Relentless (Shattered Hearts) (7 page)

“Or bring it all to the surface and cause a mental breakdown. I haven’t told you about our little bet, have I?”

“What bet?”

A girl wearing way too much eyeliner smiles at me as she exits the restroom, as if she knows what bet I’m referring to.

Once she’s gone I sigh. “He bet me that he could get me to tell him why I dropped out. If he wins, I have to go back to school.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa…. You agreed to this?”

“I know. It’s so stupid.”

“No, it’s not. It’s brilliant!”

The restroom door opens again and this time it’s a guy who’s actually kind of hot but obviously stoned. His eyes widen when he sees us and he quickly apologizes as he closes the door.

“It’s not brilliant. I’ve been out of school too long and you know I can’t go back to Raleigh.”

Just saying the name aloud makes my body tense. Everything and everybody I’ve ever known is in Raleigh. Every memory of my mother and Chris are there. Of course, the person I’ve been trying to avoid more than anyone is there: Jackie Knight. If Jackie knew what I did after Chris left, she would hate me more than she probably already does since I disappeared. She might even hate me more than I hate myself.

“You can go back, and you should, but that’s a whole other two-hour argument we can rehash later.” Senia grabs my arms and stares at me, her eyes pleading. “For now, just go out there and try to have some fun. Please.”

I wriggle out of her grasp and shrug as I reach for the door handle and yank it open. “I can have fun without being a fucking doormat.”

I storm out of the restroom and back to our booth. When I get there, I find Adam and Eddie laughing about something as Adam passes the hookah pipe across the table. The smell of the pot is hardly noticeable through the thick cloud of sweetly scented tobacco smoke. When Adam sees me he immediately stands so I can scoot in on his side. Maybe Eddie had a talk with him, as well.

He smiles as I slide in. He sits down and immediately leans over to whisper in my ear. “You look beautiful tonight. I forgot to tell you that earlier.”

I can smell the smoke on his breath, but the sensation of his lips against my ear is enough to almost make me forget why I was mad at him. I turn my face toward him so our noses are touching and his gaze slides down to my lips.

“I don’t think you’re a stalker,” I whisper. “I think… I wish you were around more often.”

It makes my chest ache with anxiety just to say these words aloud. I don’t want to open myself up to him like this, but Senia is right. I need this, whether it’s a fling or something more. I don’t want to end up a brittle old broad or, worse, a terrified shut-in like my mom.

He smiles before he plants a soft kiss on my lips and I put my hand on top of his thigh to steady myself. He pulls away and kisses my forehead. “I’ll take you out with me next time I go to the beach.”

I nod, too afraid that if I speak something even cornier may come out. I glance at Senia next to me and she’s pretending not to notice this exchange between Adam and me. One thing I can say about Senia is that she is great at being discreet when it’s necessary.

Senia and I refuse to smoke both the tobacco and the weed, but I soon start to feel as if my brain is becoming as foggy as this room. Adam’s laughter begins to sound a bit distant, like canned laughter in a sitcom. I blink furiously, as if this will wake me up, and Adam looks at me funny.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“I feel like I’m in a movie. You look like a movie star.” I reach out and touch his face. “You have facial hair and it feels so scratchy. I’m thirsty.” I reach for the glass of water in front of me, but it’s empty. “I’m so thirsty.”

“Aw, shit. You have a contact high. I think it’s time to get you home.” He stands up and nods toward the exit. “Come on. You need some fresh air.”

Senia and Eddie stay behind while Adam walks me home. The cool night air feels like heaven on my skin, but the sidewalk looks like a treadmill belt. I’m getting nowhere. By the time I arrive at my apartment, I’m feeling more clearheaded, though I have no memory of how we got there.

“Is Eddie staying over?” Adam asks as I dig inside my purse for my keys.

I laugh way harder at this than I should. “You want me to spend the night again.”

He shakes his head. “Just trying to save you from having to listen to Senia and Eddie doing all the things we should be doing.”

“I can’t see anything in this purse. It’s too dark.” Finally, I shove my purse into his chest and he grins. “All right, Adam, you want to have sex with me? You think you can handle this?” I giggle uncontrollably because I know I’m being ridiculous, but I can’t stop. “Bring it.”

He grabs my hand and pulls me toward the stairs. “Oh, it’s already been broughten.”

I laugh as I climb the stairs behind him. “I love that you always get my movie references. You’re so funny… and hot.”

He chuckles as he climbs the last few stairs and reaches into his pocket for his keys. “I need to get you stoned more often.”

Ch
apter Eleven

Relentless Guilt

I open my eyes and
stare at the oscillating fan next to the bed. Even with the fan pointed straight at me, I’m still sweating and I quickly understand why. Adam’s chest is pressed against my back and I’m wearing nothing but a bra and panties. I have a vague memory of tearing off my tank top and shorts, but I can’t remember much else.

His arm is wrapped around my waist and his breath is hot against the back of my head. Our bodies are sticky everywhere our skin is touching. It’s unbearably hot and humid in here. On the bright side, he’s not suffering from morning wood syndrome.

I need to get out of here. I have a bad feeling we had forgettable sex and I don’t want to admit that I can’t remember it. I slowly attempt to scoot forward to peel my back off his chest and he grunts as he tightens his arm around my waist.

“Go back to sleep,” he groans, and now that I know he’s awake I let out the breath I’ve been holding.

“What time is it? I work at three.”

“It’s still morning. Go back to sleep.”

“I can’t. It’s too hot in here.”

“Then take these off,” he says, hooking his thumb into the waistband of my panties. “I’d be happy to help you with that.”

I roll over to face him and he whips his head out of the way so I don’t elbow him in the face.

“Hey, Smokey the Bear,” I say. God, he looks so sexy when he’s groggy. “You think you’re so hot, but I don’t even remember what happened last night so it can’t be that good.”

He laughs in my face and I can still smell a hint of smoke on his breath. “That’s because nothing happened last night.”

“Nothing happened?”

“You walked into my room, stripped down to your underwear, made some comment about this being the most comfortable bed in the universe, and knocked out.”

“Oh…. Somehow, I find that a little disappointing.”

“You’re bummed we didn’t have forgettable sex? Or you’re bummed we didn’t have sex?”

The truth is, I’m a little disappointed we haven’t gotten the whole
first time
thing out of the way. It’s too much pressure. I haven’t been with anyone other than Chris and, like Senia said last night, he spoiled me. He waited more than two years before we had sex on my eighteenth birthday. I’ve only known Adam two weeks, but this need to get the sex over with tells me that we should probably wait.

“I guess I’m disappointed we didn’t have sex,” I reply, because I know that’s what he wants to hear.

“You
guess
you’re disappointed?” He brushes a lock of hair away from my face and lifts my chin so he can look me in the eye. “You’re not a virgin, are you?”

“What? No!” I don’t know why I’m so adamant with my response. “I am
not
a virgin.”
Though part of me wishes I were.

He smiles as he slips his arm around my waist and pulls me closer. I swallow hard as his erection jabs my thigh through his boxers.

Oh, God.

He leans in to kiss me and, as soon as his lips touch mine, my body relaxes into him. I slide my arms around his neck as he rolls me onto my back. He pushes my legs open with his knee as his fingers skates up my side. His tongue flirts with mine and my nipples perk up beneath the fabric of my bra. He grinds against me as his hand cups my breast and I know this is it. We’re going to have sex.

He slips his hand underneath me and pulls his head back when his fingers find the hook on my bra. “Is this okay?” he asks.

My heart is pounding, but the need throbbing between my legs is more intense.

“I want this,” I say with a nod. “I want you.”

He unhooks my bra and watches as I slide the straps down. I toss it over the edge of the bed and he gazes at me with a deep sense of wonderment and longing in his eyes. He lays a soft trail of kisses from my sternum to my breast and I let out a small gasp as he takes my nipple into his mouth.

His fingers move lightly over my belly to my hip. He grasps the waist of my panties and looks up at me, his eyes questioning if he can remove these, too. I nod and lift my hips so he can slip them off. He takes off his boxers and he supports his weight on his elbows as he kisses me slowly. His lips graze my jaw as he moves to my neck then down to my breast again. He keeps going until his head is between my legs.

He looks up at me, a smile in his eyes, then his mouth is on me. His tongue swirls around my swollen clit and, it’s been so long, it doesn’t take much. I come quick and probably too loudly. His body slides over mine as he slinks up and kisses my forehead. He smiles as he slips a condom out of his nightstand and rips it open with his teeth.

I can’t breathe.

The nurse wheels me out of the hospital room and, after what I’ve just been through, I’m surprised I have enough energy to be frightened by the sight of the person standing ten feet ahead of me next to the nurses’ station. Joanie Tipton hands the nurse behind the desk a piece of paper then turns toward me.

Senia steps in front of the wheelchair to block me from Joanie’s view, but it’s too late. Joanie has already seen me. And by the shit-eating grin on her face, she knows exactly why I’m here.

Of all the people in the world, Joanie is the last person I want to see here. She’s had it out for me since our senior year in high school when Chris and I were broken up for three weeks and he still rejected her invitation to the prom. She showed up at the Knights’ house the day before he left in July to wish him well. Chris and I were just getting ready to leave to celebrate my birthday a month early. Later that night, I used Joanie as an example of all the groupies Chris would have access to on tour. I told him we should break up so he could get all that stuff out of his system. I didn’t think I could handle finding out he’d faltered while we were still together.

Joanie doesn’t know I used her crush on Chris as an example of why we should break up, but as she stands there smiling at me I know she will move mountains to tell him she saw me here today.

I’m not in the right state of mind to deal with Joanie. My chest muscles ache from three days of uncontrollable sobbing and I’m woozy from the mild sedative I was given twenty minutes ago. As she approaches us on her way down the corridor, the panic builds inside me, but it manifests only in tears.

“What the fuck are you staring at?” Senia snarls at her, and Joanie’s smile vanishes just as she disappears somewhere behind the wheelchair.

The nurse continues to push my wheelchair forward, but everything moves in slow motion compared to my racing heartbeat. She’s going to tell Chris everything and this time I’ll lose him forever.

“Claire.”

Adam’s voice shakes the memory loose and I open my eyes to find him sitting next to me instead of lying on top of me. Cool tears stream down my temples and into my hair. I quickly wiped them away before I sit up and curl my legs into my chest.

“What happened?” I ask as I stare at the foot of the bed to avoid looking at him.

I don’t want to see the expression on his face. I don’t want to see just how crazy he thinks I am.

“Nothing. You squeezed your eyes shut and started crying. Nothing happened. I swear.”

I feel exposed, emotionally and physically. I want to gather my clothes and get out of here, but I’m too afraid to move.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

I shake my head as I straighten my legs out in front of me and pull the sheet up to my chest to cover myself. “You think you want to know what happened—what made me drop out—but you don’t understand that if I tell you you’ll want nothing more to do with me.”

“You don’t know that.”

He brushes my messy hair out of my eyes and the look in his eyes breaks my heart. I will never tell him.

“Come here,” he whispers as he pulls me into his arms.

As soon as I press the side of my face to his shoulder, the tears come again. What the hell was I thinking? Enough time hasn’t passed since that day in the hospital. I should have known it was too soon.

Ch
apter Twelve

Relentless Waves

After Saturday’s breakdown, I’m shocked
that he still wants me to go to the beach with him on Wednesday night, my only day off from the café this week. I spend all day Wednesday at the apartment. I immediately get caught up in an endless loop of watching recorded episodes of
Vampire Diaries
, doing laundry, and meditating. By the time Senia gets home early from work, I’ve washed all our clothes and linens and meditated four times. I haven’t felt this relaxed in weeks.

She hangs her purse up on the peg inside the coat closet and plops down next to me on the sofa. “I can’t work with him anymore!”

I know she’s referring to her dad. He spoils her financially, but he’s also extremely controlling. Growing up, her father dictated what Senia and her two sisters wore, ate, and who they befriended up until they graduated from high school. She wasn’t allowed to date until her senior year and only then because her date was a friend of the family. When she got to UNC two years ago, she was a completely different person than she is now. She was scared and shy, but it didn’t take long for the real Senia to emerge. In the beginning of our freshman year, it was the alcohol that brought her out. Eventually she stopped getting drunk every weekend.

The first time she talked back to her father was when he refused to put the pink slip for her car in her name. She knew he only wanted the car in his name so he could use the car as a means to control her. From the moment she told him to
fuck off
their relationship changed. He now only speaks to her when he needs to for work purposes. Their relationship is almost enough to make me grateful I never knew my father.

“What did he do today?” I ask as I reach for the remote.

“Why do you ask like that, like you’re tired of hearing me complain about my job?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to give off that vibe. I guess it was just a bad word choice. I should have left off ‘today’.”

Senia sighs as she puts her feet up on the coffee table. “It’s okay. I’m just really annoyed right now. He wants me to move back in this weekend. I told him there’s still four more weeks before the semester starts, but he said he would take my car away if I don’t go back to working at the main office, where he can keep an eye on me. He’s tired of me leaving work early.”

“And your response was to leave work early?”

She turns to me and I can see by the apologetic look in her eyes that she agreed to her father’s demands. “I’m so sorry, Claire, but I need my car.”

I nod and manage a weak smile. “It’s no big deal. I can find another roommate. And, hey, Linda might actually give me more hours if I ask Adam to go on a date with her.”

“God, I feel like such a dirt-bag leaving you hanging like this. I really wanted to spend the rest of the summer here.”

“Don’t feel bad,” I say, grabbing her hand. “I’ll be fine. And you and Eddie are welcome to hang out or sleepover whenever you want.”

She stares at me for a moment and I can see the wheels turning in her head. “You should move in with—”

“Don’t say it!”

“Whatever. Are you two still going surfing today?”

“Yeah, unless you want to do something. I feel like I should be spending the rest of this week with you.”

“Oh, please. You act like I’m dying in four days.”

“Well, not
all
of you.”

“Yeah, just the part that loves watching you meditate.”

At exactly six in the evening, a knock comes at the door. I’m ready with my yellow bikini underneath my faded-blue Roxy T-shirt and a pair of white board shorts that I usually only wear around the house because they barely cover my ass, but Senia insisted I wear them. I’m excited. I’ve seen guys—hot guys—surfing at the beach dozens of times since I moved to Wrightsville Beach, but something about getting to see Adam out there gives me butterflies. I’m finally going to get to share his passion for the water with him. And enough time, and meditation, has passed between Saturday and today that I’m feeling a lot less guilty about leaving him hanging.

I open the door and Adam is leaning against the doorframe with one hand in the pocket of his board shorts. He’s shirtless so even when he looks up at me with those striking green eyes, all I can look at is his perfectly muscular chest.

“Are you ready to get tossed?”

“Is that a promise?” I say as I step outside.

He laughs as he throws his arms around my waist, lifts me off the ground, and kisses me. His lips are warm and soft as I take his bottom lip between my teeth.

He moans softly and I feel him stiffening against me. “You’d better stop that or I’m going to take you upstairs right now.”

I give him a soft peck on the lips then tighten my arms around his neck as I lay my head on his shoulder. He squeezes me tightly and I sigh. This is the best hug I’ve gotten in months. He finally sets me down and cradles my face as he kisses both my eyelids.

“Thanks for coming with me.”

I grin uncontrollably because something has shifted between us. Something magical is happening. I feel deliriously happy for the first time since Chris left.

Adam says he normally walks to the beach, but today we’re taking the truck because he brought an extra surfboard for me. He parks in front of a house near the beach and carries both our boards across the sand. He lays the boards flat on the damp sand near the edge of the water and looks at me.

“Have you ever surfed?”

“I have, actually. Fallon, the girl who taught me to meditate, tried to teach me a couple of times. I actually stood up on the board once.”

“Good,” he says, tucking his board under his arm. “Then I don’t have to go through all the standard stuff about how to pop up.”

“Really? We’re just going to go right out?”

“Claire, the sun’s going down in less than two hours. You won’t be able to surf after the sun goes down.”

“But you do.”

“Because I don’t need to see the water to know where it’s going.”

I can’t help but sigh as I peel off my clothes. “That is so hot.”

“Besides, the sharks come out at night.”

“Sharks!”

He shakes his head as he bounds toward the water. I grab my board and follow after him. Once we’re waist deep in the warm Atlantic Ocean, we’re forced to continually duck dive under the relentless waves until we’re far enough past the breaks. We paddle out a bit further until we get to a place where we can turn around to face the beach. I can hardly breathe and my limbs ache. My arms tremble as I climb onto the board to straddle it the way Adam does.

“Are you okay?”

I nod because I don’t have enough air in my lungs to speak.

The rolling motion of the water is carrying our boards farther apart and making me a little queasy. He holds his hand out to me. I take his hand and he yanks me toward him.

“Okay, I’m going to tell you something I never tell anybody when they ask me for a surfing lesson.”

“What?”

“You look really sexy in that bikini.”

“And you’d better not tell anyone else that.”

“Ooh, you wear jealousy even better than you wear that bikini,” he says as he leans over and kisses my temple. “You should take it off.”

“Focus, Adam.”

“Right.” He gazes at the waves as they crash onto the shore before us for a while before he speaks again. What he says has nothing to do with surfing. “I want you to meet my parents.”

“That’s your idea of focusing?”

He tilts his head as he looks at me because he knows I’m trying to avoid the subject.

“You don’t have to, but I’m going there this weekend. They’re having their annual summer picnic on my uncle’s ranch and I want you to come with me because I don’t think I can handle being away from you all weekend.”

I recognize that jittery feeling in my belly, and it’s the feeling that scares me more than what Adam’s proposing. I can feel myself falling. Hard. If I meet his parents, it will be like completely giving into that feeling. This won’t be infatuation anymore. It will be serious.

Say something, Claire
, my inner voice shouts at me.

“Okay.”

“You’ll go?”

I nod fiercely and he leans over to kiss me so fast we both flip our boards and slip into the water. A tangle of seaweed snags on my foot and I scream. He laughs as he gathers our boards.

“All right, no more fooling around. I’m about to give you a serious lesson.” We climb back onto our boards and hold hands as we watch the waves break against the shore. “Pay attention to the rhythm and movement of the water.”

He lets go of my hand and I draw in a deep breath. The water dips and surges beneath my board and I can feel my body relaxing as I grip the rails, paying close attention. There’s a definite rhythm to the rise and crash of each wave. Without knowing, I realize I’ve closed my eyes and I’m visualizing the waves based on the sound. It’s so peaceful out here.

“Are you ready?” he asks, and I nod as I open my eyes.

He points at the waves as he tells me what to do. I try to repeat all his instructions in my head as I lie down on the board.
Push the nose down… lean into the direction of the wave…. Let the momentum of the water carry you.

He shoves my board forward and shouts, “Start paddling!”

My first lesson is a disaster so as soon as the sun starts to set behind us, I breathe a sigh of relief and make my way back to solid ground. My jelly legs give out beneath me and I fall to my knees next to my beach bag. I wipe the saltwater from my face with a towel, lay the towel out on the sand, and collapse facedown.

“Hey, you didn’t do too bad,” Adam says as he pulls a bottle of water out of my beach bag and hands it to me.

I take the water and turn onto my side so I can guzzle it down. “Yeah, not so bad. I never once stood up.”

“That’s okay for your first time out. In fact, it’s expected. Trust me, I’ll have you riding in the curl soon.”

“Are you going to take that weekend job on Shell Island?”

“Are you going to be my first student?”

“I can’t afford surf lessons.”

“I’m sure Jason won’t mind me donating some lessons to a few hopeless cases every now and then.”

I roll my eyes as I turn over onto my back. “I don’t have the energy to be outraged by that comment.”

We’re both silent for a moment before I realize that the sun is about to set. I sit up and the intense look in his eyes tells me his mind is far away from this beach right now. He grabs my hand and the sand rubs between our wrinkled palms as he laces his fingers through mine.

“Claire, I asked you to go with me this weekend for more than one reason.” He pauses for a moment before he peels his gaze away from the dazzling pink sunset to look at me. “I’m falling in love with you.” I open my mouth to respond and he presses his finger against my lips to stop me. “I don’t want you to say anything. I just want you to know that. I love you.”

He waits a moment before he removes his finger from my lips.

I want to say it back because I think he deserves to hear it and because I do feel something strong like love growing inside of me. But I’m not certain yet. I scoot forward a little on my towel so our sides are touching and lean my head on his shoulder. He kisses my forehead as he wraps his towel around me. We watch the sunset in silence as I think to myself,
Adam loves the sunset
and
me
.