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His mouth quirks up, his gaze downturned. His damp brown hair curtains his face, growing wavy now that it’s starting to dry. His jaw is not as scruffy as last time I saw it, but there’s still a solid layer that makes my mouth water, remembering how it felt turning my neck and chest all red.
I set my flip-flops by the door, looking around, taking it all in.
Nolan’s place is small and quaint with all of the basics you’d expect for a little villa on the beach. I knew rehab—the expensive, exclusive ones like this one—were nice, but even I’m impressed how un-clinical it all feels.
My room is basically a hotel suite, and this cottage set-up might as well be a villa in the Maldives, like the one my parents own and stay in two months out of the year.
“Is it to your liking?”
Straightening, I look over at where Nolan studies me, head cocked, fingers paused around the hem of his soaked shirt.
I swallow and shrug. “It’s nice.”
He coughs, biting back a laugh.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He shakes his head.
“No, what?” I insist, crossing my arms.
He eyes me, brows knitting together. Lip ticking up, he says. “I think I get it now.”
I huff and spread my hands. “What?”
He wets his lips and strides toward me with slow, even steps like he has all the time in the world. I try not to bristle or quiver, all my nerve-endings seeming to stand to attention.
This whole confident, take-charge, give-no-shits thing he’s got going on? Yeah, it really does it for me.
“You’re not stuck up.”
I make a face.
He comes to a stop mere inches away from me. Arching a brow, he says, “You’re defensive. And I don’t mean in a bad way. You’re just…” He tips his head to the side. “I guess I just see it now. You’re protecting yourself, that’s all. And I’m sorry I made assumptions.”
Searching his face, I feel my frown deepen.
His features pinch and he glances down, eyes darting around my chest like he’s struggling with something. “I didn’t always have the best experience with wealthy people growing up. And then, some of the people in my ex’s circle… It makes me defensive, and when I get defensive, I don’t shut down like you, I lash out.”
I blink. “Oh.”
He looks up through his lashes, meeting my gaze. “Oh?”
Nodding, I say. “I get that. And I’m…I’m sorry if I ever gave you the impression that I thought I was better than you. ‘cause I’m not.”
He stares at me for a long beat.
Then, huffing, he shakes his head and says, “You barely even know me. And yet you say that like it’s a fact.” He eyes me curiously.
I shrug.Because it is.
He’s right, though, we don’t know each other—not really.
I know why he’s here. He kind of knows how I ended up here.
Our lives are just caricatures, the moments that led us to Black Diamond exaggerated, emphasized in bold slashes, while the rest of us remains thinly sketched, practically invisible, depending on how you look at it.
Sure, he got a glimpse of the more complicated, less clear-cut parts of me earlier on the beach. The parts of me that are unexplainable—undefinable—but make me who I am at my core.
