Just Say Yes (Just Say Yes #2) (10 page)

Jesus, Zoey, is that all you’ve got? Tell the man you love him and made a big fucking mistake.

The silence on the line worried me. “How are you?” I asked him, to end the dreadful quiet.

“Not good,” he answered softly. “Are you hurt?”

Just my heart.
“It’s only a few scrapes. A crowd swarmed around me and I had a panic attack. Everyone wanted to see the whale so they started pushing and shoving to get to the railing. I got slammed in the ribs and couldn’t breathe,” I rambled, because I didn’t know what else to say.

“I miss you,” he said finally, interrupting me.

My chest ached because I missed him too. All I wanted to do was go home, but knew that if I did, we would be right back where we were when I left…drifting further away from each other.

“I’ve thought a lot about our talk the other night and I think you’re right. We should take some time apart,” Andy said, his voice dejected.

No!
A jolt of emotional anguish shot through my entire body.

“I’m sorry if I pushed you too hard, Zoey. I didn’t mean to. I just fell so fast for you. I haven’t met anyone like you, ever. When you were hurt, I admit it scared me. I didn’t want to be a dick, but for some reason, it happened. I pushed you away because I thought I would lose you anyway, and now, I guess I have.”

Tears flowed down my cheeks while I listened to him
finally
talking to me. “You haven’t lost me,” I whispered.

“Haven’t I? You broke up with me.”

My heart sank at his words. I wiped off my face with a tissue that Jess handed me. Neither of my friends left my side. They were there to support me.

“Andy,
I love you.
I wanted some time to think. That’s all. You were distant and pushing me away. You wouldn’t talk to me…I didn’t know what to do. I guess I panicked and chose to run. I made a huge mistake and I’m sorry. I did exactly what I was afraid I’d do from the very beginning.” I finally took in a deep, calming breath then exhaled.

“So what do we do now?”

I thought about it for all of two seconds. “I want to be with you, but I am on this vacation to deal with my personal issues, and you have some too. I need you to work on them before I come home. Are you okay with that?”

“I’ll do whatever I need to make this work. We can take all the time we need to figure out how to do this the right way. You’re all I have and I can’t lose you over this. We have something really special here. We can’t just throw it away.”

He was right. Besides my adoptive family, he was the best thing in my life.

Both of us had issues, but now that he was finally willing to talk about it, there was no doubt we would get it right. Andy needed to try separating what happened to me from what happened to his family, and I needed to deal with all the months of crap I’d let build up before I met him.

We had to survive the month apart and each deal with our personal issues individually. Then when I went home, we would get on with our lives together.

Our boat was docking and the passengers started swarming at the exit to get off the boat first. I wasn’t going
anywhere
near that scene. Let them get off the boat first. I’d gladly wait.

“We’re going to do this, right?” I asked. “Be together, but take time to fix us? We need to go back to one day at a time. No rush. No stress. But we need to talk to each other, Andy. We can’t push each other away again and you need to talk to me about what’s going on in that head of yours too.”

“Yes, Zoey, I’ll do what I need to. I give you my word.”

All the passengers were almost off the boat, so we needed to get moving.

“Me too. We’re getting ready to get off the boat,” I said. “I need to go for now, but I’ll call you tonight after dinner, if it’s alright with you. We can Skype. How does that sound?”

There was an unmistakable smile in his voice when he replied. “Sounds perfect. I can’t wait to see you.”

I felt my heart slowly start to beat again. “I love you, Andrew James Tate. Please never forget that. I will see you later. Give James a kiss on the head for me, will you?”

He chuckled and it was the sweetest sound I’d heard all day. “I will
not
kiss James for you. I think he needs another bath. But I
will
see you later. I love you.”

We ended the call and I handed Jess’s phone back to her. Then I jumped up and hugged her. “Thank you. You just saved my life.”

I knew it seemed unhealthy that both of us had issues to work on to be in a relationship, but the issues were not
between
us. They were incidents from the past preventing us from moving forward. I loved him and I was willing to do what I needed to do.
I have to get myself straightened out.

The rest of the day, I had a great time because the weight of everything had been lifted from my shoulders. The girls and I did more shopping and decided to go for drinks at the Cabo Wabo Cantina.

I felt much better about where Andy and I stood. I didn’t know what Jess said to him when she called him, but it helped. I was excited to see him later tonight, but didn’t even care that it was going to be over a computer screen. I could see his beautiful face while we talked and I wouldn’t need to guess what he was feeling, like I did over the phone.

“Earth to Zoey. Zoooey,” Jess whined. “Snap out of it.”

I blinked a few times, bringing myself back to the present. On the bar in front of me sat two shots of tequila that were not there before. “Sorry, I’m good. Just got lost in thought for a sec.”

My best friends laughed as the bartender set their tequila shots down in front of them. “So we noticed. Bottoms up, bitches,” Sasha quipped. We each downed our shots then squeezed limes between our teeth to ease the burn of the tequila.
Yum, I needed that.

We were hungry, so we decided to order an appetizer off the menu. No one could decide on just one appetizer, they all sounded so delicious, so we ordered several.

As we ate, my mind kept trailing back to Andy and everything that happened over the last few days. I wanted him to understand the way I was feeling earlier on the boat. It was our ‘thing’ to send each other songs to listen to ever since my birthday so I sent him a text.

Listen to “Run” by S.P. when you get a chance. Can’t wait to see you later.

We finished our lunch and hit the pavement again to shop. I bought a cute pair of sandals and a dress to wear when we went out to the club on Friday night.

Later on in the day, my phone pinged with a text from Andy.

I’m off work now, listening to the song. I want you to listen to “I Miss You” by Incubus. James says hi. Gonna hit the shower in a few minutes. Can’t wait to see you later, too, Beautiful.

I smiled and couldn’t stop myself from imagining him naked, glistening with droplets of water, soap cascading over his tattoos down his gorgeous body. I quickly fired off another text to him.

Thanks. Now I’m going to have to live with that visual the rest of the day.

We were on our way home when my cell pinged with another text from Andy.

It was a picture.
Holy fucking shit.

He was naked in the shower, holding his cell high up over his head from an angle. He was looking into the camera, smiling that devious, smoldering grin of his.
Fuck me.

The photo was so small all I could see was down the arm holding the camera, his back, and a tiny bit of the slight roundness of his sexy, muscular ass.

“Holy shit, he’s trying to kill me,” I muttered, feeling heat creep up my neck and into my cheeks.

Sasha snatched the phone from my hand and looked at the picture. “You are one lucky bitch, Zoey Lynn James. Does the man even have any tan lines?” She tilted the phone sideways to get a better look then passed the phone to Jess, who blushed when she saw the picture.

Nope, there was not one tan line anywhere on his perfect body. He was naturally golden and gorgeous. Sasha was right. I was one lucky bitch. I wrestled my phone back from Sasha, who had a death grip on it, ogling Andy again. Not that I blamed her of course, he was magnificent naked. I responded to his text.

The girls think you’re hot, TTYL.

We made it home and relaxed on the patio with my aunt and uncle, who were home from work for the day. I called my mom to let her know how the trip was going so far.

“Is our Andy okay, Zoey?” my mom asked as we chatted about work.

“I think so. Why?”

She took a breath before responding. “Mija, he’s been a little out of it at work. Today, after he took a break, he came back and was back to normal. I was worried about him.”

Ah, he’d talked to me on his morning break then went back to work. I wasn’t happy he was ‘out of it’ at work though. That is too dangerous in a place like the shop, when you have cars weighing several thousand pounds over your head on car lifts, and handling high-powered tools.

Not good. I would need to talk to him about it, not because I was worried about the shop’s liability if something happened, but because I loved him and didn’t want him distracted at work by us. That, along with the previous issues with Rob, was one of the original reasons I didn’t want to date him in the first place.

That night, the girls helped me cook dinner for my aunt and uncle then clean up the kitchen afterward. Unable to wait any longer to see Andy, I went to my bedroom and fired up my laptop. I logged on to my Skype account and contacted him. It took a couple minutes for him to login, but when I saw his blue eyes on the screen, my own blue eyes welled with tears.

“Hi,” I said. I was so happy to see him. He was sitting on his couch, his laptop on the coffee table in front of him. He was shirtless.
Thank you, God.

“Hey, love. How are you?”

“Better than I was this morning. You?”

He smiled, his blue eyes sparkling. “I couldn’t be better, now that I’ve seen your beautiful face.” Andy looked at me curiously. “Why are your eyes watery?”

I blinked a couple times so the tears wouldn’t spill over. “I’m just happy to see you. I truly thought we were over after the other night.”

“Zoey, I just want to say again that I’m so sorry for being a dick.” His indigo eyes burned into mine with such intensity, I knew he really was sorry. “I didn’t sleep at all the night after I hung up on you…which by the way, I am sorry for that too. It was an immature, shitty thing to do. I’m glad Jess called me this morning from the boat. Remind me to thank her later.”

I put my hand up so I could say something. “The picture you sent me today was probably thanks enough for her,” I laughed.

He looked embarrassed. “Yes, I was going to ask you about that. How did they see it?”

“Sasha’s pretty quick and snatched it right out of my hand. I’ll need to be more careful the next time you sext me. If there
is
a next time, that is.” I let out a breath of relief when he laughed and told me he’d sext me anytime I needed to see his gorgeous body.

By the time we finished laughing, it was time for us to get serious and talk. “Did you listen to the song?” I asked, referring to the text I sent him earlier.

He nodded. “Yes, I did. I understand why you needed me to listen to it. Do you know how happy I am right now to be talking to you?”

His question made me smile. “Hopefully as happy as I am. I’m sorry about everything, Andy. I was stupid.”

He shook his head in disagreement. “No, you tried to talk to me and I shut you out. I guess it took actually losing you to put things into perspective. After your accident, I was so scared I would lose you, that I did. I was being stupid, not you.”

I listened to him as he talked, refusing to take my eyes off him. I noticed the neck and headstock of his guitar poking out from behind the couch. He must have been playing it then set it on the stand when I called him.

“Have you been playing your guitar?” I asked when he finished talking.

He glanced over his shoulder at his guitar and turned back to me with a happy grin on his face. “Yeah, I was messing around on it, trying to remember the songs I’ve learned. It’s been a while since it’s even been out of the case.”

“I’m happy you’re playing again. Maybe you’ll play something for me when I come home?”

He smiled. “Maybe I will.” He looked so handsome sitting on the couch, shirtless. I smiled at the thought of tracing over his tattoos with my fingertips.

“Will you finally take me to get a tattoo when I come home, please?”

“Of course,” he replied. “Are you getting the snowflakes you said you wanted a while back?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

He chuckled. “You better do more than
think,
Zoey. It’s going to be on your body for the rest of your life, you know? I still can’t believe you want snowflakes because you love Snow Patrol that much. Maybe I’ll get another one too.”