I glance up.
Straight into a set of sky blue eyes.
They widen as they meet mine, clearly shocked by my presence. She freezes a dozen feet away, her expression flickering between so many emotions, I can’t decipher a single one of them. She’s in cut-off jean shorts that make her legs look a million miles long and a sleeveless linen blouse. Her long blonde locks are damp around her shoulders, a shade darker than usual. She wears no makeup, fresh from the shower.
It’s hard to look at her, she’s so damn beautiful.
I rise slowly to full height, holding the breath in my lungs until it starts to burn. Never shifting my gaze from hers. Not daring to move an inch into her space, for fear she’ll run away. Or, worse, come closer. Within arm’s reach. Within lip’s reach. Close enough for me to pull her up against my chest and beg forgiveness. Beg absolution. Beg anything, so long as she’ll give me a chance to repair all I’ve broken.
I push aside the thoughts.
“Hi,” I say dumbly, clearing my throat. I don’t know much about how this interaction is about to go, but I do know this: I’m the one who has to speak first this time. I’m the one who has to take the leap of faith. After our last interaction — the things I said to her — I’m just lucky she hasn’t punched me in the face.
Not yet, anyway.
“What are you doing here?” The question trembles from her lips. Her eyes look glossy — as though she’s already on the brink of tears.
Isn’t that the question of the century?
What the fuck am I doing here?
I fist my hands at my sides, trying to hold myself in check. “I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. “I was just motoring down the coast and then I… suddenly found myself here.”
She stares at me. “You found yourself here.”
I nod.
She mulls that over for a moment. I can’t read her eyes, nor her expression, but after a while they drift away from my face to study my lobster boat, moving over the bow with frank curiosity. “New?”
“Yes.”
“Yours?” She steps closer, skimming her hand along the rail. Her fingers dance lightly against the fiberglass. I watch them, swallowing hard around the lump in my windpipe. Trying not to think about those hands — how they feel on my skin, how one small brush is enough to unravel me completely. I’d give just about anything to feel their weight again. To lace one with mine and walk down a street together, just a normal couple on a normal day.
No fractured past, no perilous future.
She turns to me, brows raised. I realize I haven’t answered her question.
“Yes. She’s all mine.”
“Looks expensive,” she notes.
“I wouldn’t know. She was a gift.”
She whistles lowly. “Some gift.”
“My boss — the owner of the boat that sank — bought her with the insurance payout. He’s ready to retire. He had no use for her, so she’s mine now.”
Another whistle. “Some boss.”
“He is.” I’m rattled by her composure. She’s eerily calm. Not the good sort of calm. Calm like the sky before a storm. Still as the clouds before lightning touches down. I get the sense, if I push the wrong button, she’ll strike out with similar lethal force.
“Jo.”
Her eyes slide to mine. “Archer.”
God, if she only knew what that did to me. Hearing my name on her lips. Watching it move through her mouth as her stare burns into mine.
It would send a weaker man to his knees.
“I’m sorry,” I force myself to say. My voice is so raspy, it barely makes it past my lips. “Last time, with the pie… at my apartment… what I said to you…”
Her brows lift. Waiting.
“I was out of line.”
“For which part?”
“All of it.” I suck in a breath. She’s not making this easy on me. Not that she should. “I was cruel. I was an asshole. I was honestly just trying to make you leave, any way I could. Because I thought…”
Her head cocks. A rogue curl falls across her face. She doesn’t bother tucking it back behind her ear. “Thought what?”
“I guess I thought pushing you away would be easier than explaining everything.”
“Easier.” She hums. “Right.”
My brows furrow. Is this the same girl who, only days ago, showed up at my doorstep demanding answers? “I guess I’m saying, if you still have questions…”
“Oh, I don’t,” she murmurs, surprising me greatly. The last time I saw her, she was brimming with them. “I don’t have a thing to ask you. Frankly, I’m tired of asking questions. It never seems to get me anywhere.”
My jaw tightens. “Jo—”
“Why don’t I tell you what I know, instead?” she interjects. I see a flash of fierce temper lurking in the depths of her eyes, but she buries it away quickly beneath her frigid composure. “I know about the accident. I know you flipped your truck, totaled it completely. I know you’ve still got scars on your wrist. I know the bones shattered so bad, you were hospitalized for a long time.” She pauses. Looks away from me. Her voice goes absent, as though she’s only half there. As though we’re discussing something trivial, like the weather, not the event that stole every hope and dream I’d ever had. “I know you’re a liar.”
I don’t dare move.
Don’t dare speak.
“You said you came here to explain things. But I don’t trust your explanations, Archer. And I don’t want your evasions or elaborations.” Her eyes find mine once more, and this time they’re completely unguarded. Two blue pools of abhorrence, blasting straight at me across the small distance between us. “I just want you to answer plainly. Whatever I ask. True or false. Confirm or deny. One word, nothing more.” She pauses, breathing hard. “Can you do that?”
I nod.
“Good.” She seems to steel herself. “First… that note you wrote last summer…”
I go still as I wait for the other shoe to drop. Right now, in this fractured moment, she could ask me anything and I’d answer her honestly. If she wants me to admit I lied about my feelings for her, I’ll do it. I’m ready. I cannot keep pretending otherwise. I cannot keep lying to her. Even if it means the Valentines send their lawyers after me with more threats, even if it means staking my word — whatever little its worth — against theirs. Even if it means telling the girl I love it was her parents who crushed our chance at happiness.
Screw Blair and Vincent.
Screw the repercussions.
Screw everything but us.
“You lied when you said you were going to that All-Star camp,” Jo continues, watching me closely. “You never went away. You were right here all along, recovering from your injuries. True or false?”
“True.”
“You lost your scholarship last fall. True or false?”
“True.”
“You never went away to college. True or false?”
“True.”
“You work as a lobsterman full-time, not as a summer job. True or false?”
“True,” I croak. My throat is so tight, I can barely release the word from my vocal cords.