“No. I kind of like the idea of you wearing it. As long as it isn’t all messed up from the river.” He grimaced. “Is it gross?”
“No.” I laughed. “It’s surprisingly not gross, though the white parts aren’t exactly as bright as they once may have been. But anything else you had in there must have been destroyed, because that’s all that came back.”
“Did you ever get your purse?”
I nodded. “It showed up a month after your bag. I think having my ID in there helped.”
“I would guess so.” He looked back to the book, but his highlighter hovered over the page without moving. “Are you still afraid of flying?” he asked softly. “I’ve always wondered if the crash . . .”
“Screwed me up even more?” I offered, highlighting a particularly racy line.
“I wasn’t going to put it that way, but now that you mention it . . .” He shot me an apologetic look.
“I didn’t fly for eighteen months,” I admitted, skimming the next chapter to get to my favorite parts. “It took a lot of therapy. For that and the nightmares.” A chill tried its best to work its way up my spine despite the climbing heat. “But I have coping mechanisms for both now.”
“Coping mechanisms?”
“Well, yeah. It’s not like I can actually control the panic attacks. We were actually in a plane crash. And sure, we got the best of a worst-case scenario, but I’ll never be able to tell myself that the likelihood is next to zero again, because now the fear is grounded.” My eyes narrowed. “You never had an issue flying after what happened?”
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I was put on the next flight out of Saint Louis, so I just . . .” His throat worked as he swallowed. “Flew. I told myself that if the universe wanted me to die in a plane crash, I would have. I understand the nightmares, though. I do the whole ‘You aren’t there anymore; you’re home’ affirmations thing I saw on some therapist’s YouTube.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Some therapist’s YouTube?”
“Having your file marked up by a shrink isn’t exactly good in my line of work.” He highlighted another line and kept going. “I do what I have to in the moment and then I move on. Like you said,” he said, looking over at me. “Coping mechanism, I guess.”
“Is there anything you’re scared of? There has to be something, right?”
“Sure. Becoming anything like my father.” He reached to the right and pulled something out of his backpack. “Gum?”
“No, thanks.” Guess that topic wasn’t up for discussion.
He popped a piece in his mouth, and we spent another hour just like that, swinging on the beach, marking up our favorite books for each other.
By the time we finished, the sun was high in the sky and my skin was sticky with sweat. “Want to get in?” I asked him, nodding toward the beach.
“Sounds good to me.” We put the books in his backpack and walked toward the water, picking out a spot far from anyone else. He pulled out two towels from his bag, and I lifted my brows. “It’s the last of what has to be packed,” he said in answer to my unspoken question.
Then we stripped down. For me, it was a simple matter of shimmying out of my jean shorts and kicking off my sandals.
I tried to keep my eyes off his body as he pulled his shirt over his head. I failed. Miserably. But in my defense, Nathaniel Phelan had been created to be looked at, to be admired, to be flat out drooled over.
His stomach was cut out of an Abercrombie ad, roped with muscles that rippled and flexed, and the diagonal ridges that led to his board shorts had my mouth watering to trace those lines with my tongue. His chest was built, his arms strong, and every inch of his skin that I could see was tanned to a touchable bronze.
“You ready?” he asked, satisfaction curving my smile when he did a double take at me in my bikini. I wasn’t in his level of shape—I had curves that spoke to just how much time I’d spent studying this year—but the way his eyes heated made me feel . . . beautiful.
I took off his hat and shook out my hair. “Ready.”
We walked into the water, and I gasped as the first cold wave hit my sun-warmed stomach.
Nate laughed, then submerged completely with the confidence of someone who did this way more often than I did. When he stood, the water reached the elastic of his board shorts, and I stared, transfixed, as the water sluiced off him.
Then I blinked and stepped closer, my hand rising but not touching the silver lines that had almost faded into the upper ridges of his abs. “What happened?”
His jaw flexed, but then he quickly smiled. “I ruptured my spleen in Afghanistan last tour. Now we have matching scars.”
My gaze widened by the second as waves pushed by us. “Plane crash?” I tried to joke.
“IED.”
Suddenly my body was as cold as the water around us. “You were blown up?”
“The vehicle I was in was blown up.” He reached out, tucking my hair behind my ears with cool fingertips. “Don’t look at me like that, Izzy.”
“Like what?” It was barely a whisper as the next wave hit me a little higher. “Like I’m worried?”
“My mom worries enough for every other person on the planet. You don’t have to. I’m fine. See?” He put his arms out and turned slowly, but I didn’t savor the sight of his bare back and torso like I had just a few minutes ago. Now I saw every place he could be hurt. Every vulnerable inch.
“Do you like it?” I asked when he faced me again. “What you do?”
“I’m good at it.” He shrugged.
“That’s not the same thing.”
“Says the woman who doesn’t seem too excited to be starting Georgetown at twenty-one years old.” He lifted a dark brow.
“No one’s trying to kill me,” I blurted.
“Which is why I don’t mind what I do.” He moved closer, his hand palming my waist to steady me when a bigger wave threatened to take me back to shore. “If no one’s trying to kill you here, then that means I’m doing my job over there. That’s how I choose to look at it, how I have to look at it.”
“And is that your dream?”
“I don’t follow.” His fingers flexed, and I fought to keep from leaning into his touch.
“Is this what you’re going to do for the rest of your life? Is this your career?” Say no. Say that you’re out after three years like you said on the plane.
“I’m really good at it, Iz,” he said softly. “I’m already a ranger. I’ll probably look at Special Forces selection once we get back. My friend Torres is a legacy—his dad was Delta, and I told him I’d think about going through the process with him.”
If he comes back.
“You going to tell me why you’re not wandering around with a megawatt smile over getting into Georgetown Law?” He changed subjects, and I got the point.
“It wasn’t my dream, that’s all.” Stepping back, I sank beneath the water, letting the power of the insistent waves remind me just how small we both were in relation to the world around us. Then I stood and pushed my hair out of my eyes.
“Whose dream was it?” His brow knit as we waded deeper, the water resting just beneath my breasts between waves.