Believing Lies (7 page)

Once we got to the beach, we found a spot in the sand near the water and laid down our towels. We stripped down to our bikinis and sprayed on sunblock. Sophie began digging through her oversized beach bag, grabbed something, and immediately put it behind her back before I could tell what it was.

“I have a present for you,” she chimed and gave me a mega-watt smile.

Intrigued, I raised one eye brow. “Uh-oh, presents from you can be dangerous . . . Okay. I’m ready. What’s my present?” I put out my hand and was rewarded with a plastic package that had a picture of a black circle inner tube designed like a car tire. “Hell yes!” I gave her a quick hug before ripping open the package. I began to blow up my tube while she unwrapped the packaging on her matching one.

Once both of our tubes were inflated, we waded into the water and sat in them, letting our legs and arms hang off the sides. It felt as if we were ten years old again. Sophie was spinning around in her tube, her head back and eyes shut, while absorbing the warmth of the golden sunrays. In that moment, I just knew everything would eventually be okay. I’d lost the man I was in love with, the man who was supposed to be my husband, and I would still be hurt for a long time, but Sophie proved to me today that my life would go on. I could experience happiness again because I had her to help me along the way. To some people, it may seem odd to rely on your cousin so much for your happiness, but we shared an unbreakable bond. Since we were little, she had always been—and would always continue to be—there for me through thick and thin. Just as I had always been—and would always be—there for her too. She meant more to me than any other person in the world.

Despite the beautiful, perfect summer weather, the beach wasn’t overly busy. There were a group of guys playing Frisbee, some teenage girls sunbathing, a few people on a blanket playing cards and drinking beer, and a handful of scattered parents watching their little kids making sand castles and splashing in the shallow water. Nobody else was in the lake past the point where you could no longer touch the bottom, providing us with the illusion of isolation.

As we floated in the cool water, our initial small talk slowly turned more serious. We came to the conclusion that it was time for me to officially move out of Trenton’s. I knew it needed to happen but was dreading it regardless. Sophie promised she would come with me, which calmed my anxiety a tad.

“You really have no choice, Sienna. You especially need your clothes. You can’t live out of my closet forever.” We both knew that was a lie. Her closet had enough clothes to outfit a small army. But I did need to get my stuff, if only to finalize the ending of our relationship. “I can ask Conner if he will help us move the boxes and your dresser,” Sophie offered. “Plus, he has a pickup truck, which would be way better than trying to just use my Jeep or your car. You don’t have any other furniture besides the dresser, right?”

“Right. Almost everything at the apartment is Trenton’s.” I contemplated her offer to ask Conner to help. “Do you think Conner would mind? I’m sure he doesn’t want to be in the middle of my drama.”

“I think he’ll be okay with helping. I’ll give him a call when we get back to shore. I told him I was taking you to the beach today, and he was happy to hear I was getting you out of your room. I know you two don’t really know each other much, but he had a similar experience in the beginning of school last year. They weren’t engaged or anything, but he loved her, and she cheated on him with another guy in his frat. He told me that when Adam transferred here, he was glad to get out of the frat house and eventually quit the fraternity completely.” She paused. “So anyway, he knows what it’s like.”

“He seems like a really nice guy. I’m sorry to hear he got shit on too.”

Sophie gave me a regretful look, which I thought had to do with our conversation about Conner, but I was wrong. She’d saved the big bomb for last. “Your mom came over yesterday.”

I winced. “And . . . ?”

“She was irate that I wouldn’t let her in the building.”

My eyes popped. “You refused to let her in? Oh my God, this is going to be bad.”

She let out a dry laugh. “Oh, it was. But I didn’t want her to fuck with you. She reprimanded me through the intercom for, and I quote, ‘being cruel and selfish enough to keep her away from her only child.’”

“She can be so dramatic.”

“Trenton apparently called her when he realized he hit a dead end with your phone being off. He tried my phone three days ago, and after a few minutes of me spewing every swear word I could think of, I hung up on him. He hasn’t tried my phone since. He must have turned to her as a last resort.” Sophie took a second before continuing. “Your mom said all men make mistakes and it’s not uncommon for men to, get this, ‘sow their oats’ before marriage.” She used finger quotes to empathize how ridiculous she found the phrase. “I don’t know where your mom gets that shit from. Long story short, I told her to get lost and said you would call her by Saturday, so you have two more days. Sorry.”

“Nothing for you to be sorry about . . . Did you really have this whole conversation through the intercom?”

“As I said, I wasn’t going to let her come up and fuck with you.”

I laughed. “You rock. You know that, right?”

“Hell yes, I do.”

My mother’s opinion of the situation stung, but I wouldn’t let myself dwell on it. Today wasn’t about negative thoughts. I’d had enough of those lately and probably would have plenty more in the days to come.

“Thanks for taking care of my mother. I’ll call her by Saturday. But first I’ll call Trenton to make arrangements to move my things out.” A ton of weight dropped from my shoulders. I could totally do this. I had to. “Enough of this craziness for now, we’re here to enjoy ourselves,” I said, then mustered a halfhearted smile. I was ready for a change of subject before the depression snuck up on me again and ruined our afternoon. “So you seem to really like Conner, huh?”

Her face glowed with happiness. “I really do.” She suddenly frowned, seemingly ashamed. “But I feel bad discussing my new relationship when you’re dealing with a breakup.”

My shoulders slumped at her admission. “Please don’t feel bad. I want you to be nothing but happy. I’m glad you met Conner.” I smiled, this time sincerely.

“Hey, sexy!” I heard a man’s voice yell from the shore.

In an instant, I was splashed with water as Sophie almost flipped over in her tube, but she righted herself just in time to stay afloat. She gasped. “No way. Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Look.” I looked where she was pointing and saw two guys standing at the edge of the water—Conner and Adam.

My stomach did an involuntary, tiny backflip at the sight of Adam. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t deny that I was entranced by the sight of him standing there in nothing but army-green swim trunks and a pair of aviator sunglasses.

My head whipped back to Sophie. Now that my eyes were no longer on the beautiful man on the beach, I was pissed. “I thought today was about you and me, not setting me up on a double date. I’m not ready for that, and you know it.” I kept my voice low enough to not make a scene.

She put her hands in the air as if I was pointing a gun at her. “I swear I didn’t know.” I peered at her skeptically. “I promise you. As I said, I told Conner we were coming here, but I never invited him to come along. I have no idea why he would even think it was a good idea to show up with Adam.” She looked truly remorseful. “I’m sorry, honey. I’ll go explain to Conner that you’re not ready for additional company yet.”

“Wait,” I huffed out. “I’ll just look weak and pathetic if you send them away now. Plus, I know you’d like to spend time with Conner. I can put on my big girl panties for the rest of today.”

“Thank you so much!” she squealed in delight. “Just let me know if it gets to be too much, and I’ll make up an excuse for us to leave. We can use a code word.” She appeared to be deep in thought for a couple of seconds. “Got it.” Her voice lowered when she said, “The code word is: Banana Hammock.”

I giggled. “I’m not even going to ask why or how you came up with Banana Hammock as the code word.” I shook my head at her. “Come on, lover girl. Let’s go get your man.” We both began to use our hands to slowly paddle our way in.

The closer I got to shore, the more the butterflies in my stomach fluttered. The sun was shining brightly behind the boys, making it hard to see clearly, but I noticed Adam’s tattoos looked incredible against the golden backdrop. I could finally see the full design on his muscled torso, and it was sexier than I had imagined. It was an intricate pattern of solid black lines and curves. Most would refer to it as a tribal tattoo, but for me, it was like an abstract piece of art painted on his skin.

Once I was in shallow enough water, I tipped to the side to get out of the tube with the intention of walking the rest of the way. What I hadn’t factored into my genius plan was the vacuum my wet butt had created in the tube. Instead of gracefully dismounting, the tube stayed attached to me. I flipped completely over, my head and legs under the water while my ass was sticking up through the middle of the black donut. I swallowed a mouthful of murky water before the inner tube finally popped free from my butt, and I came sputtering back to the surface.

Mortification would be an understatement to how I felt when I saw Adam and Conner clutching their stomachs, dying of laughter. To add insult to injury, my traitorous cousin was right next to me with her head back, laughing to the point of tears. I had two seconds to decide my next move. I went for the most “mature” route and used both of my arms to scoop under Sophie’s tube and flip her over. I burst out in laughter when the same exact thing I’d just experienced also happened to her. I no longer cared that they’d been laughing at me because once I saw Sophie’s butt upside down in the tube, there was no denying that it was absolutely hysterical. She came to the surface quickly, and I was punished with a huge splash directed at my face and a few choice words from her mouth. We both looked like drowned rats as we walked out of the water.

“Smooth moves out there, ladies,” Conner commented as he took Sophie’s tube from her and set it on the sand by his feet. He turned to me and added, “Thanks for giving me a direct look at her beautiful behind.”

I chuckled as I put down my tube and wrung the water out of my hair. “No problem. I live to serve.”

I’d almost forgotten about my own blunder, but Adam quickly reminded me. “If you wanted to show me your butt, Princess, you could have found a sexier way to do it.” He took off his sunglasses and pierced me with his gaze.
Oh wow
. I had forgotten how brown his eyes were. “Hmmm . . . Why don’t you turn around and try again without the inner tube,” he suggested and then winked at me.

I flushed crimson from head to toe, and considering the little bit I was wearing, there was no hiding it. S
tupid fair skin
.

“What’s up with the winking?” I tilted my head to the side and gave him my most seemingly baffled look. “I can’t tell if you’re just cocky, if there’s something in your eye, or if you have some kind of chronic eye twitch that causes your lid to spasm. If it’s the latter, you might want to consider seeing a doctor about it.”

“I like a challenge, so keep it up.”

He put his aviators on, and although I could no longer see his eyes, I could feel them assessing me from behind the lenses.
Dammit
. He knew he affected me, and I could tell by the smug pull on the right side of his mouth that he relished the fact.

I was going to nip this in the bud right now. “Although your colorful commentary is oh so fun, the question remains—why are you even here?”

“I didn’t know the beach was invitation only.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I just wanted to spend some time in the water.”

I was so done with this little back and forth game he had started. “Great. Have fun swimming. I’m going to suntan, so don’t let me hold you up.”

I started to turn toward our towels when I saw the look of disappointment painted on Sophie’s face. I’d forgotten about her and Conner while I was sparring with Adam. In the moment, I hadn’t considered that Tough Love Sophie would never leave me alone today, and I’d accidentally put a kibosh on her spending time with Conner.
I suck
.

I needed to fix this for her sake, so I said to all three of them, “Never mind. Suntans are overrated. We can all swim together.”

Adam side stepped me. “I was merely stating that I wanted to spend some time in the water today, but there you go assuming I want to spend time with you. Has anyone ever told you that you assume too much?” Black, razor-sharp daggers were shooting out of my eyes into his. “I suppose it really would be rude to not invite you to join us now, so would you like to spend some time with me today, Princess?”

Huh?
Did he just pull what I think he did?
Now it looked as if he was letting me hang with him instead of the other way around.
Oh, he’s good. I’ll give him that
. This match may have gone to him, but the game was just getting started.

“Yes, please. Thank you for including me,” I politely replied, then added with smug satisfaction, “I’m not sharing my tube, though.”

He was grinning. “I don’t want your little tube, Princess. We brought something better.” He took me by the shoulders and gently turned me around. “See?” Conner was leading Sophie by the hand toward the boat landing. There was a shiny, white Chevy pickup with a trailer behind it that was holding two Jet Skis.
You have got to be kidding me
.

I reassessed the situation: This morning I’d been a depressed hermit refusing to leave my bed. Minutes ago, I’d been a fairly happy girl on a three dollar inner tube, floating with my favorite person. Now I was going to be on the back of a water deathtrap, with my legs wrapped around a gorgeous man-god. Things could really change in the course of a day. I decided to continue to push aside all of my stress and sadness for the next few hours and Carpe Diem.

I gestured toward the truck. “Lead the way, O, Captain, my Captain.”

He was staring at me with an unreadable expression on his face. “I didn’t take you for a Walt Whitman fan.”