Page 21 of Hooked on Trouble

Ignoring the heat in my groin, I face the water. “Why aren’t you taking pictures? The sky’s spectacular.” A kaleidoscope of color.

She presses her hand into the sand, digging and filling a trench. “No reason.”

So that’s what I get. Two words. It’s like talking to Colin, forcing my nephew to string a sentence together. Maybe this is a lost cause. The determination I like about her might keep us apart. Still, the way her gaze raked over me just now and last week in my truck, there’s no doubt she feels something, too.

She crosses her legs and leans forward, picking up handfuls of sand and letting the grains sift through her fingers. Finally, she says, “Sometimes I have to remind myself to enjoy a moment. To just be. Not get caught up in capturing it. And I have a lot on my mind these days.”

“Anything I can help with?”

Seagulls swoop overhead, several landing nearby, fighting over a banana peel. The sky fades, the bold colors muting as the sun comes up, like my football jersey after years of washing.

“Why are you here, Nico?”

Her question catches me off guard. I’d debated showing up at her apartment, asking her out again, but that wouldn’t fly with Raven. She’s doing her best to keep me at a distance, and forcing the issue would only push her farther away. I could lie and tell her our meeting is a coincidence, not let her know I can’t get her off my mind. But lies don’t breed trust.

Jamal, the man who ran the rec center when I was a teen, was even bigger than me. Not as thick, but a full head taller. Honesty, he’d tell me. Honesty and trust are what makes a man. I dispense the same advice to the kids who come to play sports and escape the streets. Punks like Tim. Can’t be sure they always listen.

I inhale the ocean air, the salt and fish pungent. Raven deserves a man. “You said you come here to take pictures, so I’ve run this way every day since I dropped you off, hoping to see you. And I’m not a morning person.”

She doesn’t shoot me a dirty look, but she closes her eyes for a few beats. “Is that why you smell like shit?”

I lean down and sniff my armpit. Not roses. “Sorry. I smell like I’ve been rolling in a bowl of curry.”

“Curry? Curry is divine. You smell like a locker room.”

“Curry is nasty, but yeah. I could use a shower.”

Her gaze slips over my arms and chest languidly. I wonder if she’s imagining what I am—us in the shower, water pounding our bodies, me on my knees, her hands gripping my scalp, my face between her thighs.

My erection thickens.

She blinks, wipes the sand from her hands, and fiddles with the camera around her neck. “That’s a lot of effort just to see me.”

“You’re worth the effort.”

“You could have called.”

“Would you have answered?”

She huffs out a laugh. “Probably not.”

She touches her wrist, looping her index finger over her rose tattoo, then traces the feathers on her arm. The ones she told me about in Aspen while straddling my lap, while telling me secrets, while looking into my eyes. Maybe it’s selfish of me to want this time with Raven, to focus on myself instead of my family. Good or bad, right or wrong, I’m not willing to walk away from her again. Not twice.

“Remember I told you about my sister?” Her quiet words are nearly drowned by the water lapping ashore.

I lean heavier into the log. “Yeah.”

“I think she’s here, in Vancouver. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to make this move. After Aspen, I thought about her more. Wondered what happened to her, and…I don’t know. I thought maybe there was a chance she missed me, too.” She rests her elbows on her crossed legs, hunching forward as if there’s a weight between her shoulder blades.

I place my hand on her back, and her body stiffens. “I bet she does.”

“That’s not a bet I’d take. And why am I even telling you all this?”

“Because I asked, Raven. I care.”

Her nose twitches, like she’s sniffing out my honesty, then she relaxes into my hand. “Things are complicated with Rose. She took off the day I turned nine, and I’m kind of the reason why. So I’m not sure she’ll want to see me. But I can’t let it go. This need to have family kind of dug its roots into me. I can’t fully explain it. I mean, I have my friends, but Rose lived in the same hellhole as me growing up. She knows me in a way others never will. Or knew me, I guess. And I have so much to apologize for. Bad stuff I can’t seem to move past.”

I rub soothing circles on her back. “It sounds real. Important. Can I ask you something personal?”