Page 264

She's standing at the water's edge with her sandals dangling from one hand, letting the waves wash over her bare feet. Her back is to me, and she's wearing a light blue dress that moves gently around her legs whenever the breeze catches it. The humidity has made her hair curlier than ever, and a few strands keep blowing across her face. She pushes them away, only for the wind to send them straight back.

I stop a few feet away.

Beautiful doesn't fucking cut it anymore.

I've seen beautiful women before. I know what beautiful looks like. But there's something about Nora standing there, completely unaware that I'm watching her, that makes the word feel almost insulting. Maybe it's the way she tilts her face towards the last of the sunlight, or the way she seems perfectly content to stand with her feet in the water while a hundred people prepare dinner behind her.

Or maybe I'm just so far gone that I could watch this woman do absolutely nothing for the rest of my life and never get bored.

I walk towards her.

“Evenin', short stuff.”

I say it mostly because I love how much the nickname pisses her off. And pissed-off Nora is something else entirely.

She turns towards me, ready with what I'm sure is going to be an insult, but then she smiles.

Fuck.

There goes my ability to breathe normally.

Yeah. I'm so screwed.

“Evening, grumpy.”

She walks towards me, and I shove my hands into my pockets before they decide to do something stupid, like pull her into my arms or bury my face in those curls just so I can smell that damn coconut shampoo.

“God, you must be hating all this by now.” She gestures towards the gathering behind us. “All these people, parties, dinners, noise. I wouldn't mind if you didn't come sometimes, you know.”

I look at her. “You want me here?”

“Yes, I do.” She says it like it's the most obvious thing in the world. “But it must be tiring you out.”

I think about that for a moment.

She's right. It should be. A few months ago, the thought of spending days surrounded by this many people, with barely a quiet moment to myself, would have been enough to make me want to crawl out of my own skin.

But here I am, and for some reason, I'm not counting the minutes until I can escape.

I take a step towards her.

A curl has blown across her cheek, and before I can talk myself out of it, I reach up and tuck it behind her ear. My fingers linger a fraction longer than they should.

“It doesn't,” I tell her quietly.

Her eyes find mine. “What?”

“I don't hate it.”

“But you hate big crowds and noise and...”

“Nora.”

She stops talking.

I could leave it there. Probably should. But she's looking at me with those big brown eyes, and I'm so fucking tired of pretending she doesn't have this effect on me.

“You make all the noise disappear.”