AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No,” replies Grey, “but your friend could have drowned today.”
“Stop!” I bark.
“I’d keep that in mind before letting her go out there on her own like that.”
“Hey, she was asleep!” I retort. “It had nothing to do with her!”
I look up to see Rami’s expression riddled with shock and concern as she meets Grey’s before he finally turns to walk back to his rental.
“You know,” I shout and upon stopping in his tracks for a few seconds, he finally deems me worthy of turning around. “I would have thanked you if you hadn’t behaved like such a prick when you came out of the water.”
His body tenses, his eyes aflame in the moody morning light.
“You’ll be thanking me some other time, Indigo,” he rasps. “Thoroughly.”
I conceal a gasp at his words which leave me burning in irritation… and something else.
As I trudge up the stairs, I find Rami cocking an eyebrow and planting her hand on her hip. “What was that? What the fuck happened?”
“I got caught in a rip,” I groan with a sigh. “He had to pull me out. Or hethinkshe did. I would have gotten out just fine without him,” I add, willing myself to believe it.
In reality, by the fourth time I’d gone under, I was starting to panic, panic my nervous system really didn’t need today.
“I told you I’d seen one yesterday,” she shoots back, throwing a towel at me, which I wrap around my dripping body.
“I know,” I sputter. “I just… didn’t pay attention.”
“And the asshole just happened to be watching?” she asks, cynicism dripping from the words.
“So he says,” I shrug.
Rami’s never been into the dominants of the male species. A man like Grey is practically her kryptonite. Frankly, after what I've been through this year, he should be mine too.
She eyes me in that far-too-insightful way of hers. Her training as a marine seems to make that woman go about life with extraterrestrial Spidey senses.
“What’s going on with you?” she asks, sitting at the table on the deck, plunging her spoon into a bowl of cereal waiting for her before pouring in some milk from a small white jug.
I glance at my phone still languishing on the table, my heart starting to race as I wonder if more texts assaulted it while I was in the water.
“What do you mean?” I say, sitting down opposite her, letting the early morning sun peeking through the clouds heat my icy skin as I pour myself a glass of orange juice from a jug Rami must have brought out. The sweet, sour liquid erases the taste of salt still lingering on my tongue.
“With you,” she says. “You’ve been weird since we got here.”
My fingers fiddle with my phone as I keep my eyes on the wet tips of her short black hair that caress her tanned skin as she shovels in a mouthful of cereal.
I've really been trying to look as upbeat as possible, but Rami’s impossible to conceal things from. She’s sharp as a tack and knows me way too well. I just don’t want to ruin her vacation by going on and on about him.
I would sayNothing, but she’ll just cock an eyebrow at me and threaten to spank it out of me.
“My mom,” I say after a moment. Well, it ispartlyher.
Steeling myself to look at my messages, I notice another five have come in, two from one anonymous number and three from another. Apparently, Micah has roped more than one person into his twisted little game.
I ignore them, scrolling to the messages my mother has sent me these last few days, clearly caught in the whirlwind insanity of narcissistic rage that comes from someone, in this case me, daring to reject her.
While she isn’t the primary source of my anxiety, her particular brand of venomous poison never ceases to leave me shaken, my mind consumed by her heinous words for hours some days.
I hand my phone to Rami who crunches down on some cereal, taking a sip of tea before beginning to read.
