All I could think was that somewhere out there were families whose loved ones were on that boat who were feeling like that. They were feeling like the Coast Guard had let them down by not getting there as soon as the mayday or EPIRB—Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon—had gone off.
I’d been blamed for everything by Cooper’s family—they’d even accused me of taking my time getting on board the helicopter and had demanded an investigation into my conduct on the day.
That level of hurt wouldn’t go away any time soon, so I had to just ride it out and hope that more families weren’t suffering the loss of their loved ones. Unfortunately, after four days in those seas at the temperatures they were in, finding life would be a miracle. It was shit like that which struck an emotional trigger, and that’s what I’d been working my way through.
Stretching out my neck, I jumped down from my truck and let out a sigh when I saw a woman who should stick to being at home—Shonelle Bell. She had issues with Sadie and one of my family’s friends, Bonnie, for some reason, and she just wouldn’t quit. From what I’d heard from conversations and shit I’d pieced together, it was pure jealousy.
“Hey, Eli!” she called, waving her arm frantically as she ran toward the steps to Rebels, making it blatantly apparent that she wasn’t wearing a bra either.
I hated being called Eli by anyone who wasn’t close to me, and I honestly had nothing to say to her, so I just continued on my path. Anyone would take a fucking hint, but not Shonelle.
“Hey, wait up. I just wanted to see how you’re doing,” she squealed, grabbing my arm and digging her talons into the skin at the same time.
Pulling my arm out of her grasp and growling when her nails raked the skin, I stopped and turned to face her. She hadn’t been expecting the move, so she bumped into me with a gasp, but instead of taking a step back, she just tilted her head back with her shiny lips parted.
“Name’s not Eli, and in the future, I’d recommend not using your nails as hooks to stop a guy moving.” I held up my arm to show her the red lines now on the underside of my forearm.
Her stunned expression morphed into a sly smile, which told me she had zero intentions of apologizing for it, so I pivoted and opened the door to the bar, only relaxing when I saw Sadie standing talking to Beau and my cousin, Ariana. Just that was enough for me to forget the woman behind me, and I moved on autopilot to what’d become my seat at the bar.
As I got closer to her, the lightness she usually brought started to lift the weight on my shoulders. Everything about Sadie did that for me. She’d once called herself average while she was talking to Bonnie, but I’d never seen anyone so uniquely beautiful in my whole life.
Seeing me sitting, Beau pointed at me and said something to her that made her turn around. The smile she shot me was just gorgeous and made me feel like a giant. Then she turned to walk toward me, stumbling slightly as she did it.
“I’m okay,” she shouted, holding her hands up in the air. “It’s all fine and dandy.”
I couldn’t stop the bark of laughter that came out of me, something only she managed to do.
Which reminded me of just last week, when I’d convinced her to have drinks with the girls at Beau’s apartment while I helped my cousins out with something at Levi’s house. I’d gone to pick her up and been graced with drunken Sadie, something she hadn’t done a lot in her life but felt safe to do here.
We were almost home when it’d started up.
“You know what makes me sad?” she sniffled.
“What’s that, baby?”
“Going into a supermarket and walking down the meat aisle. You’re surrounded by chickens, turkeys, pigs, moo-cows, and all sorts of poor little fuzzy babies. They’re all there,” she whimpered, exaggerating the word all, “lined up either side, begging to be let out. It’s just so cruel. I just—” she broke off on a sob, trying to reach for a tissue from the box I kept in the truck and getting stopped by her seatbelt.
Without taking my eyes off the road, I leaned over and got the box she was after and held it out for her.
“’Preciate it,” she gasped, still crying as she grabbed a handful.
Her words made me think—I’d cooked steak and chicken recently, just assuming she was okay with it. Had she only eaten it out of politeness?
Clearing my throat, I raised the question. It was better to know than not to know. “So, are you a vegetarian?”
“No, that’s cruel, too. One minute they’re in the ground or whatever, growing and reaching for the sun. The next, they’re trapped in packaging. Who does that to defenseless creatures?”
Jesus, it was hard not to laugh.
“I know,” she squealed, making me jerk the wheel slightly. “We should go and set them all free. Like when you go to a laboratory and set the animals free, we’ll set the ones in the shops free!”
“What about the vegetables?”
“Yes, we’ll set them all free as well.”
“Uh,” I hedged, mental images of her throwing chicken cutlets, steaks, and shit around, making me feel torn between panicking and laughing my ass off. “Let’s not and say we did.”
“Ah, but that’s fibbing!”
I didn’t have anything to say to that. To be honest, I was worried that if we continued this conversation, she’d jump out when I stopped and run to the nearest store to do it, so I just kept quiet.
It didn’t last long, though.
“Elijah?” she asked softly, pulling at my heartstrings.
“Yeah, pixie?”
“If I die—”
“You’re not gonna die,” I snapped, my mood plummeting immediately. What the fuck?
“No, man, you don’t get it. This is important.”—Man? Again, what the fuck?—“If I die, will you do something for me?”
She wasn’t going to, but I could see repeating that would be problematic. “Anything.”
“Delete my search history. Being around your family has made me Google random shit, and I don’t want people thinking I was a fucked up weirdo.” There was a moment of silence, then she added, “And do it on my laptop, iPad, and phone. I can’t remember which one I used for what.”
I wasn’t sure what to think about it. I mean, we’d gone from setting packaged meat and vegetables free to deleting the search history on all of her devices. I was fairly sure I had mental whiplash from the rapid change in topics.
But then the true meaning behind what she’d just asked me to do sank in.
I swear I couldn’t have stopped myself from asking what I did even if I’d tried, which I didn’t. “What sort of shit we talking about?”
“Butt plugs,” she shrugged, making me choke on the saliva I’d been swallowing. “Vibrators. Vibrating eggs. Nipple clamps. How big a butt plug can get after Charlotte told me about one. What an arsehole would look like after it’d had something that big in it. What blue waffle really is.” All of it was said as its own sentence and in a tone that made it out like it was perfectly normal to look at shit like that. Then she hit her stride. “Sex beads, sex chairs, how droopy balls can get—”