Page 66 of Wilder Love
“I have money. And I can help you do whatever you want. I can help you make your dream come true, Shane. If you want to pursue a surfing career, I can—”
I held up my hand. “Stop. Right the fuck there. I’m going to pretend I never heard those words come out of your mouth.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, her chest heaving, hands planted on her hips. “Why not? I owe you—”
“Fucking hell, woman. Stop. Talking.”
I climbed into my Jeep, and slammed the door, rolling down the window when she still hadn’t budged. “Move your pretty ass before I run you over.”
I revved the engine. She stepped out of the way, her self-preservation instincts still intact, and I hit the gas, intent on putting her words and her face and her everything behind me as I peeled out of the parking lot, leaving her in my dust.
Why, Remy? Why did I have to fall in love with you? You would think that time and distance would have dulled the emotions. Dimmed the memories. But it was all crystal clear. Every memory, every snapshot imprinted on my brain. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Time and distance hadn’t stopped me from wanting her. But she didn’t belong in my world. An ocean separated us and that was how it needed to stay. Again.
* * *
I grabbedthe grocery bags from the passenger seat and walked around the side of the house. My dad was lying in the hammock, his eyes closed, the evening sun on his face. I halted in my tracks, the grocery bags hanging at my sides.
“I’m not dead yet,” my dad said, his eyes still closed.
I exhaled loudly, my shoulders sagging in relief. “Don’t fucking scare me like that.”
“It’s a sad day when a man can’t sit outside and enjoy the sunset without getting told off by his own son.”
I refrained from mentioning that it was hard to see the sunset with your eyes closed. It was a beautiful one though. A pink and red sky that promised a good day tomorrow, if you believed the sailors’ lore. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. I had always preferred sunrises to sunsets. Maybe because it was the start of a new day, a symbol of hope instead of the end of something.
“Let’s never say goodbye, okay? Goodbye is the saddest word in the English language.”
Yes, Remy. Yes, it is.
I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I wasn’t ready to let him go. Was anyone ever ready for something like that?
He rolled a joint while I got the barbecue going and tossed a salad together, before throwing two swordfish steaks on the grill. We ate at the table on the patio just like we had so many nights before. My dad picked at his food, eating a few bites of everything and I nearly cried like a fucking baby when I saw that he’d only eaten half of his swordfish steak.
I cleared our plates and tossed his uneaten food in the garbage disposal. There was no point stowing leftovers in the refrigerator. They went uneaten. After I washed up our dishes, I returned to the patio where he was smoking a joint, the scent of weed hanging in the air.
My eyes roamed over the small vegetable garden in the backyard that my mom had planted so many years ago, my thoughts drifting to Remy. She used to love that little garden.
I tipped back on the hind legs of my chair, my fingers laced behind my head and listened to the sounds of the neighborhood. A dog barking a few doors down, kids screaming “You’re It” in a game of tag, the rumble of a motorcycle engine as it roared past. All the little everyday things I’d always taken for granted. The stars reeled in the sky, reminding me of all those nights with Remy on the roof. Our dreams, our hopes, our dirty secrets. Her midnight black hair shimmering blue in the moonlight. The softness of her skin and the feel of her lips against mine.
“If this is wrong, why does it feel so right?”
“You wanna talk about it?” my dad asked, his eyes closed as he inhaled, holding the smoke in his lungs before he exhaled.
“Nothing to talk about.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, okay. So this mood of yours has nothing to do with Remy St. Clair coming back to town.”
I narrowed my eyes on him. It had been two days since I saw Remy, and I hadn’t mentioned it to my dad. “How did you know she’s back?”
“Saw her earlier.”
“Where?”
“She was down at the marina with her brother.”
“What were you doing down at the marina?”
