Page 106 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
I didn’t want to leave Alistair—leave this magical, emotional, exhausting,wonderfulnight we’d shared.
I didn’t want to go back to Jackson and confront…everything.The argument. Our relationship. All the wounds and blisters that would hurt when we dug into them, but that all neededto be lanced to heal.
“It will be alright, Pippi,” Alistair said when I hesitated.
I nodded and clambered up onto the cliffs. “Yeah. We’ll…we’ll work it out, I’m sure. But he’s gotta be furious that I didn’t come home last night. And made him worry.”
“He won’t be m-mad,” Alistair assured me. “Once he sees you’re okay.”
I nodded, even as doubt curdled in my belly.
My fingers were stiff as I grabbed my shoes and slipped them back over my feet, wincing at the slimy feeling of shoving wet toes into damp pleather. And the shaking got worse as I set to my hair, trying, and failing, to look a little less like Medusa’s rabid pet porcupine.
“Guess we’re going with a braid.” But my handsstruggledwith that simple plait. The stiff strands of hair kept springing out of the twines. My fingers kept getting the chunks tangled. I imagined in the end, it looked less like a braid and more like a half-melted cotton candy spiral. But it would have to do.
“How do I look?” I asked Alistair as I straightened my shirt and flexed my legs to get the stiffness out of my jeans. “From what you can see, anyway? Am I presentable? Or am I—Oh shoot. I didn’t have makeup on, did I?” I wiped my hand over my cheeks. “Phew.Okay. I took it off earlier. Forgot about that. Drunk raccoon face averted.”
“You look lovely, Pippi.” Alistair’s sadness nestled into my chest, cuddling against my own sorrow. “Always.”
Jackson wasn’tin the cottage when I got there.
And guilt gnawedat me.
I’d been so selfish last night.
I changed quickly, squirming out of my sea salt stiff clothes and shimmying into the skirt and blouse I’d worn yesterday, chewing at my lip the whole time, and telling myself that I needed to take these few minutes to put myself together. So when I found him, I wouldn’t stink of the sea and have him half out of his mind worrying if I’d tried to drown myself.
And I took thirty seconds to reassess myself in the mirror. My hair wasn’t so bad—the sloppy braid almost looked stylish—but my face.
Stars.
Puffy red eyes peered back at me from the mirror. Red stained my cheeks as well—either from the scrub of saltwater against my skin, the tears, or both.
This was going to be a heavy makeup day, for sure. Cold compresses for the eyes. Lots of concealer. And then no one would know I’d spent the night bawling and swapping sob stories with the Loch Ness Monster.
But, for now, I wiped the cakey flakes of dried salt off my cheeks and headed out the door.
I didn’t have to go far to find Jackson.
He meandered through the fog, his hands grappling to free the key from his pocket. Wrath engulfed his beautiful eyes when he glanced up and saw me standing in the open door.
“Jackson!” I called, waving my arm. “I’m?—”
“Decided to come back, have you?” He scowled as he slammed the key back into his pocket.
“I—”
“I figured you were bunking with your gal pals. So I went to breakfast without you. Sorry.”
Breakfast?
I glanced up at the fog over our heads. “It’s barely dawn.”
“Kian and some of the others went for a pre-dawn hike up in the mountains. We got to Brew & Bites just as they startedserving breakfast. I would’ve invited you, but you bailed on me. We saw the banshees and the will-o’-the-wisps, by the way. So, I hope your little tantrum was worth missing out on an awesome experience.”
“Tantrum?”
“But at least you’re here, and I won’t have to go drag you out of the chicks’ house. Did you cool your heels any? I hope so.” He knocked his shoulder into mine as he bulldozed into the cottage.
