Every fucking day.
“You sure I can't get you something, buddy?” The bartender leaned over and tilted his head to look at me, asking me the same thing he asked me every day. He was a young guy—probably working here to put himself through school or whatever—and had that bright-eyed smile that probably drove the ladies to up the tip percentages on their bar tabs. I didn’t meet his gaze; my focus remained behind him.
With a slight shudder, I pushed away from the bar and stood up.
“I'm good,” I lied.
Turning quickly on my heel before I changed my mind, I stomped out of the bar and into the Miami evening heat. Raine would be back from class before too long, and I didn't want to risk having her recovering-alcoholic boyfriend smell like a drinking establishment, even if I had managed to make it through another day without actually ordering a drink. If she knew I was hanging out in a bar during the late afternoons, she’d be pissed, and that was a conversation best avoided. Being close to the shit made my palms itch, and I knew if I opened my mouth and ordered one, the strength it would take to stop it from passing my lips would be more than I possessed. I’d give in.
I’d fail.
I still had a little time before Raine returned, so I headed through Pier Park and down to the beach. There weren’t a lot of people around, and I was glad of that. I’d had too many confrontations with locals and tourists alike on this particular beach. Though Raine and I had developed something resembling celebrity status after we returned from being lost at sea, I didn’t think that was going to keep me out of jail if I attacked another Bermuda-shorts-wearing fuckhead on the beach.
Removing my shoes, I walked barefoot at the edge of the waves. The tide was coming in, and bits of seaweed sloshed against my toes. There were a few dead jellyfish scattered along the tide line, and bits of broken coral sloshed in and out of the waves. If I closed my eyes and ignored the noise of civilization, I could pretend I was back there again.
The island.
Alone with Raine.
My paradise.
Mine, but not hers.
The tension returned. The tsunami inside of me was not unlike the one that capsized my schooner last year—the one that led me to being alone with Raine on a raft in the middle of the Caribbean Sea with no hope in sight. She had no one but me to make sure she had water, food, and eventually shelter on an uninhabited island. She only had me to protect and provide for her.
Like a fucking caveman.
I loved it.
On the other hand, Raine liked hot showers, diet variety, and hanging out with her friend Lindsay and Lindsay’s boyfriend, Nick. She liked living in a high-rise apartment with air-conditioning and an elevator. She liked shopping at the mall and being able to cook food on an actual stove. She liked being able to go to school to learn about ecology and the conservation of the Everglades. She liked being around people.
I hated it all.
The beach was the only place I felt even remotely comfortable outdoors and then only when it was nearly deserted. It reminded me of being shipwrecked and alone with my Raine, who didn’t even want to remain anywhere near the ocean. It took some convincing to get her to agree to stay in Miami—Raine wanted to return to Ohio when we were rescued—but she ultimately let me have my way. She got into the ecology program at the nearby university and discovered her love of the Everglades. I would have preferred a tiny house right up next to the water but settled for a condo in Miami Beach instead.
Raine never went near the beach. She did at first, but she’d end up having nightmares afterward, so she stopped coming down here. She said seeing it from the condo’s balcony was plenty for her, and she didn’t even go out on the balcony much. She said it was because I was always smoking out there, but I knew it was because she didn’t like seeing the ocean waves and listening to the surf.
Everything she loved, I hated. Everything that frightened her, I loved.
How’s that for fucked up?
For the most part, we were making it work. Despite the major difference in opinion about the island where we lived alone for weeks, everything was just fine when we were together. Raine was definitely enjoying her studies at the University of Miami, and my nasty moods usually evaporated around her. I couldn’t help but kind of wish she would change her mind about living in a remote area next to the water, but I wasn’t going to push the issue even if living around all these people wasn’t my preference.
I loved her, and loving her was the only thing that kept me sane.
Well, reasonably sane.
I closed my eyes for a second and took a deep breath. The ocean wind brought the scent of brine and sea life to me. When I opened my eyes again, I nearly walked right into a couple on the beach but managed to just brush up against the guy’s shoulder as he went by.
“Hey, asshole! Watch where you’re going!”
My hands clenched involuntarily as I turned and stared into the eyes of the motherfucker who had just passed me. Dressed in bright blue swim trunks with fucking starfish on them, the guy was maybe in his mid-thirties with light brown hair and bushy eyebrows. The chick in the purple bikini with him couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to impress her or what, and I didn’t really care. The slight amount of calm graced to me by the ocean waves was gone, and in its place was the storm of fury I had been trying to dodge all afternoon.
Without a word or a thought, I hauled back and punched him in the chest.
Though I hadn’t hit him all that hard, it felt good to have my knuckles connecting to someone’s body. Really good. He went down like a fucking ton of bricks despite the pulled punch, and the corners of my mouth turned up.
“Oh my God!” the girl screamed. “What the hell is the matter with you?”