Page 1 of Infinite
Chapter One
Becca
I look through the rear window of Hale’s Tahoe as he pulls away from the house. The window is tinted and I can’t see worth a damn. I wish I could. That’s my heart back there. I look up at Hale.
Well, at least half my heart . . .
The headlights from an approaching car illuminate the planes of his strong features. This is a man I first met when he was a boy. It was first grade and our teacher, Mrs. Newsom, sat him behind me. I pretended not to notice him. But how could anyone miss that blond hair and eyes so filled with mischief they sparkled like diamonds cast along the sand?
Hale was new to our prep school, his family finally making the money it took to pay for the absurdly expensive tuition. He should’ve been shy and intimidated to join the ranks of the so-called elite. But even then, Hale was fearless.
He tugged on my ponytail almost the moment he sat. This boy didn’t know me and had no right touching the hair Nana June had painstakingly brushed to a silky shine. I remember turning around just to glare at him, until I caught his grin. At the time, I thought it mirrored a boy clearly up to no good. I failed to see his innocence. My, oh, my. It was so pure, he could’ve sprouted a halo. Except, as he grew into the young man sitting beside me, that grin grew with him, transforming into naughty enough to set a nun’s panties aflame. Did I return that grin, way back then? Yes’m, I most certainly did.
The boy I first smiled at grew up long before either of us were ready, all the while hanging tight to the other half of my heart.
I’m not smiling now and neither is he. Tonight was all about a goodbye that’s been coming for too many years, despite our attempts to wish it away.
We’re no longer children. We’re college grads, taking that massive leap into the workforce and leaving the carefree life that comes with youth far behind.
I give another glance back. Even with the street lights, I don’t catch more than the looming shadows of the palmettos. “Do you think Trin is all right?” I ask.
“Nope,” he replies.
Hale sighs when I reach into the pocket of my jacket and pull out my phone, cupping my hand and lowering it until it skims just above the gray leather seat. His touch is gentle, kind, and one of too many reasons he’s stolen my heart.
The warmth of his skin and those eyes that see all make me feel everything I’m not supposed to. I don’t know when I fell in love with Hale. Maybe I’ve always loved him.
It only seems right I should finally tell him.
“Don’t, sugar,” he tells me when my thumb slides over the screen of my phone. His voice is set with worry and sadness as palpable as rain beating down during the harshest summer storms. “Trin and Callahan have to work their shit out on their own.”
The harsh sting of tears spreads across my pale green eyes. It’s not the first time I’ve cried tonight. The first was mercifully in Hale’s arms, during an acoustic version ofNo Retreat, No Surrender. Our tight group of friends sang it as we sat around the fire pit at Callahan’s place. I’d picked the song. It summed up our group and misadventures perfectly. I was right, and because of it, we all seemed to fall apart.
We’re starting our new lives. Me, in Charlotte working PR for Carolina’s football team, and Hale in New York, working on Wall Street. The song we sang was our final farewell to our reckless youth. We all knew it. It’s the reason only one of us made it to the last lyric.
“Don’t cry, sweet thing,” he murmurs, his thick Southern accent as soothing as the taste of warm honey. “You know I can’t take it when you cry.”
He slips his arm around me, just as he did in front of the fire pit when the last string of the guitar was plucked and silence descended upon us like the weight of a thousand deaths.
The window is cracked, allowing the last bits of summer and the scent of salt and sea to drift in and join our memories. The smell of the ocean is among the finest in the world, second only to Hale’s masculine fusion of musk intertwined with the lush foliage pushing through the clay-sand composition that makes up Kiawah. Hale’s scent is the closest thing to heaven on earth. I know it now. Maybe I always have.
My head falls against his shoulder. I clutch him like I did around the fire pit, afraid to let go. “Where are we going?” I ask, my barely there words not quite enough to mask my Southern twang.
“To Sean’s.” He pauses when I adjust my body so it rests against the collection of muscle stretching across his wide chest. “He’s your ride home, remember?”
“I don’t want Sean to take me home,” I say. My gaze fixes on the navigation screen of his SUV, each syllable I manage huskier than I intend. “I want you to take me home.”
Those muscles holding me tense, loosening slowly until his grip on the steering wheel relaxes and the fingers of his opposite hand trail lazily down my arm. “I don’t think your daddy will like that,” he bites out, somehow keeping his voice soft despite the tang of bitterness drifting so close to the surface.
“I don’t care,” I reply. I don’t flinch, though I should. I may be a grown woman of twenty-two, but Daddy still gives me plenty to flinch about. The harsh criticism he has for Hale and his family more than prove his remarks are as heavy handed as his strikes.
I glance up. “Will you take me home? Please?”
“It’d be my honor,” he replies.
My father has never scared Hale, even long before Hale passed Daddy in height. It’s a rare feat seeing how scary my father can be. I’m not brave like Hale is. Not when it comes to Daddy. But Hale’s lack of fear scares me plenty enough for both of us.
I cuddle closer to Hale, the smooth blacktop road that leads to the other side of the island a gentle hum along the thread of the powerful tires. It’s like a lullaby in a way. Not that I’m not ready to sleep. My hand slides across Hale’s rock-hard abs to grip his hip. Tonight, I want a goodbye that means more than a hug between lifelong friends.