Page 53 of Back to You
“You did it! You kicked your fear right in the ass,” he crowed.
“I did.” I beamed. “And it was awesome.”
We thanked Erin for the ride and said goodbye, but when I started back towards the RV, Dane snagged my hand and pulled me back. His smile was boyish and charming, the same damn smile I’d fallen head-over-heels for so long ago.
“Walk with me?”
We kicked off our shoes and socks and walked along the shoreline, the water lapping at the sand and our feet. Our joined hands swung easily between us. When Dane stopped to inspect some shells on the beach, I let my gaze linger. Okay, I full-on stared, but he was my boyfriend. I was allowed.
He caught me looking, his mouth hitching up at the corner. “What?”
“Just thinking that you’re so damn sexy,” I said honestly, which made him grin even wider.
“I love it when you say shit like that,” he murmured, hooking his fingers in my belt loops before tugging me flush to him. Our chests rose and fell in tandem, and his hand came up to caress the side of my face. “Makes me feel like I’m the luckiest man in the entire world, and all I want to do is kiss you silly.”
“Then do it,” I whispered back, my lips brushing his, we were so close. He closed the distance on a soft hum of happiness, and I let myself be whispered away in what was possibly the best kiss of my entire life.
We ended up on the ground, with sand in our hair and in our mouths, kiss-drunk and giddy. I propped my head up with my hand and studied him. “You wanna know a secret?” He nodded, indulging me. “I used to get so jealous of you when we were younger.”
“Me? Why?”
“Well, maybe not of you, but of the situation. You were so charming and sweet, girls threw themselves at you left and right, and it seemed like you always had a girlfriend and every damn time, I wished I was them, wished you’d look at me the way you looked at them.”
“Really? Why didn’t you say anything?”
I shrugged. “I was afraid, I guess. You were my best friend and I didn’t want to lose you. It’s complicated.”
“What? Did you think I’d hate you because you were gay?” he asked.
“Something like that,” I mumbled, sitting up. If he only knew how right he was. I didn’t look at him, not even when he sat up, too, and took my hand.
“Hols, I could never hate you. Never. You’re my best friend. My partner-in-crime. We’ve always been close. You’re the peanut butter to my jelly. I wish you would’ve told me,” he admitted softly. “But I get it. Maybe neither of us was ready for that.”
With just those simple words, the worry that had knotted in my heartstrings eased. I dropped my head to his shoulder, gazing out at the gentle waves beyond, and I knew, at the deepest part of me, that Dane Fisher was my soulmate.
* * *
“This is fucking weird, you gotta admit.” Dane stood with his hands propped on his hips, sort of bent over staring at the weirdest-looking taxidermy…creature…I’d ever seen. It looked kind of like it used to be an opossum? It had the same bald, rat-like tail, but its face was mangled and its teeth were terrifying, to say the least. It looked like some sort of mutant.
“Gross.” I snapped a picture anyway, for the scrapbook we’d probably never put together. Still. I wanted these pics in my phone, so I could look at them whenever I wanted—and to show Abby, who would think it was cool as shit.
We’d stumbled upon Artie B’s Creeptorium quite by accident. See, this weird museum of the bizarre had a seven-foot tall statue of Bigfoot out front, except Bigfoot looked like something that had stepped out of a horror movie and into real life. Five-inch fangs filled his mouth and his eyes were blood red and glowing. It was creepy, so of course we stopped.
Violet and Mom would’ve loved it.
True to its name, it was filled with all sorts of creepy shit: old horror movie props, twisted-looking ventriloquist dummies that spoke when you walked past, even a band of animatronic animals that looked scary as shit with their gaping eyes and bloody fangs and claws.
“I see Freddy Fazbear’s really let himself go,” Dane joked, patting the stiff black fur of the robotic bear-creature.
I rolled my eyes and jostled him. “I’m hungry.”
“You’re always hungry. We could order pizza? There’s literally a pizza parlor right across the street. I saw it when we parked.”
“Sounds good.” I grabbed his hand and started for the front doors, nearly jumping out of my skin when a mummy wrapped in bloody bandages lurched into the aisle with a moan. I slapped it on the head as we walked past. Dane’s laughter followed me.
It was raining buckets, but it was a warm rain so we took a few minutes to splash around in the puddles like a couple of kids. The manager at the pizza place didn’t look too happy about us tracking in a bunch of water, but fuck it. We’d never see him again in our lives. We ordered our pizza, then sprinted across the street to where we’d parked Dane’s car.
I was so preoccupied with the heavenly smell of roasted garlic and pizza sauce that I didn’t see Custard coming until it was too late. I shouted for Dane to shut the door, but the cat streaked down the steps and out into the open RV park.
