Page 90 of Whiskey Splash

“Thanks for that image.”

“I let my guard down, okay?” Arie lets out a sigh and turns to look out at the ocean. “Heck, maybe it was when he made me breakfast the next morning. All I know is, when I woke up in the morning, Connor was still there and he’d made me breakfast—and yes, I could’ve turned it into the stickiest maple-syrup wrestling match imaginable, but I actually wanted to sit in bed and just eat eggs and pancakes with him. That one’s not a euphemism. I didn’t want to have sex. I wanted him, there, in my life, every morning. All the time.”

I watch my sister in this rare moment of honesty and quiet. She bites her lip and rolls her shoulders back like it’s a stupid thing she doesn’t want to admit. Even though, to me, it seems like the most romantic thing ever.

“Look, Connor and I went through a lot of ups and downs,” Arie says with more honesty than I expect. “He scared the shit out of me, because being with him meant I wasn’t in control anymore. I was breaking my own rules, and I thought, if I rejected him first then he couldn’t reject me. So …” Arie looks at me honestly, a shadow of vulnerability cast over her. “Lucky for me, Connor’s a persistent asshole who wouldn’t take no for an answer.” She tosses her hair back and regains some of her previous composure, looking back at me. “So, I suppose if you start letting Desmond into your life in a way you normally wouldn’t, that’s probably a sign. But again, I’m not Dear Abby, so—grain of salt and all that shit.”

I look down at my hands and they’re trembling, everything my sister’s said is reverberating through me. “Let him into my life in a way I normally wouldn’t, huh?” I echo, my voice hollow.

When I look up, Arie’s staring at her phone with a concerned look on her face. Her eyes flick to me quickly before she tucks it away. “Yeah,” she confirms. “Has Desmond done anything breakfast worthy?”

“Was that important?” I nod to her phone and she shakes her head, waving it off.

“No, and you’re avoiding the question. Breakfast worthy? Punch your big brother in the face in public worthy?” she says, prompting. “Gimmie a list. Aaaaannd—go!”

I don’t need to give her a list. I already know the answer to this question.

“We made love with all the lights on,” I say quietly. “We made love in the sunlight.” Saying it out loud doesn’t sound that important, but after years of hiding and turning off the lights, making sure I’ve always been somewhere hidden and dark—thatfeels like opening a book to a fresh chapter. “It’s not something he did,” I say. “It’s something I did. Something I trusted him with.”

My sister nods, swallowing slowly and studying my face. As she said, she’s known me my whole life, she’s well aware of my tendency to blackout every space I’m seen naked in.

“You need to tell him that,” Arie says softly, none of her normal sassiness shrilling her voice. “You need to tell him what that meant to you.”

I take a deep breath, my lungs feeling way too large and hollow. Part of the reason we work is because we don’t define it. Desmond and I have an unspoken space that we’ve decided to find each other in, and that’s what has made what we have so safe. If I tell him. If I say any of these things out loud, won’t it add too much weight to the delicate balance we breathe in?

But then a lump forms in my throat. “I told him about Jeremy,” I say, realizing that’s the sort of thing Desmond was supposed to run away from. Not the sort of thing that would make him stay.

I look up at Arie and the glazed emotion in her eyes hits me right in the chest. It’s a spear of honesty, revealing that Arie didn’t believe I’d ever tell anyone about Jeremy. That it was a secret I’d carry forever. The rawness in her gaze makes my own throat pinch and my eyes tear. These are words my sister never expected to hear.

It wasn’t the silence and not defining us that built this bridge between our hearts. It was trusting Desmond with that piece of my past, that piece of myself. And even more, I dared to unwrap myself in sunshine and make love to him in the light. What if our tightrope of comfort and tenderness actually exists because I did tell him, because I chose to trust him and speak?

I didn’t give him my heart. I haven’t fallen in love. Instead, Desmond showed me where I’d buried my own heart, and listened as I used a tiny delicate brush to sweep away all the words and dirt and fear and muck I’d layered on top of it. And then, he asked me to take one small step off a ledge, not to fall, not into his arms, but to build my own wings and fly.

My sister reaches out and takes my hand. “Promise me you’ll tell him,” she says sweetly. “Everything you’re thinking. Everything that sunlight means to you. And do it before the party, before he leaves. Hell, do it today.”

I nod softly, still parsing this, not sure I even truly know what it is.

Arie steps forward and kisses me on the forehead. “If anyone deserves to know, it’s Desmond,” she says, keeping her voice down. “And you’ll regret it if you don’t try.” I chew on my lip, not sure how I’d even begin to explain it to him. “He already loves how awkward you are,” Arie reminds me. “Own it. Be yourself. Bumble through it. Just tell him.”

I know she’s right.

“Okay,” I say, loosening a breath.

Of course, she’s right.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Isit on a lounge chair on the terrace of Desmond’s penthouse room staring out at the sun bleeding into the horizon. The tiled pool under the pergola of vines and trumpet flowers is behind me. The pool where he first unhinged me. Over here, near the railing, by the lounge chairs is probably where the camera man hid, waiting for his moment to strike. The thought of those photos still shoot a chill of centipedes over my skin, but I force myself to stay put. To stay out in the sun. To be visible.

Everything that happened in that pool was beautiful. It was something I wanted, something I was brave enough to ask for. I can’t let one photographer ruin that beginning, that first night when Desmond woke me with my own desire. It was still ours.

Desmond walks over with two glasses of wine and puts them on the side table. “Sorry!” he says, tossing his phone and sunglasses on the table as well. “It’s the last few days of shooting, so there’s a lot of last-minute changes, things they need to add to the schedule. My phone’s been blowing up all day.”

He sits down on my lounge chair with me, next to my legs, running his broad hand all the way up my tanned thigh and under the ruffles of my scarf-skirt. It seems so normal and comfortable for him to do that, to reach under all those paisley swirls of color and rest his hand on my skin.

Desmond’s amber eyes glow in the sunlight as his gaze rests on me, a calmness smoothing out his gorgeous face, like looking at me is a welcome breath of fresh air. It makes all those fluttery wings inside my body go crazy, and I lean over to take a long gulp of my glass of wine. I replace the glass and scooch forward, draping one of my legs in his lap and wrapping my arms around him. I kiss him in the sunshine. That’s what I need, a thousand more kisses in the sunshine.

He tastes like sauvignon blanc and salt, and his lips are soft as ripe peaches under my teasing. He could lie me back on this lounge chair, glazed in marmalade sunset, and make love to me right here if he wanted. I pull away and reach back for the wine, taking another large gulp.

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