Page 27 of Every Heartbeat After

Permanent, as it turns out, only equals about twenty years.

“And now you’re going to tear that concrete up?” There’s no attitude left in Kit’s voice. Only concern, and based on the way his hazel gaze cuts from Alex to me and softens, it’s all for me. “Tess,” he breathes, and then he’s reaching for me.

I step back just as his fingertips brush my bicep. The touch shrink-wraps my lungs, which are already struggling in the damp Florida heat. I duck my head, hoping I can hide what he does to me and how this news has me reeling, in one fell swoop.

“I’m sorry, Tess. Really.” Alex steps closer, and I allow him to loop an arm around my shoulders. More for his comfort than mine. “We will still have their picture in the lobby.”

Ah, yes. The memorial plaque. I avoid it like the plague. A black-and-white photo pulled from their obituary, that the Ortiz family surprised me and my grandparents with the first summer we returned after the accident.

I know they meant well, but every time I see it, it’s like a shard of glass gets lodged in my heart. The handprints are different. They are proof that my parents were living, breathing people who loved this place so much they left their mark on it. It’s a physical reminder that they really were here. I didn’t just imagine all those happy years before the really, very unhappy one.

I can’t say all this to Alex, though. He and his family have been nothing but kind to me. If their resort needs updating, I can’t expect them to refrain forever on my behalf.

“Sure, Alex. It’s totally fine.” I shrug, lifting his arm along with my shoulders.

Kit’s expression is unreadable. His lips part, but he’s cut off by the nasal voice of the woman whose bad graces we’ve earned.

“Can I please get a piña colada?” she asks, having hobbled over to the bar while her husband waits at their table, nose buried in his phone. They’re in their midsixties, likely snowbirds who’ll head back North in a week or two, based on the visor holding back her bouffant hair and his Hawaiian print shirt/tall white socks in sandals combo, if not her unmistakable Boston accent.

“Mierda.I haven’t taught Sebastian how to make those yet.” Alex’s gaze dances from me to Kit as his arm slips from my shoulders. “Can I trust you two to behave?”

“Yes, sir,” Kit replies with a salute.

“No promises,” I add with an honest eyebrow raise.

Alex pinches my chin. “Why am I not surprised?” Then he’s gone, cutting back into the bar alongside Sebastian and making a beeline for the blender on the opposite countertop.

“Can we declare a truce long enough for me to ask if you’re all right?” Kit asks.

“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” I climb back into my chair and fold my arms onto the counter. “Besides the fact that I still haven’t gotten a drink.”

Without hesitation, Kit slides his half-empty daiquiri in front of me. “Don’t do that.”

I take a sip of the too-sweet cocktail and wince as the cold hits my teeth. “Do what?”

He leans close. So close that his sandalwood scent is making it hard to breathe, let alone swallow my next sip. “Pretend you’re okay when you’re not.”

My mouth freezes on the rim of the glass, and not because of the cold. He has no right. He thinks he can waltz in here, not knowing me from Adam, and pretend in the minuscule amount of time we’ve spent together he’s learned to read my tells?

Nuh-uh. No way.

“Good night, Kit.”

He glances toward the beach, where the sun is nowhere near setting. “It’s, like, five p.m.”

I grab my purse and lock eyes with Alex, who has a million questions in his eyes and enough courtesy not to ask any of them. “Catch up soon, Alex?”

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get a little thrill from the daggers he starts shooting Kit. “I’ll have dinner sent to your room. It’s just you, right?”

Okay, so he let one question slip. Can’t blame a man after the show we put on. “Yes. Just me.”

“Tess—” Kit starts to rise from his barstool alongside me, but his movement is halted by the hand I place on his forearm.

I’ll have to boil that hand later, if the way it’s tingling is any indication.

“Stay.” I must glare convincingly enough, because his ass finds the seat again. “Good boy.”

He scoffs. I turn away, remind Alex of my usual (scallops and his signature pasta recipe, a pink sauce I’ve never been able to recreate at home), and then push into a blast of air-conditioning. The restaurant is filling up with early bird diners. I dodge their curious glances, practically jog back to my room, and flatten my spine against the door once I’m safely inside it.

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