First and Tension (Summersweet Island 4)

“It was just a couple of seconds,” I whisper brokenly, hating the pathetic, flimsy excuse as soon as it comes out of my mouth.

“It was a couple of seconds too long!” Wren snaps, quickly softening her voice, because that’s how Wren is. She will cut you off at the knees but feel really bad about doing it. “Do you know what she said to me, after I told her how crazy she was?”

Wren pauses just long enough for the pain of those three fucking seconds to stab into me all over again, and I have to lift one hand off the counter to dig the heel of my palm against my chest, trying to make it go away.

“She said, ‘Quinn’s the dream, Wren. I already have everything I need.’”

And just like that, my head is in my hands on the counter, and I’m trying really hard not to cry like a fucking baby.

“I’m such an asshole,” I mutter, gripping my hair in my fists as I stare down at the top of the counter. “I never should have walked away from her to take that call from Jeanie. I should have grabbed her hand and dragged her over to the table with me, held onto her and never let her go until I was finished, so we could talk. I just wanted to take care of all the nonsense first, as fast as possible. Keep it as far away from her as I could, so we could just forget about it, and I could tell her how fucking proud I was of her once everything calmed down.”

“But you didn’t,” Wren reminds me quietly, her words packing a punch, even though she doesn’t scream them at me like she should. “You looked her right in the eyes, and you doubted her. It doesn’t matter if it was three seconds, or three hours. She saw it, and she felt it. And now you have to go find our girl and fix this. Because she has spent the last twelve hours thinking she’s the worst thing that could have ever happened to you and hating herself for it. She doesn’t care that she’s being trashed left and right on social media. She doesn’t care how much pain she’s in. She only cares about what this has done to you and your career. And that’s not good enough for me, and you know it.”

When she throws my words back at me from just a few minutes ago, combined with everything else she threw at me, it’s almost too much to handle, and I can’t stop one of my fists from letting go of the tight grip on my hair to slam down on top of the counter, cursing at myself as the cup of pens next to me rattles.

The multiple concussions, the broken ankle in college, the countless number of brain-rattling hits from 250-pound linebackers, and not even Tyler’s betrayal compares to the pain I feel right now, knowing I hurt Emily. Knowing I let her down and just walked away from her when she was hurting, leaving her alone in a roomful of virtual strangers, while she was being ripped apart by strangers all over the world, to deal with my bullshit instead of taking care of her.

So this is what it’s like being in love. Feeling completely destroyed when you let the other person down. Awesome. Really wish I would have done this sooner.

“Doesn’t anyone answer their phones around here?”

Finally lifting my head to look back over my shoulder, I find Bodhi has flung open the office door and is standing in the doorway.

“Dude, you look like shit,” he mutters, looking me over from my head to my feet before glancing at Wren, waving his cell in the air. “Phones… you guys still use them, or what? Tess and I have been calling both of you.”

“I must have left mine out in the golf cart,” Wren mutters, when I push away from the counter to stand back up and feel around in the pockets of my jeans, realizing I must have left my phone back out on the front porch. “What the hell did you do to your wrist?”

Bodhi looks down at the hand his cell phone is in when Wren points at it. It’s currently wrapped in a tan bandage, and he chuckles as he drops his arm.

“Saw a video online of a dude roof-surfing with a skateboard. Thought I’d give it a try but skated clean off the damn roof and sprained my wrist.” He chuckles again. “Anyhoo, Tess found Emily.”

“Maybe you could have led with that?” I shout, already running toward the door. “Where the hell is she?”

“On her way to the stadium.”

My feet stutter to a stop in the open doorway after flying past Bodhi, hope flaring in my chest that Emily is looking for me and I didn’t screw all this up.