Page 27 of Crossing the Line

Jess’s eyes shifted from me to Damien, but she didn’t look surprised to see him there. “You guys ready for the hike?”

“Actually, we were in the middle of-”

“Yeah, we’re ready,” I cut Damien off without looking his way. But I could somehow sense his irritation.

Still, he didn’t argue as we left my room, heading downstairs with Jess and Cody. It was easy to put distance between us when we met the rest of the group in front of the resort, where we were waiting for everyone to arrive so that we could leave.

I made small talk with Ryan’s sister, Zoey. As we chatted, I kept seeing Ford in my peripheral vision, obviously hovering near Zoey, even though she purposefully avoided looking his way.

I didn’t ask what that was about. I was doing my own avoiding that I didn’t want to discuss, so I wasn’t going to butt into her business.

“I don’t know how you do it,” I said after listening to her talk about working in the emergency department as a nurse. “It must be so stressful.”

She nodded, but she was smiling. “It is, but I love it. The intensity of it is exciting, and the stress makes me feel alive. I’ve been working at the hospital for three years in various departments, and none of them suit me quite as well as the ER.”

“It’s important to do what makes you happy,” I said, thinking about my own job. I’d always known that I wanted to work with children, and I once thought I’d teach elementary school, but working with underprivileged kids ended up being my calling.

Until recently, I never even considered a different job. But there was a new option that had been weighing on my mind for a while. It would be a huge change and take me away from everything I knew, but that idea wasn’t quite as unappealing as it had been only a few days ago.

“I’ve always thought so,” Zoey said. “My dad thinks I’m crazy for working such long hours on my feet when I could just live off my trust fund. He doesn’t get it.”

This was something that I couldn’t relate to, so I just nodded with what I hoped was an understanding look on my face.

“Okay, is everyone here?” A man I’d never seen before called out. He was wearing a powder-blue polo shirt with the resort’s logo on the front breast pocket and a matching visor that cast a shadow on his face. “Great! Let’s go over a few rules before we head on our guided hike through the rainforest.”

As he droned on about not feeding wildlife and leaving no trash behind, I glanced around at the group. There were many more people on the island for the wedding than before. In the first few days, it was only close family members and the wedding party, but guests had started to arrive. There were old friends and distant relatives here now, and as we set off on the hike, it was overwhelming to be surrounded by so many people, most of whom were chattering.

“Not quite the peaceful hikes we’re used to, is it?” Damien asked, appearing at my side just as we entered the rainforest. A path had been carved through the thick trees, and our guide made sure to tell us not to step off it because it was easy to get lost here.

Zoey had wandered ahead of me, giving Damien the perfect opportunity to get close. I thought he might keep his distance after the conversation we had this morning, but apparently, he had different ideas.

“Yeah,” I said, my eyes skimming our surroundings. The dense canopy blocked out the sun, so we were surrounded by shadows, but I could see well enough to make out moss covering the branches of the trees and a gecko skittering across the ground. “You remember when we took that hike in Lincoln Park?”

I wasn’t sure why I brought that up. Maybe it was an attempt to follow through on what I said earlier about staying friends and acting like we never slept together. Remembering good times seemed like a good way to try to move past this, and I loved that hike. It was some of the most fun I’d ever had with Damien.

“The bird sanctuary?” Damien shuddered. “God, that freaked me out.”

I chuckled at the memory. The bird sanctuary where we hiked had hundreds of species of birds, including warblers, sparrows, and waterfowl. I even saw a peregrine falcon, which was cool because he was mid-dive, and it was fast, majestic even.

Damien had been less than thrilled, and that was when I learned about his fear of birds. He only went on the hike because I suggested it, and he thought he could tough it out.

He was wrong. He was jumpy the whole time, his eyes skimming the area around us and the sky above continuously for signs that one of the birds might be preparing to attack us.

I teased him mercilessly, but one of the things that I loved about Damien was that he didn’t take that sort of thing personally. In fact, he could usually give as good as he got, and we spent half that hike trading barbs and laughing at how creative we got with our insults.

The ache in my chest was different as I relived that memory. It wasn’t just the heartbreak that I’d been dealing with for days; it was a realization that I could make myself accept just friendship with Damien. It wasn’t what I wanted, but it was better than nothing. Because I couldn’t imagine my life without him.

So, I would tuck away my feelings and eventually heal. It wouldn’t be easy, but for the first time since he rejected me, it felt truly possible.

“I think I spotted some kind of brightly colored bird just over there,” I said, and Damien spun around, looking in the direction I pointed. I chuckled.

Damien looked back at me, realizing there was no bird nearby, and glared. But there was a familiar playful undertone.

“You think you’re funny, but you’re really a Payne in my ass.”

I rolled my eyes and shoved his shoulder. He’d come up with calling me a Payne in his ass not long after we met, using my last name in a way that he thought was hilarious. I always acted exasperated by it, but I secretly thought it was rather clever.

Damien and I walked mostly in companionable silence for a while after that, and the relief I felt was immense. Things weren’t fixed between us, and I was utterly mortified by our conversations last night and this morning, but for now, we were ourselves again.