The Moment We Began (A Fairhope New Adult Romance) (22 page)

I really want to help them, but their finances are
a serious mess. Since their income varies wildly depending on the
season, they really should have been doing more to cut expenses
during the colder months. I look over my notes several more times,
looking for anything that might be able to help them.

Finally, I see something tucked under one of the
bank notices that catches my eye.

“Wait,” I say, pulling the paper out
to examine it more closely. “What is this license here? It’s
some kind of beach permit? Does that cover the entire beach area?”

Delores takes it from my hand. “Oh, that’s
just a license to operate a food cart. We had to get for this year’s
Spring Break festival down in Gulf Shores. We thought it would be a
good business idea to go over there, because they had all these
vendors participating and my friend Sara Jane said she could get us a
booth at the fair.”

“Did you make good money?”

Buddy shakes his head. “Not too bad, but it
wasn’t what we’d hoped for. We ended up spending a lot
carting everything down there and then there ended up being this big
storm that week and a lot of the spring break crowd didn’t show
up. It was a real mess.”

“But you guys have a cart?”

Delores nods. “Yeah, we got it stored in the
garage at our place,” she says. “It belonged to Dottie.
She used to sell food to tourists out on the boardwalk during the
busy seasons. Why? What you got cookin’ in the brain of yours?”

“I might have an idea, but I don’t
want to get your hopes up before we’ve had a chance to really
make sure it’ll work. I’ll come back this afternoon if I
can.”

I try to keep the excitement in my voice down, but
I can’t help it. Delores looks at me with such hope in her
eyes.

I throw my arms around her. I can’t believe
I’ve gotten so attached to her in such a short period of time.
I don’t usually let my walls down around people this fast, but
she’s a genuinely beautiful person. Her entire body stiffens,
but then she relaxes and laughs. When I pull away, there are tears in
her eyes.

“Get on out of here and enjoy what’s
left of the sunshine,” she says. “Don’t you go
worrying about us anymore, okay?”

I roll my eyes and give her a look. “I’ll
be back as soon as I can,” I say. “All we have to do is
raise enough money to pay the bank for a couple of months to get you
back in their good graces. Then maybe they’ll hold out until
the next tourist season before they act on any of this.”

She nods at me, but then turns away and lights
another cigarette.

I smile at Buddy and he winks as I turn and head
out to the beach to find Mason.

I step onto the beach and feel the first drops of
rain on my face. I stop for a moment and lift my face to the sky. I
love the rain.

I’ve always been such a water baby and this
past week of living outside and being able to hear the water every
day has been great. In Fairhope, the beach is always so crowded.
Here, it’s a completely different experience. Some days, it’s
like we have the whole ocean to ourselves.

I wonder how the rain will affect our tent. I’m
guessing the thing is waterproof. Surely it is, right? People camp
out in the rain, don’t they? I hope. I need to go find Mason
and make sure we don’t need to get back to our camp, but for
now, it’s heaven to be standing on the beach with the wind
blowing over my skin and the sound of the waves in my ears.

It’s only been ten days since Mason and I
left Fairhope, but I feel like it’s been months already. I had
expected us to be traveling more, but we lucked out when we found
this place. We’re the best we’ve ever been in this little
nowhere town.

I know it can’t last forever, and we’ve
already been talking about wanting to move on and see more of the
country, but I want to do this one last thing before we leave. I want
to help Delores and Buddy keep their diner if I can.

I know that all it would take is one call home and
I could have all the money I wanted at my fingertips. I’m sure
by now my parents are freaked out enough about not hearing from me
that they’d do anything I asked. But I like being anonymous
here. I like being my own person and not depending on them for
anything. Camping hasn’t been easy and I did eventually make
Mason drive to a camping store to buy an inflatable bed, but overall,
I’ve been enjoying it.

I’d enjoy anything as long as I could wake
up every morning in Mason’s arms.

The rain begins to fall harder, and I decide to
look for him before it gets too bad out here. I look both ways down
the beach and don’t see him anywhere. He mentioned the pier, so
I start walking in that direction. Just up ahead, I catch sight of a
red shirt in the sand. That’s the same color Mason was wearing
this morning, so he must have been swimming and then made a run for
it when the rain hit.

But as I get closer to the shirt, I see that there
are two shirts sitting there in a pile. Mason’s red one. And a
blue one I don’t recognize. I pick it up from the sand and a
knot forms deep in my stomach. It’s a size small and has a
picture of a Care Bear on the front.

I drop it to the sand, the rain pouring down my
face. I don’t want to rush into any kind of judgment. It could
be anyone’s shirt. Well, any girl’s shirt. But Mason and
I have become way too close for him to do something like that to me.
He wouldn’t. He promised me. Maybe this is just some kind of
coincidence.

I rationalize it out, but inside, my heart is
racing.

I need to find him. And if he’s with someone
else, I need to know.

I take off at a run, heading for the pier. There’s
a tiny bait and tackle shop just at the entrance to the pier and I
collect myself before walking inside. I expect to see him standing
there, maybe chatting with a group of tourists or maybe some of the
fishermen. It doesn’t take me long to walk through the whole
place.

He’s not here.

Panic fights its way up through my throat, but I
push it back down and force a smile as I walk to the front counter.

“Hey Walt,” I say.

“Heya, Pretty Penny,” he says. Walt
owns this shop. He stays open until midnight every night, so Mason
and I have made more than one late-night run here for water or a
snack here and there. He always calls me Pretty Penny, and it always
makes me smile, but right now all I want to do is cry. “Looks
like the ceiling fell out.”

“Yeah, it’s really pouring,” I
say. Then, casually, I ask, “Have you seen Mason?”

He looks up toward the ceiling. “Not today,”
he says. “Did you lose him? I don’t think I’ve ever
seen the two of you apart.”

I try to smile, but I think it comes out more of a
lopsided grimace. “Just misplaced him for a few minutes,”
I say. “If you see him, let him know I’m looking for him,
please?”

“Not a problem,” he says. “You’re
welcome to wait here until the rain lets up a bit. Or I could let you
borrow my umbrella.”

“Oh, no thanks,” I say. I’m
already half-way out the door. I raise my hand in a wave, then head
back out into the rain.

I look both ways down the beach, but don’t
see any sign of Mason. Maybe he went back to the diner looking for
me? That’s the only thing I can think of unless he already
walked back to the campsite.

Still, I can’t imagine he would have just
left his shirt behind. It’s not like we have an infinite supply
of clothing with us.

I start to head back to the diner, and I’m
not sure why, but something leads me to look back toward the pier one
last time.

That’s when I see him. Standing underneath
the wooden slats of the pier.

Holding a girl in his arms.

I stop dead in the sand. The sky grows darker as
the storm clouds roll across the gulf, but there’s enough light
for me to see the two of them huddled close under the pier, a towel
wrapped around their shoulders.

I choke back a cry.

Thunder rumbles in the distance, but I can’t
move. I’m paralyzed with fear.

Despite all my talk about letting him walk away at
the end of this, I know it isn’t possible for me to ever let
him go without a fight.

I thought I loved him before we left Fairhope, but
I realize now that what I felt was nothing compared to what has grown
between us in the past ten days. Spending every moment of every day
laughing and getting to know him, breaking down the walls he’s
guarded so tightly around his heart, has sent me to a place I can
never come back from. I’m way past the point of no return.

And if he’s not in love with me, I don’t
know how I’ll survive it.

I force myself to move forward, and every step
feels like a death march.

When I’m close enough for him to notice me,
his face turns ghost-white. He takes his arm from around the girl’s
shoulders and when she turns her face toward me, my world shatters.

It’s the same girl he’d been talking
to that first day at our campsite.

I don’t even know her name. She was only
camping there for a few nights before she and her friends moved on. I
hoped to never see her again in my life. But here she is, squeezed so
tight to Mason in her tiny little bikini.

She smiles at me, and I just want to run forward
and rip her hair out. To tell her she’s killed me.

But I force a smile as I step under the pier.

Mason scoots to the side, leaving his towel over
the girl’s shoulders. I want to laugh. Or scream. He’s
already been caught, what is he trying to do? Pretend I didn’t
see him?

I stare into his eyes, searching for an answer
about what he’s doing, but all I see there is fear.

“I’ve been looking for you.” My
voice stumbles over the words, but I hope he can’t tell over
the sound of the rain against the wood above.

“I was out on the beach swimming when the
storm came on,” he says. “Harley and I ran under here,
thinking maybe it would pass quickly.”

“Harley?”

She holds her hand out toward me, but all I can do
is stare at it dumbly. “You must be Penny,” she says,
awkwardly pulling her hand back under the towel. Her voice is
extremely bubbly for a girl whose been snuggling with someone else’s
man. “Mason was just telling me you guys have been here the
whole time.”

A nod is all I can manage. I want him to say
something. Anything. To apologize or at least try to convince me
there’s nothing going on here.

But he doesn’t. He just sits there,
speechless.

I’m surprised I can manage to keep standing.
With every second that goes by, I’m losing more and more hope
about what was really going on between them. Have they been out here
all day together while I was inside working on the diner’s
papers?

“When did you get back to town?” I
ask. “I thought you guys left.”

She wraps the towel tighter around her shoulders.
“Oh, yeah, my friends all ended up going home to start back at
school, but I already graduated earlier this summer, so I thought I’d
just set out on my own for a while.”

“Oh,” I say. “What made you come
back here?”

Mason clears his throat. “Did you just get
finished up inside with Delores?”

I wonder why he’s changing the subject.

My heartbreak is mercifully turning into rage.
Rage I can handle much better than pain and devastation. I harness
it.

“Yes I did,” I say. “I wish you
had just come in there when the rain started. I’m sure it would
have been a lot more comfortable in there. We could have warmed you
up with some coffee. Of course, you two looked like you were getting
warm just fine on your own.”

He brings his knees up and rests his arms against
them. He’s fidgeting with his hands, and I know there’s
more going on here than just an innocent chance meeting. I want to
ask him and just have it out right here, but it’s just too
much. I don’t want this stranger to see me crying.

I just want to get the hell out of here.

“Well, you two have fun,” I say. I’m
on the verge of a major shit-fest, and if I don’t leave now,
I’m going to say something I’ll regret.

I turn fast and start walking as fast as I can
back down the beach. The rain is coming hard now and it stings my
skin, but I keep walking.

I feel like a fool. How could I have believed he
felt the same way about me? Has this just all been about sex to him?
Did I just convince myself things were changing between us?

The floodgates open and tears stream down my face.
A sob shakes my body and I lift my hand to my mouth to muffle the
sound. I don’t want him to know. I don’t want him to hear
me.

I think I hear my name on the wind, but I don’t
turn around. I can’t. I just keep walking. I’m almost
running now, my boots caked in wet sand and my clothes and hair
completely drenched to the core.

Then I feel a hand on my shoulder. He spins me
around and takes both of my arms in his strong hands.

“Penny, please, don’t go,” he
says. “Let me explain.”

I hope the rain hides my tears. When I open my
mouth to respond, my breath does this double-hitch that gives me
away. I close my eyes and try again, summoning whatever strength I
have left to get through this moment.

“Don’t bother,” I say. “Just
let me go.”

“No,” he says. “It isn’t
what it looks like.”

I pull away and wrap my arms around my body. I’m
shivering in the rain and wind.

“Isn’t that the line every guys gives
when it’s exactly what it looks like?” I say. “Do
you think I’m stupid?”

He closes his eyes and rubs his forehead. “Shit,”
he says. He looks up at me and I’m surprised to see his eyes
are filled with tears too. “Penny, I swear to God, I would
never do something like that to you. Not after I made a promise to
you. Not after—”

“Please don’t lie to me, Mason,”
I say. “I am on the edge here, and I just need to know the
truth. If something happened between the two of you or if you’re
attracted to her, then you better tell me right fucking now. If you
want to sleep with her, you need to tell me the truth.”