She turned to look at him. “What?” he asked.
“I thought you locked this.”
“I did,” he said. “You saw me.”
She paused. Maybe it came undone. Or maybe it stuck. Could be she just unlocked it rather than locked it when she touched it.
She opened the door and saw five guys in the hallway jump suddenly as if she caught them doing something.
“What’s going on?” she asked, chills running up her back, her palms getting damp faster than any other time in her life.
“We’re just out here chillin’,” one guy said. “Why?”
“Odd place for it, don’t you think?” she asked.
Everyone was looking at each other and Davey came into the hallway. “Natalie just needs to use the bathroom, guys. Go hang out in some other hallway. Dudes, really?” They all laughed, Davey shaking his head. “Ignore them. They do shit like that all the time.”
But she couldn’t ignore it. Not when everything in her said something was off.
Rather than go to the bathroom around the corner, she ran down the stairs as fast as she could.
“Damn, that has to be a record here. Ain’t no one been bucked off that fast. Davey lost his touch.”
Their laughter followed her like knives in the back.
In that instant she knew. It’d been a game. A joke. All of it lies.
She was supposed to be so lost in him with the lights out while his friends snuck in and turned them on, watching them having sex while she tried to get him off of her.
“Buck him off like he was riding a filly.”
She’d heard stories of that but hadn’t believed it.
She ran back to her room as fast as she could, the tears falling and her wondering what morning was going to bring.
She felt like such an idiot.
Get off the small island, she’d told herself.
See what the world has to offer.
What she saw tonight made her want to disappear.
1
SHE WAS HERE
Thirteen Years Later
“We hopeyou enjoy your stay at The Bond Retreat. Looks like you’re here for a while.”
Arik Crest took the keycard for his room and slipped it into his pocket. “I’m sure I will,” he said.
He was booked for the month in a suite. It was still the off-season, being mid-March. Fifty degrees and cloudy, but the ferry ride over from Boston hadn’t been nearly as horrible as he’d thought it’d be.
Could he have stayed in Boston rather than on Amore Island? Sure.
But he’d been to enough big cities and wanted to give small town living a shot.
