Page 14 of The Weight of Your Wishes

He fucking smirks. The corner of his lip tilts up on one side, and I frown. I wish I could reach out and trace it with my fingertips.

“I’m joking—mostly.”

“Not funny,” I bristle.

We fall into a comfortable silence, drowning in the white noise around us for a while. But then I speak up, tentatively. “Do you fish back here?”

“Sometimes.”

My arms are splayed out at my sides, but his are crossed over his chest like armor. I roll over and turn onto my side to face him, curling my knees up a bit. “When was the last time you laid in the rain?”

He pauses for a moment, taking time to answer thoughtfully. “With your mom. Back when we were young. We were always outside doing God knows what, and we got caught in the rain a lot.”

An unexpected spark of jealousy flares in my gut. He must’ve been so free back then—not burdened and weighed down by life. It’s hard to imagine him that way, and I wish I could have witnessed it with my own eyes. “Why’d you stop?”

I watch his chest rise and fall, his eyes still squeezed shut, but he seems slightly more relaxed now.

“She left,” he says, his voice so low, I could barely hear it.

I’ve heard the story from my mom’s perspective. She never intended to stay cooped up out here in the middle of nowhere. She was only biding her time, but the one person she ever cared about back then was Grant. The only person she didn’t want to leave behind, but in the end, she did anyway.

“You were in love, weren’t you?” I ask hesitantly. I know he probably doesn’t want to talk about any of this. He’s just not that type of guy, never has been from what I can remember.

He sighs. “It doesn’t matter, Hendrix. That was over twenty years ago. Things worked out how they were supposed to.”

It makes sense at face value, but I can feel what’s unsaid lingering behind the veil of his words. It’s pain. I don’t know what the root of it is, but it hits me right in my chest, nonetheless. I reach out and grab his slippery hand from atop his chest, pulling it down between us, and place mine over it. He stiffens, his eyes shoot open, and he peers down at our hands. I’m just as shocked as he is, but I don’t know how else to make us both feel better. “Sometimes you just need to let someone hold your hand.”

He meets my gaze but doesn’t say a word. I can make out his furrowed brow through the darkness, and somehow, his unrest makes me feel even worse than before.

He shouldn’t be so taken aback that someone wants to comfort him, that someone cares.

No one should have to feel that way.

After a few minutes, I peel myself from the dock. My shirt suctions heavily to my skin, completely drenched. I keep a firm grip on his hand as he pulls himself onto his feet. We amble back to the house wordlessly.

As soon as I step inside, shivers wrack my body. It was warm and humid outside despite the rain, but it’s freezing in here. He takes one look at me and motions toward the hallway. “Go ahead. You shower first.” I open my mouth to tell him to go first, but he pulls down his soaked pajama bottoms and walks to the bathroom. “Just grabbing a towel first,” he calls back, but his words barely register. As he turns the corner into the hallway, all I can think about is the way his black briefs were basically suctioned to his ass—a really fucking nice, muscular ass.

I suppress a groan. Marina was right—I’ll never make it through this summer.

Reluctantly, I trail after him. He towels off haphazardly as he brushes past me in the narrow hallway. “Gonna throw something together for dinner.”

I nod without a peep and rush into the bathroom. I wish I could say being back with him was just awkward, but it’s more than that. It’s charged. On one hand, I feel this pull for the comforting relationship we had when I was a kid. Where he was my safety blanket, someone I looked up to. The coolest guy in the whole world. My cheeks heat just thinking about it.

But on the other, we’re adults now. And I want to know him like one. I want him to treat me like an equal. Maybe we could even be friends now.

I prop my elbows on the counter and massage my temples. How is it that a mere man can scramble my thoughts this way? No other person intimidates me like this. So far, his presence renders me speechless. I know I look at him with stars in my fucking eyes, because even after all these years, I adore him.

I adore a man I barely even know anymore.

I pull my sticky shirt off and hang it up, then slide off my pants. In the mirror, my eyes trace over my chest. There’s some bruising on my side and cuts and scrapes on my upper chest and neck from the air bag. My arm is incredibly sore, but surprisingly still solid. I grasp it firmly and squeeze, causing pain to radiate from the area. I wince, straightening up.

No more sadness. Time to shower. I’ve been looking forward to using this shower anyway because it’s so fancy. It’s large—could probably fit four people—and it has one of those ceiling-mounted waterfall shower heads. Probably to accommodate Uncle Grant’s size.

Once I’m in, I lean my head against the wall, letting the hot water pound against my back. My eyes fall closed, and I get lost in it. My mind likes to taunt me by replaying all of my worst memories on a loop. There are the seconds and minutes before the car crash. All the times I received my report card from school, hoping with all the might a kid could have, that I’d finally show my mom some good grades. That there wasn’t anything wrong with me. Yet, each time, it was only a disappointment.

The list will go on and on if I let it, so instead, I force myself up and look for my shampoo. It’s then that I realize I haven’t unpacked yet. Of course not. So, I use his stuff, and that really makes everything significantly worse. The spicy, manly scent swirls in the steam around me, and my dick responds.

No. We’re not doing this right now. I refuse.

---