Killian might be livid with me. Or he won’t care at all. Either way, I suppose I will have the answer I want. Summer is ending in just a few weeks, and I am not sure where to go from here. Truth be told, I do not want to go anywhere—I want to stay here in Sunset Springs with Killian.
But I also do not want to make a choice based on something I am unsure of. I came here to start over and, with Killian’s help, I have. I have done so many things I never would have done on my own. Things I never even thought about doing. And I have done the one thing I never expected to do on this trip.
I went and fell in love with a local boy who may not want me once summer is over.
“He does. He will. He adores you, Kiera. If I am wrong, may something holy poising this matai,” Maribell quips before she sips it fast, grinning when nothing catastrophic happens.
Laughing, I shake my head at her silliness. We’ve become close since I have been staying at her grandparents’ adorable hotel. I am so grateful to her. I can talk to her about things with Killian, about how afraid I am that things will end as soon as the summer does. I am still afraid I am too old for him. Too saddled with baggage from all the struggles I am dealing with.
I am not even sure who I am sometimes. All I know is that am most like who Iwant tobe when I am with him. With him, I am brave, I am strong, and I am happier than I ever thought I could be. That emptiness, that nothingness I felt before him, is gone. But if he does not want me here, if he does not want the same things I want, then I am afraid I am going to be lost all overagain.
“He wants me right now. We never talked about later. It never came up.”
“It never came up because he didn’t think it mattered. He is thinking about a ring, about the perfect house on the beach, how many little surfers you will have. Killian never thought to ask because he did not think he had to.”
Maribel thought a girls’ night out, just the two of us, would be a good idea. Not just to have some drinks and dance, but to let him think about me not being there when he gets home. Because since this started, I have been there, waiting for him. I could walk the pier or go to the bars, or go on the charters, or do a hundred other things you come to Sunset Springs to do.
Tonight, I wanted to see if it even mattered to him where I am. Does it even matter to him where I am? Have I made myself too available for him? Have I gone and gotten tangled up with a local guy who hopes I will be gone once summer is over? Just thinking about leaving here, leaving him, it tears me up.
“Well, he has to ask. I have to know he wants the same things I do. I am not...how foolish would I be to just decide I am staying if he doesn’t want me?”
“Hedoeswant you,” she argues, sipping at her drink as she pulls me from the bar. “And if he doesn’t, well, we’ve got plenty of men here who will.”
Leading me out to the floor where dozens of bodies move to the pop music filling the small bar. At the bar, Sunset Shots, hot, shirtless guys flip bottles and shake up mixers behind the bar, while other just as hot men serve the raucous crowd. Women in tiny dresses or even bathing suits and bare feet dance on the floor as these men circle them, filling their drinks as they flirt.
“What do you need, pretty thing?” A large man with a huge jug of bright pink matais asks with a grin, his bare chest covered in tattoos and to my shock, lipstick kisses from the other womenhe’s served.
“Some of that,” I shout back, holding my glass up as I smile at him.
“That’s what I want to hear, pretty eyes,” he quips, pouring some into my glass, mixing it with the matai.
“Collins, be careful, this one isnotsingle. Just pretending for tonight.”
“I will be careful, sweetheart,” Collins, the handsome bartender who poured me some of the champagne teases, winking at me.
“No need to be careful with me,” Maribell teases him, holding her glass up for him to refill it.
Collins laughs, running a hand through his dark, messy hair, eating up her attention. I noticed most of the guys working at the bar love the attention, they flirt with the girls, and even let them put their hands on them. It makes me wonder how Killian is with the flirty, flighty women he teaches to surf.
Tipping back my drink, I shake off thoughts of him, letting other women touch him. Others being held the way he holds me when we’re on his board, riding a wave. I tell Collins to top me off again before moving onto the dance floor, shaking off my doubts, my fears, and my jealousy.
“Why are we pretending you’re single tonight, beautiful?” Collins asks as he dances between Maribel and me.
“Because I don’t think my boyfriend wants me.”
“Who would not want you?”
“Killian. I bet you know who he is. He’s beautiful,” I whisper tipsily. “We had a good summer together. A great summer. The best summer ever. Now I think...well, Collins, I think Killian just does not wantme.”
“Yes, hedoeswant you,” a voice rougher, deeper, a lot closer than Collins’ calls, startling me.
Blinking up in the darkness and twirling rainbow lights, Ismile at Killian. Gosh, he is beautiful. I was not wrong about that. Without a shirt, with his sexy tattoos and big, hard surfer body, he fits right in at Sunset Shots. Without thinking about why I am here, drinking, dancing, trying to show him I can be without him—because I don’t want to be and if I am honest, I don’t think I can be now—I move to snuggle close to him.
“There he is,” I whisper the words he often uses on me.
“Hey, baby,” he hums, brushing my hair back. “Have you let Maribell and Collins get you drunk?”
“Yes, yes I have,” I admit as I burrow my face in his neck. “Hmm, I missed you, baby. I was pretending I was single.”
