Page 20 of Their Last Resort

So I didn’t pretend. Not like I would have with someone else. With Cole, it was always just saying the first thing that came to mind. The truth. Well ... most of it.

“I know you don’t want company, and I know you definitely don’t want company that includesme, but here I am. Too late. Shove over.”

He looked over at me, baffled. “There’s plenty of sand. Why do I need to move?”

“Because I said so.”

He shook his head and shifted a little to the right so that there was room for the two of us in front of the sprawling ocean. I took a seat beside him on the warm sand and held my breath, waiting for him to say something.Anything!

“Some stars, right?” I noted.

Nothing.

“The ocean’s so pretty at night.”

Nada.

“So as a kid, did you always see yourself working as a midlevel manager at a large-scale resort?”

He let out a short laugh and shook his head. Then he peered over at me out of the corner of his eyes and asked the last question I ever saw coming. “Do you ever wonder what the fuck we’re doing here?”

“On this beach?” I inquired dumbly.

I thought that might have been his surreptitious way of asking why I was there bothering him.

He shook his head, nodding toward the ocean. “In this life.”

I reared back. “Damn. What’d you take? Mushrooms or something?”

He pointed down to the sand near his feet, where a copy ofCalypsoby David Sedaris rested on a patch of compact sand. A scrap of paper hung out of the top of it, his makeshift bookmark.

“Oh, yeah, he’ll do that to you. Make you think.” I sighed. “It’s okay, it’ll go away soon, and you don’t have to worry about me ratting you out to everyone. About you having a conscience, I mean.”

He was quiet for a bit, and when he eventually spoke, it was like all the fight had been drained out of him. He was utterly empty. “Not tonight, Paige.”

He stared back out at the ocean as my heart splintered in two. We’d never called a truce like that. Worry lanced through me, worry over something I felt like I didn’t fully understand. I wanted him to be okay, for us to be okay, but I didn’t know exactly how to help him. I didn’t feel like I had the right words, and digging deep for something sincere held its own dangers. At any moment, I knew he could pull the plug on this conversation, so that I’d wind up being the one left feeling vulnerable and exposed.

Even with that worry in mind, I reached over to touch his arm, right above his elbow. He was still wearing his dress shirt from work, sans jacket and tie. He’d unbuttoned the top few buttons and rolled up the sleeves. His shirt kept our skin from touching. It felt important to keep that layer between us.

He was so sexy it hurt to look at him full on. Thank god it was so dark or maybe I wouldn’t have been able to at all.

“I feel that way sometimes, Cole. Of course I do. Doesn’t everyone?” I asked, leaning forward a bit, trying to get him to look at me.

“I don’t know. Do they?”

He was asking the ocean, not me.

“Cole, Please. Don’t be sad.”

It felt like my own heart was breaking.

“I’m not.”

He said it so sincerely that I believed him, but still, something was wrong, so I persisted. “Could have fooled me. C’mon, you’re probably just missing home. Your old life. Some girl that’s waiting for you back in—”

“Ohio.”

I snapped. “Right.Ohio.The land of ... hot dogs?”

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