“Daddy! Daddy! I got something!” the boy cried, reeling his line in. It came up empty, and the child let out a dejected sigh. “Never mind.”
The dad helped him cast his line back out into the water. “It’s not about catching a fish,” the dad bent and looked into his son’s eyes, “it’s about having the patience to wait.”
His words rang with too much truth.
All my life I’d been chasing something. Running toward a future I thought I wanted and needed, but I was never happy. I needed to learn to have the patience to wait.
“That’s so cute,” Ari commented, pointing at the man and his children.
I nodded as we passed them.
I was trying my best to ignore her, but I’d known from the moment I laid eyes on her in Ollie’s kitchen she was someone I couldn’t stay away from.
Ari skittered past me then, nearly knocking me over in her haste to reach the railing of the pier.
“Jesus, woman,” I muttered, trying to right myself before I embarrassed myself by falling.
“Look, Liam. Look.” She pointed eagerly over the railing. She looked so young and innocent in that moment, and something inside me stirred. Something animalistic and protective.
I strode over to the railing and stood beside her leaning over it. Below us, a pod of dolphins swam, their fins skimming the surface. Their clicking noises echoed up to us, and Ari looked down at them in awe.
She grasped the railing and leaned over. Her hand slipped, and she lost her balance, falling forward.
“Ari,” I cried, and my hands shot out to grab her waist, hauling her ass back onto land. I held her against my chest, both of our breaths ragged. “What the fuck were you thinking?” I turned her in my arms so she was looking up at me.
“I just wanted to be closer to them.” She frowned, tilting her head back to the water.
“Don’t do that,” I ground out. “You could’ve fallen in and hurt yourself.” I squeezed her hip roughly—in warning or in play, I didn’t know—and let her go.
“Worried about me?” She waggled her brows in jest, but her words hit me hard.
I was growing to care about her, and caring led to so many other things. Like worry.
“Nah, not at all.” I shrugged off her words and clasped my hands as I leaned against the railing, trying to seem indifferent.
Distance yourself, Liam. You have to.
But I couldn’t. Not with Ari. I kept getting pulled closer and closer to her. The more I tugged against the string, the faster I was yanked back in. I
scrubbed my hands down my face. I was so fucked and not in a good way.
“You’re such a liar,” she taunted, leaning over the railing again. Thank God she didn’t try to hurl her whole body over it that time. Instead, she stood on her tiptoes, staring down at the dolphins with a smile on her face. She tilted her head up to me and sobered. “But so am I.”
“Is that so?” I raised a brow and leaned my hip against the railing.
She nodded and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Lies are easier to swallow than the truth.”
“Why’s that?” I inquired, curious to know her answer.
“Because the truth is just that—the truth. It’s fact. Indisputable. With lies we can delude ourselves into believing something that doesn’t really exist. If you tell yourself something enough, it begins to feel like the truth, but that’s just another lie.”
“What’s with your fascination with truth and lies?” I braced my arms on the railing and leaned closer to her, inspecting her through the dark lenses of my sunglasses.
She pursed her lips and seemed to be taking my question seriously. “It’s not that, really, that fascinates me so much. It’s the lengths the human mind will go to in order to stay sane.”
I absorbed her words, repeating each one over in my mind. I pulled the words apart and put them back together.
“What the hell happened to you?” I ground out.