Page 40 of Every Heartbeat After

I wait a few seconds, but nothing follows those words. So I try for humor. “Well that’s never good.”

Her gaze hardens, nose wrinkling, and for a second anxiety loosens its grip on my throat. If I can get that kind of response out of her, then the Tess I know is still in there. She’s just reverting to old habits, if her self-diagnosis of being a chronic restless soul is to be believed. We aren’t doomed. Can’t be.

Her posture stiffens and she lifts her chin. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let things get away from me at the aquarium. Or the past couple days. It’s given you the wrong impression, and that’s my fault.”

I scoff. “It’s very much not.”

“You’re right. It’syourfault,” she deadpans. “Can you just let me talk?”

I mime zipping my lips and tucking the key into my pocket. She sighs so heavily the man she’d been talking to raises an eyebrow in our direction, but when he notices me noticing him, he returns to the glass he’s been polishing for the last five minutes, this time with more vigor.

Tess follows my line of sight, and when her gaze returns to mine, some of the tension has left her expression. “This trip means a lot to me, Kit. Probably more than it ever has, now. And when it’s over, I’ve got to figure out some things. A lot of things. There’s no space in my life for a fling, and respectfully, a fling is exactly what you said you prefer.”

“I never said that’s what I wanted with you.”

“Oh yeah?” She crosses her arms and settles her weight on her left leg. “So whatdoyou want with me, Kit?”

I don’t knowseems like an even worse answer than what she’s assumed. Her gaze settles on my pursed lips, and she nods like I’ve confirmed her suspicions.

“We can be friends. That’s all I can offer you. Take it or leave it.”

A distinctive type of nausea swirls in my gut at the thought of never tasting Tess’s smile again. Never feeling her warm skin beneath my fingertips or hearing the little gasping sound she makes when I roll my hips against her core. I physically ache with the withdrawal of it. But more than that, the idea that I might lose her entirely? When I’ve just gotten her back? Impossible.

“Okay, Tess.” I hold out my hand, pinky erect. “I accept your terms. Promise I won’t kiss you again until you ask for it.”

She balks, pretty pink lips popping open audibly. “I’m not going to ask you to kiss me.”

Her cheeks burn bright in response to my shrug. The truth is, I’m scared as shit to lose her. Scared as shit to have her and not know what to do with her. But I believe my instincts when they say this isn’t it for us. All I have to do is convince her to believe it too.

So I match her stance, arms folded over my chest, and try not to revel in the fact that her eyes immediately dart to my biceps. I smile tartly. “Beg, then. Or politely demand. Whatever you want to call it. Until then, friends.”

“Has anyone told you that you’re the worst?”

My whistle scares a seagull off the patio railing. “It’s come up a few hundred times.”

“Not shocking.”

Nerves coat my throat, but I chuckle through them. My commanding officer once told me during a particularly rough deployment that no one was truly that brave, they were all just faking it to trick their nervous systems into believing it was true. I might’ve taken it to heart, and then promptly applied it to every aspect of my life. But it’s paid off more than it hasn’t. If I have to fake it till I make it where Tess is concerned, then so be it.

“So…dinner then?”

She chews at her bottom lip. I want so badly to thumb the damage. The temptation is so intense that I have to shove my hands into my pockets to be sure I won’t succumb. Just then, my phone starts ringing.

Her slightly sunburnt forehead wrinkles as she lifts both brows. We can blame that on a particularly long beach session yesterday, which I spent the entirety of trying not to ogle her in that tiny blue bikini.

“Who still keeps the volume up on their ringer these days?”

“Me, and, like, so many other people.” I remove my phone from my pocket and grimace at the familiar area code. “One sec.”

I plug one ear to block out the ambient noise of the other patrons chatting around the patio, and hold my phone to the other once I accept the call.

“This is a collect call from Inmate Gage Llewellyn at Jackson County Jail. To accept the charges, press one, or say, ‘I accept.’”

Shit.My spine goes rigid. Tess raises her eyebrows, and I quickly scramble to regain the easy posture I’d had only moments ago. Before my brother fucked up yet again. I cover the speaker with my hand and gaze at Tess as casually as I can. “Sorry, gotta take this. Catch up with you in a bit?”

She stiffly waves me off, an unspoken question in her gaze. Probably the same that’s hidden in mine. Something like,What the fuck is going on?

I take the long, L-shaped hall back to my room with clipped strides as my brother is connected through the line. When his familiar voice drifts through the phone, tired but otherwise unaffected, a bit of the stress I’d been carrying in my chest shakes loose.

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