His cocky smirk sends butterflies to my stomach. You would think after all the things he did to me last night, that a simple smile wouldn’t affect me like this, but it does.
“What idea do you have of me in your head?” he says, fixing a flyaway hair of mine. I know my hair has got to be one giant knot after rolling around in the sand all night. When I take a shower later I’m sure I’ll find a significant amount of sand swirling the drain from our time spent together.
I playfully bite my lip, thinking of all the assumptions I’ve made about the man in front of me. “Well for starters,” I begin, running a finger over his chest. I’m still in shock that I had free reign to explore his chiseled muscles all of last night. “You don’t seem like the apologetic type.”
His eyes narrow. “Is this your way of calling me a dick?”
“If the shoe fits,” I sing-song.
He swats my hand from him. “If I had feelings, they’d be hurt.”
I look up at him from between my lashes. “That’s another idea I have about you. I think you work really hard at coming off that you don’t have feelings but…”
“But what?” he asks gruffly.
“But I think that this,” I bop the place on his chest his heart hides behind, “feels more than you want it too. And the way you watched that couple last night, I think maybe it’s been hurt recently.”
His fingers wrap tightly around my wrist. “You’re too observant, you know that?”
I shrug. “I’m told that often.”
His shoulders fall as he lets out a long sigh. “I’ve got to get to work. So many fun meetings planned for the day.”
Nodding, I take a step back away from him. Not wanting to, but having to, I pull each one of my arms from his shirt. He watches me carefully, making my skin flush. I learned last night how attentive he really was, and I still feel that same attention to detail now.
The fabric bunches in my hand as I hand it over to him. He gracefully pulls it from my hand, shrugging it on.
His fingers are working quickly at fastening all of the buttons when I look down to search for my bikini top. It still rests in the same spot Holden threw it last night. The fabric is still slightly damp as I place it on myself, covering my breasts completely for the first time since he stripped me out of this hours ago.
I’m busy trying to tie the knot at my neck when he steps up behind me. He takes the two strings from my fingers. Holden takes his time securing both knots.
“What a pity to have you covered up again,” he says to my back.
I look over my shoulder at him, trying to hide my blush. My entire body is spent, yet I still ache to attack him with kisses. To pull him down to the sand with me and have one final time with him.
My eyes rake over his body, bummed that he’s now fully clothed in his shirt and shorts from last night. “It’s a shame to have you covered up as well.”
Taking a few steps across the beach, he picks up both of our shoes and my jean shorts. Walking back to me, he hands me my shorts. I step into them as he slides each one of his loafers on.
For a moment, we just stare at one another. I can feel the morning sun on my back, making it even more obvious that the night is over and a new day has begun.
“Well,” I begin, looking down at my toes in the sand.
He tucks a finger under my chin, raising my head to look at him. “I needed last night,” he says, catching me off guard.
“You did?”
He nods. “I did. So thank you, Maisie. Never would I have thought that a woman accusing me of planning a murder would lead to something I didn’t know I needed, being exactly what I needed.”
I try to slow my racing heart. His admission can’t get my heart beating the way it is. We’re moments away from a goodbye, and I need my heart to be prepared for that.
“I needed it, too,” I answer honestly.
Lately, it feels like my life has been all planned out for me. I’ve felt more like a spectator in my own life instead of the person in the lead. Last night, going up to Holden and being confident enough to ask him out to this private little cove—our cove now—was unlike me, but it was something that gave me power in making my own decisions once again.
Even though he towers over me, he lowers his head so it presses against my forehead. “I fucking hate goodbyes,” he says with a sad laugh.
I smile. “So we won’t say it.”
His eyebrows bunch together on his forehead. “We won’t?”
“Nope. We won’t.”
“How does this work then Maisie?” he asks.
I pull away from him slightly so I can look into his hazel eyes. “I’ve always been weirdly into fate and thinking things happen for a reason. And Holden,” I say his name dramatically because I don’t know his last name but I want to emphasize that I’m talking to him, “I refuse to believe we didn’t meet for some specific reason. So I’m also going to believe, that one day, we’ll meet again.”
“You think so?” And I don’t want to get my hopes up too high, but I may hear a hint of hopefulness in his tone.
“I do. Maybe somewhere random, maybe right here on this cove or at this resort. I don’t know where. But I believe that life will bring us together again. And then…”
“Then?”
“Then we won’t have to say goodbye or promise one summer night. We’ll both be in a place that instead of saying one night, we could be saying what if.”
“What if,” he repeats, testing out how the words feel falling from his lips.
“What if,” I confirm. Not needing anymore words from him, I grab his neck and pull him into me.
The kiss is everything. It’s partly a goodbye, even if we won’t say the word ourselves, but it’s also the hope of a what if.
As I taste myself on his tongue, I’m confident that this one summer night has the possibility to bloom into something else eventually.
So as the sun beats down on us, reminding us that our time for the night is up, I don’t feel sad. I feel hopeful. I had the best night of my life in the company of a stranger. We made this little cove ours for the night. With the help of the summer heat, a lake and a full moon, we got to know each other through our bodies instead of through words.
It was perfect, it was everything.
We walk hand in hand for as long as possible. When we stop in front of the clearing that will take us to the public area of the resort, our hands fall away from one another. We share one last kiss, but we don’t share a goodbye.
Holden looks at me one last time before he goes his own way, that same cocky smile on his face. “What if,” he says with a wink.
“What if,” I repeat, content with our own little version of goodbye.
And then he disappears, leaving me alone, with only the memories of our summer night.
What if.
Until next time.