“This way!” Brit suddenly cries, loud. She drops my hand and hurries ahead, scrambling up a series of rocks and over the top of a small cliff. She doesn’t look back, so I start after her, feeling my way across the rough granite. It’s hard to find footholds, but Brit bounds ahead like it’s nothing. She must have been here before, a hundred times, to know the route so well.
Has she brought other guys? A whisper of doubt sounds. Is this her usual spot, a hideaway she comes to all the time?
No.
I don’t believe the rumors, not for a second, and besides, I somehow know for sure that Brit is taking me someplace special, a place that means something to her. Tonight, we’re both letting our guard down, showing a side nobody else gets to see, and I feel privileged just to be scrambling through the moonlight with her, embarking on an adventure I know I’ll never forget.
I’d follow her anywhere.
I clear the ridge and see we’re in a private cove, sheltered from the rest of the bay. The shadow of an old lighthouse looms up ahead of me, and to my right, Brit is standing motionless on the silvery wet sand. The ocean waves roll in, soothing, and it’s like we’re in a world of our own, a million miles from anyone else.
I approach slowly behind her. “What is this place?”
“It’s my place.” Brit replies, sounding self-conscious. “Nobody knows about it, but I like it here. Everything’s so peaceful.”
She sits on a large rock, hugging her knees to her chest. I wait a moment, unsure, and then go to sit beside her. I watch the lights of town shine out across the bay, and I understand. This is her escape, her own secret refuge. Like me and the ranch, this is where she goes to feel alone. Alive.
“Just you and the ocean.” I say it quietly, and I see the relief slip across her face. She nods, reaching down to take a handful of sand. She lets it fall slowly through her fingertips, her breathing getting slower, more relaxed.
“So, Bob,” Brit says, with a note of amusement in her voice. “What is it you want?”
I jolt with surprise. Is she talking about now, tonight? Way to be obvious. “What do you mean?” I ask carefully.
Brit gives a little shrug. “Now, tonight, in life? What do you want?”
Oh. I exhale with relief, but then I realize, this question isn’t any easier.
What do I want?
I stare out at the ocean, trying to find the words. “I can’t remember the last time someone asked me that,” I confess slowly. “Everything I do, it’s like it’s all been planned out for me, and I’m just walking in someone else’s footsteps.”
Brit turns to me. “You mean your brother?”
I shake my head. “No. Maybe,” I add. “But mainly it’s my parents, and their parents, and their parents…” I sigh, thinking of the great Covington legacy. My parents remind me, all the time. I’m privileged. I’m blessed. I have a duty and a responsibility to do Great Things with my life. Forget normalcy, or happiness, my brother and I are destined to build business empires and rule nations—or at the very least, the state.
From the day I was born, failure has never been an option.
Brit is still silent beside me, and I realize how ungrateful I must sound, especially compared to her life. “I’m lucky, I know.” I add quickly. “I have so much opportunity, I just… I guess what I want is for someone to ask what I want, once in a while.”
“Then I guess you got what you wanted tonight,” Brit tells me, looking over for the first time. Her eyes blaze in the moonlight, and suddenly, everything I’ve just been talking about washes away, lost in the midnight tide. Everything disappears, except for her. This. Right now.
I stare back, lost in the promise of her stare, and the shadows the silvery light casts across her face. She’s so close now. So perfect.
I feel my heart rise in my chest, aching with a need I’ve never felt before, and I know, I’m lost to her. To hell with the shadow of tomorrow looming over the both of us, and all the reasons why I’ve kept my distance.
She’s all I want. She’s everything.
“Not yet,” I breathe softly, and then I reach out to brush my hand against her cheek.
I can’t help it. I want her too much to resist. Just a touch, that’s all I need, one touch of that perfect skin against my fingertips, the touch I’ve been dreaming about for weeks now, driving myself insane.
There.
I swear time stops at the feel of her skin, soft as silk under my fingertips. Brit inhales a shaking breath, but she doesn’t move away, just gazes at me, wordless, with those soulful dark eyes asking a million questions I can only dream of answering.