Page 27 of The Rehoboth Retreat
Of all the people to play nursemaid to my bleeding ass, it had to be the man who probably ironed his beach towels.
And yet, here he was—his hands surprisingly steady, precise, and annoyingly gentle—pressing his clean shirt to my foot like he was prepping me for surgery instead of just getting me to stop bleeding all over the beach like a stabbed tomato.
Fucking classic.
He helped me up, and I hissed like a vampire in daylight. My entire foot was pulsing with agony, but the worst part wasn’t the pain. It was the embarrassment.
I’d gone from cocky beach slut to beachside casualty in under ten minutes.
We shuffled to his SUV like the weirdest couple in a Hallmark movie: him, poised and pristine, and me, limping and covered in a fine layer of beach shame.
Miles’ SUV was as perfect as the man himself. Clean. Leather interior. That faint lemon-verbena scent that screamed“I have a linen closet labeled by season.”
He helped me into the passenger seat without a word, then disappeared into his house for a minute. He soon emerged, wearing literally the exact same linen shirt he’d had on at the beach—except this one was cleaner, without my DNA all over it.
Of course, he had multiple sets of the exact same shirts.
It did make me wonder how he organized them. Werethere small, microscopic nuances that allowed him to color-code or alphabetize each one in his closet? Or perhaps he arranged them by slight discrepancies in fabric composition—98% linen and 2% polyester versus 99% linen and 1% polyester?
Hell, who was I kidding? I knew damn well polyester didn’t exist in Miles’ vernacular. His garments were all 100% linen. Duh. We’re talking about Alphabet Boy here.
Miles opened the door, slid into the driver’s seat, and started the engine. The AC kicked in with a soft hum, cooling the flush from my cheeks—which was more from mortification than heat.
The silence between us stretched like taffy.
I fiddled with the bandage, wincing. “You know, this is weirdly intimate.”
Miles didn’t even glance at me. “You bleeding on my seats would be weirdlyinfuriating.”
“Touché.”
We drove on. No music. No banter. Just the occasional turn signal clicking and my own internal monologue screaming:What the hell, Hudson. What the hell.
I peeked at him from the corner of my eye. He was all sharp cheekbones and quiet resolve, eyes on the road like he was trying not to think about the fact that a half-naked disaster was bleeding in his car.
“I really am sorry,” I said finally. “For the drama.”
He didn’t respond right away. But eventually, he sighed and muttered, “Just don’t make a habit of it.”
And somehow, that was the kindest thing anyone had said to me in weeks.
The silence in the car had begun to calcify, thick and suffocating like a too-tight cashmere scarf from an ex who still sends you passive-aggressive Christmas cards. Miles kept his eyes laser-focused on the road, knuckles pale against the steering wheel, his jaw tight enough to crack diamonds.
Meanwhile, I sat there bleeding and brooding, the humof the air conditioning filling the space between us like a chaperone who hated fun.
Fucking screw it.
I cleared my throat and turned slightly toward him. “I’m sure I’m the last person you wanted to help out today.”
His grip on the steering wheel didn’t loosen. He gave a little snort—barely audible over the low whirr of the tires on Coastal Highway. “You’re not wrong.”
I smirked, wincing slightly as I shifted in the seat. “Still, gotta admit, you’re doing a pretty stellar job playing nurse, like a healing fairy godmother with control issues.”
“Don’t mistake competence for affection,” he replied, voice like a chilled martini—smooth but with a bite. “I just don’t like seeing someone bleed out in front of my monogrammed beach towel.”
“Ah, yes. The real tragedy here—the beach towel.”
A corner of his mouth twitched. It wasn’t quite a smile, but it was something.
