I didn’t want him to treat me differently when I could do nothing to change it.
I didn’t want him to treat me like Beck had.
“What do you think so far?” He took a step closer to me, away from his friends at his side.
“It’s okay.”
“Okay?” He chuckled. “Allie must be a terrible tour guide.”
“She’s not too bad.”
“I don’t know about that.” He nodded out toward the ocean, and there was a sense of awe that smoothed out his features. “Do you have this kind of view where you come from?”
I followed his gaze and took in the sun dipping just below the farthest edge of the water. It seemed so impossibly beautiful. I hadn’t even paid attention to it once since we got here.
“No.” I shook my head. “Nothing like that.”
“You been swimming yet?”
I looked over at Will, who seemed even closer than he was before. “No.”
He reached out for my hand, his fingertips barely touching mine as he turned his back to the water. “Come on. Let’s dip our toes in.”
I knew this was nothing like when I had been on the beach with Beck, but I still hesitated. My heart raced as I looked over my shoulder for Allie, but she was talking to a group of girls who looked like they probably went to school with her. “I don’t know.”
“It’s just your toes.” I looked back at him as he spoke, and there was something about his smile that calmed me just the smallest bit. “What are you scared of?”
He was teasing and I knew it, but I hated what he said. I wasn’t scared. I refused to be. The girl I left back in Utah was scared.
Not me.
I took a step toward him, my fingers hanging loosely against his, and a dimple popped out on his cheek.
He led us to the edge of the water, and I kicked my shoes off in the sand. The water was cool as it lapped at my toes, and I tried to remember the last time I had touched the ocean.
Not just the damp sand or the spray of its waves.
Truly just jumped in.
It had to be close to five or six years ago. Before my mother had gotten sick.
“Is that really as far as you’re going to go?” He trudged into the water without an ounce of fear, and I watched as the waves splashed against his legs.
I took another small step, and he laughed.
“You’re a risk taker, aren’t you?”
“You could tell that already?” I pushed my toes into the sand, then watched it disappear with the push and pull of the water.
“From the moment I saw you.” He smiled and moved farther into the water. He beckoned me in, but there was no way I was getting in the water with him.
I had just gotten here, and I didn’t know this guy.
It didn’t matter that his smile put me at ease or that the look in his eyes dared me to do something more. I had learned my lesson about trusting boys in Clermont Bay. The first time was a mistake I wouldn’t soon forget.
I shook my head just as he reached into the water and splashed me playfully.
“No.” I held up my hands, as if that would somehow help me, and laughed.
It felt odd. I hadn’t laughed in a long time. Not like this. Not so freely.
“Get in or it’s happening.” He was teasing me, but I didn’t want to risk it.
I took off back toward the beach, but Will wrapped his arms around my waist and spun me back toward the water.
“No.” I was laughing as he dropped me into the ocean, the water only hitting my knees. My stomach flipped, and my breathing was coming out in bursts.
“I warned you. You can’t move to Clermont Bay and not experience the ocean. It’s a sin, really.”
“I’m experiencing it.” I held my arms out to the sides and looked around. “Isn’t this enough?”
“No.” I wondered if Will looked at everyone the way he was looking at me.
If he had the power to make every girl feel special as soon as he met them.
He reached for me again, and I let him. I didn’t know a single thing about this boy, but something about him made me feel like I could trust him. I knew how stupid that sounded. I was in the ocean with a guy I had never met, surrounded by more people that I didn’t know, and I felt safe with him.
I felt like this moment, smiling with this boy, could somehow make me forget Beck.
I could forget the way he made me feel and the way I had given in to him without him even knowing.
Will lifted me over his shoulder and acted like he was going to jump into the water.
“No!” I screamed and laughed, and I heard others laughing from the beach.
“You sure?” he asked and I pushed against his back to raise my head.
“Yes. I’ve seen enough of the ocean. There are sharks in there.”
He gently set me back down on my feet, my blood rushing away from my head, and I knew that I still had a stupid smile on my face.
“There.” He was right in front of me, and he pushed some of my hair out of my face. “There’s the smile I wanted to see.”
“I was smiling at you earlier.” I laughed because there was a good possibility that he was insane.
“Yeah, but that one was fake.”
I couldn’t stop smiling because he was right. My thighs were covered in saltwater and sand, and small splatters of water dotted my clothes. I hadn’t felt this carefree in a long time, too long to remember, but it felt good.
It didn’t feel forced at all.
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders as a wave crashed into my calves, threatening to knock me over, and I could have sworn he smelled like the sun. He smelled like that moment when you had been out on the water all day and your skin still felt the heat of the sun. When you were tired but perfectly content.
His hair tickled my face as I breathed him in, and for a moment, I forgot. Where I was. Who I was. What I was supposed to be. I just forgot it all and let him hold on to me as he laughed around the sound of the ocean.
Then I looked up, and I saw him.
I didn’t know where he had come from. But Beck stood next to the fire with his hands in his pockets and his callous eyes on me. Had he been here all along and I just missed him?
There was no way.
I would have noticed him. He was impossible to miss.
And it was clear that he hadn’t missed me.
He didn’t hide the fact that he was staring at me, even when my gaze met his, he didn’t look away. He held my gaze, his anger hitting me as harshly as the waves, and I suddenly felt foolish in Will’s arms.
And the fact that he made me feel that way heated my blood far more than Will’s warmth ever could.
Beck Clermont hated me, that much was perfectly clear, and I didn’t give two shits why. I hated him too.
He had forced me to hate him, and he was successful.
He looked like a king standing there. All the people on the beach vying for his attention, but he didn’t move his gaze away from me. Not for one second.
I pushed away from Will, steadying myself on my feet, and I pulled my own gaze away from Beck long enough to look up at him.
“You okay?” He was still smiling, and it was so carefree and easy. It was the kind of smile that made you fall for someone. The kind of smile I should fall for.
But I couldn’t help looking back over his shoulder at Beck.