Page 78 of I'm Not Yours
Besides! He is only here for eight weeks total. I will not get involved with a man for eight weeks and then be discarded. I am not a beach toy.
How poor will I be by the time I get divorced?
What if the reporter giggles in a mean way at my dresses?
Earthquakes. Strange diseases. Weird sounds at night.
Morgan. Leoni. She works so hard. I want her to be happy. I’ll make her and Morgan matching lace skirts.
I played Scrabble. I spelled these words: “ache,” “alone,” “lace.” I lost.
I ate a cream puff. Okay, two cream puffs.
7
Reece and I headed down to the beach one sunny, golden afternoon to visit the sea anemones in the tide pools for yet another date.
He picked up a black, broken butterfly shell and tossed it back into the ocean.
“I have never found a butterfly shell in one piece,” I mused.
“And you want one?”
“Yes. I’m down here all the time and mostly I see half of the shell, not the whole one, and if it is whole, it’s chipped.”
“I’ll find a whole beach butterfly for you.”
He grinned at me. He was so overpoweringly masculine he, well, overpowered me. Sometimes I think our society has beat the man out of men, but this one, no. He still had all the man roaring around in him.
He hummed a few notes, soaring and light. “I’ve found my butterfly girl, between the sand and the sea . . . but she keeps running away from me . . . baby we can be together, if you’ll trust in me . . .”
The man was too much. Too much for my poor heart, which was pitter-pattering on high speed.
He took my hand and I ceased to be able to think. When you’re holding hands with a singing cowboy, it’s hard to think.
“Remember I’ve told you that since we’re friends, we can hold hands,” he told me.
“Yes. You told me that.” I was breathless.
“Let’s dance down to the tide pools, June.”
