Page 10 of Sweet Redemption

if you spend enough time and money there.

—Serena’s Secret Thoughts

Ifucking hate journaling.

Even when I was young, I was never a Dear Diary kind of girl.

But when I started seeing Octavia after the panic attacks set in before my twenty-third birthday, she basically insisted on it. Exposure therapy or something like that. If my memories were going to be what wreaked havoc on my nervous system, confronting them was the best weapon I could wield in the war. I’m paraphrasing, of course. Back then, the attacks were all soccer-related.

What I wouldn’t give for that to be the case now.

I’m loath to admit it, but her recommendations typically work.

And that means journaling about a memory.

Not just any memory. A Hendrix memory. A vivid one.

One that makes me taste the salt air.

With my favorite heavy polka-dot pen in hand, I get lost in the memories.

Summer After Senior Year In High School

“Heads up—” Sand flew at my feet as six-feet-something of golden-tanned skin and pure chaos crashes in front of us, a football tucked against his ribs and a cocky grin on his gorgeous face.

“That’s why you play hockey, not football, Sinclair,” Jamie Murphy yelled while the man at my feet laughed.

It was low and deep and slid beneath my skin, warming my already-heated blood.

Hendrix pushed up, dusting the sand from his board shorts and not bothering to right the backward navy-blue Kroydon Hills Prep hat that had been basically glued to his head since sophomore year. The same hat that always hid dark hair in need of a good trim, even if he never bothered to trim it.

He liked it unruly, and so did I.

Not that I’d told him that.

Some secrets were meant to be taken to the grave.

And my fantasies about this man were absolutely one of them.

Okay—or maybe more than one . . .

Nope.

Not going there either.

So why, sweet baby Jesus in a manger, when this man turned and smiled at us, did my stomach somersault?

“Sorry, ladies.” His baby-blue eyes shone as bright as the sun hitting the ocean waves behind him as he winked, and my stomach flipped.

“Dude, I seriously hope you’re better with a puck,” Olivia grumbled from the lounge chair next to mine, already bored with life while Saylor, Aurora, and I smothered our laughter. “What?” Liv asked as Hendrix jogged back to the edge of the water, where the hard sand met the rising tide, and tossed his ball back to one of my cousins. “My social battery is dead. I’ve been nice all day. Can we be done now?”

“No,” Saylor and Aurora answered in unison.

I pushed my sunglasses into my hair and grinned at Liv. “It’s one weekend, Olivia. It won’t hurt you to spend one more day of it soaking up the sun with us.”

“It actually might,” she groaned. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Skin cancer is real, ladies. Some of us don’t bronze. We burn, unlike you two bitches.” She fixed the brim of her black sun hat and glared at me over her oversized glasses. “The fact I’m not back at the house, in the air conditioning and reading a book, instead of down here where my skin is crisping up like bacon as we speak, is a serious testament to how much I love you brats.”

“Really?” Saylor leaned over me and swatted Liv’s arm with a magazine. “We have two more nights before Serena disappears. Stop being a big baby.”