Page 39 of Making the Save
“Okay,” I agreed.
She stood, her arms still wrapped around her slim body like she needed them to hold all the pieces together.
“And…if, while we’re still officially married anyway…”
She stopped and I could tell she was struggling to get the words out.
“If you could, maybe not…be with another person. At least not so that people can find out. That’s how it always ends. For me. With someone cheating on me and it makes people think…well, I’m trying not to care what people think so much anymore. But it makes them think I’m the problem.”
“These douchebag assholes cheat on you andyou’rethe problem?” I was getting mad again.
“When they all do it, it becomes a theme.”
I got off the lounger and stood in front of her, looking down, while she stared at my chest. Eventually, I put my fingers under her chin and tilted her face up towards me. The height difference was real. She was going to have to get used to looking up. I lifted those glasses of hers so I could see her grass green eyes. They were like her music, sad and angry and embarrassed and hopeful all at the same time.
“I’m not going to cheat on you. We’re married. That means something to me even though we’ve agreed to keep the marriage platonic. Understand?”
“Okay.”
“But you need to know this, Syd. Yes, I put on a show earlier with that kiss, but I wasn’t faking anything.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “Me neither. I don’t know why I said that.”
It was going to make these rules of hers really hard to follow. I swiped my thumb over the edge of her jawline. Where soft skin covered hard bone that defined Syd’s beautiful, unique face. I snatched my hand away before I could move on to her cheek bones.
Shit, I could swear my fingers tingled with…something.
Probably fucking fairy dust.
“Do you swim?”
She beamed. “Of course I swim. I live by the ocean.”
“Then go get your suit on and I’ll race you.”
Saying that triggered another memory. Her, in that hot white bikini in the hotel pool, smiling up at me when I dared her to a race.
As a rule, no one wanted to race me. I didn’t lose.
She must have remembered too because she was shaking her head and smirking.
“Oh no, I’m not falling for that again.”
“I gave you a lead.”
“The length of your body is not a lead. I need a full lap, and pulling on my ankle as I swim by you is called cheating.”
“Fine, we won’t race,” I said. “Unless we see a shark, then all bets are off.”
She cocked her hip to the left. “You would let a shark eat me?”
“Honey, if it’s you or me, I’m feeding you to that shark so fast you won’t even believe it. And he’ll be so satisfied, I’ll have all the time in the world to get back to the beach. Because I bet you taste real good.”
“I thought you were my champion,” she cried, heading back into her house to change.
But for real…I bet she did taste real good. Everywhere.
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