Page 66 of The House on Firefly Beach
“Might be too late,” Logan replied, looking over her head.
Sydney turned around to find Juliana and Nate walking up to them. The trouble with this town was that Nate would have a pretty good idea of where Sydney would be. Didn’t he have the decency to let her enjoy her night?
“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” Nate said.
“Well, you definitely have,” she snapped quietly so as not to sound totally awful to poor Logan.
She eyed Juliana for help, but Juliana shrugged as if to say she’d already tried. Sydney took a large gulp of her drink, the alcohol zinging down her throat. She needed to calm herself down before she said something to Nate that no one else would need to hear. She’d known when he’d gotten here that he was a self-centered, selfish man. She should’ve listened to her gut.
“I need just one minute of your time and then Juliana and I will go have dinner,” he said, nodding a second apology to Logan. A gust of wind whipped through the deck, rustling the light items on tables, a few paper napkins went somersaulting through the air as a man dropped his fork to catch them. Vacationers were starting to catch on, an unsettling buzz pushing through the crowd as another gust of coastal wind blew in.
Sydney gritted her teeth and wriggled up from her chair against her will. “I’m so sorry,” she said to Logan. “I’ll be right back.”
“Logan and I can talk about the shoot today,” Juliana said as she sat in Sydney’s seat, clearly trying to lighten the mood.
Sydney mouthed a thank-you, her cheeks burning with irritation, and then followed Nate down the restaurant stairs at the back of the deck leading to the boardwalk that stretched over the dunes and down to the gulf. Nate walked all the way to the water’s furiously foaming edge, and Sydney kicked off her flip-flops, joining him.
“What is so important that it couldn’t wait for me to have a drink?” she asked, raising her voice above the wind picking up.
He turned to her, his face full of emotion, the wind rippling his white cotton shirt as he folded his arms. “Why didn’t you tell me you still had the ring?”
“What?” She was getting more irritated by the second. “I was having drinks with someone, Nate! You can’t just interrupt my night over some stupid toy ring that I happen to still have!” She turned away, ready to stomp back up the beach when he caught her arm, spinning her around.
“I couldn’t let you go a third time,” he said, a crease forming between his eyes with his emotion.
She stared at him. “Third time? What are you talking about?”
“Robby said you were on a date, and I nearly fell apart. I haven’t had enough time to make things right, and I can’t lose you again.”
“Robby?” she asked, taken completely off guard, totally forgetting his comment about letting her go three times. “I thought he was asleep.”
“He had a bad dream and your mom told him you were out with someone and you’d be back soon. He tried to text you, but he didn’t get you, so he texted me. He was worried you were on a date. To calm him down, I promised to play football with him tomorrow.”
Stunned, Sydney pulled her phone out of her pocket and realized her ringer was off. She had three missed texts. Guilt ran rampant inside her, knotting her stomach. She quickly texted Robby back, even though she knew that he was probably asleep by now, and put her phone back into her pocket. Another explosion of wind blew off the gulf, whipping her hair into her face. She pushed her hair back.
“You arenotplaying football with Robby tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll put his mind at ease about my night out.” The dark clouds had completely filled the sky above them, plunging them into an early dimness that usually didn’t fall upon the coast for several more hours, but she barely noticed.
“I know Hallie and Ben are coming back. I wouldn’t get in your way. It might be nice to have someone play with Robby so you and your sister can catch up.”
“Okay,” she said, closing her eyes in a feeble attempt to alleviate her growing frustration. “I’m having drinks right now. Or I’m supposed to be. Yet I’m out on the beach with you instead. You said you neededoneminute. You’ve already used your time.” She turned around to walk back toward Logan, mortified that she’d left him as long as she had.
“Okay!” Nate said, running ahead and getting in front of her. “One minute.”
“No!” Sydney replied, now completely exasperated. She’d told herself she wouldn’t allow him to distract her and here she was, right back with him. “You had your minute. And all the minutes between the day you pulled out of town and now. I’ve given you more minutes than any human being should ever give someone who leaves someone they love like that,” she said, her voice cracking under her emotion. “And I’m done, Nate.” If she wanted him totally out of her life, now was her chance. Using her momentum, she’d drive the nail in the coffin. “You know why I still have that ring? Because it reminds me every day of a life I don’t ever want.”
There. She’d finally said it out loud: she would never love Nathan Carr. He had to know that because the truth of the matter was that he couldn’t go back to being Nate Henderson again—no matter how hard she wished it would happen.
Nate’s arms fell limp at his sides, her words wiping his face clean of all emotion except for the glassiness in his eyes and the shock that had turned his skin pale. He suddenly looked broken, like the life had been sucked out of him. Seeing him like that made her want to wrap her arms around him and tell him how much she still cared for him but she reminded herself that it wasn’t Nathan Carr she was still in love with.
A crack of thunder sounded above them. She’d been so involved in their conversation that she hadn’t noticed how quickly the storm was coming in. Lightning flashed, reaching a jagged finger to the sea.
He slowly sat down in the sand. “Go ahead,” he nearly whispered, either oblivious or indifferent to the incoming weather. “I need a minute.” He wiped a tear that spilled from his eye, ripping her heart out. Why did things have to be so complicated? She wished they could go back to the day before he left; she wished he’d have chosen to do a lot of things differently. But he hadn’t. And they both had to live with that.
“Nate, what did you expect? Your choices in life are completely opposed to mine. At every turn, I disagree with them. You make me frustrated and upset all the time. Youhaveto let me move on.”
He looked up at her. “Is it the way I left all those years ago? Because I was just a kid, and there were reasons… But I’ve even messedthatup.”
He wasn’t making any sense.
