The Price of Love (A Price Novel Book 1) (13 page)

Slayde looked at me. “You ready?”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.” He grabbed my hand and gave me a smile that seemed to say, “I’ve got a secret.”

We walked to what looked like the outskirts of the little town and came upon a path that looked like it had been traveled a good bit. We kept walking until we were in the middle of nowhere.

I was thinking,
Where the hell is he taking me? Does he know where we are? Is this a

man thing? Are we lost, but he won’t ask for directions?
I was about to start expressing my concerns when we came to a cliff that overlooked the ocean. “Wow. That’s beautiful,” I whispered.

“I know. Amazing, huh?”

We both stood there, taking in the view. “How’d you know this was here?” I asked.

“My family comes here all the time. Brady and I used to play with these local kids, and they showed us. Tourists don’t usually come here.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me with him. “Come on.”

A little path down the side of the hill almost seemed like little stairs. You could tell the path had seen a lot of use, but when we got to the beach at the bottom, no one was there.

“We have the whole beach to ourselves?” I asked.

“Yep. You wanna swim?”

The water was beautiful, so inviting. I really wanted to go in. “We’ll get our clothes wet.”

“Not if you take them off.”

“What?”

He laughed at me. “I won’t look, I swear.” He turned around and started taking off his clothes.

“Are you serious?”

“Well, yeah!” And he was. He stripped down and went in.

“Turn around!” I shouted. He was already chest deep in the water, so I couldn’t see anything, but I hadn’t looked anyway, out of respect. Even though now I was wondering why I hadn’t.

“OK. Tell me when I can turn back around.” He kept his back turned and went all the way under, getting his whole body wet.

When I was close enough to say OK, he turned around and shook his head, slinging water in my face. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were so close.”

I wiped my face with my hand. “Is that how you normally dry your hair?”

He said, “Pretty much,” giving me that smile I loved.

I had taken a few strands of my hair and tied the rest of my hair into a knot on top of my head. He pointed at my hair. “How do you do that? I see you do that all the time.”

“I don’t have a hair tie. So I improvise. It won’t stay like that for long, but it’s good for a little while.”

He grabbed my arms and pulled me closer. I wasn’t sure if that was the greatest idea, since we were naked. “What are you doing?” I asked, a little uncomfortable with the situation.

“You were floating away,” he said with a childish grin.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Really? Because I’m standing still, and there’s barely any waves.”

He didn’t bother coming up with anything else; he just pulled me closer and kissed me. After a minute he pushed away, saying, “OK. Enough of that.”

No!
But I knew he was right. We swam a little longer, and then we took turns going and putting on our clothes.

My hair was still damp when we got back to the villa, and I knew that even my greatest attempts to keep my makeup from smearing had failed. So I was a little embarrassed when we walked in and Lexi was standing there in the kitchen. “Hungry?”

“Starving,” he said.

She looked at me and then back at him. “Did you make her take her clothes off, Slayde Price?”

“Yep.” He laughed and went upstairs to shower. I ducked my head and followed him. I hoped she was only teasing him, but it embarrassed me.

Slayde let me shower first, and I had my hair almost blown dry by the time he got out.

“I had fun today,” he said.

“Yeah, me too. Thanks for taking me there.”

As I dried my hair, I was sitting cross-legged on the floor. He sat on the floor facing me with his legs straight out. He leaned back on his arms. He was still shirtless, which was always a distraction. I tried to look at his face, which was equally as beautiful, but kept catching myself looking at his broad shoulders and perfect abs.
Gawd, he’s beautiful.
I smiled and looked away. I had to. I was afraid if I didn’t, I might throw myself on him right there.

Once I turned the dryer off, he sat up and grabbed a long strand of my hair. “I’m glad I don’t have long hair, but I sure love yours.”

“Slayde, Arden, come eat,” Lexi yelled from the bottom of the stairs. He stood up and pulled me to my feet.

When we sat down to eat, Lexi asked what we’d done all day, and Slayde told her.

She looked at me. “I’m sorry if my son has been anything but a gentleman.”

Taylor laughed. “Slayde, a gentleman?”

I felt the need to defend him, because he was. “Actually, he was. Have you ever been out there?” I asked Lexi.

“Yes, it’s beautiful. I could live here. I really could, but Zac says no,” Lexi said of her husband. “I don’t know why.”

“Because I want to go to my school,” Taylor said.

“Oh, Taylor, you could go to school here — wouldn’t that be neat?” Lexi asked.

“No. My Italian sucks.”

“Taylor, that’s so unbecoming.”

“So, Slayde can swim naked with his girlfriend, but I can’t say
sucks
?”

I almost spit my food out. I had to cover my mouth.

Lexi didn’t look the least bit fazed by what Taylor had said. “Yes. And you can go skinny dipping in ten years too, but I still don’t want you saying
sucks
.”

“Whatever. Slayde says — ” and Lexi interrupted her by holding her hand up.

“OK, Taylor. What’s your deal?” Lexi asked.

“Nothing. Just the typical ‘Slayde’s the favorite.’”

“Well, if you’d like to see if Arden would go skinny dipping with you, I’m fine with that. That’s pretty fair. And Slayde’s a boy, so bad words aren’t as terrible coming from his mouth as they are from yours.”

“Like Dad’s favorite word?” She was clearly just trying to piss her mother off at this point.

Lexi now looked annoyed for the first time. “OK, now you’re excused.”

“This sucks.” Taylor stomped away to her room.

Lexi covered her face. “She’s giving me gray hair and wrinkles. I swear she is. She’s gonna be the death of me. She’s Zac Price all over. Maybe I should move to Italy for a while and let them live together and see how interesting that would be.”

Slayde laughed. “Mom, she’s a teenager.”

“Not yet. So it’s only gonna get worse. If I’d had her first, she’d be an only child.”

“She’s not that bad,” Slayde said. I thought it was sweet that he defended his little sister.

“Hello, you haven’t lived with us in years. She was, like, nine when you left,” Lexi said, again dramatic.

Slayde smiled. “Well, I’m sure Dad is a big help.”

Lexi rolled her eyes. “Exactly. He thinks she does no wrong.”

He smiled. “Like you do me?”

“Yes, but you weren’t like that. You were a sweet kid. She’s her father’s daughter. That’s all there is to it. I’m being punished for something, obviously.”

I had to wonder what was up with Slayde’s dad. I had been around him before. He was really nice. At least I had thought he was. All I really remembered was thinking he was very good-looking and that Slayde and Taylor looked just like him.

Lexi was quiet for the rest of the meal and went to bed early.

The next morning, we were outside tanning on the patio when Lexi joined us. She was back to her normal perky self. “Can I sit here?” she asked.

“Nope,” Slayde said with a smirk.

She looked offended. “Well, fine. I’ll go sit by myself. I carried you inside my body for almost ten months. I breast-fed you for a year. I let you sleep with me until you were twelve — but it’s fine if you don’t want me around.”

I wasn’t sure if that was all true, but she was obviously trying to aggravate him in return. Slayde could be ridiculously dramatic when trying to prove a point. Now I knew where he got it from.

“Mom, I’m kidding. Quit being so ridiculous.”

I giggled.

Slayde looked at me. “What?”

“Nothing,” I said and smiled as he gently pinched my side.

“Where’s Tay?” he asked.

“Asleep.”

“That’s what I figured.” He looked at me. “Drink?”

Lexi spoke up. “Margarita, please.”

“It’s ten in the morning.”

“And?”

“I think I want one too,” I added.

“They’re already made. The blender’s in the freezer,” Lexi said.

He just smiled, rolled his eyes, and went inside to get our drinks.

“Hey, it’s a vacation, right?” Lexi smiled at me. I really did like her. “I’m glad you came. It really surprised me when Slayde suggested it. He doesn’t ever bring a girl anywhere. Sometimes he worries me.” I didn’t understand what she meant, and apparently she could tell, because she held up her hand. “Oh, nothing like that. I don’t think he’s gay or anything. I just worried he wasn’t interested in a real relationship. He has never really talked about a girl until you showed up. Now I can’t call him without getting a ten-minute rundown on what y’all have been doing.”

I couldn’t believe Slayde’s mom was saying all this. I was a little embarrassed, so I just smiled at her. I could feel my cheeks get flushed. I finally managed to say, “He’s a lot of fun.”

“I thought he was about to come home. I was throwing hints that I missed him, and telling Zac that it was time for Slayde to come back so that he didn’t get pissed when it happened.”

“He doesn’t want him home?” I asked.

“Yes. He didn’t want him in Paris in the first place, but Slayde wanted to do anything but what Zac wanted.”

“To play baseball?”

“Yes, and it made Zac nuts.”

“Why?”

“Because Zac thinks he’s throwing away his talent. Which I understand — he’s really good — but what Zac doesn’t get is that he may be really good at it, but if it isn’t what Slayde wants to do with his life, then Zac just needs to shut up and let him do what makes him happy. It’s Slayde’s life.”

I was starting to understand a little more clearly what Slayde had said about why he came to Paris. Maybe he was just trying to prove a point to his dad, that he was going to do what he wanted with his life.

“What’s he going to do when he does leave Paris?” I asked, because we hadn’t really discussed that.

“I don’t think he knows, but he’ll figure it out. Maybe he should go to college. That’s what I’d like for him to do, but I’ll let him figure it out.”

I heard Slayde coming back with our drinks. “Mom, that crap was frozen solid. It would have burned the blender up.”

“Well, is it on fire?” she asked, taking her drink from him.

“No, but I had to run the bottom under water until it unfroze a little.”

She smiled at him. “Good job, Slayde.” She patted him on the leg like a child, and he laughed.

“Thank you,” I said as he handed mine to me. He sat back down and opened a beer.

“I thought it was too early to drink,” Lexi said.

“Well, I figured that if I left you out here alone together for that long, I’d probably need a drink.” He looked at me. “Whatever she said, it’s not true.”

“Oh yes, it is,” Lexi said quietly, but I heard her.

He smiled that beautiful half smile, and I couldn’t help but think about what she had said. Did he really talk about me to her?

Later that night, Slayde and I went out to eat alone. I loved this old town — it was gorgeous. “Thank you for inviting me on this trip,” I said. “It’s so beautiful here.”

“Thank you for coming. I love it here too. Maybe this winter you can come with us to snow ski. We usually go around Christmas every year.”

“We’ll see.” He looked like that wasn’t what he had thought I was going to say, but I couldn’t imagine this whimsical little vacation romance lasting forever. I mean, that’s all this was, right? I was sure that, as soon as I left for school, he’d be back to doing whatever it was he was doing before I got there. But I didn’t want to think about that right now. I was enjoying my fairy tale.

“Well, I hope you do,” he said and grabbed my hand.

That made me blush. I was glad it was dark so he couldn’t see it. “You and your mom seem really close,” I said.

He looked up abruptly. “What did she tell you?”

“Nothing.” But I couldn’t help but laugh, because he looked horrified.

“I swear, I want to kill her sometimes.”

“No, you don’t,” I said.

“OK, I don’t, but she’s so nosy.”

“She loves you. You’re what she worries about all day. That’s her job.” Not that I had a clue what that felt like. My mom never worried about me.

“I know, but sometimes she’s all up in my business. And she’s across the world. I swear, if she goes a few days without hearing from me, she will hop on that jet and come to Paris in a heartbeat. She’s done it more than once. The first time she did it, I thought something horrible had happened, but she told me she was worried to death that I was lying in a ditch somewhere.” He held his hand up. “I mean, come on.”

I still smiled. I enjoyed their family banter. They were normal. “And does your Dad worry?”

“Not really. He thinks Mom is overbearing and overprotective.”

“Is she?”

“Yes, but I won’t tell him that.”

“You don’t get along at all?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, we do. We just butt heads a lot. He thinks his way is the only way. It may have been great for him, but that’s him. Not me.”

“Do you think if he had left you alone, you’d have played baseball instead?”

“No, I don’t.”

“So, you were good, but you didn’t love it?”

“I guess. I don’t know that I was even that good or if everyone else was just mediocre.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Go home.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know. It all depends on this one big thing I’m waiting on, but we’ll see.”

I knew if he’d wanted me to know, he would have told me, but I couldn’t say I wasn’t a little curious.

When we got back to the villa, everyone was asleep. We were leaving early the next morning, but Slayde and I weren’t tired. We figured we could sleep on the plane.

“You want to go sit outside overlooking the ocean and drink some wine and soak up what’s left of this trip?” he asked.