Tomorrow wasn't better. It sucked. Again. I was so far out of the zone, I might as well have been in outer space. I was mad at my dad. I was mad at myself. I was disappointed in Jamie for not answering my texts. I understood he was upset, and he had a right to be. He didn't have the right to ignore me.
While taking a shower after practice, I'd decided it was time to take matters into my own hands. What irritated me the most was that I'd thought Jamie and I were in this together. But one talk with my dad had sent him running. Well, I wouldn't let him. I would sit in this very spot where we'd shared a picnic behind his house and wait for him. I'd wait all night if I had to.
I'd expected Jamie to come striding out of the surf—his place of refuge. Didn't matter if he was happy or sad or angry, all things led to the Deep for Jamie, the one place I couldn't go.
When he finally showed up, he was running up the beach, the sun setting at his back. His quadriceps bunched with every long stride as he tracked over the sand, his jaw set and eyes hard with concentration. I'd seen that look so many times over the last few months, the look he got when he was determined to prove something.
His head jerked up when he spotted me and he slowed to a walk, putting his hands on his lean hips without a single tell in his expression. Was he happy to see me? Was he mad? Either way, I had to resist the urge to run and throw my arms around his neck and bury my face in his chest. He stopped before he reached me and turned to face the Gulf, breathing deeply, sweat glistening over his bare chest and back.
"Jamie," I said, pushing to my feet. A wave of guilt overcame me. I blamed myself for this mess with one thought, and prepared to fight for him with the next. I walked toward him, wary, as though I were approaching an injured or captured animal and didn't want to spook him.
A trickle of sweat dangled on the end of his nose. He didn't smell like the guys at school after P.E. Even hot and sweaty, all I wanted was to snuggle up to him. And when he finally fixed his troubled green eyes on me, all my trepidation evaporated on the slight breeze. He looked about as miserable as I felt, and I was afraid there wasn't anything I could say or do to change that. Why did this suddenly feel so impossible?
"Erin, you shouldn't be here."
"Why? What's changed?" I grabbed his wrist and attempted to tug him around to face me. He didn't budge, holding himself deliberately aloof, shutting me out. "Why won't you answer my texts? Two days ago you said you couldn't stay away from me and now you won't even answer a text?"
And still he didn't say a word. Time passed with only the sound of the waves splashing on the shore and the thud of my heart. Why wouldn't he say anything?
"I'm sorry," I said. "This is all my fault."
"No, it's mine." He turned his head toward me, eyes set in defeat as they searched my face as though he were committing it to memory. "I knew better, and..."
"And what?" I asked, afraid, so afraid this was it.
"It doesn't matter," he said, dropping his gaze. "Maybe your dad will cool off in a few weeks, but until then..."
"What?"
"I have to respect the suspension. And you're part of it." He took a deep, shuddering breath and looked up. "Maybe we aren't such a good idea right now."
"You don't think we're a good idea?" I parroted, confused. "I thought we'd decided to stick together. Convince my dad together. I'm sorry you were suspended from the team. I really am. But he'll come around."
"It's not that simple. If this were just about the suspension, I could live with that. I don't need permission from Marshall to be what I am. I don't need his approval."
But that was a lie. I'd seen him work his ass off to get my dad's approval, and the approval of his teammates. And now he'd lost it because of me.
"I won't come between you," he continued. "We aren't worth coming between you and your dad. I won't do that."
I wondered for a second whether I'd heard him right. And damn if my eyes didn't sting with tears, and then it was I who was searching the Gulf water, thinking how amazing it would be to escape into its endlessness.
"Don't cry," he said, sounding even more miserable, something I hadn't thought possible. This wasn't how I wanted our talk to go down. He was supposed to have been so happy to see me after our two days apart that he'd run to me, and take me in his arms and promise never to let anything come between us again.
"Why do you get to decide this?" I wiped at my face. "Why don't I get a say?"
"Because I don't think you understand what's at stake for you. My dad's gone. Every day I wish he weren't. I'm not letting you risk your relationship with your dad over us. It's too important."
"Little late to be thinking about that now," I said, even though I knew deep down he was right. I hadn't really thought my dad would suspend Jamie. I'd believed I'd be able to talk him out of it.
"I know it is and I'm sorry. But I already told you I would wait." His lips lilted on a smile and it was like a string tied to my heart. "I don't see that changing anytime soon."
"So this is it? We just go back to being friends?"
He snorted. "I'm not sure that's possible."
"Then what? You keep ignoring me?"
He took my hand and lifted it to his lips, kissing the backs of my fingers one by one.
"I won't. I can't. I've been forcing myself to stay land side afraid if I got in the water, I'd head straight to your house." He tucked my hand tightly in his, holding it to his chest. "So let's agree to dial it back for a few weeks."
A few weeks sounded like forever. But maybe it wouldn't be so bad. The volleyball tournament was coming up. I'd be busy with practice and school anyway.
And he'd promised to wait.
"Okay," I conceded. It had only been a few days, and already I hated the tension riding the air in my house when my dad and I were in the same room. Not talking. Both being stubborn. I loved Jamie, of that I was sure, but I loved my dad too, and I wondered how, at only sixteen, love had already grown so complicated, when I'd always thought when it finally happened, it would be so easy.
"Come on. I'll walk you to your car." He led me from the beach and straight for my Tahoe as though he couldn't get rid of me fast enough. But I felt his dread as he tightened his hand around mine. He wasn't ready to let me go either, and that made leaving a little easier to bear.
He reached around me to open the door, but before I climbed inside, I peered into his face and the words slipped out before I could stop them. But I wouldn't have wanted to stop them anyway, just in case he didn't wait.
"I love you."
"Erin." He pulled me into this chest, and I buried my nose there, my arms tight around his waist. What kind of loser tells the man who wants to take it easy for a few weeks that she loves him for the first time?
A pathetic one. A desperate one.
But I didn't feel desperate in his arms. I didn't feel pathetic. He made me feel as if I were so much more than I was.
"Please tell me you'll still feel this way in a few weeks," he said, pressing his mouth in my hair, gently cupping the back of my head.
"I will always feel this way," I said, and just as his face started to descend toward mine in a kiss I thought would never come, a truck pulled into the driveway, the headlights cutting over us in a swath of blinding light.
Donovan. He stared at us through the windshield for a few seconds, then slowly opened the door and hopped out. Jamie stepped away from me as Donovan's eyes bounced between the two of us.
"I heard about the suspension," he said, his tone cautious, a hardness growing in his eyes as he accurately took in the situation. "Marshall was pretty tight-lipped about the reason for it. And I can see why."
"Donovan, it's not like that," Jamie said. "We—"
Donovan hauled off and punched him. I supposed Jamie could have easily deflected it, but he knew Donovan needed to get his frustration out. A fresh trickle of blood sprouted on Jamie's lip.
"I deserved that," he said, swiping at his lip with the back of his hand. He stared at the smear of blood on his skin.
"No, you didn't," I said, jumping between them, which was kind of like jumping between a boulder and a mountain. "What's wrong with you, Donovan? You want to hit somebody? Hit me."
Donovan pretty much ignored me, pushing me out of the way so he could get all up in Jamie's face. He shoved him with both hands and Jamie stumbled backward. "I went to bat for you, man. I argued with my CO. I should have known."
"Sorry, man," Jamie said, the dejection in his voice cutting my heart. I'd done this. Cost him the team. Cost him the respect he'd worked so hard to earn from the men who might see him as less.
"This is what? The second time? You're not that special," Donovan sneered in disappointment. Then he pointed his finger at me, spit flying off his lips. "I told you not to screw this up for him."
"It's not her fault," Jamie said, eyes sparking with renewed energy. He wouldn't stick up for himself, but clearly, he would for me.
"Yeah, whatever, Native," Donovan said dismissively, throwing a backward wave over his shoulder as if he'd had enough of us. He climbed into his truck, and without another look at us peeled out of the driveway, his tires squealing.
My dad had been right. The guys were pissed, and I knew Donovan was just the beginning. Watching the taillights of his truck disappear at the end of the road, all I felt was guilty. Jamie had said he'd give up the team for me, but that wasn't right. The team meant a lot to him and I'd known that.
This is what you do.
You stick up for your teammates. You watch their back. You make them better. You don't compromise the integrity of the team, the integrity of the relationships, and now I'd gone and screwed them all up. My team. His team.
Because I loved a man.