in mine, because it felt good. As long as she was good with it, I was keeping it there.
“How old is your friend?” I asked her.
“She turned seventeen last week. Her parents are getting divorced, and she’s taking it hard. Her mom walked into her room a month ago and caught her giving a guy head. It was bad. She’s lost her mind. But her parents aren’t doing much to stop her.”
“Might not be smart to follow her to parties. Can’t be safe for you. Guys might think you’re open to that stuff, too,” I said. I didn’t like the idea of any guy forcing himself on Bethy. She was so damn sweet, with a body that was way too mature
for her. I did my best not to ogle her. It was easier to think of her as the sixteen-year-old girl she was if I wasn’t looking at her very developed assets.
“If this is what she intends to do at these parties, I won’t be coming with her anymore. I don’t want to watch her do this. Besides, I start working at the club next week. I won’t have time to party with her. I’m saving up to get my own place as soon as I graduate.”
She would be working at the club? I liked that. More than I should. “Really? What will you be doing?”
“The only job Mr. Kerrington will allow Aunt Darla to hire me for is the lifeguard position at the pool.”
So she’d be in one of those red swimsuits all day. Even more appealing. I never visited the pool at the club, but I just might start. “I’m sure you’ll wear the uniform well,” I said, unable not to say it. I was flirting, but damn, it was hard not to.
She stopped walking a moment and glanced up at me with those big eyes. I had surprised her. Which made her even more damn appealing. She was actually surprised that I thought she’d look good in a swimsuit.
“What?” I asked, grinning.
“I have to wear a swimsuit,” she said slowly, like I hadn’t realized what her uniform would be.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
She glanced down at herself like she was checking to see if I saw the same thing she did. “You can see that I’m overweight, right?” she finally said, looking back up at me.
What? Was she joking? “Are you kidding?” I asked.
She shook her head slowly as she watched me like she was waiting for me to notice something. Did the girl really not know her body was incredible? Or was she fishing for a compliment? She didn’t have the teasing, flirty smile most girls had when they wanted you to compliment them. She looked pretty damn serious.
“You’re not overweight,” I said, letting my gaze drop back to her swimsuit cover-up.
“You must not have seen me clearly last weekend. My . . . I have large body parts,” she said, and started walking again. This time, she wasn’t holding my hand. She looked like she was trying to get away from me.
