“I want to take you somewhere.”

I’m in Jagger’s expensive car as we drive out of the hospital parking lot, the damn deadline from my editor gnawing at my brain like a zombie on The Walking Dead.

“I should get home,” I say.

“Please.” He shifts, and his foot hits the clutch and he revs the gas. He’s such an expert at everything sexy. “It’s just lunch. You have to eat.” He glances over, idling at a stop light now.

“Where?”

A mysterious smile wraps around his lips. “A surprise.”

“Nowhere fancy?”

He laughs, shaking his head. “No. Nowhere fancy. You never were that type of girl.”

Rolling down the window, I let the wind blow in my hair, amazed at how much better I’m feeling than I was yesterday morning.

Half an hour later, we pull up to the same hole in the wall he took me to all the time when we’d surf during my summers in Los Angeles. Well, he surfed—I was one gulp away from either drowning or dehydration.

“Surfing Tacos?” I question, opening my door of his car and stepping out.

“Have you been since you returned?”

And relive memories of you? No way.

“No.” The sand slides under my Converse, leaking into the small air holes on the sides. Jagger cups my elbow to help me gain my footing. “They really should clean up the sand more.”

Jagger chuckles under his breath but says nothing.

“I mean beach access is one thing, but for the customers who don’t surf, there should be a paved path.” I continue with my nervous rambling.

“Want me to talk to management?” he asks and chuckles.

“No need. I doubt I’ll be back here.” His hand drops from my skin, and he files in behind me, holding the door open.

Once we’re inside I see that the one-time shack is a real restaurant and bar now. Must be doing well for itself. They’ve added an outdoor patio extension with tables and umbrellas looking out over the ocean. It’s no longer cheap plywood tables and plastic chairs, but lacquered wood tables and chairs with cushioned seating. There’s still the straw and hula theme, but now there’s a wall of signed pictures featuring the well-known surfers who have landed here after a day in the sun.

“It’s nice in here.”

Jagger nods, his hand grazing along my forearm until he secures my hand with his. I try to pull it away, but he only grips it tighter as he leads me to a table in the corner that faces the ocean. “I thought we’d sit outside, but now that I know how you feel about sand…”

I’m ready to say something just as sharp-tongued, but he’s smiling at me when I look up and the words die in my mouth. I was mad and pissed off at the memories this place brought to the surface. It’s not Surfing Tacos’ fault Jagger’s a dick.

“Well, who do we have here?” A redhead comes over, the end of her shirt tucked through her breasts, her ass cheeks almost hanging out of her Daisy Dukes. Someone should tell her the theme is surfing, not hillbilly.

Jagger grabs a menu from the condiment station, handing it to me. “Hey, I’ll have a Corona and…”

“Just a water,” I mumble, willing myself not to look at the girl whose gaze is glued to Jagger.

“Sure thing. I’m Cami, by the way.” She tucks her pad and pencil in her back pocket, holding her hand out to me.

I look to Jagger first. He’s studying the interaction but saying nothing.

“Quinn.” I shake her hand and then place it back in my lap.

“How do you know Jagger?” she asks.

“We’re in a hurry, so can you get the drinks?” Jagger asks.

Sweet Cami’s face heats and her gaze darts back to him. “Sure thing. Be right back.”

“Friend of yours?” I ask when she leaves, stomping away on the wooden floor planks like an angry toddler.

A few surfer girls wearing bikinis with wetsuits hanging from their waists walk in from outside and sit down at a nearby table.

“I come here a lot.”

“Hmm.”

“It’s not what you think.” He puts his menu back.

“I think you fuck her.”

“Maybe it is then.” His gaze darts down to the table for a second before returning to lock eyes with me.

I nod. Maybe he’s not trying to get in my pants. Only an idiot would bring a girl to a place where he’s banged the help.

“Would you rather I lie?” he asks, not a trace of guilt on his gorgeous face.

“I would’ve preferred you took me somewhere that I didn’t have to worry about being poisoned.” The napkin I didn’t realize I’d picked up wraps around my finger until it rips. “Is there even such a place? You know, where you haven’t fucked half the waitstaff?”

His head rears back as he tilts the chair back on its hind legs. “Jealous much?”

I throw the napkin on the table and my chair scrapes against the wood, as I stand from the table.

Redhead Cami slams my water down on the table, the contents sloshing over the rim.

“Hey.” I reach for her, but she retracts her hand. “I just wanted to tell you I don’t want him. He’s all yours. Good luck though, because that dick sees more action than the army.”

Her mouth hangs open and I spin on my shoes, storming out of the restaurant. The minute I push open the doors, the ocean air hits my face and all the memories come with it. Coming here from Ohio was hard, but my family needed me and with Mom happy and loving life with my half-siblings and new husband, I needed to find where I fit. But here…I’m starting to think that L.A. couldn’t have been a bigger mistake.

I hear the door open behind me and a shiver runs down my neck, alerting me he’s near. In fact, I can practically feel his eyes burn a hole into the back of my head. I sit down on the stoop, digging in my purse for my phone.

“Don’t.” He sits down next to me, taking my phone out of my hands.

“Give me my phone!”

“No. I’m sorry, I fucked that up.” He stands, pulls off his shoes and socks, then walks to his car, depositing them into his trunk, before nodding at me. “Come on.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

His shoulders tighten, and he stands ramrod straight in a stance that I’m sure intimidates most people. “You are. We’re going to walk that beach and I’m going to explain shit to you. After that, if you want to tell me to fuck off forever, I’m gone.”

A silent war rages inside me. Isn’t this what I yearned for all along—answers? Still, I’m afraid of what he’ll say, and I don’t know if it’s because it will make it hurt more or because it will mean I’ll have to look at him as something other than the jerk who broke my heart…as someone who could possibly take ownership of it again.

“C’mon, Quinn. Give me a chance to explain.”

“Promise?” I ask. If I agree to hear him out, I want the promise he’ll leave me alone. “You’ll lose my address and not show up unexpectedly? You won’t hound me?”

He lets out an exasperated breath. “Scout’s honor.” He holds up three fingers.

I give him a wry look. “Pretty sure you were never a Boy Scout, Jagger.”

“Let’s go. Put your shoes in the trunk.”

I drag my feet as I walk over to him, then remove my shoes and place them next to his on a plastic bag. “You are such an anal freak,” I murmur.

“Not really. I mean I enjoy anal like most guys, but it’s not my go-to.”

I roll my eyes. “Let’s get this over with.”

He tries to take my hand, but I pull away, tucking it in the back pocket of my shorts.

“Fine.” We walk along the wooden plank, the sand increasing until it’s only warm sand wiggling between my toes. We stay on the upper part instead of where the water lands. My guess is because it’s more private up here.

We’re still walking in silence five minutes later. “I thought you had something to tell me?”

He runs his hand down his face, pulling on the back of his neck. God, he’s sexy when he’s stressed out. Seeing him all wound up in knots make me want to suck him off and ease the tension out of him like I used to.

Shit, no, I don’t. My brain and my vagina need to get on the same page.

“I’m sorry for taking you there. It’s just I wanted to take you somewhere where you’d have to remember us. The way we were. I didn’t even think of Cami.” His head hangs and he stares at his footsteps.

“Yeah.” A sad twinge hits my heart for Cami. I know firsthand the pain Jagger’s rejection can cause.

“I never meant to put you in an uncomfortable situation.”

“You have tunnel vision sometimes. Always did.” I knock my shoulder with his, letting him know it’s forgotten. “I overreacted. It’s not like we’re a couple. I mean, fourteen years have passed and I come off like some jealous girlfriend. Of course you’ve had other women. It’s not like I’ve been celibate,” I ramble, wishing he didn’t pull this junior high girl out of me.

“Let’s pretend you have been. I can’t handle thinking of the alternative.”

I roll my eyes. “So, you want to be my first and only?”

“I like to think I left the bar so high you didn’t want to chance it with anyone else.”

“So, fourteen years and I just—”

“You do have a Unicorn Cock vibrator.”

I let an embarrassed chuckle escape. He’s got me there.

We walk a few more feet and then Jagger slows. “Mind if we sit?”

I glance back toward Surfing Tacos, seeing it’s gotten much smaller in the distance. No threat of Cami running out of the restaurant with a butcher knife. “Sure.”

We lower ourselves down on the sand. The ocean breeze is blowing my hair, so I tuck it over one shoulder.

“I need to tell you something and I…” He releases an audible breath before he continues, “I want you to hear me out. Please.”

“Okaaay,” I say warily.

“That night of the party—”

“Nope. We’re not talking about it. It’s fine.”

He grabs my hand and places it in his lap. “Please, Quinn.” The plea in his voice has my attention and for some reason I find it impossible to tell him no.

“Fine, go on.”

He spreads my hand out, tracing the lines up and down my fingers, circling my palm. “I’ve always loved your hands. I think it was the contrast to mine.” He lays his hand under mine. His fingers overlap mine easily. My mind drifts back to a time when I’d lean back on his chest, his arms tight around me with our hands weaved together as we watched the sunset.

Maybe it’s the strength of his body mixed with the gentleness in his touch, but I don’t pull back. He slides beside me, hip to hip to me, and I still don’t move.

“That night when you saw me at my house. The party,” he begins, reminding me of the chapter of our summer love story I try to relive as little as possible. I tend to live in the early to middle chapters, the ones where long glances and hand brushing turned to hungry kisses and the exploration of bodies.

I swallow, and he continues to glide his large hand over mine. I could fall asleep to the soothing way he does that.

“There was something that pre-empted it.”

“Okay.” My head dips to almost land on his shoulder, but as one strand of my hair falls, I straighten my back upright again.

“Your dad.”

I slowly move my hand back to my lap. He reaches for it but eventually locks his hands together.

“My dad?”

He turns his body in the sand to face me, his gaze flicking between me and his own crossed legs. “He didn’t do anything he shouldn’t have. It’s not that. He told me you were thinking about moving to Malibu permanently. For me. And he questioned my intentions once he knew you were going to uproot your life for me.”

I swallow down the little saliva I have left and stare out at the ocean. The waves roll in one after the other while I clench my fists. How could my dad interfere like that? But I already know the answer. He was always concerned that I was too wrapped up in Jagger, too young to be that infatuated with someone.

“Hey.” He takes his finger and places it on my chin, turning me back to look at him. “I was stupid and young. For two weeks I was pissed at your dad for questioning me.”

He and I both.

“After the two weeks?” I almost whisper.

“I figured out that he was right, and I couldn’t let you do that when I’d be at college. Sure, I’d only be upstate, but we’d be living different lives, separate lives, and eventually you would’ve ended up resenting and hating me. Why delay the inevitable? There’s a reason we didn’t carry on after you left every summer—long distance is a disaster waiting to happen and we were both young and not ready for the kind of commitment it would take to make it work.”

“So, you developed a plan to break my heart instead of telling me the truth?” All this time I thought I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t kinky enough, wasn’t what he wanted…

He shrugs, turning his body to face the ocean once more. “I’m not proud of my actions, but if you thought I cheated on you, you’d go back to Ohio.”

I nod a few times, bringing my legs to my chest, hugging them to my body in a lost effort to shelter myself from Jagger so he can’t damage me again. “You know how demented that is?” I ask.

He never glances over. “I do now.” He lets a big sigh loose and then continues. “Quinn, we both know that if I’d tried to break-up with you or convince you that you were best not to stay in California, you never would have listened to me. You were as headstrong then as you are now.”

I bite down on the inside of my cheek refusing to admit that he may be right—Jagger telling me I was better off without him might have made me fight harder for him. The curse of being a headstrong teenager who thinks she knows everything.

“Can I ask you a question? Then I want you to take me home,” I finally say.

“Ask me anything.”

“All the things you said…about how I was the only one you felt comfortable telling everything to, about how you couldn’t wait to see me each summer and how you thought of me when I was back living with my mom…was it all just bullshit to get me in bed?”

His head whips around, his eyes laced with outrage. “No! Shit, Quinn. You don’t get it.” He stands up and stomps off down the beach.

“What don’t I get?” I call out to him, standing and brushing the sand from my ass before I chase him down.

When I reach him, he turns around and plants his hands on my shoulders. “I fucking loved you. The decision I made was probably the only selfless decision I’ve ever made in my entire life.”

“Jagger, you don’t do that to people you love,” I say, exasperated, but before I finish his head is shaking, his mouth tight in a line.

“My method might have been wrong, but my motives weren’t. Fuck it. I’m not even sure why I care. You…” His fists clench and he releases them. “You don’t feel it?”

“Feel what?” If I say yes, he’ll keep pushing me and then at some point he’ll get scared and break me again.

“The pull between us. Right now, you stand millimeters from me, but it’s not close enough. I want to strip your clothes off on this beach and be skin to skin with you. And even then, I know it still won’t feel like enough.” He runs both his hands down his face, lacing them behind his neck.

I ignore the image Jagger’s words elicit. I have to, otherwise I’ll never be able to stand my ground.

“I’m not sure what you want. Forgiveness? I forgave you years ago. If I hadn’t I never would have been able to move on with my life.”

His hands plant on either side of my face, his touch igniting a current through my body. “I want another chance.”

I step back.

He steps forward.

I step back again, shaking my head. “I can’t.”

“You won’t,” he corrects.

“Same difference. It took me a long time to get over you.”

He falls to his knees in the sand. “I promise I’m different now.”

“Get up.” I glance around to see if anyone is paying any attention to us.

He goes on begging, his hands planted together, staring up at me. “Not until you agree.”

“Jagger, I walked in on a girl stripping for you. After I’d been in that same position the night before. She was straddling you and you had your hands on her hips, grinding her to you.”

He winces.

“And then when I confronted you, you told me that I was your plaything for the summer. You laughed at me and asked what I expected, a long-distance relationship? All your friends laughed, the girl laughed and pushed your face into her bare breasts. You took her nipple into your mouth, closing your eyes to enjoy it and ignoring me. I can’t get that image out of my head—even after all these years. So, I’m sorry, I appreciate you telling me the truth, but a second chance? Not happening.” I turn, and I begin to walk away. I’ll call an Uber and buy new Chucks before I ever see this man again. He should come with a warning label: Hazardous to your mental health. Not intended for children or women who value their sanity.

He grips my wrist, pulls me toward him, then releases his hold and rests my face in his hands.

We stare at one another, equal parts hurt and love pouring from one another. We’re like the dark undercurrent in the ocean. The undertow between us won’t allow me to escape, even though I desperately want to. I feel like it’s dragging me to my ruin and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

Before I can blink, his lips mesh to mine and I wish I had the willpower to stop him, but damn, it feels exquisite drowning in Jagger.