Page 8 of Collide

“We didn’t break up. We’re just on a break.”

“I didn’t know. I just assumed…” My voice drifts as I don’t wish to mention Cash, but I did assume the band was over. When my mother died, Chrome Teardrops fell to pieces. Then again, they’d been falling apart before her death.

“We’re looking to replace him.” The words catch my breath, and my head twists to look at Gage. He doesn’t glance back at me. “I mean, we can’t really replace him, but we need another bassist in the band.”

We’re silent a minute. The sound of our feet softly hitting the wood. My flip-flops slap the deck. It’s then that I notice he’s wearing flip-flops as well. The idea of it makes him seem a little less rock star and a bit more real to me. Not that I’m impressed by rock stars. I’ve been surrounded by them my entire life.

“I didn’t mean…” He stops. “I’m sorry. For you as well, you know.”

“Why are you sorry for me?”

He shifts to peer at me, keeping his eyes on my face. “You lost Cash as well.”

I swallow before I answer because it’s going to sound crass and careless. “I didn’t really know Cash. I mean, we were together. But not together-together. That is we…but…I don’t think I’m making sense.”

Gage reaches for my forearm, the touch warm and sympathetic. “I get it. He liked you, you know.”

The words don’t fit, and I chuckle without humor. Sure, he liked me. He liked my body. But Cash Bennett knew nothing about me. It was the way we wanted it, and the thought makes me sad.

“I don’t think like was the right word but thank you.”

Silence falls around us again, but within a few feet, he speaks again.

“Can I ask you something?”

Oh, no. “Sure.”

“Do you remember…I mean…do you ever think about…?” His hands rub up and down his thighs as he asks.

“I try not to dwell on the past.” I don’t know where the words come from, and the formal tone makes me sound haughty, but I don’t want to admit I have thought about that day. The timing of everything was just off for me, and I can’t turn back. My mother needed me. Or maybe I needed her. Gage goes silent, and I decide to give him something. A little piece of me won’t hurt.

“I’d just learned the cancer was back, and I was so pissed off a tabloid told me instead of my own family. I was hell-bent on confronting my uncle because my mother wasn’t answering my calls at first...” I pause and turn to him, forcing us to stop walking. “And then we collided.” I sigh. “I took advantage of you on that day, and I’m sorry.”

His dark eyes appear darker with the backdrop of shrubs behind him. A reflecting spark hits them from the stage lights behind me up near the pool of this new resort. His hand reaches for my cheek, cupping my jaw like my face is fragile.

“I have no regrets, Ivy, other than not seeing you again.”

The sentiment sends a strange ripple through my body. Like the flutters I get right before an orgasm, which have been all self-induced because I’ve never had one with someone else. My skin goosepimples, and I shiver. I overreact to everything because of the pregnancy.

His warm palm lingers, his thumb stroking my cheekbone, and it feels nice. He’s nice. He’s trying to make me feel better about Cash and about what we did when he doesn’t need to do either. We stare at each other a moment, the gleam in his eyes undressing me, unraveling me.

Can he see into my heart? Does he know my secret?

Abruptly, I pull back, releasing my face from his welcome touch and his eyes from their probing gaze.

“We should head back. It’s getting late.” I sound like a ninety-year-old ninny. Getting late? It’s probably not even nine, but I can’t be out here with him. I can’t be alone with him. There’s a pull I don’t recognize. It’s just pregnancy hormones, I tell myself.

I turn and begin walking a little faster than our original pace. Gage catches up to me instantly and grips my upper arm.

“Hey, I’m sorry if I offended you. I don’t know what I said, but I’m sorry, okay?”

The wrap of his fingers around my bicep stops me from walking, and I’m caught up in his eyes once again.

“You didn’t say anything,” I tell him, not recognizing the shake in my voice. Are those tears burning my eyes again? I cannot cry in front of him. I don’t even have a reason for crying. “No regrets, right?”

He drops his hand from my arm and rolls his head back slowly. It’s not a flinch but a motion of resolve. He doesn’t like what I said, but he’ll keep his thoughts to himself. He turns his body, slips his hands into his jeans’ pockets, and takes one giant step to the side. He tips his head for me to follow him, and we walk back in relative silence.

He comments on how he’s never been to Hawaii. He tells me how he hopes to see whales and swim with sea turtles. His plans to go parasailing.