Page 67 of Take Her On

The ring of truth in her statement sounded sharp in the quiet, cool air around them.

“I thought whenever things got too much, it…helped,” she went on. “I don’t think it really did, though. It just made things worse.”

“What did you want to forget?” Jamie asked quietly.

“Everything.” Maya stopped eating her chips and propped the half-full cone between her legs. “Grandpa, my mother, this feeling that life is just constantly running away from me.” She swallowed. “Carly.”

That was the girl Leah had mentioned. Hearing another woman’s name leave Maya’s lips made Jamie’s heart plummet. But Maya didn’t open up often, and she wanted to be there for her. She reached her hand out to graze hers. “You wanna tell me about her?”

“She was my best friend. I thought we had something, but I don’t think she ever felt the same. It’s different now… Honestly, I think we just outgrew each other.”

Hearing Maya admit things were over with the pretty blonde electrified her, and she nodded, relief coating her head-to-toe. Jamie tried her hardest to swallow the smile threatening to stretch across her face. “It happens. It sucks, but yeah, it happens.”

Maya hummed, traced her fingers over Jamie’s skin. “What about you?” she asked. “What do you want to forget?”

Jamie should’ve been expecting the question to come back at her, but hearing the words came as a shock. She wanted to open up about what a terrible year she’d had, and why she’d left the Harriers, but finding the place to start was difficult. Jamie had tried, she really had, but Maya had so much going on with her own family, it felt wrong to bombard her with her own problems. The words just wouldn’t come out.

But Maya had been honest with her, and she wanted to return the favour. She owed her that and doubted she was going to get a better opportunity than the present. She chewed her lip and let out a short sigh. “Well—”

A blur of white bombed them from the sky, and they both screamed. Chips flew into the air, and a high-pitched squawk ripped through Jamie’s eardrums.

“What the fuck?”

They ducked, feathers and potatoes at war, until the seagull screeched, carrying away its cone prize onto the pier.

They both looked on with astonishment, as the reality of being robbed by a seagull settled in. Then they erupted in laughter, falling back on the blanket. Sand had got everywhere. In Jamie’s hair, her shoes, even her mouth, but she didn’t care. She lay on the blanket, and Maya joined her; her belly ached as the two of them tried to regain their breath.

It had been a perfect day. The idea of this trip had been for them both to get away from their problems for a while—to forget. She could hardly put a dampener on it now, could she?

Then she had an idea. The perfect way to get your brain to forget everything. She jumped up, sprinkling more sand everywhere. “Come on,” she announced.

Maya frowned. “What? No. I don’t want to go yet.”

“No, not that.” A grin pulled at her mouth. “Time to go swimming.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Jamie bent to rummage in her rucksack and pulled out two blue-striped towels. She tugged Maya up by the hand, her grin getting wider. “Come on, Skip. You know how good cold-water immersion is for the body. I quizzed you on it earlier. Increased blood flow and decreased metabolic activity—plus all the endorphins.”

“That might be true, but diving into a freezing cold English sea does not sound appealing right now.” Despite her reservations, she let Jamie pull her down the beach. “I haven’t got anything to swim in.”

Jamie just raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t either.”

Maya’s mouth quirked.

“I thought that might get your attention.”

Maya cursed as they got closer to the waves, the sand dampening under foot. They paused at the water’s edge, robbing seagulls circling above, taunting them. She let out a groan, but that only encouraged Jamie more.

She dropped Maya’s hand to pull her jumper and T-shirt over her head. A quick glance around confirmed the seafront was empty, save for a few faceless silhouettes in the distance, but that did little to calm her thundering heart. It wasn’t the first time she’d skinny-dipped, but doing it with Maya was a whole different type of thrill.

Her eyes met Maya’s in a challenge. “Come on, Skip. Don’t tell me you’re scared?”

Maya’s eyes narrowed, and she huffed out a sigh. “Fuck it.” She unzipped her coat, then removed her jumper and T-shirt. The wind chill immediately nipped at her skin, rippling goosebumps everywhere. Jamie’s belly fluttered. Her eyes were drawn to Maya’s perfect stomach, then her nipples as they pushed through the fabric of her bra.

“And the rest,” she said, raising her eyebrows.

“You too.”