She must have felt my gaze. Bliss paused and looked directly at me. Her eyes met mine and she smiled. As if she knew what I was thinking and she remembered it too and while remembering turned to me.

Seven years ago . . .

She was worried about her friend. He was home from basketball camp. She’d convinced her parents to let her stay another week at the beach with Larissa, who had helped with that, because her parents were constantly fretting. Eli, however, wasn’t real happy about her being with me all the time.

I woke up and headed for our spot on the beach every morning around the same time. Quite often she was there first. Others days I beat her there. At night we texted on the phone until she stopped which meant she’d fallen asleep.

This summer was a hell of a lot better than I ever imagined it being. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back to Rosemary Beach next month. I liked my grandpop’s condo and the food at his bar, the way this beach was touristy, but not so exclusive and elitist like it was at home. And well, if I was being absolutely fucking honest, I liked Bliss York and was pretty sure I was in love. She ruled my thoughts.

I watched her as she watched Eli walk away. We’d been standing in line at the ice cream stand when he came up to her to talk. Asked if she wanted to go surfing with him and someone I didn’t know named Micah. She had declined and he’d glared at me, before walking away with his shoulders drooping, doing that defeated thing.

“Maybe I should have gone. We both could have gone.” Her frown was so damn sweet it hurt. Of course I had to add stark reality.

“I wasn’t invited Bliss.”

She inhaled and exhaled deeply then turned back to me. “That’s because he doesn’t know you Nate. He has to warm up to you.”

No, that wasn’t correct. It was because her friend was jealous. I saw it, understood it, but I wasn’t about to let her leave me for him. If she really wanted I’d let her go, but not because that pussy pouted and retreated like a ten-year old child.

“I could go do something else. Catch up with you later,” I replied. I tried to sound cool, like I was fine with that, but I knew this was a gamble. She could easily agree and walk off. But the way I scanned the area, as if searching for someone to hang with, was the card I was playing at that moment.

“No,” she said quickly. “I want to stay with you.”

I turned back to her and smiled. She felt it to. I knew it. I wasn’t alone in this. The girl who had gotten under my skin was feeling it just like me. Why she liked me when a girl like her fit best with an Eli was beyond me. I wasn’t sure, but damn I was lucky.

“Good,” I replied. “You make being here worth it.”

The smile that lit her face made me want to say all kinds of mushy shit. Just to see that smile again, and again and again and again . . .

Bliss York

“HAVE YOU FORGIVEN me for lying?” was the first thing he said when his sister left. I was relieved Phoenix had been here. It kept us from having this conversation long enough to get my head together.

“Yes,” I replied, because I had. I understood why he did it. It didn’t feel good but I got it.

“And have you thought about us being friends?”

He wasn’t wasting time getting to the point. But then Nate Finlay never had. The truth was there waiting and he dealt with it. It was best this got done before Octavia returned. That was probably what he was thinking at the moment.

“We have to work together. I mean you’ll be here helping Octavia. I don’t see why we shouldn’t be friends. It would make things run a little easier.”

He frowned. That hadn’t been the answer he was looking for. Well, what was? What did he want me to say? Yes! Let’s go get ice cream then kiss under the bridge like we used to? That memory stung deep. I shoved it down. Way down. Those memories weren’t available anymore. They couldn’t be unpacked and toyed with. Not if I was going to get over him.

“Octavia will be here in the next few days . . . and . . . I have questions about the past and you . . . your illness . . . how you overcame it.”

Well boo-hoo. I bet he did. That didn’t mean I was going to open up and share with him. I didn’t want him to know. In my head, I wanted us to remain the way we were, which was stupid, because I had no future with Nate. I suppose, I had no real reason not to tell him, except I didn’t want to, didn’t have to, and would do whatever I chose. Not be pressed into telling because he carried some guilt and needed that burden lifted.

“I don’t talk about it,” I replied and continued working on the window. I had to find a way to make the scarves fit with the summer display I’d arranged. This was south Alabama. It was scorching hot in the summer. Octavia needed to remember that when she went buying stuff to sell. We both had a lot to learn and I appreciated her hiring me.

“Why?” he asked. “Why not get it off your chest?”

I rolled my eyes. Yes, I was acting like a teenager. He wanted to know something I didn’t want to talk to him about so he was going to ask me why. Did he think he’d get me to open up? Talk about it? Because he was being nosey? I’d been there and done that with plenty of people and wasn’t doing that with him.

“Because Nate. Simply BECAUSE.”

He became silent. Good. He needed to get on with his work for the day and I needed to do the same.

“You didn’t answer my texts or calls. I tried. Made the effort. It wasn’t me who turned you away.”

I closed my eyes tightly and sighed. He wasn’t letting this go. We were going to have to discuss it. Get it out in the open and deal. Which was ridiculous. We’d been kids. I had handled it the way a teenage girl knew to handle things.

“I was facing the scariest thing imaginable. What else do you need to know? I wasn’t in the frame of mind to keep up with a childhood crush.” That was a little harsh, but it was the truth and the truth can sting.

“But I thought we were more than that?”

Maybe we had been. Maybe it was my fault. I’d been confronted with something that changed me. And when I was ready to tell him it had been too late. Too much time had passed and I was different, so very different. My fairytale life had ended. The real world had slapped me in the face. A loving family and a stable home with all the support on earth, can’t save you from something like cancer. It only deals in darkness and pain. You defeat it or it defeats you. Until you experience it you don’t understand the depth of it

I folded the scarf and looked to him. “I was too scared to think about boys. About friendships or the drama of people. Because I wasn’t sure I had a future beyond my next doctor’s visit. I woke up one day with my life all planned to look a certain way. It had been so exciting, so full of dreams, but then in one doctor’s consult I was told that I had cancer. That my life wasn’t guaranteed. Nothing was ever the same and it won’t ever be.”

Nate kept his gaze on me. There wasn’t pity or fear that it could happen to him, beneath the silver pools of his eyes. I saw those two things a lot, pity and fear in people. Not seeing them in his eyes was a relief. It would have hurt. Let me down. But like I’d always known Nate was different. He wasn’t like the other boys.

He still saw me. Most people didn’t. They just saw the disease inside me. The one I had beaten, yet that seemed to remain in their minds after it was gone. I wanted to hug him for that. Thank him and rely on his judgment for that not to be weird and out of place. But he wouldn’t understand. He hadn’t lived what I had been through.