Chapter Fifteen
The door to their villa was ajar, and Summer’s heart squeezed as it did every time she allowed herself to think about Ashton being in her life. Love. They’d made love, and there was no doubt that she was falling for her childhood crush. Falling, fallen, crumpled under a massive pile up of watery lust for Ashton Evans.
But it wasn’t Ashton’s back she saw as she walked into the room. She froze.
“What are you doing here?” Even Summer could hear the bitterness in her voice, but so what. T.J. deserved every ounce of it.
“I think you mean thanks for finding your bag.” T.J. turned from where he stood in front of Ashton, a smirk on his face.
Summer looked down, and yes, he was holding her bag. Her body was still frozen in shock, but she forced herself to respond. Keep calm. “Thanks.” She took it off him and checked the contents. Her clothes were in there, but her passport and wallet were gone.
“After all the names you called me.” He tut-tutted. “I come to drop off your bag and what do I find…? Ashton Evans in your bed.”
“He’s not in my bed. I’ve been in the surf. Maya booked this place for the campaign shoot; there are two bedrooms.”
“One of which hasn’t been used.”
“You’re checking my bed now?”
T.J. waved a hand. “Stop pretending. Kain’s little brother saw you together at the blue house. Said you looked awfully cozy. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what’s going on. You’re together, admit it.”
Ashton gave her a look, but she couldn’t hold it in. Part of her felt lighter talking about it out loud. “What if we were? You and I are over, anyway. You making me pretend to be part of something shiny and golden is just so you can control me.”
“Hardly. It’s business. Pure and simple. This”—he waved an arm between the two of them—“was not the deal.” T.J.’s smirk had disappeared, and Summer’s bravado diminished.
“Just stop.” Ashton finally spoke up. “No one has actually seen us together, so strictly speaking, Summer hasn’t breached your contract. Let it go and leave Summer alone. I’m leaving. You don’t have to worry about your precious reputation.” Ashton said it all in a rush, as if he’d been thinking on it for a while.
Summer’s jaw dropped, but Ashton wasn’t looking at her. He was focused on T.J.
“Huh,” T.J. said his face changed from smirking to being open, like a new thought had struck him.
“What?” Ashton snapped.
“You’re willing to walk away. You must actually love her.”
For a moment it looked like Ashton would agree. His face was open, his eyes swimming with something Summer hadn’t seen before. Something like hope, like love.
“You do,” T.J. said. “Well, that changes things. I didn’t know you were such a gentleman. Wonder what the press would think of that.”
And then it was over, and Ashton’s face closed. “We all know I’m not a gentleman. But seriously, I’ll go, and you can leave Summer alone to get on with her career.”
“I can’t say I was expecting this. But okay. It’s very gallant of you, Evans.”
“Whatever you say.” Ashton put out his hand. “Do we have a deal? You leave her alone, and I’ll back off.”
T.J. took Ashton’s hand and shook it. “Sure. When my rebrand eventually launches, it won’t leave room for Summer, anyway.”
“Good,” Ashton said and stuffed his hand into his pocket.
“Bye for now, then, kids,” said T.J. He dropped her bag on the floor and, as if it was nothing, sauntered out of the villa.
Summer took a deep, shaky breath. “What the actual fuck?”
“There wasn’t any other way out of it. Not if you want to keep your career.” Ashton turned away from her and started pulling things out of the cupboard.
“Hey.” She put a hand on his arm, and he flinched. “What he said, about you loving me…”
But he had started throwing clothes into a bag.
“Are you listening? What are you doing?” she said.
He shrugged. “This should never have happened. You’ve got to concentrate. If I’m here, it’ll distract you, and right now you don’t need any distractions. Not if you’re going to do what you came here to do.”
“You don’t think I should decide whether I want to be distracted or not?”
“I made a deal with T.J.”
“Oh my God. What is it with men deciding they know what’s best for us mere women?”
That got him, and he paused and turned to her. His face wasn’t as set as his body. She saw regret there, but she also saw resolve. His voice was gentle, though. “I’m sorry. If there were another way through this I would take it. You know that, right? But you want this life. And if T.J. sued you, it would be over. You can’t tell me Maya didn’t just give you this same talk.” Ashton was squirming, and he never squirmed. Of all the men she’d known, he stood straight, didn’t bunch his body into a defensive ball like so many others she knew, herself included. “Don’t make me have to spell it out. Meeting you again after all this time. Spending time with you….” He trailed off.
Summer put her hands on her hips. “You’re doing it, aren’t you? You’re bailing for good. Didn’t you hear what T.J. said? His new rebrand won’t include me. When he decides to launch it, whatever it is, we can be together.”
“In a year’s time.”
“Hey.” She took his hand in hers. “Don’t check out on me.”
He pulled his hand back as if it stung. “I’m being the bigger person here. Focusing on me, just like you need to. I need to get my ass back on the WSL circuit, and you need to cement your place there. Neither of us can afford to be fumbling round in the dark for the next year.”
“Fumbling round in the dark?” Summer’s eyebrows rocketed up, and she stepped back. “That’s what we’re going to call this?”
Ashton put a hand up. “That’s not what I meant. Our time together has been amazing. Fantastic. Like it should have been years ago. But I screwed it up for you then. I’m not about to screw it up for you now.”
Summer’s insides started falling away; she felt the vertigo as a physical ache. “We have something. Something real. Don’t tell me you don’t feel it.”
He stood stock-still, his jaw solid, the broad planes of his chest hardly moving so that she wondered if he was even breathing.
“It’s better this way. We don’t even know what this is. Do you want to risk everything to find out? It’s not like I have a great track record. Half the stuff I touch turns to shit. Look at everything that’s happened since we got together.”
Summer clenched her jaw. “Give yourself a break. You are not followed around by a cloud of all-pervading pestilence. Bevan had an accident. My board broke in the surf. Some asshat stole my bag on the beach, and T.J. found us out. Shit happens. They even have that printed on T-shirts. Need me to buy you one?”
Was that the flicker of a smile on his face? But just as it appeared, Ashton wiped it away as he pushed a hand through his scruffy hair and then drew it over his jaw. “Doing the shoot with you was enough to show the people who matter that I’m back in the game. I’ve been offered a place for the wild card event. And I’m starting on the social media team early. Today. I need to stop kidding myself that I’m available for anything other than the WSL, and just get on with getting back in.”
Summer’s whole body felt the finality in his tone. “That’s great,” she managed.
He grimaced. “That’s my point. It is great. For me. But I don’t want it getting in your head. I’m shooting some behind the scenes stuff with the guys. Top four. Including T.J.”
His voice was flat, and Summer finally clicked what he was saying. He had been thinking about leaving since he’d been offered the job. T.J. turning up was just convenient timing. He wasn’t just moving out, he was moving on, using their shoot as a stepping stone to get what he really wanted, a tour slot with the WSL. “So you’re running away.”
“What would you call it? This…” She waved between them. “This was something special. Something more than what you’re admitting.”
His hand moved from his jaw to rub the front of his chest as if it was giving him pain. “This was about me making up for being an ass back when we were kids. And about having a bunch of fun. You’re a lot of fun. But fun is not what either of us needs right now.”
“Fun? What about everything else? What about love, you asshat? Because the way I feel about you isn’t just fun. You make me my best self. And I’ve fallen for that. I’ve fallen for you.”
His face was still blank.
“Are you going to make me say it? I’m in love with you.”
Nothing. The sound of the waves crashing still filtered through the walls of the villa, but otherwise the world was deadly silent. Summer waited. For him to say something. For someone to appear with a big placard that said “audience laughter” because surely this was some kind of set up. What they had together was real, was true. Wasn’t it? When nothing happened, the other reality hit her like a crumbling barrel—he was bailing on her a second time. Once as kids, and now…
His blue eyes flickered like the ocean outside, but there was none of the depth to them that the water enjoyed. They were flat. Hard. Cold. He had made up his mind. “You loved T.J., too, remember.”
Summer reeled. “How can you say that?”
“It’s true, isn’t it? You want it all, including the right man. Someone to complete you. I’m not that man. We both need to look out for ourselves. This competition is fierce, and if you can’t do that, if you won’t, you’ll never make it. You have to do this alone, babe. Without me bringing you down.” He turned and zipped up his bag.
“Fine,” she said, the word sticking like sand in her throat. “Best you get on with your life, then, and don’t look back. You’re wrong about me. I don’t need a man. I don’t need anyone. Get out.” She turned away so he wouldn’t see the tears that already threatened to make a mockery of her strong words.
She heard him hoist the bag onto his shoulder and then, without another word, walk out of the room. When the noise of him leaving had diminished to nothing, she sat.
There was no apology, no lingering possibility that once they had what they each wanted he’d be back as she’d suggested. He was gone. And as the door clicked, she realized he was stubborn enough to be gone for good.
Chapter Sixteen
She would have welcomed sleep. At least that way, the memory of Ashton would have left her body alone for an hour or two. But Summer’s whole being seemed set on torturing her. So it was a relief when light crept into her room. Yet even looking at the sweeping stretch of beautiful beach in front of the resort, Summer couldn’t bring herself to get out of bed. Being up meant the day had started. A day without Ashton. The first of many.
Her cell buzzed, and she fumbled for it, her heart leaping after her hands. Ashton? Apologizing? Asking to come back to bed?
“I didn’t wake you, did I? I would have rocked round, but I, you know, figured you and Ashton might be working through things.”
Summer snorted then hiccupped, the tears trying hard to get out at the same time.
“Summer? Oh shit. You’re crying? You cannot be serious.” Maya’s voice was fierce.
Summer nodded into the phone and caught herself. “Wanna come over?”
“On my way.”
Five minutes later, there was a knock on the door, followed by Maya’s voice as she pushed into the room. She looked around as if she still expected Ashton to be there somewhere. “I know I said to end it, but I didn’t mean for you to rip your heart out in the process. Shit, Brooke is going to kill him.”
Summer fell back on the pillows and pulled one over her face for a moment. “Maybe we don’t need to say anything,” she said when she came up for air. “It’s not like she knows yet.”
Maya lay down beside her. “Weeeell, I might have seen her last night and…”
Summer just sighed harder. “Could I stay in bed all day with food poisoning? All week?”
Maya sat up and looked hard at her. “Come on. He’s just a dude.”
Just a dude. Summer examined the thought. T.J. was just a dude. Ashton was…
“Oh shit, you didn’t?”
“What?”
“In the last few days? How does someone as smart as you fall in love that fast?”
Summer closed her eyes in a long, slow blink. Then she stiffened. “I’m not in love, I’m pissed. He and T.J. made a deal. The two of them standing there, telling me what was best for me…”
“Dudes are lame. But this is good. Pissed off is a much better place to be. I don’t know if I want to know what happened between last night and this morning, and honestly, you don’t really have time for it. You’re in Bali, baby. BALI! And you need to get in the water.”
Summer sat up. “Holy shit. Bali. It’s today isn’t it?”
“Now she wakes up. Come on. You need to get wet, then go get wet. Your heat’s on in two hours.”
Summer looked out the window properly. Though the break outside the resort wasn’t what she’d be surfing on, it was the same ocean. Same ocean, same swell. And it wasn’t mucking around. “At least it’s not messy.”
“You don’t know the half of it. I’ve been down to the site. It’s going to be big today.”
#
Big. Big was okay. Big she could deal with. This was not big. This was gigantic.
Summer stood looking at the surf crashing over on itself. There were a few clean waves in each set, but most of them broke up halfway down their barreling roll towards the beach, and the competitors who were already out there warming up, were not messing about.
“Got your big-girl undies on?”
The guy probably thought he was being funny, but Summer just about punched him in the mouth. The guy with a WSL official’s lanyard must have seen the set of her jaw. “Here’s the run sheet for today. Good luck.” And he hightailed it out of there.
“Gimme that.” Maya took the run sheet out of her hands, and Summer realized she’d been holding it with white fingers.
“Two hours, babe. Like I said.”
Summer just nodded.
“Don’t you think this might be a good thing? Channel your pissed-off-ness into showing these dudes how it’s done.”
“Sure,” said Summer absently. Her mind was a whirl of thoughts. For a moment she thought she saw Ashton out in the waves, then she shook her head and he was gone. This was stupid. Today was supposed to be her day, and she was moping about a guy she’d been with for all of two minutes.
“Don’t worry about Brooke, either. I’ll talk to her.”
“Talk to her about what?” Brooke’s voice came from behind them.
Summer whirled. Damn.
Maya took a step towards her. “Nothing. We need to get Summer in the water and ready for the ride of her life. Right?” She turned on the charm, her voice bright and enthusiastic.
Brooke didn’t bite. Not even for a second. “I was coming over to wish you luck and tell you to be careful with my brother, but I think I should have had it the other way around. What the fuck, Summer?”
“He was trying to do the right thing. I guess.” Saying the words out loud didn’t diminish the tension swirling around Summer’s body. Her whole skin was tight with it. Tight with the desperate feeling that she’d been dumped. Again.
Brooke’s face softened. “Hey. I’m sorry. If you’d asked, I would have told you not to go there.” She put a hand on Summer’s shoulder, and Summer had to fight the moisture trying hard to get into her eyes. “But you don’t have time to worry about him,” Brooke continued. “You need to worry about me. And if you don’t get out there and nail some decent waves, I will kill you. You are representing us all, you know that, right? All the women’s team are here to cheer you on and make sure you get T.J. to suck sand.”
That did it. Summer
laughed.
“I’m not kidding. I will make you eat surf wax for a week if you pussy out on this because of a boy.”
The smile stuck and Summer shouldered her board. “Right. For the girls.”
“Too damn right. Kill it, sister.” Brooke gave her a light punch on the shoulder and Maya pulled her in for a hug.
“An hour out there. Then chill while the contest gets going, then you’re on.”
#
The hour was more than enough for Summer. She messed about letting waves pass her by for a while, then pulled out early on another couple. “Come on.” Summer looked over at where T.J. was paddling hard to catch a big floppy wave and shook her head.
The next wave came in and Summer paddled into it. The drag of the water was on her board almost immediately, and for a second, she thought of pulling out. It was a monster. She could already tell it was going to be bigger than anything else she’d ridden in Bali. Heck, in the hard sunlight, the sand on the beach shone bare and empty where the water had been sucked back to feed the waves. But just as she was about to turn her board back, she saw T.J. beside her, getting ready to pump his board all the way into shore where a band of women stood, clearly hoping he’d seek them out. And there, there was Ashton, standing on the beach, his camera trained on…T.J.?
Her heart sank even further. He’d abandoned her to go and shoot the boys. Of all the things he could have done.
The world narrowed to a dark tunnel. Ashton had bailed on her and wasn’t coming back. He wanted to be back in the WSL, and that was what mattered. Not her. Not some stupid ideal about being at one with the ocean. He was just like the rest of them. Her muscles tightened as the water started sucking her up into the wave.
Another Shot with Summer (Hot Tide Book 1) Page 16
