Page 44 of Starting Our Chance

25 Duke

The water was lovely. The sea caps were white with tails of emerald and sapphire swirls. There was only a light breeze playing with our hair, but it blew the surf spray over us every so often. I ran my tongue across my lips more than once to taste the tang of the briny water. The spray was refreshing given that the sunlight was warm, bordering on hot. All in all, it was good to be on the water.

To top it off, my good friend Marcus was driving the boat like a grandpa, and if I felt up to swimming, I could have hopped over the side and swam alongside the boat. Granted, his wife and sister were pregnant, but this was not the kind of boating that we had done as teens. When I had the time to go out on the water with them, that was. I rolled my eyes and thought about the handful of times I had let myself have fun. There had been so few weekends when I was able to sneak away to the beach with my carefree friends. I didn’t like to think about those times. As I stared at the waves cresting alongside the boat, I now equated the sight of them to freedom.

I had made it. I was one of them. Except . . . I still wasn’t carefree.

Things had changed for the better since my teenage ocean trips. I worked just as hard, but it was because I was building, not struggling to make ends meet. Now, I almost had everything I had ever wanted. The difference between the same teenage boy and the man that I had become was that I saw that work wasn’t something that stopped when you reached a magical number. I kept setting goals and climbing until I reached them, only to set more and repeat the process—just like the waves that never stopped crashing into the sand.

Just like the woman sitting beside me, I needed to make sure that she never wanted to leave me. It was something that I was going to have to work at every damn day for the rest of my life. Shifting my shoulders, I accepted the weight and responsibility of what that entailed and relished the prospect of being with Lore, forever.

And one thing that had changed from our past excursions on the water was where Lore was sitting. Although a shiver of delight ran through me every damn time I thought of the woman at my side, the reasons why she wasn’t sitting across from me were painful. Sammy and Lore had always been thick as thieves, huddled together and gossiping. And even though I wouldn’t trade where Lore was sitting for anything, I couldn’t deny the weight of the situation. It literally felt as though a tense blanket of discord was cast over the whole boat.

As my eyes shot over the scene, I shook my head at the unnecessary sadness that we were all feeling. This was supposed to be a relaxed, upbeat outing—especially the freaking boat ride, which had been put off until this morning due to choppy seas and delicate pregnant stomachs.

During the ride, Sammy had been pulled into herself. On the opposite side of her was my disquieted woman. I had seen the exchanged looks between the two of them at breakfast. The morning had been tense. Here on the boat, things had only crescendoed instead of dissipating. They weren’t fighting or even interacting, but it was the turbulent energy that wafted between them that had the rest of us dancing around them like we were walking on eggshells.

I bent down and brushed my lips across Lore’s soft smile. She tore her eyes away from the ocean’s never ending horizon to blink up at me. “Your lips are salty,” I said, flicking my tongue against her pink one.

“It’s so beautiful out here.” Lore leaned back against me.

I wrapped her tight and kissed her brow, not caring who saw us. “Would you want to come back? Maybe get a place for the summer and spend a good long time out here amongst the waves?” The knots in my stomach lessened as she nodded eagerly. I had just made a long-term plan with my woman. Anticipation of that future—for all the work I could do to build it—flooded through me.

“But Duke,” Lore said, twisting up to look up at me with lowered sunglasses and frosty eyes, “I intended to pay for part of the rental. When Nikki gets back, I’m going to start investing fifty percent of my check with her so that by the summer, I should have a pretty solid ROI.”

We’ll see about that. I pecked another kiss on her lips, fighting the urge to linger and savor the taste of her. “Learning to grow your money is a smart move. Nikki has a knack for it, but I can help teach you, too, you know.”

Before Lore could reply, Samantha opened her big fat mouth. “It’s not like she’ll be here next year. I give her a month before she’s back up north.”

“Well, actually—” Felicity started to say, but Lore interrupted her by jumping off her seat.

My girl stood on the rocking boat, showing off her balancing skills while shouting over the wind and the boat engine’s roar, “Just say what you want to say and get it over with already, Sammy. I left. I got the dance scholarship. I put my career and future first. And I know you had to stay here. I know you got knocked up with the father in the military, and I’m sure it was hell with your mom the psycho she’s always been.”

“How dare you!” Samantha was on her feet and not doing a great job of balancing. Marcus was bringing the boat to an idle, but the waves were still bouncing us around.

“Yes, I fucking dared!” Lore crossed the small enclosure to stand nose to nose with her frenemy. “I dared to put me first, but I realize that meant I left you. And that was not something I should have tossed aside so lightly. If you’d give me a second to explain, I would tell you that I agonized over that scholarship letter for days. Duke remembers—” She shot an accusatory finger in my direction, but because she wasn’t looking, she was pointing out to sea. “I went to him the night before I decided to leave, and I told him. He said he had known something was up, but he told me to forge my own path, that someday I’d make something of myself.”

“Yeah, before you lost everything.” Sammy’s brow arched.

“Yes. I did lose everything. But I’ve been at the bottom of the totem pole before, and I know that I can climb back up. Hell, I’m doing that right now. And I can see what I threw away all those years ago—a good man, my dear friend, and for what? To be the butt of a criminal’s plot?”

“Well, actually—” Felicity chimed in again, but to no avail as Sammy cut her off.

“Yeah, you did fucking throw us away like we were mud on your shoe. I’m not mud, Lore. I couldn’t help it that my parents were filthy rich. But I earned everything I have now. And you know how?” Sammy threw up her hands. “Because if my best friend could fucking do it, then I could, too. You taught me resilience and perseverance. And I had to do it all on my own—and I fucking rocked it. But you know what would have been nice?”

“What?” Lore stepped closer to her friend.

My eyes cut to the other men who were just as entranced by the scene unfolding before us as I was. No one was jumping in just yet. We had to see if the claws actually came out.

“What did you need?” Lore repeated her question while placing a hand on Sammy’s shoulder.

“My fucking friend.” Sammy threw her arms around Loretta Jane, and then they just stood there, making incomprehensible little speeches for each other’s ears only, and someone—maybe both, it was hard to tell—was crying.

Eventually, I was thrilled to see them sit down together—but that meant my woman was on the wrong side of the speed boat. Logan came to join me. We simultaneously folded our arms and leaned back against the seat.

“Thought we were going to have to tear them apart for a minute there,” Logan confided.

“Then Lore and I would have to be dropped off on the shore to hitch-hike back,” I added.

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