Page 70 of Bring You Back

“Have you talked to your dad?”

My usual defenses against Reyna’s random check-ins with the state of me and my father just go up a little. I don’t thank her for the reminder, I open my mouth and tell her, “I saw him this morning.”

Her eyes light up with interest. “What’d he say?”

“Nothing.” I shrug, feeling my defenses go up a little higher. “We had a staring contest, then he bolted.”

He was outside the surf shop again, sans Tiffany this time. I stopped my trek, on my way to my Jeep, when I saw him, but he had seen me first. He was already watching me when I caught his stare. I stood there, waiting, waiting for him to dosomething. He started to lift his hand for a wave, but upon a second thought, he dropped it back down and disappeared inside.

The bastard can’t even talk to me when he’s alone.

“I wish you’d just talk to him,” Reyna says, half to herself, and I almost laugh at the thought just in my head. “And to your mom.”

There’s a lot of people to talk to and a lot of things to say. None of us still know where to start. And I shouldn’t have to initiate the one with my parents. Especially with my dad.

And I talk to my mom. I respond to her daily texts to let her know I’m still alive when I’ve been out longer than usual.

“You need them,” Reyna continues, and I run a hand through my hair. She then ruffles the strands like it’sherjob. I could use her hands in my hair, tugging. . .

“I need you,” I say, pulling her back into me. I kiss her, my tongue eager for hers, but as soon as she tugs me back toward my bed, I pull away and bring us to a stop.

“What’s wrong?” she questions through a breath, then points out through a half tease, “You have a lock now.”

What’s wrong isCamille.

What’s wrong is Camille is here, right down the hall.

Stop doing this … to me.

I can’t let her hear us. I can’t have Reyna in this bed. The spot next to mine can’t be hers. Not for this.

Fuck.

Well, not anymore.

“Let’s. . .” I walk backward to the door, “go do something. Hang out,” I clarify. I already know that I won’t be teaching her to surf later, so I need to make up for yesterday another way. “Do you have a shift soon?”

She shakes her head with a building smile, and I open the door.

“Come on.”

We spend the first hour driving the byway next to the ocean, and through town. I let Reyna have control of the stereo, and for one long, blissful moment, I’m not lost in my own head. I’m lost in a nineties playlist and her off-key singing voice and her laughter. She doesn’t try to get me to sing with her, because I just sing with Banks. I hate singing, but it became one of “our things” a few years ago, and I haven’t done it with anyone else. He’d probably piss his pants with joy at knowing that loyalty.

We spend the next hour on the boardwalk. We ride the Ferris wheel, and she screams when I rock us back and forth. I laugh as she smacks me.

We ride the bumper cars. I figure this will be a good way to relieve some of the tension still in my muscles, but it doesn’t go exactly as I hoped. Reyna pushes me into the path of a kid who is also trying to escape his partner, and I end up ramming into his car again and again. It effectively pisses both me and the kid off, but when I look back at Reyna as she erupts with laughter, my eyes catch the hem of her dress that has ridden up her thighs, and my need for her returns, full force. She must see it on my face, because her laughing dies off, and we can’t get out of these damn cars fast enough.

We end the day with her riding me in the front seat of my Jeep.

For another blissful moment, I’m lost in her skin, her scent, her movements, her sounds mingling with mine.

Until my eyes fall closed. I fight to keep them open, because every time they slip, I picture those soft, breathy moans coming out of a different girl’s mouth.

“Reyna,” I whisper her name as I flex into her, a firm grip on her hips to try to keep her here with me, to keepmehere, to keep a hold on the good moments. She moves faster, rubbing herself against me with each stroke downward, her breaths coming quicker, her moans getting louder. I touch her more, I kiss her longer.

Feel.

Feel.

---