AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Can I have you for dessert?” Tommy asked.
“Always, hotcakes,” Ana said.
“Hotcakes?” I asked.
“Oh, breakfast got real fun this morning,” she said.
“Yikes, yikes. No, no. I’m okay. I promise. No more, please,” I said.
The four of us got out of the water and tried our best to dress ourselves. We hadn’t been prepared for the impromptu swimming session, so none of us had a towel. We made our way back toward the port and found a couple of open beach showers to wash off at, then, we made our way into the first restaurant we came upon.
We had more of the island to explore together, but that could wait until after we’d all eaten.
CHAPTER 24
RHETT
After a fun day of exploring Aruba and getting into trouble in all the shops for being too loud, we made our way back to the ship. Our next stop was Miami on Monday morning, which meant two more days at sea until we returned home. While it would be good to get home and figure out what the hell I was going to do with the rest of my life, I wasn’t sure I was ready to leave yet. I had been walking down memory lane for the entire fucking cruise, and I enjoyed what I remembered. I enjoyed reminding myself of how good things had been between Chanel and me. I was enjoying reminding my body of how she felt. I was enjoying her sounds and her tastes and her face screwed up with pleasure.
I wasn’t ready to leave all of that behind again.
Every time I looked over at Chanel, my heart skipped a beat. As much as I tried to hold her away from me, I couldn’t. I was falling in love with her all over again, but not in the way I had loved her in high school. That was a foolish boy sort of love, the kind of love that happened even though someone was still at arm’s length. I had loved her in high school. I’d cherished her in high school. I’d taken her body for a spin the only way a high school boy knew how to, but that wasn’t what I felt now.
What I felt was stronger, more permanent. Grown up.
I could see a future with her. I could see me standing by her side as she accepted awards for her writing. I could see myself coaching her through things, helping her achieve the dreams she had always wanted. I could see that talking her through her time management issues on the beach had opened that world up to me and shown me how easy it was for her to receive that information from me and how effortless it was for me to give it to her. I wanted to do that for her and to be her support and her guidance as she traveled down her own road of success.
I was walking in unfamiliar territory without my guns or my armor, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t enjoy traversing foreign terrain without something to guard me against an attack. But I had no guard for this. I had no guard for falling in love with a woman I had kept at the back of my mind for years. All I knew was that I wanted to be with her as much as I could before this cruise ended. Because once it was done, I was scared to death that she was going to walk away.
She still deserved better than me. Sure, I had grown up a lot and had accomplishments in my own right, but I was still nowhere near good enough for the likes of Chanel.
No one ever would be.
I also wanted to fix what had happened in the past. Walking down memory lane had brought up a lot of hard memories, and when that idiotic woman had appeared in the elevator the other day, it only cemented what I had feared for years.
Chanel had held onto her heartbreak for as long as I’d held onto mine.
I couldn’t blame her, but I also couldn’t leave things like that. I wanted to fix it, make amends, and erase the hurt from our past. Even if I had to walk away from her, even if I had to watch her leave after this cruise, I would rather do it on a positive note than a negative one. I didn’t know how to make that happen, though. I didn't know what it would take.
“I hope Ana wears something tight for dinner,” Tommy said.
“Uh-huh. I think you hope she shows up,” I said.
“Oh, she’ll show up. I’m too good for her not to,” he said.
“Uh-huh. And what if she didn’t?”
“No one stands up Tommy,” he said.
“I’m pretty sure she did at the club that night when we all went dancing and she ended up with some other dude. Also, don’t refer to yourself in the third person, it’s a total douche move.”
“Just a fluke, and she came back. They always do. Tommy’s the master, and they are slaves to my charms, even though they don’t want to admit it.”
“Dude, you seriously need to get ahold of yourself. I think you like her more than you’re letting on. You were all over her in that ocean today.”
“Did you see her tits in that bikini? Fuck, they felt so good pressed against my chest,” he said.
“So, you and Ana are a one-week thing?” I asked.
