“I mean it, Xaden, shut your goddamn mouth!”
“Nah,” he smirked at Finn. “I don’t think I will.”
“Then maybe I’ll come back here and shut it for you.”
“Promise, Finny Boy? You know how I like it!”
Finn growled, puffing his chest when he turned us toward his Ford Bronco parked down the street.
“Fucking asshole,” he mumbled, pitching me the sparkling water that pinged off my stomach and onto the sidewalk with a scrape. I watched it sputter down the road, vomiting its guts as it spun. “Shit. I am sorry. I’ll get you another one.”
“It is fine,” I said, keeping my eyes on the eruption. “But are you?”
“Yes,” he ground out. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he mouthed, throwing open the driver’s door before slamming it shut.
Seattle was loud! Forever imbued with an eternal thrum you can never switch off. In fact, you could scream for miles, and all it would do was die inside the void like everything else. But in this town, unsavory emotions were a sundress with a bruise.
Buzz.
Wolfe: Free?
Seeing his name sent a sudden rush of normalcy into my bones that I had been reaching for, and I did not want to wait to reel it all the way in. The beach opened wide to my left, and I bit my lip before shifting away from the car. It was clear Finn needed a moment, and my presence would only make it worse. It was not as if he knew me. Besides, whatever bad blood existed between Xaden and Finn could stay there. I had enough shit in my life to deal with to take on any more.
Buzz.
Another vibration settled low in my stomach when my feet touched the golden sand. Unlike Washington, whose pebbled beaches bled into its bleak waters, Maine was happier. She blushed, twirling her blonde hair around her fingers in buttery strands.
I smiled at the picture flashing between my fingers.
“Hi!” I answered, removing my shoes to feel the squish.
“Hi back,” Thay’s voice spilled into me in warm waves that made my mind drift to the possibility of last night’s mistake curling into the crux of his body. He was enough of an asshole to call me with her still there.
“Sorry for the silence. Wolfe and I are working through some shit, which means a lot of long nights!”
“You alone?” I asked, burrowing my embarrassment into the front of my hoodie.
Did I feel guilty for flirting with Mr. Distraction at the cafe, or was I projecting?
“Yes,” he made a sound, and I could almost imagine his scowl. “Why? Did you think I wasn’t responding because I was fucking some girl?”
Maybe.
“Were you?” I swallowed, peering at my cabin in the distance. It would take me a month to reach it.
“Daph, what is this about?” he stepped around the question, shooting lemony bile into my mouth.
Gross.
“I don’t know,” I mumbled, kicking the sand, and hating the way this moment made me feel. “A guy who looked like you flirted with me this morning. Maybe it just set me off.”
I wasn’t sure why the rules felt different now that I was three thousand miles away, but the thought of him railing some unknown without my eyes on him turned everything to ash.
“I haven’t fucked anyone since you left,” he admitted, stopping me dead in the sand.
“Really?” was all that came out.
I remembered the first time I saw him hard, taking me in from the corner of our room. We were teenagers, but it was not as though I could hide my body from him. Thay had watched my curves form, my breasts grow, and every inch of my sexuality play out in real life, and it made me feel safe. I smiled, thinking of the day his rasp came in all gravelly and low, coloring the world black.