Page 14 of Chasing You

“Okay, honey,” she says hesitantly, probably jarred by my abruptness. “We’ll see you next week! I love you!” she chirps.

“Love you too,” and then I hang up the phone.

I tip my driver and slide out of the back of the cab, pushing open the hotel door with a grunt, my body already feeling the impact of my workout.

I love my parents, I truly do, and even though I feel the weight of their expectations, it’s nothing compared to what my sister felt. I’m glad she finally found her place in the world, doing what she loves with the people that she loves. I can’t wait to see her and May again, but most of all, I can’t wait to see my sister walking down the aisle in a white dress.

I press my keycard against the door and push it open, letting myself into my room and falling straight onto the plush mattress.

Hotels have become my home over the last few years; the beige walls and white linens are the most permanent things in my life.

The way I live my life doesn’t exactly leave much time for settling down, for a bed that I sleep in every night, and a place that I can call home.

Sometimes I wonder how long I can do it for, how long I want to spend by myself. Don’t get me wrong, I love to fly, but it can be lonely, isolating. And I don’t know at what point it’ll be too much. At what point I’ll get tired of my own company. Maybe if I’m having these thoughts, I’ve already passed that point.

But I don’t know if I could ever give it up, that feeling that soars through my veins when I’m 40,000 feet up in the sky. Like I’m so far away from everything, like nothing matters. It’s only me and the clouds. No matter how many times I sit in the pilot’s seat, that feeling never fades. Nothing even comes close to it.

Well, that’s not entirely true, something did. Four years ago, I felt the kind of rush that topped even my greatest days in the sky. All because I walked intothatpub onthatnight.

I still haven’t wrapped my head around the fact that I’ll be seeing Marina in a mere couple of days. I don’t think my brain will fully grasp the idea until she’s standing right in front of me. There have been so many times I’ve wished I could just see her in the last four years, and now I'm going to. I'm expecting her to ignore me, pretend I'm not even there, but this might be my one chance to tell her everything she doesn’t know and make things right. I can’t let the opportunity slip away, even if she tries to give me the cold shoulder.

I can’t stop thinking about her. About her smile and her laugh, and the way she made me feel like someone else. Like just Miles, without any title attached. About how it felt to be seen by her, in a way I don’t think anyone else has ever seen me before. That feeling? It was like a drug; she was like my own personal addiction, and I wanted to overdose on her. But I quit her instead, and I’ve been going through withdrawals ever since. Never quite letting go of that lingering presence, that feeling as if I can still hear her warm laugh when I’m in a crowded room. Or like I can see her messy curls as I’m walking through an airport, just to realize it’s someone else.

It’s the feeling that I get in times like now, when the silence of the hotel room sounds louder than an airplane engine that I could live without. The times when there is nothing but loneliness hunched in the corners of the room, sneaking closer to me with every second that my eyes are shut against the light. I can feel it, seeping into my bones with every night spent between those crisp white sheets.

But in a few days, I’ll be in Ruby Cove. I don’t know what's waiting for me there, but I know it won’t be quiet.

chapter six

MARINA

PRESENT

The bellabove the door jingles and my eyes catch on Caio and Isla, her smile beaming when she sees me.

I smile back and nod my head toward the bar, signalling for them to sit while I finish serving this table.

“This is your last round before I have to cut you off, boys.” Booing noises echo around the table. I shake my head. “Sorry, but you can go find your next round somewhere else.”

I unload my tray of drinks to them before snaking my way back through the bar to where Caio and Isla sit. We all know they’re not going to find their next round anywhere else, considering there’s nowhere else open this late in Ruby Cove. That’s why this place is always so busy.

“Hey,” Isla’s voice isn’t as cheery as usual as I lean across the bar.

My eyebrows draw together. Over the last eight months, I’ve learned how to read this girl like a book, and something is off. “What?”

“What what?” she chirps back, further indicating to me that there’s something on her mind. Something she needs to spit out.

“That ‘hey’ wasn’t very Isla of you.”

She tips her head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

I just frown back at her. She’s playing dumb, and I have no idea why.

Caio just shakes his head, smiling down at his feet as he sits beside her. “It’s taking all of her not to ask how you’re feeling about Miles being in town for the wedding.”

She whips her head to look at him and jabs him in the side with her elbow. “Caio!” she hisses. But he just grabs her by the wrist, placing a kiss to the palm of her hand, and her gaze immediately softens. My lungs tighten as I watch the two of them, the sour taste of envy on my tongue.

I push my hip out, folding my arms across my chest. “You had to tell him?” My eyes flick to my cousin.

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