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She holds out a hand to me, and I stare at it for a moment before lifting my gaze to her face. There’s no trace of guilt or duplicity to be found. She looks…normal, like I didn’t just catch her hitting on the man I love.
I glance over at Jesse, and he gives me an almost imperceptible nod. He’s telling me to play along. That he’ll explain whatever I walked in on later.
“It really is gorgeous, isn’t it?” I say with what I hope looks like a pleasant smile.
I walk over and peer out, trying not to flinch away as Steph wraps an arm around my waist. God, I want to scream. I want to confront her, to dare her to try to explain away what I just saw.
Somehow, I refrain. I may not trust Steph right now, but I do trust Jesse. And if he wants me to act like everything is copacetic, I can do that. For now.
“Jesse tells me we’re hitting the beach today,” Steph says, her voice gushing with enthusiasm. “Can we please go to Malibu? The pictures I’ve seen look amazing.”
“Sure,” I say, clearing my throat. “Malibu sounds great.”
“Yes! I’ll be right back. I need to put on my new bikini. Ooh, you should wear your red one. You look so hot in it.”
With that, she squeals and rushes back into her bedroom, closing the door behind me. I stare at the wooden panel, my mind racing.
“She was flirting, but it could’ve been innocent,” Jesse says quietly from behind me.
I spin around to face him, a frown pulling down at my lips. “She told me to wear my red bikini.”
Jesse’s mouth quirks, but he remains silent as my mind tries to make sense of it all. I stare at nothing as my mind replays the whole scene from the moment I walked out into the room to the moment Steph ran out of here. It doesn’t make sense. None of it does.
I focus on Jesse’s gaze. “Steph can be a bit of a flirt, but she’d never, ever hit on my man. She loves me too much to do that. And I don’t have a red bikini.”
“You don’t?” he asks, tilting his head to study me.
I shake my head. “I used to have one. I wore it once to a pool party as Steph’s plus-one, and I had a…wardrobe malfunction.”
“A wardrobe malfunction?” he asks, obviously looking for clarification.
I roll my eyes. “I had a nip-slip, okay? In front of everyone. I was mortified, and Steph and I left immediately. We threw that damn suit in the fire pit behind her Aunt Bernadette’s house while drinking wine straight from the bottle. It was a whole thing. We laugh about it all the time.”
“So, why would she tell you to wear it if she helped you destroy it?”
Now, that is a very good question.
I’ll just add it to the other dozen questions for which I intend to find answers.
28
MY GUT WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG
Zuma Beach in Malibu is a beautiful spot. The stretch of soft sand is surrounded by rocky hills, but I don’t see any of it as the cold water laps against my ankles. That scene between Steph, Jesse, and me in our room earlier plays through my mind on repeat as I try to make heads or tails of it.
Steph didn’t say anything when I stripped out of my cover-up to reveal my black bathing suit. I waited for her to mention the red bikini again, which would give me the perfect opportunity to…what? Call her out? Confront her on her faulty memory which would surely segue into her apparently “forgetting” Jesse is mine and that she shouldn’t be flirting with him?
As much as I want to bring up both issues, I’m second-guessing my reaction. Maybe Steph was just being friendly with Jesse. Maybe she really did just forget for a moment that we’d burned the suit after that infamous pool party.
I’ve had this weird feeling ever since Steph showed up in L.A. Am I looking for uncharacteristic behaviors to reinforce that feeling? Reading too much into her every word or act?
I don’t know. Maybe.
But even taking that possibility into consideration, I can’t shake the feeling that something is off. My gut has never steered me wrong before, and I really don’t think it’s wrong, now. Something weird is going on here, and I plan to find out what it is.
Turning away from the vast Pacific, I find Steph stretched out on the large blanket we brought with us, her sunglasses perched on her face as she soaks up the warm sun. She looks peaceful, like she doesn’t have a care in the world. She looks…normal.
Taking a deep breath, I trudge through the hot sand until I reach the edge of the blanket. Dropping to my knees, I roll over until I’m lying on my back beside her.
