Nothing But Wild (Malibu University 2)

“Open your eyes,” he murmurs again.

One at a time, I crack them open and the first thing I see is the soft smile on his face, that wicked smirk that tells me he’s amusing himself. Then I see the coastline.

It’s a cloudless night. The moon casting a pretty glow on the carnival. But that’s not where my attention wanders. It goes straight to the tapestry of lights blanketing the coastline. Between Dallas’s face and this view, the view is a very close second in stunning natural beauty.

“Wow.”

“Aren’t you glad you trusted me?”

I nod. “T-Thank you for d-doing this…I w-would’ve never had the c-courage to do it alone.”

“That’s what friends are for, right?”

Searching his face for doubt, I find none. “Are we friends? Like––r-real friends?”

“You’re my real friend…am I yours?”

All I can do is nod. The emotional pile-up in my throat won’t allow any words to come out.

It’s chilly up this high, windy too. My hair flies in my face and gets stuck in my lips gloss. Before I can peel my fingers away from his shirt, Dallas pushes it off my face and tucks it behind my ear. All the while he stares at my mouth like he did that night in October when he thought I was someone else. Like he wants to devour me. Like I’m somebody he desires instead of the girl that will one day die of unrequited longing.

Leaning in, he places the softest, tiniest, smallest kiss on my lips. It’s so brief that if I wasn’t completely focused on him with every nerve ending in my body, I might have missed it. He pulls back and blinks, a confused sexy boy that acts on impulse then second-guesses himself.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that,” he mumbles.

I’m so embarrassed I do the only thing I can to save face. I say, “Done what?”

The sound of an incoming text has him tugging his phone out of his front pocket and I’m literally saved by the bell.

Glancing at the screen, his face falls. “Fuck,” he says in a low voice.

“What is it?” I blurt-out, alarmed at his expression.

His eyes meet mine. “Brian’s dead.”

Chapter Twelve

Dallas

Rea went missing. By the time I got back home, he was already gone and his phone was turned off.

“The Jeep’s gone,” Brock reports the minute I step through the door.

But I know where to look. Ten minutes later, I find him sitting in the bleachers of the aquatics center bent over with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Heart heavy, I approach.

“Hey,” I say, taking the seat next to him. All the lights are off with the exception of the ones in the pool. As if the mood wasn’t already dark enough, the lights cast and a fucked up eery glow.

“Everyone’s worried,” I start with the obvious.

Rea wipes his face and stares ahead. He nods. “I needed to think.”

“I get it…” We fall into silence.

“How’d you get here?”

“Took Cole’s bike. He doesn’t know it yet.” I smirk because Rea knows the punchline. The Ducati is Cole’s favorite thing in the world. He definitely will not be happy to find his baby missing, but I had no other choice.

“Driving with a suspended license…cool.” He shakes his head and we both chuckle.

“I’m gonna miss this place,” I muse out loud. We both glance around, at all the NCAA Championship banners hanging from the ceilings, three of which we helped win for this school.

“Thunder and Lighting will forever go down in the Malibu U history books.”

Thunder and Lightning: the nicknames given to us by a national NCAA reporter our freshman year after the assist that won us our first title.

“Forever in infamy, you mean,” Rea corrects drily. “It was good while it lasted.” Then his face folds, like he’s fighting tears.

“I’m so sorry, man, but you gotta know you did everything you could to help him.”

“Did I?” he croaks, ripped to shit over it.

“Yeah, you did. You went above and beyond. I don’t have a blood brother––you and the twins are the only brothers I’ll ever know––so I won’t insult you by saying I know how you feel. The thing is, you can’t save someone from themselves…I watched my mother try really hard to destroy herself for years.”

“What saved her?”

“Dumb luck and money. She took the sailboat out in a storm and it wasn’t the first time. She did it a lot when I was a kid, during her manic episodes…The last time she finally crashed the boat and almost drowned. My grandfather had her committed for a while. She got clean.” I shrug. “That was five years ago and not a day goes by that I don’t think I’m going to get a call telling me it happened again…or worse.”

“Then why do I feel responsible?”

The million dollar question.

He’s too far in the weeds of his pain to hear me now, but I’m gonna try anyway and hope he remembers it later.