Page 34 of All the Ways You Save Me
I limp after him. “Wait,” I call. “Can we just talk for a minute?”
He swings around to look at me but doesn’t stop walking. “Sorry, I have to go.” He turns back and picks up his pace.
I break into a jog, wincing as the sand grinds into my injured foot, but I can’t let him get away. “Please? You saved me back there. I just want to thank you properly.”
“I don’t need to be thanked,” he calls, not even bothering to turn around this time.
I need to stall him, just for a few more minutes. He heads up the path over the dunes and disappears over the other side. I’m running to catch up now. The path is packed down with sand, rougher than near the water, and my foot burns, but I make it to the top. On the other side, I spot him loading the surfboard into the back of a black Jeep. I run down the slope, trying to stay off my injured heel, and about halfway, I stumble and fall.
I hear him swear, and a moment later, he’s hauling me to my feet for the second time today. I’m an equal mix of completely humiliated that I keep needing to be rescued and relieved that he didn’t just takeoff.
“What’s wrong with your foot?”
“I think I cut it on a seashell.”
“Okay, come on.”
A bare arm slides around me, and I realize that at some point between the beach and the car, he’s yanked the top half of the wetsuit down, and now it’s riding low on his hips, his chest completely bare. I lean into his side, and my skin ignites. I’m not sure if it’s from exertion, embarrassment, or the fact that I’m ridiculously attracted to this man who looks like my dead boyfriend. Maybe that’s a sign. I used to feel this way about Adam, too. Or maybe it just means I really did get tossed around in the waves out there.
We approach the road, and he helps me get settled on a bench.
“Wait here.” He heads back toward the Jeep, and my heart clenches. What if he takes off? But instead, he reaches in the back seat and grabs a first aid kit, which he carries over to where I’m sitting. He crouches in front of me, and a warm hand wraps around my ankle as he gently cradles my foot.
“Are you a lifeguard?” I ask as he examines the small gash on my heel.
“What makes you think that?” he murmurs as he reaches into the first aid kit to grab a cleaning wipe. With one hand still cradling my foot, he tears the packaging open in his teeth.
“You seem to be really good at saving people.”
His head jerks up to look at me.
“I saw a video of you the other day.”
“There’s a video?” He swears under his breath when I nod. “And that’s why you’re here? You saw the video, you thought I looked like your dead friend Andy, and you came here to find me?”
“Adam.”
“Whatever.”
“It’s notwhatever.”
“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you wasted your time driving”—he hesitates, waving the cleaning wipe absently—“or flying here from wherever it is that you’re from. My name is Garrett, and I’m not who you think I am.”
He wipes my foot, and I suck in a breath at the stabbing pain.
“Sorry. It will sting for a minute but it’s better than getting an infection.”
I watch as he pulls more supplies from the first aid kit—Band-Aids, antibiotic cream, Q-tips—and lines them up on the bench next to my thigh. His movements are confident, like he’s done this before.
“You seem very good at this. If you’re not a lifeguard, what do you do?”
“Carpenter,” he murmurs. “I’m used to cuts and scrapes.” He holds up a hand, and the skin on his palm is rough, calloused, with several scars crisscrossing his palm.
Scars.
Adam had a scar on his upper arm from the time in sixth grade when he and Jason collided on their bikes. I used to run my finger along it when we lay next to each other in the back of his Bronco.
He reaches for a Band-Aid, and I lean in closer to study his bicep. I was so busy staring at his face that I hadn’t noticed his arms are covered in tattoos.
