Chapter Seventeen

Fiona

“You look like crap,” Drew commented when I arrived at work the next morning.

“I feel like it, too,” I admitted, too tired to argue with him this morning.

I’d barely managed to drag my tired, confused ass out of bed earlier. I had never faked sick to take a day off from work before but I had been minutes away from calling in that morning.

Watching Shane walk away and leave, probably for good, nearly killed me. I proceeded to spend the night tossing and turning in a bed that still smelled of sex and Shane.

Sometime before dawn, I changed my sheets in the hopes that it would finally bring me some peace. It didn’t. Instead, I regretted it almost the instant I turned on the washing machine.

Since I couldn’t smell him anymore, I spent the rest of the night—and morning—staring at pictures of him that I’d snapped at random on my phone. No matter how hard I stared, the image of him on my screen didn’t tell me what I wanted from him.

I wished that he hadn’t left, but I’d also spent a few hours wondering if it was for the best that he left before I got even deeper with him. It was fun while it lasted, but it could never have lasted.

He belonged with his company, which was one that I couldn’t get behind for so many reasons that they made my mind spin. It was a relationship that came with an expiration date. I was probably better off without him.

“Hey, space cadet, you okay?” Drew asked, his brow furrowed.

“I’m fine,” I lied.

Drew knew me better than that. “Yeah, right. What happened?”

“Shane came over and told me the truth.” I sighed, starting at the beginning.

“He came clean on his own?” Drew’s eyebrows shot up, and he let out a low whistle. “Dude’s got it bad for you, babe.”

“Yeah.” I shook my head. “So bad that he took off back to Houston before I could even catch my damn breath.”

“Shit,” Drew breathed.

“Yeah,” I said. “He told me I should think about what I wanted in the meantime. Then he was gone.” Tears prickled at the backs of my eyes, so I squeezed them shut.

Drew regarded me in quiet contemplation. “And what is it that you want from him?”

“I don’t know. I think that I’m probably better off without him, regardless of how much fun we have together.” I omitted the fact that my inner monologue on the subject was still continuing.

“Fun? Is that what the cool kids are calling it these days?” Drew smirked.

“Quit trying to cheer me up. It’s not going to work. Not today.” I wasn’t in the mood to deal with his ribbing, even if I knew that he was only doing it to make me feel better.

“Wanna bet?” he asked, cocking his head and raising one dark eyebrow. “Challenge accepted.”

“It wasn’t a challenge,” I argued.

“It is now.” His eyes lit up. “Besides, I know the foolproof make-Fiona-happy plan.”

“It’s too early for ice cream,” I said, speaking the six words that I never thought I would say in that order in a sentence.

Drew clutched at his heart. “It’s never too early for ice cream but I’ll let your temporary insanity slide because it doesn’t look like you got a single wink of sleep. I’ll even get you extra sprinkles to give you the energy to get through the day.”

It was amazing how Drew could always get me to crack a smile. Looking annoyingly satisfied with himself, he loped from the store and headed down the street to our favorite ice cream place.

A tall man caught the door from slamming behind Drew. For just a second, I allowed myself to hope that it was Shane, but that hope was quickly crushed when I realized that, apart from the fact that he was about Shane’s height, there were no similarities between the two men.

Two children darted in behind the man and clung to his legs, stopping him from approaching me like he had been about to. I pasted on my most polite smile for our customers and headed to help the man and his kids.

“What’re you guys looking for today?”

“Boat building kits,” the man answered.

Fuck. Of course that would be what they were looking for.

“The kids saw a dingy in the harbor and are driving me insane about it. You got any?”

“Sure, right this way.” I led them to the same aisle that I had spent so much time with Shane in, unable to stop myself from thinking about him.

While the man and his children browsed the kits, debating the kind of design that they wanted to build, I took a stroll down memory lane, despite trying my very best not to.

I thought back to the first time that Shane had stepped into the store, to the way my body had reacted to him from the second I laid eyes on him. He’d been so sexy and confident, talking about his experienced hands and how he knew how to handle himself when things got wet. It sounded crazy, but I swore that there were actual sparks in the air between us when we were together.

And when we were together together, it was downright explosive. I had never felt so connected to another person. I hadn’t known that orgasms could be that intense, that one could experience such pure and absolute joy from watching someone else take that amount of pleasure from your body.

Just the memory of him and being with him sent tingles running down my spine and had sparks going between my legs.

“Excuse me, miss.” The customer’s voice pulled me from my sexy reverie. I blushed, beyond thankful that he couldn’t read my mind. “Which of these two are better?”

He pointed his finger first at one beginner’s building kit and then another: the Selkie kayak and the Nymph.

“The Selkie,” I answered immediately, then cleared my throat. “I think your children would enjoy it more.”

I had no idea why I was justifying my choice to the man, since he simply nodded at my answer and loaded the kit into his cart, but I hadn’t been able to help myself.

Suddenly, everything was reminding me of Shane. I could barely keep my thoughts straight enough to ring up the man’s purchase and bid the customers goodbye with a friendly smile. In my mind’s eye, all that I could see was him.

The way that he moved through the store with confidence and grace, and the way he frowned in serious concentration while he considered his options. His easy smirk and clever, annoying banter.

Memories crashed into me with the force of a tsunami and dragged me into their torrent. My first argument with Shane, the one that had ended with me asking him to leave the store. The way my heart had raced the next time he came in. Fishing with him. The first time he had held me in his strong arms, saving me from falling into the water.

Our first real conversation that hadn’t ended in hostility, the beginning bits of getting to know one another. The thrill of our first date at Fields of Fire. Shane helping first the boy and then the teenage girls. The passionate kiss that we had shared that night. The fact that he had been willing to meet my father for our second date. Every heated touch and shiver of pleasure that had followed later that night.

He made my heart race and my core ache every time that I saw him. It only got better, or worse, depending on the way that you looked at it.

In a moment of stunning clarity, I realized that I wanted that. I wanted him. More than I wanted to take my next breath. He might frustrate me, annoy me, and, occasionally, make me so angry that I was beside myself, but he also made me laugh and feel free and happier than ever before. I wanted every part of that, every minute of every day.

That was when it hit me that it was probably too late to say that to him. And the thought absolutely fucking crushed me.