“Sure it is. We ate, talked, watched a movie, and fell asleep completely clothed. That’s very casual. Let’s do it again tonight.”
The smile on her face grew, and she shifted again. Reluctantly, I eased my hold so she could stand up. If I held her down, she might not come back. I could always tie her ass to the bed. That would fix this casual-dating shit.
Bethy stood up and raised her hands over her head to stretch, leaving me with a small glimpse of the smooth skin of her stomach. The leggings she was wearing molded to every curve, and I was close to begging her to turn around and stretch again so I could see her ass in them. The shirt she wore almost covered it up. Last night, all I got was a hint of what it was covering up.
“Today is my day off. I have to do grocery shopping, clean my apartment, and—”
“Go visit Nate, stop by the post office, and get your mail. Then you go to the beach and stand in the spot where we lost Jace,” I finished for her. I had followed her for months. I knew her typical schedule for her day off. I didn’t want to remind her of Jace, but he was a part of her life. Our life. I wanted to remember him. I wanted to be able to say his name without worrying that she would shut me out.
She blinked at me as if she was surprised that I knew all of this, but there was no sadness there. The guilt and regret didn’t cloud her eyes. She turned to walk over and pick up her shoes and slip them back on. It wasn’t a secret that I followed her. She knew that.
Sitting up, I ran my hand through my hair but decided I didn’t care if it was messy. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, as I watched her search for her purse. She needed to put space between us, and if I wanted this to happen again, I was going to have to let her.
“Tomorrow night?” I asked, knowing she didn’t need me to elaborate on what I wanted.
She turned back to me, and I could see the wheels turning in her head.
“There’s a birthday party for Mr. Emerson at the club tomorrow night. He’s turning eighty. People are coming in from out of town. It’s a big thing. Woods asked me to work it.”
Mr. Emerson was London’s grandfather. Bethy’s eyes said what she wasn’t saying. She expected me to be there with London.
I’d actually forgotten about London’s asking me to go with her. I had turned her down. After the barbecue, I knew I was wasting my time and hers. She didn’t fit into my world. We had been good together once, but I had broken away from that life, and being near London reminded me of why I’d run from it.
“I won’t be there. There was nothing to end in the first place, but I told London we weren’t going to work. She’s a part of a world I don’t want.”
The relief in Bethy’s eyes flashed before she covered it up by glancing away. “Oh, OK,” she replied.
“After the party?” I asked. I wasn’t giving up.
She fiddled with the hem of her shirt. “I’m always so exhausted after a big event at the club, so I won’t be much company. I’ll just want to eat and sleep.”
I was completely OK with that. “I’ll feed you and give you a killer foot massage, then let you go to sleep.”
The internal battle playing out across her face had me holding my breath. “OK. But you don’t have to supply the food. We get sent home with tons of leftovers from these things. I’ll have plenty for both of us.”
Mentally, I jumped up and punched the air with a shout of victory. In reality, I managed to stand up calmly and nod my head toward the kitchen. “Great. You want some coffee before you leave?”
Bethy
I held my shirt up to my nose one more time before I pulled it off and inhaled. It smelled like Tripp. And he smelled wonderful. Closing my eyes, I let myself remember how good his hard body felt under mine when I had woken up.
I vaguely remembered being unable to hold my eyes open last night and leaning over to lie on his shoulder. I wish I’d been awake for more of that. I felt like I had missed out. But then, if I’d been awake, there was no way I would have slept on him.
Wearing this shirt all day was tempting, but that would make me creepy. I pulled it off and started to throw it into the dirty clothes hamper and stopped. I dropped it onto my bed instead. I was sleeping in it tonight, and I wasn’t going to let myself think about how weird that was.
Agreeing to go over to his house again so soon was probably a bad idea. It made things appear as if they were moving too fast. I had to protect my heart with this man. I already knew he had the power to shatter me. But when he had said he wasn’t seeing London anymore, I had caved.
Knowing he didn’t want to be a part of the world she lived in eased my mind. Tripp never spoke of his parents, and they didn’t live in Rosemary Beach. They hadn’t been in Rosemary since Jace’s funeral. But summer would be back soon. What if they returned? Tripp hadn’t had to deal with them yet. Would they push him? Would he run away again? I couldn’t get onto his bike and ride away. Even if he asked me to. My life was here. My job, my friends, my security blanket. Everything was here.
Protecting myself wasn’t going to be easy. It wouldn’t take much for me to lose myself in Tripp again. Just like last night: sleeping in his arms had come as naturally as breathing. It had felt right.
My heart wasn’t safe with him. Even if my body had other ideas.
Today I needed space. I would do my usual routine and distance my thoughts from Tripp.
While shopping for groceries, I bought dill-flavored Pringles and peanut-butter-cup ice cream just in case Tripp came over. Those were his favorite snacks, or they had been when he was eighteen. As I cleaned my apartment, I made a note of things I needed to get to make the place look better. Like a blanket to go over the sofa and maybe some new curtains for the windows. I also cleaned things I rarely noticed, like the baseboards and the fronts of the cabinets. I scraped the paint that was peeling and sanded the wall. I hung a wedding photo that Della had sent me of her, Blaire, Harlow, and me over the spot.
Instead of splurging on paper towels, fabric softener, deli turkey meat, and triple-ply toilet paper, I used that money to buy the body wash and lotion I had been coveting at the new shop in town. Then I picked up a bouquet of daisies before I went to the beach.
It wasn’t until my feet hit the warm sand that I realized all the choices I had made today revolved around Tripp. I stopped just before I reached the spot where I had stood the night Jace never came out of the water. Looking at the flowers clutched in my grip, I swallowed the lump in my throat.