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“I’m jealous, Princess. You get to see this every day?” I say, drawing in a deep breath of ocean air.
“Yeah, it’s pretty nice.”
She wraps her arms around herself with the next breeze. I step up behind her, pulling her back against my chest as we watch the waves roll in. We haven’t had very many peaceful moments like this, so I want to savor it.
“You know, I used to come out here as a kid every day. Eli and I would build sandcastles and bury each other, scavenge for seashells or little ocean creatures. He even tried to teach me how to surf at one point, but I was just not coordinated enough for that,” she laughs, the memory fresh in her mind.
“It’s definitely not for everyone,” I say, resting my head against hers.
“Yet I’m sure you can do it,” she teases.
“Naturally,” I laugh.
“Eli would get so frustrated with me some days, because he really just wanted someone to go out and ride the waves with, but I could never get the hang of it. We were young though, so I get it.
“But then Sander’s family moved in down the street. He saw us out here one day and walked over to introduce himself. He knew how to surf and ran back home for his board, and he and Eli stayed out on the water for hours. I felt so left out that Sander promised to spend the next day hanging out with me, doing whatever I wanted to do.
“The three of us became great friends and hung out nearly every day, but then Eli moved up to high school, leaving Sander and I in junior high, so we stuck together and became a lot closer. Eventually becoming best friends.”
Keaton talks about him fondly, and I know that she doesn’t feel anything romantic toward him, but I still don’t like talking about him. He definitely needs to learn to take a hint or read context clues or something. If she wanted more with him, she would have done something about it a long time ago. That’s just how Keaton is.
“He’s a good guy, Bodhi. He just… I don’t know,” she sighs, and I know this has to be a hard concept for her to accept, no matter how long he’s felt this way about her.
“Babe, he’s in love with you. He knows everything there is to know about you. Probably seen you at your worst and your best. It wasn’t hard for him to accept his feelings once he figured them out, and he’s probably been envisioning your future together for years now. Then here I come, threatening everything he’s ever wanted, and he hates me for it.”
“You can’t know that,” she sighs.
“I do though. That’s how we all think. It’s how I would feel, too, if the roles were reversed.”
She’s silent for a moment, contemplating. Every time I’ve brought this up before, she swears that they’re just friends and nothing more. After the display of jealousy earlier, I think she’s coming to terms with how he actually feels.
“If I’m being honest, I think it started in high school. I matured from one year to the next and suddenly he was interrupting every conversation I had with another guy. The girls all hated how much attention he gave me, but I thought it was stupid. We were friends and grew up together. Of course, we hung out all the time. I only dated a couple guys around that time, but none of them ever lasted, and now I question why,” she says.
“He probably threatened to beat their asses,” I chuckle, knowing that’s what I would have done.
“Probably,” she laughs. “But then when everything with Eli happened, he took it upon himself to look after my mom and me. He would let us know what was happening with his case and try to help out the best he could, but he started seeing himself as my hero, and I didn’t want saving,” she explains.
“Oof, big mistake buddy,” I joke, attempting to lighten the mood.
I think it helps, because she relaxes, putting more of her weight on me.
“I know how he feels. I’ve seen it growing stronger over the last couple of years, but I don’t have the heart to tell him that I’ll never love him as anything more than a friend. He’s like a brother, and I know that if I tell him that, it’ll crush him. I guess I was just hoping that he’d eventually find someone else and realize that what he felt for me wasn’t real. Not in the way he thought it was,” she explains.
“That sounds like a conversation the two of you need to have,” I say.
She groans, “But I don’t want to.”
“It’s never going to stop if you don’t,” I say.
“I know,” her defeated tone has me pulling her in closer, placing kisses on the side of her head.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her that I love her, but I don’t want her thinking I’m only saying it because of Sander. I don’t want him anywhere near the conversation when I do decide to tell her.
For now, I’ll hold her as she sifts through her emotions and figures out what to tell her friend. I just hope he takes it well, cause if he upsets her, I’ll have to kick his ass.
Police officer or not.
Chapter 53
