CHAPTER14
- DAX -
I’m rowing my paddleboard just off of Tybee’s South Beach, towering over Millie as she sits on the front of the board, her feet in the water.
Her shoulders aren’t as straight as they usually are. Her back is arched slightly forward in a slouch and, even though I can’t see her face, she just seems more relaxed than she normally is.
I love seeing it.
There’s nothing I enjoy more than showing someone else how calming—even healing—water sports can be.
It just doesn’t get better than this. If I ever dreamed up a perfect afternoon—a perfect summer—this would be it, out on the water every chance I can and enjoying it with someone I care about.
“You want to try standing again?” I ask, and she snorts adorably in response.
“I fell in twice already. Want to go three for three?”
“You did great. You kept standing for at least twenty minutes or so.”
“That was just a result of your good instruction. I’m—not a watersports kind of person—at least until you came along.”
I turn our paddleboard in a slightly different direction. “Yet you live on an island. I find that so curious.”
“I didn’t buy this place so that I could live in it, remember? I had profit in mind.”
“Well, Ms. Stanford MBA… maybe you ended up here just so you could meet me.”
Furrowing her brow, she looks up at me, squinting her eyes against the late-afternoon sun. “Wait a sec. You can’t tell me you’re a destiny kind of guy.”
My smile widens. “You bet I am. A guy who grew up the way I did had to believe insomething.”
She frowns at my words, and I immediately regret saying it. Nothing like a reference to my childhood to bring a mood down.
“I’m really sorry you went through that,” she says. “I—can’t even imagine. Do you still talk to your parents at all?”
I give my head a firm shake. “Nope. It was a long time coming, cutting ties with them. Long overdue.”
“Why is that?”
I usually don’t like talking about this, especially to a woman who clearly has a strong family unit. I’ve even had women tell me that there’s nothing on earth that would make them cut ties completely with their parents—women who hadn’t spent their childhood waking up to the smell of alcohol and stale pot with their parents passed out on the couch, occasionally in a puddle of puke.
Yeah, that’s something a person has to experience firsthand at a young, impressionable age to understand, I suppose. So I never appreciated it when women would cast judgement on me for finally ending things with my parents when I did.
But Millie isn’t like that. She might have all those enviable photos on her walls that remind her of a childhood vastly different from mine. Yet I know instinctively that she’d never judge me.
So I suck in a breath and explain, “When I was a kid, I just kept excusing their behavior. I’d blame the booze or the drugs or bad habits. Or I’d blame myself.”
“Why yourself?”
“Oh, come on. You know how kids are. I’d just think, if I could just be a better son, then maybe they wouldn’t drink. If I could just get better grades. If I could just make them love me more.If I could just… the worst word combination in human history.”
She looks away, seeming thoughtful. “That’s so true. I guess we all say those words sometimes. Not just kids.”
“Not me. Not anymore,” I say resolutely, even though sometimes, I still hear the whisper of the words in my head. Hey, I’m human.
Like even right now.If I could justconvince her that a relationship with a military guy is sometimes worth all the stress.
Except I’m not even sure I can convincemyselfthat anymore. It’s like I’m seeing the other side of the story for the first time in my life, every time her phone rings with a call or chirps with a text, and her eyes fill with dread.