Page 82 of Wilder Love
Gritting my teeth in frustration, I yanked on my seatbelt, annoyed that my hands were shaking. Damn him. I rolled down my window and called his name, halting him in his tracks. He stopped and turned around, raising his brows. “Did you need something?”
Infuriating. Internally, I was screaming, but I kept my voice even and measured. “I came back for you, but I’m staying for your dad. So, you’d better get used to having me around.”
Without waiting for his reaction, I reversed out of his driveway, feeling smug and slightly vindicated. Remy St. Clair was not a doormat.
* * *
“So he made you a surfboard?”Bastian asked, trying to get the lowdown on my rollercoaster relationship with Shane Wilder. He didn’t sound overly impressed by the gesture.
“Yep.” I smiled at the barista and mouthed ‘thank you’ as she handed me my tall Americano.
“And?”
“And… we’ve been surfing together.” I pushed the door open with my hip—every single time I got my nails done, I messed them up and today I was determined to preserve my stupid manicure, since nothing else could be salvaged—and strolled down Main Street.
“That’s it? Just surfing? No angry sex?”
I rolled my eyes. “No.”
“Why not?”
Cradling my phone between my ear and shoulder, I climbed into my Rover, set my coffee in the cupholder and slammed the door shut. “We haven’t even talked. Not about anything real.” I turned the key in the ignition and waited for the Bluetooth to kick in then tossed my phone in the cupholder and checked my indigo blue nails. All good. “There’s so much we don’t know about each other. We just… I don’t know… I feel like we need to clear the air. Get it all out there.”
“And then you can have angry sex.”
“Why do I even talk to you?” My eye caught on two women walking down the street—a blonde and a brunette with designer handbags in the crook of their arm, eyes hidden behind enormous sunglasses. I slunk down in my seat and watched them through the windshield instead of pulling out of my spot. “Not all relationships are based on sex. He just needs a friend right now.”
“So you don’t want to have sex with Shane.”
“I do. But he’s not…” I let out a frustrated breath. “It’s complicated.”
I heard him take a drag of his cigarette and exhale, the sounds of New York traffic and a horn blaring in the background. “So, uncomplicate it.”
Yeah, right. That was pretty funny coming from a guy who was so complicated he didn’t even understand himself. The two women disappeared inside the nail salon and I let out a shaky breath. Dodged that bullet. One of them was Sienna’s mother and the other one was Tristan’s. They were still friends, getting manicures and pedicures together. This town was too small. No wonder Shane had tried to stay away. Last night at dinner, I found out that he’d gone to Sonoma after he’d gotten out of prison and he’d been up there for six months.
“My new album drops tomorrow,” Bastian said casually.
“Oh God,” I groaned. My head fell back against the seat, and I banged it against the headrest a few times. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Bastian laughed manically. That was the trouble with artists. They used everything—your stories, your life, your heartache and pain and bittersweet memories, and they channeled it into their art. Then they set it free in the world and it didn’t belong to them anymore. It belonged to the fans, to the critics, to the lovers and haters. Tomorrow Bastian would either be flying high or need to be peeled off the sidewalk. And I would be… I had no idea how I would be.
“Stay away from the nose candy,” I said as I pulled out of my parking spot, the A/C on full blast, the backs of my sweaty thighs stuck to the leather seats.
He just laughed.
On that note, we hung up and I decided to go surfing. The cure-all for anything that ails you.
33
Remy
From the comfort of my poolside chaise lounge, I snapped photos of Dylan, capturing all the dark ink on his back and the full sleeves on his arms as he glided through the water, oblivious that I was stealing pieces of his soul. He’d always hated having his photo taken. Fifteen minutes later, he swam to the side of the pool and pushed his dark hair off his face, leaning his forearms on the pool’s edge to catch his breath. Since I’d been out here, he swam twenty laps, but I suspected he’d been at it a lot longer. I snapped a close-up of his face and scrambled off my chair, darting away from the pool to protect my camera from the tsunami he’d unleashed.
“Watch the camera, asshat.”
He splashed me again, but I was out of range and only a few drops landed on my feet. Just for that, I snapped a few more photos from a safe distance, using the zoom lens. Ha. That will show him.
After he got out of the pool, I returned to my chair and scrolled through the photos while Dylan ran a towel over his hair, making it stick up all over. I studied a close-up photo of his face, the high cheekbones, and stormy eyes fringed by lashes that were longer than mine, the permanent scowl firmly in place. “These are going in my beautiful collection.”
