Page 172 of Green Flag
My swallow was audible.
“I… I went home,” I said.
The smile on his face was soft and sad. “You could have congratulated me.” He looked at me finally and shrugged. “Even if I cheated.”
“You did not cheat,” I said quickly, sitting up, ready to shove some confidence into that silly, handsome head of his. “You played the game. Nix was right.”
He sighed deeply, picking the leaves off the stem of the fruit he’d eaten. “It’s tainted, though. I wouldn’t have won otherwise.”
I settled on my heels and threw the stem out of his hand and onto the sand. “You need some confidence drilled into your head, Luca.”
Another shrug and he looked to the ground at what I’d snatched from him.
“My family are finally proud of me, though,” he said. “And it’s nice to live close to them again. But…”
His sentence drifted off into the chorus of waves and I reached to touch his hand.
“But?”
“I missed you,” he said. “I’m not in the habit of confrontation, nor do I like avoiding things that make me happy.”
“I’m a thing?”
He chuckled and took my hand in his. “That’s what you took from that? Our relationship makes me happy. And if you regret what happened—”
“I missed you too,” I cut him off before he could tell me how he regretted it as well. “But I guess neither of us missed each other enough to reach out.”
His head jerked back an inch. “Right.”
Sand kicked back onto the towel as he stood and I tried to swat it away, Kindle still in my other hand.
He left footprints as he walked back to the house, his feet sinking into the sand with every step.
My heart thundered and I blinked away the tears before they really manifested.
“I’ll go to the hotel,” he called over his shoulder.
“Okay.”
In my peripheral vision, I saw him stop, arms flailing and then hitting his sides. “Everly, what the fuck? What is happening?”
It was my turn to shrug.
He stormed over with quick steps. I doubted it was in a hurry to see me, probably just the burning sand.
“Why are we like this?” he asked, face twisted in confusion. “Is this because of… because I fucked up? I am so sorry, Everly. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not… it’s not that.” Over the break, I’d thought about it. I knew it came from a place of… care.
“I wanted to reach out. I wanted to see you. I just worried you wanted space after… after I fucked up. We haven’t been right since the last race when… you left so fast.”
“And then, over the break, there was no need to see each other.”
His frown and blink made him look like a startled, unsure puppy. “There was. There was a need to see each other. I wanted to. I missed you.”
I picked up the leaves he’d strewn over the towel. “But you did nothing about it.”
“Neither did you!”
