Page 76 of Chasing You

Coming home wasn’t something I wanted to do too often. I didn’t want to come home to be coddled and congratulated and shown off by our parents. Coming home is supposed to be a relaxing time, but it was never that for me, I always left feeling more exhausted. So as the years went on I went home less and less, until I never went at all.

But now I have the quality time to spend with my sister. I spent the day after they got back from their honeymoon watching her paint in her studio, talking until the sun went down about what we missed in each other's lives over those years. She’s got a lot more to share than I do, considering my life has consisted of flying and sleeping for the last four years.

She’s asked about Marina, and all I could say is that what I did to her was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. Isla was just as confused as everyone else when I called her from the hospital and told her I was going to stay and recover here after my surgery. But when I told her all I wanted to do was earn Marina’s trust back, her voice softened with understanding.

I’ve gotten to know Caio too, spending time with him and Isla at their apartment. I’m surprised the guy is so warm to me considering I broke his cousin’s heart, but I think that’s just the kind of guy he is, willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

It feels nice, connecting with them, feeling like they’ve brought me into their little family. I know Isla is my family, but it feels like these people are closer to her than I have been for a long time. I want to change that. This time away from work for me is about fixing my mistakes and mending the relationships I’ve broken.

We walk into Luna’s and her eyes catch on me immediately. “Oddio, Miles.”

“I’m fine,” I say as she walks over to us, her eyes surveying my injuries from head to toe. The bruising on my face is getting better by the day—well, less purple, more green and yellow.

“I was there that night, and oh my god.” She just looks at Isla, grabbing her hand.

“He gave us all a good scare, didn’t you?” she says, her eyebrows shooting to her hairline. She’ll never let me forget that she told me to bow out, and will never stop telling me that I should’ve listened.

“Well, what are you doing here?” Luna asks.

“He’s come to sign up for a membership,” Isla replies, that same outlandish tone in her voice.

“Cosa?” Luna gives me a ridiculous look.

“My legs are fine!” I kick them out in front of me. “See? I need to exercise somehow.”

Luna just shakes her head before grabbing me a form to fill out. I go slow, writing as neat as I possibly can using my left hand.

“This place used to be my father’s, you know?” she says. “That’s why some of the equipment is a bit older than what you might be used to, but it works just as well.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I say. She’s right, the equipment is old, but it’s been kept well, this looks like somewhere I could spend some of my extra time over the next month.

“Have you always liked to exercise?” Isla asks. “Or did you get dragged into it by your father?”

Luna just smiles. “He used to be a bodybuilder back in his prime. I was always so amazed by how strong he was. I used to ask him why girls couldn’t be strong like him, and he just told me that they can, that I could be one day. I don’t think a day passed since then that I wasn’t working towards being strong like he was. Not that I want or ever wanted to be a bodybuilder, just strong enough to pick up a man and throw him across the gym.”

“Have you got there yet?” The glint in Luna’s eye is the only answer necessary.

“Here we go,” I say, handing the forms back to her.

Alright, bucko, you’re good to go. But I swear to everything that is holy if I see you so much as pick up a dumbbell while you’re still healing, you’re done.”

Isla just smirks from beside me, glad to have someone else on her side.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, she was nice,”Isla says, her tone as if she’s won a competition.

I look over to where she’s walking beside me, chuckling. “She was.”

“I’m glad there’s someone else looking out for you.”

“There’s plenty of people looking out for me Isla. In fact, Leo told me if I went to the gym without him, that he wouldn’t share his Scrabble techniques with me, and then there’s Marina…”

Isla stops dead in her tracks, leaving me to do a one-eighty when I realize she’s not walking next to me anymore. “Look, I really don’t want to know things that a sister doesn’t need to know, and you don’t have to talk to me about this if you don’t want to, but do you want to talk about Marina?”

A small smile creeps up my face. I know she’s probably been holding in asking since the day she found out about the two of us and our past.

I nod my head across the road to where the rock wall separates Main Street from the turquoise ocean.

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