Page 36 of Every Heartbeat After

“It was a car accident, right? With your parents.”

“Yeah.” Her gaze tracks a smaller shark that sails down the arch of the tunnel and levels out with us. There are spots along the top of it, barely visible until you really focus, which Tess does, narrowing her eyes on the creature. “I’d just turned seventeen. Drunk driver crossed the middle line. They were killed instantly.”

“And the driver?” I ask.

Her eyes drift closed. “Died en route to the hospital.”

My God, the magnitude of her grief. I can feel it from here, rolling off her in waves. And yet she gets up each day. Makes jokes. Smiles her big, sunshine grin. You’d never know how much she’s endured just by looking at her. And I realize in that moment how lonely it must be, burying your own feelings to make sure no one else ever knows they’re there.

I realize it because, in a way, I’ve been doing it for years.

“Is that what you meant by running?”

Her eyelids flutter open. When she glances my way, her irises gleam with unshed tears. “Do you want the honest-to-God, pathetic truth?”

I hold out my hand, palm up, the way she did for me on the boat yesterday. She takes it. Inhales sharply when I thread our fingers together and squeeze tightly. I offer what I hope is a reassuring smile. “That’s my favorite kind of truth.”

Her snort is harsh, like it hurts to laugh in this moment. Then a somber pain sobers her expression. “When it comes to my parents… my mom’s childhood home, the town where they lived, hell, even their annual vacation… I can’t seem to let go. Can’t move on. Not because it’s what I want, necessarily, but because I’m afraid I’d be failing them somehow by doing so. In that way, my life remains completely stagnant. But for my choices? My relationships? The burden of another thing that could be lost is just too much to bear.”

I graze my teeth across my bottom lip, turning her words over in my mind. “And so you run.”

She swallows, gaze drifting to the tank overhead. “And so I run.”

There is so much longing in that simple statement. What it is that she longs for, I can only guess. I can’t fix her past. Can’t even predict that the future will be better. But I can see her, right now, for exactly who she is—happy facade completely set aside. And my God, she’s still so beautiful. More so because she’s honest.

I bring our joined hands to her cheek, gently swiping a stray tear from her skin. When she smiles up at me limply, my heartbeat stutters.

“May I offer you some advice?”

Her green eyes glisten in the watery light as she nods.

“I know what it is to be afraid of letting down your parents. But I find it hard to believe yours would ever be disappointed to see you living your life on your own terms.” I take a small step toward her, bringing us closer. “So it’s okay to let go. It’s okay to run, if that’s what you want. But if standing still would make you happy,” I say, my voice raw in my throat, “then just stand still.”

Her body is so perfectly poised, so lovingly crafted that I’d believe she was made of glass if someone suggested it. I take another step. We’re so close now that our chests are brushing, but she doesn’t move. I thread my other hand into her loose curls, gingerly brushing the place where she hit her head.

“Does it still hurt?”

Her tongue slips over her bottom lip. “Not so much now.”

“Good.” Then I lean in and capture that shiny lip between my teeth. The sigh that spills from her lungs urges me onward, and I’m nothing if not a gentleman, so I oblige. Our mouths fuse together, unspent hunger and months of desire all rolling into a kiss so deep I could drown in it. And I do. I lose all sense of time, of space, of the crowds around us and the sharks swimming above. There is only Tess.

Tess and her sighs. Tess and her soft, warm skin. Tess and her sugar-and-sunshine scent. I could get drunk off her. It’s likely I already have, because I don’t hear the staff member trying to get our attention until Tess pulls away. Her lips are swollen because of me. Cheeks flushed, limbs loose, smile lazy. I did all of that.

“Do you mind? This is a family establishment,” the woman in a Gulf Coast Aquarium polo chides.

“Sorry, ma’am,” Tess replies, her accent a little stronger now that she’s gotten in trouble. “Won’t happen again.”

We get a look in return that feels a hell of a lot likeI’m watching you.Then the woman turns back to the trash she’d been emptying, and Tess’s knees buckle beneath her.

She swats my chest, but she’s laughing. When her hand drops, one of her straps slips from her narrow shoulder, and she pushes it back into place. I’d recognize the buttery yellow sundress anywhere. It’s the same one she had on last July. If I close my eyes, I can feel the fabric piling against my hands as I pushed it higher, reaching for her hips. Her ass. Anything and everything I could touch. Whatever would bring me closer to her.

I’d like to feel it again.

“What are you thinking about?” She asks it in a way that implies she already knows.

I clear my throat and glance pointedly down at the ridge forming in my khakis, then back at Tess. “You look amazing in that dress.”

It’s hard to tell in the haze cast by the water overhead, but I think she blushes.

---