Page 47 of Flawless

I stand on the beach for a little while longer, contemplating everything that she’s said. A rare breeze lifts off the ocean and blows my way, tussling my hair around.

I pull my fingers through my hair and turn towards the ocean, running to it. I don’t stop until I’m knee-deep in the water.

With my shoes and clothes on, I swim and swim until my muscles begin to grow tired. Only then do I turn back and swim to shore.

My steps are slow and measured as I walk back to the cottage, dripping water as I go.

“Hey, where have you been?” Zenon asks when I step inside. “Are you okay?” he asks as his eyes take in my wet appearance from head to toe.

He doesn’t wait for a response but runs to the back and returns several seconds later with two towels.

With loving, tender strokes, he dries my body.

“Sit here,” Zenon says, guiding me onto the ottoman as he sits behind me.

As he slowly pulls the towel through my hair, he says, “I was thinking about you this morning.”

My eyes drift closed loving how attentive he is as he dries my hair in sections.

“Oh yeah?”

“Mm-hmm. I was thinking about your culinary skills.”

“Or lack of them,” I quip drily.

“Either way, I was thinking that we could do some cooking lessons. If you’d like to, I mean,” he says hesitantly.

Turning around, I look up at Zenon and see the love shining through in his eyes. I think about what Amaris said.

“Zenon couldn’t be with another woman if he wanted to...he’s so deeply in love with you that he can’t see anyone else. You’re all he wants.”

“All I’m asking is that you make sure that you make his fight easy.”

“I would love that, Z. Now that I probably won’t have a show any longer, I should find ways to cut back on expenses by eating in more often.”

Laughing, he says, “I know that you’re not about to go broke anytime soon.”

“No, I’m not. But it can’t hurt.”

“No, it won’t. And it’ll give you something positive to do in the empty times.”

“How do you know about that?”

Sighing, he says, “I had a stint where I remained in an alcohol, booze-ridden nightmare. I couldn’t think straight, seldom ate, and barely got out the bed, let alone left the house. Some days, I forgot to take a bath. All I knew was taking a drink to ease the pain.”

“Did you attend AA?”

“Nope. A well-meaning friend of mine came by the house one day and told me to get my face out of my ass. He said that the world wasn’t thinking about the jerk move that I pulled on the field that day and neither was the girl who I’d done it for. He said that life was waiting for me to grab it by the horns and shape it into what I wanted it to be and that the bottle didn’t love me nearly as much as I loved it. If that were so, then I wouldn’t be passed out drunk on the floor and puking up my guts every time I woke up.”

There’s a light that shines in Zenon’s eyes when I turn around to look at him, and I know that this friend means a lot to him.

“Then what did you do?”

“I tried getting up again, but then I fell my ass back on the floor. He made me some elixir that he said was good for hangovers and made me drink it all. It was some nasty shit, but when it was finished about an hour later, I felt as right as rain. After that, he made me help him clean my house. He stayedthere for the next day, then forced me to return to his villa with him. I spent a week with him and his family.”

“That had to be hard,” I say as he pulls a brush through my locks, slowly detangling each section.

“Not at all. It was quite eye-opening, in fact. I was able to see firsthand what I was throwing away. Watching the love between him and his wife expressed in simple acts, the way that his kids adored him, and how he loved working in his vineyards was enough for me to change my perception. I could have everything that my heart dreamt of, too, if I was willing to fight for it.”

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