The Lies About Truth(21)

I nodded.

We tag-teamed the beach the way we’d done in the past, him carrying chairs to locations, me setting them up. Him opening umbrellas, me wearing the rubber bands. We finished before the first families brought down their coolers and wagons of beach crap. Gray dusted off two chairs for us, put his clipboard on his lap, and grabbed water bottles and lotion from his backpack. “You need sunscreen?” he asked.

I did. The rays were terrible, and I’d already been out too long without SPF. Add that to yesterday’s burn, and I was on my way to lobsterdom. “Bring on the vitamin D.”

“That’s right,” he said happily.

I accepted the lotion and noticed how he still wouldn’t meet my eyes. That didn’t keep him from flirting, though.

His smirk lit his face. “You need some help with that lotion?”

I wasn’t about to let him rub down Idaho or Tennessee or any of my other scars. Shoving him away with a laugh, I said, “I got it.”

“See, don’t you like the way that works?” He slid his chair closer to mine.

“What?”

“Me flirting. You laughing.” His hand landed on my elbow again. The same way it had been last night when he kissed me. I jerked away, not so hard that it looked rude, but hard enough to send a signal.

“Gray, you know I’m with Max.”

He passed back the water, released my elbow, and asked, “Why’d you come down here then?”

Now or never.

“So,” I began. “Any chance you put something in my mailbox recently?”

“Huh?” He lowered his cheap aviator sunglasses and stared directly at the left side of my face. “Like what?”

“Don’t play with me. You either did or you didn’t.”

“Jeez, Sade, you don’t have to be all locked-and-loaded every time we’re together.”

“I’m not all locked-and-loaded. It was a simple enough question.”

“Then, I’m not telling you if I did until you tell me what was in your mailbox.”

“An envelope.”

“Wow. Now, there’s a stretch.”

“Don’t be a jerk,” I said, even though he wasn’t being a real jerk, and I was a little locked-and-loaded.

“Just tell me,” he said, drawing on all his patience.

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?” That question had an edge to it.

I ignored it and asked my own. “Did you ever tell anyone we jumped off the Destin Bridge?”

“No.” He lifted his hand into the air. “Scout’s honor.”

“You weren’t a Boy Scout,” I reminded him.

“Not a liar, either.”

He said that, but then stared at his toes, flexing them up and down in the sand until he’d buried them in the white crystal beach. “You remember that night?” he asked without looking up.

“The night we jumped off the bridge?” I asked, a half smile already forming on my face. I wiped it away.

“Yeah.”

“Of course I do.”

Every. Single. Thing.

“I liked that night a lot,” he whispered.

I don’t know why, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of agreeing. And then I made it worse.

“You jump off the bridge with anyone else?” I asked.

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?” I frowned at him.

“You stab the happy the second it’s in sight.”

“I’m pretty sure, of the two of us, I am not the one who stabbed the happy.”

His facial features fell like dominos: eyebrows down, eyes closed, dimples flattened, chin lowered into that thick neck. He lifted his collar to his hairline, giving himself a short break from the sun. Or a short break from me.

I leaned back in my chair and stared off toward the pier. Maybe he did the same. Maybe he teared up. Maybe he thought about his plans for the evening.

“Well, I’ve got to go—”

“Check on the renters,” I finished, without turning toward him.

He tapped his clipboard and stood up. When he was four feet away, he turned around and came back.

“Two things.”

I knew before he put up two fingers that my straight shooter was back in town.

“One, I don’t care about your damn mailbox. And two, I didn’t.”

“Didn’t what? Put something in the mailbox?”

He shook his head at me, as if he couldn’t believe I didn’t understand the reference.

“I haven’t jumped off the bridge with anyone but you.”

He walked away.

“Gray.”

He kept walking.

I raised my voice. “Gray.”

Either the wind ate my words, or he didn’t care. I wouldn’t chase him. Not into the horde of people. And I didn’t want to. Chasing someone was a lovers’ game.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN


Two hours later, I’d thrown away all the rubber bands, had a pile of discarded clothes on my bed, and hadn’t settled on a hairstyle that covered Idaho or Nameless. I even made Sonia, Max, and Mom sit in the van for ten minutes before I coaxed myself to join them.