Grey shrugged. “Lucky accident, I guess.”
It was obvious that there was more to the story, but Lauren knew better than to press, and she sighed as she looked out over the water. It was as if the entire world were spread out before her, full of opportunity and adventure, daring her to do something worthy of being remembered. It was humbling, to sit there and realize that she had never done one thing worthy of being remembered by anybody. “I feel so small, sitting here.”
“Yeah,” Grey agreed, her tone much lighter than Lauren’s. She had found this spot during a weekend bender with Kip not long after Emily had died. She had wanted to come alone, but Kip had invited herself along—no doubt to make sure that she did not drink herself into a stupor, fall overboard, and drown.
Which was, she had to admit, something that could have very well happened.
Grey had sailed by the point more times than she could count, but she had never bothered to actually seek it out until that weekend. The hike that day had been Kip’s idea—something to get her out and moving instead of just sitting on the boat drinking herself to death—and though Grey had cursed her friend the entire time, she had been thankful for it ever since. It probably did not make sense to a lot of people, but Greylikedfeeling insignificant. In the months after Emily’s death, it had been a relief to be faced with the fact that her pain did not matter in the grand scheme of things. That no matter how she felt, the tide kept turning. The wind continued to blow.
That life, in all its forms, soldiered on.
Lauren watched Grey out of the corner of her eye as they sat in an easy silence, each lost to their own thoughts. A part of her expected to see the shadow of melancholy that always hovered at the edges of Grey’s personality to appear, to darken her featuresand weigh heavily on her shoulders, but it never happened. The small smile tugging at Grey’s lips made Lauren smile as well, and she could not resist reaching out and wrapping an arm around Grey’s shoulders. “Thank you for showing me this,” she whispered as she drew Grey into her and pressed a light kiss to her temple.
A feeling of utter peace swept through Grey as she leaned into Lauren, like this was exactly where she was supposed to be, and she closed her eyes as she tried to commit every detail of the moment to memory. “Thank you for coming with me.”
“There is nowhere else I’d rather be.” Lauren rested her temple against the top of Grey’s head and held her close as the truth in her own words rocked her to her core. Her dreams were within her grasp back in New York, just waiting for her to return and take them, and yet she found herself wishing that this moment could last forever.
The fact that it could not settled heavily on her heart, and she squeezed her eyes shut to try and block out the painful truth.One more week, she told herself.You have this for one more week. Don’t think about New York. Just enjoy the moment.
Grey felt Lauren stiffen beside her, and she sighed as she opened her eyes. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Lauren whispered. “Just…”
The silence at the end of Lauren’s thought told Grey all she needed to know, and she nodded understandingly. “I know.” A large body surging out of the ocean in front of them drew her attention, and she smiled as she pointed at it, grateful for the distraction. “Look.”
“What?” Lauren lifted her head and looked at the spot in the ocean where Grey was pointing.
“Just…there.” Grey smiled as a humpback whale breached right in front of them. “See it?”
“Kinda hard to miss,” Lauren chuckled, her brows lifting in surprise. “I didn’t realize there were any whales in the Caribbean.”
“Usually just sperm whales,” Grey said, her smile growing wider as another whale leapt out of the water, not far away from the first. “But humpbacks come to the Caribbean during the winter to mate. It’s pretty early for them to be out here though, they don’t usually show up until at least January.”
“Still…” Lauren sat up straighter and leaned forward to stare at the now placid waters in front of them, as if by sheer force of will alone she could make the whales reappear. “That’s pretty amazing.”
Grey looked over at Lauren, whose face was lit with wonder, and nodded. “Yeah. Amazing.”
“I have never seen anything like that before.” Lauren glanced at Grey, and blushed when she found the brunette staring at her. “What?”
“Nothing.” Grey shook her head. She leaned in and kissed Lauren softly. “Is it wrong that I like looking at you?”
Lauren smiled shyly and shook her head. “No.”
“Good,” Grey whispered, smiling as she cradled Lauren’s face in her hand and guided the redhead’s lips back to her own. They kissed slowly, lazily, their tongues stroking idly together, and Grey sighed when she finally pulled away. She ran the backs of her fingers over Lauren’s jaw and kissed her again. “We should probably stop this.”
“Says the woman who keeps kissing me,” Lauren pointed out in a husky whisper.
“I can’t help it,” Grey retorted, kissing Lauren again for emphasis.
Lauren laughed. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Ridiculously sexy?”
Grey’s expression was adorably hopeful, and Lauren shook her head as she pressed a hard, chaste kiss to her lips. “Ridiculously silly.” She kissed her again, more tenderly this time. “And pretty damn perfect.”
“Smooth talker,” Grey murmured.
Lauren smiled and kissed Grey again, the caress even gentler than the last, and she held it until her head began to swim. “You know it. Now, be good. These rocks are not comfortable enough for the things that’ll happen if you keep kissing me like that.”
