I bark out a harsh laugh. “My fault, Ivy. No excuses. I almost killed your brother and my best friend.”
“But you saved him.” Her hand tightens around my wrist, pulling at me as her eyes plead.
“Why did you leave?”
“Besides your dad telling me to? Besides watching your heart break right in front of me?”
She blinks and nods.
“The hit was all over the police scanners, and Declan was sure they had a mark on the car and anyone involved. I was scared, and young, and stupid enough to trust his judgment, so I left.”
“You didn’t call,” Ivy’s voice breaks then, and I can feel my heart crack. “You didn’t even write?”
I clench my jaw. “I did write. Once. You not responding was the last confirmation I needed.”
“Liar.” She blinks back tears, turning away. “You did not write me. Believe me, I’d know.”
My frown deepens. “No, I wrote you. I wrote you everything that had happened and everything I was fucking feeling, and I gave it to one of Declan’s guys to give to-”
I whirl away, the rage of the sudden realization sliding into place like a knife’s blade.
“You did write?”
I turn back to her, nodding somberly. “I think I’m putting it together now that you never got it.”
She shakes her head and I close my eyes before opening them and looking right at her. “Would it have changed anything? Even if you had gotten it?”
Her face crumples. “Would it have told me why you left?”
“Ivy, I left because what happened that night was the beginning of the end,” I say softly, reaching out and cupping her face again. “It was the beginning of me only causing you pain, and only hurting you and your family.”
“You don’t know that,” she whispers.
“I do know that,” I growl. And suddenly, I’m right in front of her, my hand right back to that soft line of her jaw again, my eyes blazing right into hers.
“I was always going to be trouble, and you knew that.”
I move right against her, so close that I can hear the catch of her breath and see the beat of her pulse in the shadow of her neck. I’m so close to her that I’m losing myself right there, drowning in the familiarity of her scent and her presence.
“You knew I was trouble, Ivy,” I whisper across her upturned lips. “And I think that’s why you ever loved me in the first place.”
I don’t think, I just do.
I kiss her.
I kiss her with eight fucking years of wanting to feel those lips again. I slide my hand into the back of her hair and kiss her with every single ounce of feeling I’ve had locked up inside on the other side of the damn ocean all these years.
I half expect her to slap me, or scream, or shove me over the side of the fucking boat.
But damn if she isn’t kissing me right back.
She wraps her arms around me, pulling me tight as she presses her soft pillow lips to mine. And after that, I’m undone.
It’s deep, and it’s burning - a Hollywood, soul-rendering kiss. And for one second, the whole rest of the fucking world and all of it’s history and hurt and pain just vanishes.
And then it’s over.
She pulls away with a gasp, her hand flying to her lips as if just realizing what she’s been doing. She brushes those lips for a second with her fingers, blinking quickly before her eyes flick to mine.
She scowls.
“You can’t kiss me like that,” she says breathlessly, her face bright red and her eyes burning like little fires.
I grin, immediately thinking about the time we were kids when I did this the first time.
“Sure I can.”
But this time she’s not looking at me like she was back then, all full of wonder behind the garage while everyone else played flashlight tag.
This time she means it.
“No, Silas.” She shakes her head, still glaring at me. “No, you can’t.”
She turns and half jumps down the ladder to the floor of the boat, grabbing her heels before she steps onto the pier and runs off barefoot into the night.
I watch until she’s out of sight, before I rake my fingers through my hair and turn to look back out at the breakers.
Chapter Sixteen
Silas
I’m up early, just before the sun crests over the breakers.
I’m always up early, at least since the crash. At first it was the nightmares - tires squealing, glass shattering, the weightless feeling as up becomes down, the sound of metal against the road. The sound of my friend’s scream going suddenly silent.