I smiled down at my pasta, my throat suddenly clogged with emotion. The way he knew me made my heart thud loudly in my chest. Being next to him made me feel slightly woozy, and it was a struggle to keep from kissing him at all times.
“Wanna watch a movie?” he asked. “Though we might’ve watched them all by now.”
That caused me to chuckle. We had been making some significant headway through some of our old favorites.
“Will you show me the photo album your mom gave you?” I asked instead.
“Of course,” he smiled back.
We took the trip down memory lane, laughing at all the various stages of childhood, adolescence, and teenagehood. Aspromised, there were lots of pictures of me. As we finished our meal, Cade closed the album and slid it onto the table.
“What do you think about a sunset walk along the beach?” he asked, pulling my hand into his lap.
“Sounds perfect.”
I couldn’t seem to keep my hands off him while we walked. He looked down into my eyes when I wrapped his hand in both of mine.
I nudged his shoulder with mine, suddenly feeling a wave of self-consciousness. “I’m sorry I’m so needy sometimes.”
“Hey.” He smiled back at me, using his free hand to tip my chin up to meet his eyes. “I like when you need me.”
We walked down to the shoreline, taking our shoes off and rolling up our jeans so we could dig our toes in the grainy sand and let the cold, frothy waves slide over them. He leaned down and drew with his finger into the sand:
Brooke + Cade.
I smiled up at him and kissed him, blissfully happy.
The beach suited him. As I stared at him, I mused that he honestly looked a bit like a living, walking representation of the beach—the ocean-blue eyes, the thick waves of hair, the color like the dark bits of sand as the tide washes over it.
The evening sky was a riot of colors, shades of deep purple, mixed with reds and oranges. It felt like a masterpiece painted just for this moment. Cade’s large, warm hand slipped back into mine.
We walked along the shore hand in hand until the sun set, then we trudged back to his tiny apartment. We both took showers to rinse off the sand and fell into bed, cuddled up with my head on his shoulder.
It was my favorite place to be.
I brought my hand up to his and he linked our fingers, rubbing his thumb across the top of my hand. He ran his fingers softly through my hair, lulling me until my eyes struggled to stay open. “Don’t you want to—” I began. My mind was caught on the idea that we still hadn’tofficiallyhad our first time together.
“We’ve got time,” he responded. “You need your rest. Brunch and the beach tomorrow,” he said quietly in the darkness. I nodded, suddenly overcome by the exhaustion of the day’s travels. I felt his kiss on my forehead as my exhaustion seeped in.
I fell asleep to the rise and fall of his chest.
I tried notto be self-conscious when I slipped into a red bikini the next morning and pulled a coverup over my head. We were heading downstairs for a morning swim, then we’d be having brunch and I’d get to meet Val, his neighbor. I was more nervous than I’d admit to meet his closest friend in California. I tried to rehearse some of the calming mantras I’d learned from Cheryl.
“Ready, beautiful?” He asked me as he slipped on sandals. Echo was dodging around Cade’s ankles, clearly excited to join us on the beach. Beneath Cade’s board shorts I caught the flash of a large tattoo on his calf, but I didn’t have time to properly stare at it. I realized that every other time we’d been together he’d worn jeans or sweats, so the infamous tattoo was still a complete mystery to me.
We climbed down the steps and headed back to the shoreline. I was distracted from tattoo thoughts when he stopped in the sand and stripped his shirt off, exposing hisgloriously tanned abs. Standing in just his board shorts, the waves crashing against his ankles, he looked so at home here.
I laid out a towel and plopped down on it. Then suddenly, from my angle, I could see it clearly—he had a large sunflower sketched in black ink, wrapped around his muscled calf.
A sunflower.
Myfavorite flower.
That had to be about me, right?
When had he gotten it?
I thought back. He’d mentioned a tattoo in one of his earliest letters. That meant he’d had it a long time, probably since before the reunion. Had he held out hope for me all that time? Emotion once again clogged my throat and caused my heart to beat wildly.
