“I’m experiencing it.” I held my arms out to the sides and looked around. “Isn’t this enough?”
“No.” I wondered if Will looked at everyone the way he was looking at me.
If he had the power to make every girl feel special as soon as he met them.
He reached for me again, and I let him. I didn’t know a single thing about this boy, but something about him made me feel like I could trust him. I knew how stupid that sounded. I was in the ocean with a guy I had never met, surrounded by more people that I didn’t know, and I felt safe with him.
I felt like this moment, smiling with this boy, could somehow make me forget Beck.
I could forget the way he made me feel and the way I had given in to him without him even knowing.
Will lifted me over his shoulder and acted like he was going to jump into the water.
“No!” I screamed and laughed, and I heard others laughing from the beach.
“You sure?” he asked and I pushed against his back to raise my head.
“Yes. I’ve seen enough of the ocean. There are sharks in there.”
He gently set me back down on my feet, my blood rushing away from my head, and I knew that I still had a stupid smile on my face.
“There.” He was right in front of me, and he pushed some of my hair out of my face. “There’s the smile I wanted to see.”
“I was smiling at you earlier.” I laughed because there was a good possibility that he was insane.
“Yeah, but that one was fake.”
I couldn’t stop smiling because he was right. My thighs were covered in saltwater and sand, and small splatters of water dotted my clothes. I hadn’t felt this carefree in a long time, too long to remember, but it felt good.
It didn’t feel forced at all.
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders as a wave crashed into my calves, threatening to knock me over, and I could have sworn he smelled like the sun. He smelled like that moment when you had been out on the water all day and your skin still felt the heat of the sun. When you were tired but perfectly content.
His hair tickled my face as I breathed him in, and for a moment, I forgot. Where I was. Who I was. What I was supposed to be. I just forgot it all and let him hold on to me as he laughed around the sound of the ocean.
Then I looked up, and I saw him.
I didn’t know where he had come from. But Beck stood next to the fire with his hands in his pockets and his callous eyes on me. Had he been here all along and I just missed him?
There was no way.
I would have noticed him. He was impossible to miss.
And it was clear that he hadn’t missed me.
He didn’t hide the fact that he was staring at me, even when my gaze met his, he didn’t look away. He held my gaze, his anger hitting me as harshly as the waves, and I suddenly felt foolish in Will’s arms.
And the fact that he made me feel that way heated my blood far more than Will’s warmth ever could.
Beck Clermont hated me, that much was perfectly clear, and I didn’t give two shits why. I hated him too.
He had forced me to hate him, and he was successful.
He looked like a king standing there. All the people on the beach vying for his attention, but he didn’t move his gaze away from me. Not for one second.
I pushed away from Will, steadying myself on my feet, and I pulled my own gaze away from Beck long enough to look up at him.
“You okay?” He was still smiling, and it was so carefree and easy. It was the kind of smile that made you fall for someone. The kind of smile I should fall for.
But I couldn’t help looking back over his shoulder at Beck.
“Yeah. I’m fine.” I ran my fingers over my shorts, but Will was already looking back to where my attention kept wandering. He looked back to me, his smile faltering slightly, but I noticed.
He reached his hand out for me, and I let him pull me toward him and to the dry sand. “Let’s go get you a drink.” He put his arm over my shoulders as we walked, and I let him. He was a complete stranger, but I somehow felt safer there under his arm when I had no idea what faced me.
I avoided looking back toward Beck as we made our way over to a giant trash can that was stuck down in the sand. A keg was floating in ice, and Will let go of me as he started pouring me a cup. I didn’t dare tell him that I didn’t like beer. Instead, I gripped the plastic cup in my hand with too much force and I took a deep drink of the bitter liquid.
“It’s cheap-ass beer.” He chuckled when he saw my face. “But it does the trick.”
I nodded and wiped the edge of my mouth with the back of my hand. I didn’t really know the difference between cheap beer and expensive beer, but I knew it tasted awful.
Will was looking back toward the fire, but I was looking anywhere else. “You know Beck Clermont?”
I tensed as the name left his mouth. “Not really. Why?” It wasn’t a lie. I didn’t know anything about him. Not in any way that actually mattered.
“He’s staring at me like he wants to rip my head off.” Will chuckled and looked down at me.
I chanced a look over my shoulder, and he was right. Beck was staring Will down as if he hated him as much as he hated me. Maybe he did.
Maybe he hated everyone.
But according to Allie, that wasn’t true.
According to her, she had never seen him act
