I rolled my eyes, nudging him with my shoulder before I looked back out at the water.
“I’m glad you’re letting loose,” I said. “You deserve to after that charter.”
“Wouldn’t have made it without you.”
“Yes, you would have.”
He didn’t respond, so I turned to look at him again, and the playfulness had left him completely.
“I was ready to give up,” he said. “But you pulled my head out of my arse. You’re a good friend.” He swallowed right as the word pierced my lungs. “But more than that, Ember, you’re a fucking fantastic chief stew.”
The corner of my mouth lifted. “Thanks.”
“I mean it,” he continued, his words slurring a bit. “I know your dad makes you feel like it’s just cocktails and cleaning, but it’s more than that. You’re a leader, Em. You saved that dinner service. You made a luxury vacation for those women that they’ll never forget. It takes a special person to touch lives like that.”
It was like my ribs were crushing my lungs, his words both healing me and adding pressure at the same time. How did he know? How could he walk up here and justknowexactly what I was in my head about?
Suddenly, my stomach somersaulted as a memory of the last time we sat on a beach like this hit me like a crate of bricks.
I’m sitting where the water meets the sand on Kontokali Beach, the night closing in around me like a black hole. I feel his presence without looking to confirm it.
I don’t need to turn my head to know he’s walking the dark beach toward me, that his haunted eyes are set on my hunched-over form in the sand. My body alerts me, buzzing to life the way it always does when he’s near.
I am the orchestra and he, the maestro.
I press a hand over my racing heart, the one he conducted without care, closing my eyes and trying to find a steady breath through the ringing in my ears.
Any attempt is thwarted the moment he says my name.
“Em…”
“Don’t,” I beg, not recognizing my voice as it croaks out of me. My throat is dry and raw, tongue like sandpaper in my mouth, but I force myself to open my eyes and look up at him. I hope he sees the desperation, hope he sees how I’m crumbling, hope maybe he will grant me this one mercy. “Please, Finn. Don’t.”
Even in the dark, I notice his jaw tighten.
I told him not to follow me.
I pleaded for him to let it go, to letmego…
But he just can’t.
The selfish bastard.
Rage simmers in my chest, pushing away the harder, deeper emotions I’ve been surrendering to on this beach. And I welcome anger. I embrace her like an old friend.
It’s easier to be mad.
This is how it’s always been with us — everything is just… big. Big lust, big jealousy, big possession, big love. All of it is too much for of us to hold onto together, let alone by ourselves. And yet we let it crush us, over and over, the weight a welcome pain.
“I wish I never met you,” I murmur, knowing it’s a lie.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
I stand, not bothering to brush the sand from my legs or wring the water from my shorts.
“Damn you for following me.” I mean to spit the words at him like venom, but instead they leak out of me like a sad last breath. I’m so tired, the burning flame he lit inside me the past four months slowly flickering out and leaving me numb in its wake.