“Sloane!” Beckett calls a few minutes later. I barely hear his voice, muffled by the water.
When I right myself, he’s standing on the shore with a plate in his hand. I swim towards the dock and get out.
I grab my towel and dry myself off before grabbing his hoodie and putting it on, slipping my feet into my sandals.
“Thanks,” I say, sitting down next to him, my mind not really present.
I can tell that he knows something is wrong. But he doesn’t press me to open up, which I’m grateful for.
“I didn’t know you liked to swim,” he says casually, breaking the silence as we eat. Mocha munches loudly on his food nearby.
“Most people don’t,” I reply, not looking at him.
I’m quiet for a long time, not really knowing what to say or how to say it. He doesn’t push, he just lets me figure it out on my own.
“I went swimming at a school function once. I was thirteen. I wore a sporty one-piece with shorts. Just trying to cover up as much as I could. I figured once I was in the water that no one would notice me,” I whisper. I brush a tear away. I don’t look at him, I can’t. I stare down at the fire.“One of the boys laughed and said, ‘whales weren’t supposed to swim with the rest of the kids.’” The tears fall a little faster now. There’s nothing I can do to stop them.“I haven’t really been swimming around people since.”
“You didn’t owe me an explanation, but thank you for telling me,” he whispers, taking my hand in his, while the other gently takes my chin, turning my face towards him.
“I think that I wanted you to know that today mattered. It’s the first time I’ve been swimming in public since that day, and it’s the first time I’ve worn a bikini away from the house,” I whisper.
He tugs on my hand, not hard but enough for me to stand and climb into his lap.
“We didn’t have to go swimming. If I had known, I wouldn’t have mentioned it,” he says, kissing the top of my head.
“It’s ok. I needed to do it, so thank you.”
“I liked seeing you out there. You looked free,” he says after a few moments of silence.
“I felt free.”
Another few moments of silence pass, comfortable, waiting for one of us to break it.“Is that why you don’t post bikini pics?” he asks, and I nod.
“I know how to pose and get all the angles, how to edit, and I know that I look better than I did. I walk around in tight shorts and little tops, but there’s just something about a bikini that feels too exposing. And people on the internet are really mean,” I whisper, burying my face into his shoulder and wrapping my arms around his neck.
“For what it's worth, I’ve never seen anyone look more beautiful than you did out on that lake.” He kisses the side of my face, and I melt into him.
God, I’m falling so fucking hard for this man, and I can’t find it in me to try and stop it.
26
BECKETT
It’s been a long time since I’ve been camping, and I hadn’t realized how much I missed being out in nature until I brought Sloane out here with me.
It’s been the perfect way to end the week. She’s had a rough few days; I can see that without the worry of her phone, that she’s a lot happier. It’s been in the truck pretty much since we got here. She did take it with us on our hike this morning to take some pictures, but other than that, she hasn’t looked at it.
I’m sitting on the dock in a camp chair trying to catch some fish for dinner, when she pulls her chair over and sits next to me. She’s been reading the book that I got her a couple of weeks ago, and she seems to be enjoying it. Whenever I look over at her, she’s either smiling or biting her lip to stop herself from smiling.
I have no idea what the book is about, but it looked like something that she would like based on the cover, anyway. I broke rule number one, and judged the book by its cover, and I bypassed reading the summary on the back.
Mocha jumps up into her lap like it’s where he belongs and rests his chin on her shoulder. It only takes him a few minutes to fall asleep.
I don’t say anything, I don’t need to. I like the quiet. Well, I enjoy thistypeof quiet; I always have. The soft ripple of the water, the wind through the trees, the soft sound of Sloane turning the pages in her book every so often.
I could get used to this.
It’s weird to think about the future right now. Before, I would have told you that I was gonna stay with the force for another twenty years, collect my retirement, and just tinker out in my shop ‘til I was old and my body stopped working.
