“So, your phone was going nuts at dinner last night. Your friends at Whitman miss you?”
Talking about the messages on my phone tightened the muscles between my shoulder blades. Even though the question could be innocuous, it wasn’t. “Audra was checking in, which is pretty normal. She’s not worried or anything.”
“And . . . ?”
“How do you know there’s an and?”
“Isn’t there?”
Sam reclined in the bow, arms behind his head, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle. Sunlight bounced off the waves, bringing out the sparkling chestnut highlights in his hair. He looked like an impossibly perfect guy, and the fact that the way he acted backed that up made it hard to believe he was real, and that he could want me.
“I’m worried about her, I guess. She’s dating this guy that rubs me the wrong way.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Just a bad feeling. Don’t you ever get those?”
He nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. “Sure. Have you said anything to her?”
“No. She’s so happy. It doesn’t seem right to rain on her parade without anything to back it up.” I tugged the rudder, adjusting our course slightly. “But I had a couple of weird texts from her brother and my old roommate. I’m a little worried something happened.”
“You should call her.”
“I’ll see her in a few days. We need to keep the focus on my dad.”
“Is that why you didn’t want to spend the night in Santorini last night? You wanted to put the focus back where it belonged?”
There was nothing I wanted to talk about less than why I’d shoved us out of our fantasy and back into reality with such abrupt gusto. One of the only bad things about being trapped on a sailboat with another person was having nowhere to run.
“Yes. I liked pretending that it was just you and me on vacation a little too much. And I’m not saying I didn’t love everything you said on the plane—I did. But we can’t figure out where we go from here until we get past this, you know?”
“You’re a very practical girl, Blair, and I like that about you.”
“But . . . ?”
“How do you know there’s a but?” he parroted with a smile.
“Isn’t there?”
“Not really. It’s just . . . there’s a difference between being practical and being a pessimist. You’ve spent your life alone. I worry you don’t know how to let me just be there.”
Quiet returned to the boat for several moments. If Sam loved my practical side, I adored his ability to sit in silence, to not push me, to wait for the right conclusion.
“I don’t know how to let anyone be there, Sam. But I know that these past couple of weeks, I’ve gotten used to looking over and seeing your face. I’ve loved leaning into your arms, and kissing you, and I’m going to be seriously disappointed if we don’t get to have sex again before we part ways. I like having you around. It makes me sad to think that soon you won’t be.” I paused, swallowing my panic at sharing so much, terrified of the pain to come. “I’m trying.”
“I would have taken advantage of another night on the beach. Just saying.”
I rolled my eyes, hiding the fact that it killed me that we might never feel that impossible connection again. Another first for me. Not that I didn’t enjoy a good romp, but it was another thing that bored me quickly. With Sam, I couldn’t imagine ever being within five feet of him and not thinking about what I would do with him naked.
“We’re not having sex in another boat, lover boy. I demand a bed.”
“As long as there’s no bugs in it.” Sam shuddered at his own attempt at humor, his hand going to the back of his neck.
My eyes dropped to the back of my leg to find that the rash had almost disappeared. “Right. As long as there aren’t any bugs in it.”
Chapter 18
We switched places with about an hour to go because I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore and Sam insisted I lay down. The warm sun, trusting someone else enough to let them take over, to doze off and know we would be okay—that Sam would be there, not asking anything from me that I wasn’t ready to give—it all felt too perfect.
For the first time in my life, I sank into feeling good instead of pushing it away.
In my dream, dolphins swam up beside the boat, happy and chirping. They leapt and sprayed water my direction, and my heart felt light, as though I didn’t have a single worry in the world. Then the sun disappeared. The waves grew choppy and gray, disturbing the dolphins until the fear in their eyes made me feel slimy and cold, dragged the lightness away and replaced it with a drowning dark. Panic stole my breath as strings of seaweed crawled over the edge of the boat, clawing and grasping like human hands, tugging me by my feet toward the abyss. A scream built in my throat and I kicked in a fruitless attempt to struggle loose.