Page 26 of Entangled

A deep kind of sadness fills his eyes at my request and I brace myself, knowing whatever he’s about to say isn’t good. “I’m sorry, Blondie, but you can’t. She passed away when I was in high school. Breast cancer.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, reaching over to grab his hand in the sand next to mine.

“Don’t be, the years I had with her were good ones and she more than left her mark on me.” His thumb moves in small circles against the back of my hand and he gives me a small grin. “But laughter, that’s what I remember. They were always laughing.”

“Thank you,” I tell him, voice breaking slightly at the preciousness of the gift he just gave me.

“Don’t mention it.”

The silence that follows pulls at me, his confession earning one of my own.

“I couldn’t go to their house today.”

“Your parents’?”

“Yeah.” Sighing, I look back to the stars, not wanting his eyes on mine for this part. “I want to know why it happened, where it all went so wrong for them. I got in my car… but I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make myself go.”

I feel his concern like a weight against my skin in the silence that follows.

“I could go with you,” he offers smoothly. “Pick you up in the morning and drive you out there. At the very least bring you a decent cup of coffee and save you from that shit one I saw you pick up at the store today.”

Silly boy. As if making the offer sound casual makes it any less meaningful.

“Plus,” he adds. “I’m pretty sure if I didn’t watch out for you while you’re in town, my mama would strike lightning down on me from the heavens. Even if thinking I need to watch out for you makes me a misogynistic asshole.”

And even though I shouldn’t, even though I’m the dark eclipse to his shining sun and the truth is if I were a better person I would deny him for both our sakes… I don’t, because the uncomfortable truth I hate to admit is that sometimes we just need someone to weather the storm with us. Someone to lean on for just a moment.

So I give him the answer he wants, the answer I hate to need.

“Okay,” I whisper softly, feeling as if I’ve just stepped off a precipice, diving headlong into a course of fate that can’t be changed.

Or maybe that’s just the weed talking.

Chapter 7

One Year Ago

It’s been three days since I left Coop on the beach and I’ve done everything in my power to push him out of my head since. I’d gone to the beach and flirted with any guy that caught my eye. I’d spent an entire day with my camera up at the abandoned El Miro hotel, snapping hundreds of pictures of the graffitied ruins. I’d drank and shopped in the open-air markets, chatting away with the locals in a mix of my limited Spanish and their English. But still… I couldn’t shake him from my mind.

Every guy at the beach had the wrong color eyes. Every click of my camera brought our conversation to mind. Even at the busy market, I found myself thinking I had caught him out of the corner of my eye though I knew he was probably already long gone to Cahuita. Apparently, my subconscious had not gotten the memo that this was one of the few times I was letting my self-preservation win out.

And I was fucking annoyed with it by this point.

Today was my last day in Jaco and I was determined to drive any lingering thoughts of Coop from my mind before I left for Monteverde tomorrow. I had signed up for a waterfall hiking tour last night with that goal in mind, figuring the physical exertion would be a great way to work him out of my system.

As I walk up to the front of the tour company’s storefront, the cute Costa Rican tour guide checking people in catches my eye and I pat myself on the back for the good idea. Physical exertion, indeed.

I plant myself in front of him and flash a dazzling smile. “Good morning.”

He returns my smile with a knowing grin of his own, brown eyes sweeping down the length of my body as he passes the tablet to me for check-in. The workout shorts and top I’m wearing leave little to the imagination. “Hola, preciosa.”

I quickly work my way through the consent forms, tapping the screen to sign my initials wherever needed then handing it back to him when it returns to the welcome screen.

I cock my head at him flirtatiously and reach up to twirl the end of my ponytail. “So will you be leading this tour today?”

Sure, maybe it’s overkill, but at this point I was a woman on a mission.

“Sí.” He drops his head and leans in flirtatiously. “Would you like to walk up at the front with me?”

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