Page 30 of Marriage is a Shore Thing
Geneva sways ever so slightly forward before her shoulders tense and her finger releases mine.
Internally, I sigh.One step forward, two steps back.
But that’s okay. I’ve got nothing but time. Three months of it, in fact. I don’t want to exist in a world where I kiss Geneva Bradford and she isn’t one hundred and ten percent certain she wants me to.
“I also want to do this,” I say with a smirk.
Using my now free hand, I sweep Geneva’s legs from under her, completely ignoring her protests and half-hearted pounds to my back while I run into waist-deep water and toss her over the next wave.
“I can’t believe you—” Her words cut off with a growl as she lurches toward me, slinging her arms around my neck in an attempt to dunk me.
A laugh tumbles out of me before she hooks my leg and we both end up under the next crashing wave.
“Truce!” I shout as soon as we both surface.
“Not on your life.”
This time, she jumps on my back, and I end up laughing at how much effort it requires to fling her into the water. I succeed, though—eventually.
It continues like that, back and forth, until a lifeguard whistles at us.
“You got us in trouble,” I tell her, chuckling as we walk to shore.
“Me? This was all you.” She’s not grimacing, though.
Geneva’s not snarling or glaring or scoffing. She’ssmiling. And though I love the devious little grin she gives me when she thinks she has the upper hand, I love this wild, carefree version of her even more.
“Look.” I point at a red line on my left bicep with an exaggerated lip pout. “You scratched me.”
“Serves you right,” she mutters, brushing back her disheveled ponytail. The hair elastic should get a medal for fortitude—it’s barely hanging on.
“Let me help you.” I stop her with a palm to her upper arm in knee-deep water. “You look like a drowned opossum.”
Geneva opens her mouth to protest, but when I gently tug at the elastic just above her shoulder, her lips snap shut. We’re too close again. I know it. She’ll push back any second, but I focus on loosening the tangled strands of hair that wind around the elastic and not on the single freckle on her heaving collarbones. Once successful, I can’t help myself. I fan the silken strands around her shoulders, taking a deep breath before stepping back.
“There.” I hold the elastic in my upturned palm.
The rhythmic rush of water around us has nothing on the pounding of my erratic heart.
Geneva’s fingertips tremble as she slowly picks it up. The hair elastic hovers in midair for a breath before her brows pinch, her hand fists the band, and she pushes past me toward our towels.
Anyone else would be discouraged, but I hum a Raven Sacaria song as I stroll toward our spot in the sand, practically beaming.
I hadn’t been joking earlier.
If there’s one thing I truly enjoy, it’s a challenge.
twelve
Geneva
“So, you’re married—but not really?” Brynn asks me a week later, barely winded, though we’re keeping a breakneck pace as we race past the cornfields lining the road beyond Wilks Beach.
I exercise daily—sometimes twice a day—and used running as upkeep during my pageant days, but I’m struggling to keep Brynn’s pace. Of course, I wasn’t a D1 track athlete. Mother wouldn’t allow it. There was no time for team sports or school friends—only pageants and pageant-related activities.
“It’s a legal technicality that should be swept under the rug, but Van’s going through some things,” I hedge, not wanting to disclose the delicacies of his emotional state—even to Brynn.
That feels…disloyal. Like it’d be violating the tremulous trust forming between us.
