Page 9 of Revive
“It wasn’t my call to make, Alle. That permission had to come from him.”
“Yet you invited me here without that.”
“Did I?”
She might have asked what he meant, but really, what did it matter? “Where is he, Xane?”
Xane tilted his head in the direction from which he and Luthor had arrived. “That way. Keep going. If you run out of land you’ve gone too far. You’ll find him if he wants to be found. If you don’t find him, then he’s made a decision that you need to accept.”
-4-
Allegra
Rock pools stretched before her like a thousand shattered mirrors. In the distant horizon, the iron grey of the sea met with an equally thunderous-looking sky. She’d almost run out of land, having reached the eastern coast of the island. To her right, as she wandered down from the cliff top, there lay a small stripe of white sand, girdled by mounds of sea-smoothed pebbles. Partway along, a lone figure sat hunched facing the water.
Spook.
Alle stilled, her heart fluttering at the sight of his long, white-blond hair dancing in the breeze. Her pulse beat a rapid tattoo as her mind slid back to a myriad of former meetings: Thewhoa,burn the house downkiss at that awards ceremony; Monte Carlo, where he’d stabbed her through the heart with a one word greeting; London, where they’d faced one another afraid and trembling, and she swore he’d been no more than four breaths away from a full-on panic attack; and not forgetting a certain VIP yurt in Gothenburg, where she’d first been painfully confronted with the complex reality of his relationship with Xane.
There were no easy memories to fall upon when it came to her and Spook.
It’d been eight months. Eight months since it all unravelled on Southampton docks. Eight long extremely painful months.
Naturally, the beach insisted on dramatics, each step resulting in a landslide, which sank her foot up to her ankle in an embrace of pebbles and shells. It was almost as if the land were determinedly thwarting her approach. The more she fought, the more determinedly it pushed her towards the sea.
There was no question of whether he was aware of her arrival. A juggernaut would have made less noise. The weird bit was that he didn’t turn or rise. She twisted her ankle and cursed, and finally stumbled onto the sand a few metres away from him.
Lord, he was so still.
“Spook?”
He was sitting hunched forward over his raised knees, his hair all about him like a cloud, while the tide tickled his toes on every languorous inward roll. The bottoms of his jeans were turned up to mid-calf level so she could see the pale gold hairs upon his shins. His feet were bare, his hi-tops positioned neatly beside him.
One hand planted for balance, Alle flopped onto the sand.
From this new position she could only see one side of his face, and that was in shadow due to the position of the sun. Even so, the dark smudges beneath his eyes were all too apparent, likewise the translucence of his skin. There was a faint sheen of stubble over his chin and along his jawline, which softened the lines but couldn’t hide the obvious weight loss. The months they’d spent apart had clearly not been kind to him. If she’d gained ten pounds, then he’d easily lost that, if not twice that amount.
“Spook?” she tried again. She’d braced herself for all manner of responses, all but this one. How did you respond to silence? They could literally sit here forever, and he might not say a word. “Do you not want me to be here?”
He set his hand down on the sand between them. Alle stared at it, the long elegance of his fingers, and the red of his protruding knuckles. Tentatively, she put her hand down next to his. After a moment, she nudged his little finger with hers. Then, when he didn’t recoil, she tentatively covered his hand with hers, and sighed with relief when he laced their fingers together.
“Say something to me, please.”
His voice was creaky. “I don’t know what to say to you.”
“Hello,” she suggested. “How was your trip here to the arse end of nowhere?”
A nervous, ghost-like smile tugged at the corners of his lips. He turned his head, slowly, facing her, eyes awash with terrors. Why was it so easy to communicate via text but so impossible face to face? Yet, there he was, her man, still striking, so damn beautiful, and still everything that she wanted, but also drained. If she’d thought Xane looked worn, then Spook looked like he’d been spread thin over far too many days.
“Tell me what you’re thinking?”
“I’m doing my level best not to think. I’m not even sure I understand why you’re here. It’s not as if I’ve given you any reason to be.”
“That’s easy, Spook. I love you.”
She hadn’t meant to say it, not when so much else remained unsaid. Then again, perhaps it was the only thing that mattered. It wasn’t as if she expected reciprocity, and sure enough her words weren’t echoed back. Instead, his gaze strayed back to the shoreline.
“You ought to have washed your hands of me.”
