Page 67 of Fight For Me

“What progress? I haven’t made any fucking progress! He still has me lifting weights and working on posture!”

I shake my head. I can hear the frustration in his voice but still. He’s smarter than this.

I drop down to my knees on the board, then shift into a sitting position, my legs dangling in the ocean. “Sit,” I order.

He raises an eyebrow. “Aren’t we bossy today.”

“Sit down, you stubborn ass.”

He huffs, but he does it. We drift in silence for a few moments, our legs kicking gently in the water. It actually feels pretty good—it’s damn hot in Miami and paddle boarding in the ocean is more physical than it looks. I watch my friends further out. Will is trying to climb onto Eva’s board while she uses her paddle to push him away. River and Fox are jousting with their paddles. Everly is trying to coach Bodhi into going out further. He’s shaking his head repeatedly, yelling something about jellyfish. Rose has gone so far ahead she’s a speck of long tanned limbs and blond hair out on the horizon. She’s completely abandoned Leo, who doesn’t seem to mind—he’s given up entirely and is sunbathing flat on his board in the shallow water.

“You look a little better today,” Wyatt says, and my head snaps in his direction. He’s watching me, and something about his expression makes me think he’s been doing it for a while. Heat rises on my cheeks. “Better?”

“Like you got some rest,” he clarifies. “You don’t look so tired.”

I scoff. “So I usually look like a hot mess is what you’re saying?”

Something flashes in his eyes, his jaw flexing as he presses his lips together.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

I point at his clenched jaw. “No, you were going to say something. What?”

He turns those flashing eyes on me. “I was going to say that you’re not a mess and hot is an understatement.”

I swallow as the heat on my cheeks doubles. “Oh.”

He half sighs, half laughs. “Yeah. Oh.”

Silence settles again, but it’s not so peaceful this time. The air feels heavy between us, and my heart is pounding.

“You’re killing me in that bikini, Alex,” he finally blurts out. He sounds angry about it, and my defenses go up.

“You think it’s so easy for me with you looking like that?” I shoot back, gesturing to all the tanned, smooth skin currently on display. “It’s bad enough when you walk around the condo like that, but on the water? With the sun shining on you?”

We glare at each other, both breathing heavily. The tension of the moment breaks when we hear Bodhi scream, “Is that ashark?”

“No, you big baby,” Everly yells. “It’s your own shadow.”

Wyatt tries to hold his pissed off expression but his mouth trembles and then we’re both laughing. I laugh so hard I have to lay back on the board to clutch my stomach. It’s like all the stress of the last few weeks disappears. The pressure of the show. My lack of sleep. The fight we had at the club. All of it melts away under the hot Florida sun while I laugh and laugh until tears come to my eyes.

“Alex,” Wyatt murmurs, and I look over to see that he’s laying back on his board too, only a foot or so away. He reaches over and wipes the tear from under my eye, his thumb lingering on my skin. I can’t look away from his brown eyes. I feel frozen in place on the board, but it’s not an unpleasant sensation. I feel like I could lay here just like this for the rest of my life.

A loud splash startles us and I jerk into an upright position in time to see Bodhi thrashing around in the water. “Help!”

“You know how to swim,” Everly yells, exasperated. “Grab the board, you dummy. There are no sharks!”

“Should we help him?” Wyatt asks, sounding more than a little disappointed about the interruption.

I watch as Everly jumps smoothly into the water at Bodhi’s side. He throws his arms and legs around her like a howler monkey, his screeches about sharks and drowning echoing across the water.

“Probably,” I mutter, already sliding off my board to swim over, Wyatt right behind me. Between the three of us, we manage to get a whimpering Bodhi back onto his board, where he lays flat on his back, breathing as heavily as if he just completed a triathlon.

“I’m never going in the ocean with you again,” Everly says, brushing her sodden black curls off her forehead. “Did you have to scream so loud?” She pats her left ear. “I think I’m deaf now.”

The others—minus Leo—have joined us by now. “Looking good, Lele,” Fox smirks. “If drowned cat was the look you were going for.”