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I was learning the skills then, how to break his hold, but Gentry was beside him. And his BMW idled at the curb behind them.
“Come on, Cade.” Gentry’s steps toward me weren’t seeking fun. “It’s almost graduation, and you owe us a night.”
They were after me.
You know it. You know when you’re prey. When a wound, when a kill is next. When it’s yours. It washed over me then, turning my thighs to Jell-O and my blood to ice.
“Hey!” Redix shouted from a distance. “Get the fuck away from her!”
That’s when our nightmare began.
And I can’t wake up from it until I end this. We’ll never be free until I do.
That’s the deal, God. I’m keeping my end. You keep yours.
I don’t see the glassy water before me, the stunning Lowcountry glimmering on the horizon. I’m stuck in that hell, in that night, until I hear a deep voice.
“Cade?” It’s Silas. “You okay?”
I don’t answer him. I don’t turn around. I only shake my head.
No, I’m not okay.
“You want me to drown an asshole for you?”
He’s so sweet. It makes me huff with a slight grin. “I wish I could go back.” I talk to him and the water.
“Back to what?”
I feel his heat, how he’s standing behind me, trying to protect me.
I turn to face him. I turn to see a man so much like Redix before it happened. The beauty of his face; Silas is a few years younger than me, but there’s an intoxicating mix to him, an innocence with wisdom that seems so promising. Any woman could start over with a man like him.
“Back to feeling love again,” I answer. “One that doesn’t hurt.”
The touch of his hand to mine; it’s gentle.
“I don’t think love is supposed to hurt.”
“It does,” I reply, “when you can’t have the one you want.”
That softens his face like I shared his truth too.
He holds his arms open, and I take his embrace. I need it. I need it so much; he smells so fresh, like coconut and sex. His bare chest presses against mine, and there’s no history, no pain with him, only perfection.
Can I do this? Do I really want this freedom? To let go of Redix? Forever?
I close my eyes and see Redix lying beside me on the sofa, tickling his fingertip over my bottom lip, “my Candy Cade,” with his smile adoring me.
I can’t hate him or blame him. I know how much he loves me. He proved it.
I whisper into Silas’s flesh. “Can you get me outta here, please?”
It hurts too much. I can’t talk on the ride home. Or when Silas pulls his boat away. Or when Jameson and Scarlett hold hands up the dock ramp, waving goodbye.
I get a text before I jump into my car.
SILAS
