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“Yeah, I-I’m fine. Sorry. You just…you freaked me out.” In truth, I’d been hoping to make it back to my room before he’d made it up the stairs so I wouldn’t be tempted, but…here I fucking was.
He nodded. “If it’s any consolation, I’m always on edge the first night whenever we come out here,” he said, his jaw ticking as he forced himself to break eye contact. “Think it’s because it’s so quiet. Even up on my floor of the Blackwater building, I can still hear the faint sounds of traffic. But out here…just the ocean, if the wind is right.”
I swallowed. “Yeah. That’s probably it,” I lied.
“I’m happy for you to blame it on that,” he whispered, leaning a little bit further into the bathroom, “instead of me.”
“It’s not?—”
“I get it. You don’t need to explain.” He pushed off the door frame and took a step back into the dark, carpeted hallway.
His eyes met mine again, and I couldn’t help myself from just taking him in, letting myself linger and absorb him in this overtly relaxed version. He looked so different than he had at the charity ball, my father’s penthouse, his office, his sailboat. He looked different than he had when he was completely bare and holding me to him, or than when he’d dropped to his knees on that balcony in his stupid fucking three-piece suit and put his mouth on me.
He looked athome. He looked like a normal person—not an unattainable figure that felt out of reach.
And as he held my gaze in the overwhelming silence, my heart hammering in my chest from a mixture of anxiety andadrenaline, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to run back to my room and scream into a pillow or do something I knew I’d regret.
But I was leaning toward the latter.
I took a step forward, but the moment he opened his mouth, I stopped.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said.
What? No?—
“Good night, Ava.”
————
Adrian: You up yet?
Adrian: Lucas and I are going down to the beach if you want to meet us down there. Mrs. Henderson left breakfast out for you.
I stared at my phone in the low light of the room, my vision barely adjusting to the brightness of my phone. The clock said it was half past ten in the morning, but the blackout curtains made it confusing, and it took me far too long to understand that it was actually incredibly bright outside and not pitch black like I’d assumed.
Slipping from the bed, I opened the curtains just in time to catch a glimpse of two heads of dark hair disappearing behind the sand dunes at the back of the property.
Me: Swimming or hanging out?
Adrian: It’s cold outside. Do you genuinely think I’m that bad of a father that I’ll willingly give my son pneumonia?
Adrian: We’re looking for shark teeth. And maybe building sandcastles, we’ll see.
A smaller, dark head of hair popped back up on the other side of the dunes, and just as I clocked him, Lucas waved wildly back toward the house. I chuckled.
Adrian: He’s waving at you.
Adrian: Come on.
Adrian: Bring your bagel down.
Me: Okay, okay, I’m coming.
I grabbed the thickest sweater I’d packed out of my bag and slipped it over my head, not caring that I was still in my joggers from the night before.
Adrian: On second thought, eat your bagel first. Lucas might steal it.
————
