I glance over at him to find he’s watching me. “The ocean is beautiful. It’s different on this coast. A little—wilder.”
“I wasn’t talking about the ocean, but you’re right.” His gaze drifts to the water, and I fight against the hot flush coating my skin. “It does look wilder. Let’s go.”
“The beach is farther than it looks.”
He looks down at me, his lips curved in a faint smile. “Are you trying to scare me, Syl?”
“If I haven’t already with everything you’ve had to deal with over the years, I don’t think a laborious hike to the beach is going to do it,” I tease, the realization hitting me as I say it.
I’ve tried to scare him away all these years. Yet he’s still here. With me in California. The man deserves a medal. Or a stern talking to for being such a sucker.
We start down the hill and I let Spencer take the lead, my gaze snagging on the breadth of his shoulders. The elegant curve of his back. His perfect ass in the well-fitting jeans and those long, strong legs. He’s tall, over six feet, and he walks with a confidence I don’t remember him having when we were younger. Back when we were at Lancaster Prep and he supported me no matter what. He was always there for me when I needed him, and I took advantage of that. Of him.
God, I was awful then. So conniving. Everything I learned, I got from my mother.
By the time we make it to the beach, I’m exhausted. I find an outcropping of rocks and go to sit on one, Spencer continuing to walk along the water’s edge. His silhouette gets smaller and smaller the farther he gets, until he’s a sliver of a human in the distance, and I worry that he’s going to keep on walking and never come back.
But eventually he returns, his form coming back into view until I can make out his every feature, and the relief I feel at his closeness threatens to overwhelm me. He joins me at the rocks, sitting on one that hovers above mine, so he looms over me. He’s windblown and glorious, his dark hair sweeping over his forehead, his eyes squinting against the sun.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot,” he says, though I hear the caution in his tone.
“Why were you always so nice to me, when I was nothing but awful to you?” It’s a hard question, with an even harder answer, and I brace myself for the truth.
He doesn’t say anything for a long time, the wind whipping his hair into his eyes, so he has to brush it away every few seconds. “I was in love with you.”
My heart lurches in my chest and the air stutters in my throat. That was not the answer I expected.
“And you shit all over it. Continuously. It’s like I couldn’t help myself. But I suppose that’s the way it always is, right? We can’t stop the way we feel, even when we know it’s wrong.”
“Are you saying it was wrong to be in love with me?”
“I don’t know. All I know is it hurt, being in love with you.”
Misery courses through me. His confessions are like a punch in the gut. One blow after the other. “I was young and stupid back then. The only kind of love I was shown was always…conditional.”
“I know.”
We’re both quiet. I bend my knees, wrapping my arms around my legs to ward off the cold that comes from his words. I didn’t know what I had. I always counted on him returning and he always did. He still does, because here he is, on the beach with me on a sunny day in the middle of the week. There’s still so much unsaid swirling between us, and the ocean and the wind and sun can’t swallow it up. Our feelings need to be let out. Laid bare.
No matter how painful.
“I can’t blame my treatment of you on my parents,” I finally say. “I should’ve known better.”
“Do you know better now?”
I have to be one hundred percent truthful with him. “I’m not sure.”
That was a blow to him, I’m sure.
“I can’t keep giving you a chance,” he admits, his voice so low I lean in closer, wishing I was sitting next to him on the rock. Pressed against his warmth, my head on his shoulder. “The last time I did, you ditched me for another man.”
I stiffen. I know what he’s referring to. “I just wanted one more night with you.”
“One more night so you could fuck me and leave me, then go on to marry someone else. Someone old enough to be your fucking dad.” The venom in his voice has me leaning away from him, now glad I’m not sitting on the same rock as he is. “Why did you do it?”
“Like I said, I just wanted one more night—”