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What’s best isn’t living with an abusive man. But I still don’t know the full situation. I risk another question. “So remarrying didn’t make her happier?”
Another question. A risky one. “Does he hurt your mom?”
Her body stiffens. She pulls out of my embrace, out where I can’t protect her, and walks forward until the water envelops her feet. The wind has stopped and the waves are calm, so I can hear her again without looking at the phone.
I move closer, hands caught between making fists and needing to comfort her. “That’s not how anyone deserves to be treated.”
“It doesn’t sound like she’s taking care of you. They’re both abusing you, Paige.” What mother sits back and watches while her daughter gets hurt? The thought sickens me to my core. I let my hands make fists. I squeeze and squeeze and squeeze.
My knuckles turn white. “It’s emotional abuse. Does she try to stop him? Why do you stay with them? You don’t deserve to be treated like that. Ever. Stop putting up with it. If it’s a money issue, I told you, stay with me. You don’t have to worry about rent. I’ll never mistreat you, and you’ll have Amber there, too. She’s loves having you live with us. So do I.”
Paige steps farther into the water so it covers her calves. She turns to face me and then pulls the black dress over her head. She’s wearing a bra today that matches her red lace panties. She hands me the dress and her phone.
The dying sun tints her skin a warm orange and highlights the edge of her hair so it burns a brilliant cinnamon-brown. She’s heavenly. And completely out of my reach, no matter how much I strain to touch her. I can only touch if she wants me to.
I return to the table to shoo the seagulls that found our burritos. After dropping her dress and phone on a chair, I take off my shirt, jeans, and shoes. I return to the water’s edge in my briefs. She smiles that radiant smile of hers and then turns to wade into the water. Her head dips below the surface, two carnations floating where she once was.
“I love you,” I say before going into the ocean to find her.
Chapter Eighteen
Paige
THE OCEAN IS TEPID AND peaceful and an all-encompassing gray. Brody and I swim and make out and bob in the water until the tips of my fingers are raisins and until he forgets all about those probing questions.
We zoop back to the table and our pecked-apart burritos. I shiver as the air cools my wet skin. The next moment, a towel and Brody’s arms are around me. What didn’t he think of for our date?
“I considered skinny dipping,” he says, “but swimming in our underwear was close enough. Next time, I’ll do more than just finger you in the ocean.”
I wipe my body with the towel before dressing. My bra and panties are still wet and soggy, so I stealthily take them off, slipping them from under my dress.
Brody watches me and then shakes his head while stuffing himself in jeans. “Now I have to think about how naked you are under that dress.”
“Easy access.”
He moves closer, the front of his solid body warming my shivering skin. He trails his fingers from my knee to the very top of my inner thigh. I suck in a slow breath as his thumb grazes my crease.
“Easy access,” he repeats. “Without underwear, you’re only covered in one layer instead of two, and the bottom of your dress is very open. It’s sexy.”
He laughs and shakes his head again.
After he packs the date supplies, carries the table and chairs to the car, then returns to carry me to the car, we stand next to each other in the parking lot to watch a group of people start an illegal bonfire on the beach.
I take his hand.
“We went to the thrift store.”
