Page 194 of Pucking Wild

Looping around the back side of the building, I take the stairs up onto the back deck and race across it, heading for the boardwalk. If I was feeling driven to the end of my rope, I would run until there was nowhere left to go. I would run to the water’s edge.

My feet pound the boardwalk, and my breath comes out in sharp pants as I crest the dune. I stop at the end of the boardwalk, my naked toes right on the edge. A sea of white sand stretches out before me, ending in the black of the ocean.

“Where are you?” I say, my gaze darting left and right.

The torches remain unlit, but there’s enough light pollution even on this stormy night for me to peer down the beach and see a pacing silhouette some hundred yards away.

It’s Ryan. He’s safe.

I sigh with relief, even as I hitch my dress back up and take to the beach. I run to him, my feet sinking in the deep, cold sand. Beyond us, less than a mile out, the thunderhead rolls in, dark and ominous, the clouds rumbling like the deep belly of a hungry beast.

Ryan stands at the surf’s edge in his tuxedo, the water lapping inches from his feet. His phone light glows in the darkness like a beacon, drawing me to him. He holds it up over a clutch of papers in his hand, reading them.

My heart sinks. This is what brought him out here, whatever Troy gave him. “Ryan,” I call, needing him to see me.

He spins around, his face cast in darkness by the bright light of his phone. “Don’t come any closer!”

I stop on instinct. He’s still a good fifteen yards away. “What are you doing out here?”

“Tess, go back,” he shouts. “Don’t come any closer.”

“Ryan—what happened? What did Troy say to you? What did he do?”

“I think he served me a restraining order,” he calls.

My heart drops. “What?”

“I think it’s for you. Tess, please don’t come any closer. I can’t—I don’t know what this is,” he says, his tone anguished.

I try to catch my breath, taking a step closer. “Well, what does it say?”

“I just said I don’t fucking know. I’m not a lawyer!”

“If it’s a restraining order for me, I don’t even think that’s legal. What does it say?”

“I just said I don’t fucking know,” he shouts, his phone glowing over the papers again.

“Well, am I listed as the plaintiff? Are you the defendant?”

“I don’t—where would it say that?”

“At the top,” I reply, taking another step closer. “Babe, it’s the first thing. The top usually lists the court and the district and the case number, along with the plaintiff and defendant.”

He looks down at the document again. “Okay…so if my name is on the second line, what does that mean?”

I grab my side, holding the stitch as I catch my breath. “Bottom line is usually for the defendant. Does it say ‘defendant’? If it’s a TRO application, it might say ‘applicant’ and then list my name, which would mean Troy is doing all kinds of illegal shit. He can’t just fill out a TRO on my behalf. But this isn’t my area of law,” I admit. “I’m only going off what I saw in law school and courtroom dramas.”

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” he says, shining his phone light on it again.

Watching him struggle, a niggling awareness eats at me. “Ryan…do you mean you can’t understand it…or you can’t read it?”

“Don’t fucking patronize me,” he shouts, his hackles raised. He’s in defense mode. I’ve never seen him like this. He’s unraveling at the seams.

I take another step closer. Then another. We’re within ten feet of each other now, and I can see his features clearly—the stress, the worry.

“I told you to stay back,” he says, but the fight is leaving him. He craves my closeness as much as I crave his.

I have to know. I have to ask.