Chapter 6 Chapter 6

Tyler’s words made me pause long enough for him to come up beside me as I pushed wet hair away from my face and looked toward the scoreboard.

“What?” I gasped, searching until I found our names sitting at the top.

TYLER BROOKES / HEAVEN BAILEY.

For several seconds, I couldn’t do anything but stare at them while the numbers beneath our names registered, because three years apart, three weeks barely speaking, and one heat together should not have been enough to put Tyler and me in first place.

A ridiculous burst of happiness moved through me before I could kill it, and turning toward him, I found him already smiling.

“We're first,” he repeated, adjusting the board beneath his arm.

My smile escaped before I could stop it, and the attempt to pull it back lasted maybe half a second before Tyler's grin widened and suddenly I was seventeen again, standing beside him after another heat while we argued over which one of us had contributed more to the score.

“You're welcome,” I informed him, shifting my board higher against my hip.

His eyebrows lifted. “You're welcome?”

“You almost took the wrong wave,” I reminded him, starting toward the tents again.

Tyler caught up beside me. “I recovered.”

“Because I saved you,” I replied, stepping around a board lying in the sand.

“You yelled two words,” he countered, looking at me.

“They were very important words,” I argued, glancing toward him.

His smile deepened. “Third one?”

“Exactly,” I replied, lifting my chin. “Without those two words, you'd be somewhere around seventh right now.”

“Seventh?” he questioned, pressing one hand against his chest as though I'd wounded him. “That's insulting.”

“Eighth?” I offered, fighting another smile.

“Keep talking, Bailey,” he warned, bumping the edge of his board lightly against mine.

I bumped his back without thinking, and my laugh came just as easily, Tyler's joining it until we were walking beside each other through the sand laughing over something that wasn't particularly funny, our boards knocking together between us while the sun warmed my wet skin.

“You still do that,” Tyler murmured, glancing at me.

I looked over at him. “Do what?”

“That little victory strut,” he answered, shifting his board beneath his arm.

My mouth fell open. “I do not have a victory strut.”

“You absolutely do,” he argued, his gaze dropping deliberately toward my feet. “You've had it since you were fifteen.”

“I walk,” I informed him. “It's a fairly common human activity.”

“Not like that when you win,” he countered, grinning at me.

I shoved the edge of my board into his again, harder this time, and Tyler laughed as he knocked it back.

“You're just bitter because my victory walk is prettier than yours,” I accused.

“Everything about you is prettier than mine,” he replied, the words coming so naturally that my next step slowed before I could pretend they hadn't affected me.

Tyler's smile faded slightly when his gaze caught mine, and something warm and painfully familiar moved through me as he looked toward the sand, almost as though he'd only just realized what he'd said.

For several steps, I didn't think about what we were doing until I did, and my laughter disappeared as I stopped walking, Tyler taking another step before noticing I'd fallen behind and turning toward me.

Standing there looking at him, I hated how easily three years could disappear because that was the problem with Tyler. A wave, a look, two stupid words shouted across the lineup, and suddenly my body remembered everything my heart had spent three years trying to forget, the friendship and trust, loving him so much I'd once believed there wasn't anything in my life Tyler didn't belong in.

I'd missed this, not only Tyler, but who I'd been with him, the girl who laughed this easily and never had to wonder whether he'd be beside her when she turned around because he always had been until the day he wasn't.

My gaze dropped to the sand between us as the happiness I'd felt seconds ago twisted into something painful, because we'd fallen into each other again without trying, our timing returning in the water before either of us had been willing to admit it was still there on land too, and that scared me more than hating him ever had.

Hatred had given me somewhere safe to put Tyler for three years, but standing here with him was making it dangerously easy to remember why I'd loved him before I remembered why I'd stopped, and tightening my fingers around the edge of my board, I forced myself to look at him again.

“Don't,” I whispered.

Tyler's brows pulled together as he shifted his board beneath his arm. “Don't what?”

I swallowed, hating the ache already spreading beneath my ribs. “Make me forget why I hate you.”

Something broke across his expression, and recognizing it as pain, real enough that for one dangerous second I wanted to take the words back, I held myself still until Tyler looked away.

“You shouldn't forget,” he murmured, tightening his grip around his board.

I stared at him as the noise of the beach seemed to recede around us because there was something in the way he'd said it, something heavier than guilt over the accident, and watching him avoid my eyes, a prickling sensation moved over my skin.

“What's that supposed to mean?” I asked, taking a step toward him.

Tyler looked back at me but didn't answer, and watching the struggle move through his face, I knew with the same certainty I'd once known which wave he would take before he started paddling that there was something he wasn't telling me, something he'd been hiding for three years.

“Tyler,” I murmured, tightening my fingers around the board. “What did you do?”

His face went still, and when someone shouted our names from the competition tent, Tyler looked toward the sound while I kept my eyes on him as that horrible little feeling in my stomach grew heavier.

He'd nearly gotten me killed three years ago, and I'd hated him for it, blamed him for every surgery, every miserable hour of physical therapy and every night I'd awakened choking on a breath because I'd dreamed I was underwater again, yet standing there watching the color drain slightly from his face, I realized something I hadn't considered once in all that time.

Tyler thought there was something worse, and whatever it was, he was terrified I was about to find out.