“You will?” Andie asked, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice.
“Mm-hm. If you want,” he said softly, closing his eyes again.
She turned her eyes back to the road as the oddest feeling washed over her. For a second, she almost felt disoriented. How could only twenty-four hours have passed since they started this trip? To her, it felt like so much longer than that. And not in the way that a task seems to take forever when it’s tedious or mundane, but more in the way that she felt like the person sitting next to her was someone completely different from the one who climbed into her passenger seat yesterday morning. This person wasn’t callous, he wasn’t crude, he wasn’t antagonistic; he was smart, and funny, and sweet.
At that moment the disorientation gave way to a different, but much stronger feeling.
Shame.
Because she realized then that Chase had always been those things. She had just chosen not to see it. She had made the decision to pigeonhole him according to her own first impression of him, knowing all too well how incredibly deceiving first impressions could be.
Andie glanced over at him again. She had no idea if Chase knew what she had thought of him a day ago, but it didn’t matter. She felt terrible about it, whether he was aware or not.
But she knew how she could make it up to him.
Andie smiled to herself as the plan began taking shape in her mind. She had looked up some information on her phone when Chase was changing into dry clothes; she’d been looking at the map and saw the name of the place, remembering that Chase had mentioned it to her the day before, and her curiosity had gotten the better of her.
A little while later, Andie put on her blinker and took the exit off the highway, and Chase looked over at her.
“Again? You seriously have the bladder of an incontinent grandmother.”
“I don’t have to go to the bathroom,” she laughed.
“Then why are we getting off the highway?”
“We’re making a stop.”
His brow lifted. “A stop? Is this in the itinerary?”
“It is now.”
She glanced over at him just in time to see his slow grin. “Well, holy shit,” he said, unbuckling his seat belt and turning quickly to reach into the backseat.
“What are you doing?”
A second later Chase came back up with his camera. “For posterity. We need hard evidence of the day you threw caution to the wind,” he said, aiming it at her.
Andie laughed just as the soft click sounded, the flash briefly illuminating the space between them like a spark, and she found herself wishing that a camera could immortalize a feeling as well as an image.
Because she knew she would never want to forget how wonderfully unbound she felt at that exact moment.
Tybee Island was a small island about twenty minutes east of Savannah, Georgia. It was only about twenty-two square miles, but within that small area, it seemed to be everything or anything a person needed it to be. As they began the drive out to the farthest point of the island where Chase’s lighthouse was, they passed a large pavilion with a pier, buzzing with people and movement, the quaint shops bustling with shoppers. Yet on the next stretch of road, there was nothing but quiet bike trails and tranquil fields set aside for bird-watching or nature walks. They drove past a huge arena for water sports, where people were renting boats and kayaks and Jet Skis, only to then pass a pristine stretch of beaches, where the visitors lounged casually on towels or beach chairs. It was the perfect combination of hubbub and serenity; the island seemed like a living thing, ready to cater to anyone’s mood or desire.
Andie had been fascinated when they drove past the Tybee Island Marine Science Center, and Chase told her what they did there. Apparently, the island was a safe haven for an endangered species of sea turtle, and from May to October, the turtles came up on the beaches to lay their eggs. People from all over the island, tourists and locals alike, would volunteer to be part of the Turtle Trot. Each day they would go check on the nests of eggs on the beach, moving them if they were in any danger from local traffic or wild life or the tide. And when the eggs finally hatched, they would stand guard to make sure each baby turtle made it safely out to sea. This would go on for months, and Andie loved the idea of protecting the turtles just as much as she loved the concept of family and camaraderie the project created on the island.
Just before they reached the farthest point of the island, they came up on the Tybee Post Theater. Chase didn’t know anything about this place, but there was a mass of people milling around it, so they decided to stop and check it out. After talking to some locals and reading a few brochures, they learned that the theater was originally built by the army in the early 1900s and served as the main source of entertainment for Fort Screven, the military base on the island. Once the fort was decommissioned, some locals bought the theater and kept it running through the 1960s. The property was then repurchased and scheduled for demolition to make room for some new condominiums, but the deal fell through, and instead the building stood, gutted and vacant, for almost twenty years. Once again the people of Tybee Island rallied together, and with the help of a bunch of volunteers and fund-raising, the theater was renovated, this being the first year it was opened to the public again. The locals talked about the theater like it was a child they had raised, with pride and love, and Andie again found herself overcome by the feeling of family on the island. It seemed like everywhere they looked, there was some story, some history, something to learn.
The theater itself was amazing, the perfect combination of historic antiquity and modern charm. On this particular day, they were holding an art exhibit, and Chase was instantly smitten. Andie watched him wander around, his expressions changing as quickly as an ambivalent child in a toy store as he admired, critiqued, and studied the paintings and photographs. Andie never had much of an eye for art, but watching him look at the exhibits, she wished that she did. She wanted to look at something and be moved, be inspired, the way he seemed to be, and she found herself staring at the paintings, searching them, wanting to see what he saw.
They left the theater about an hour later and finally made it out to the lighthouse, one of the island’s most renowned attractions, and the second they reached the top, Andie could see why. She had been to the top of the Empire State Building, and even the Statue of Liberty, which both dwarfed the structure she was standing in, but still, the view from where she stood was unparalleled. It didn’t even look real; she found herself squinting for a moment, trying to decipher where the ocean ended and the sky began. Everything was blue, peaceful and serene and seemingly infinite, and it made her feel small in the most wonderful way.
After they had descended, Chase took off with his camera while Andie found a quiet spot on a grassy hill near the Head Keeper’s Cottage. She sat with her arms behind her, supporting her weight as she tilted her face up toward the sun, allowing it to warm her cheeks and shoulders.
She didn’t want to leave.
It felt so good, sitting right where she was, like visiting some Old World painting. There was still so much of the island they hadn’t seen yet; they hadn’t visited any of the beaches, they hadn’t seen the Fort Pulaski National Monument on the other side, they hadn’t even stopped at the Pavilion, or walked through any of the stores by the pier. They could spend days there taking it all in.
She opened her eyes with a sigh, knowing that little dream was completely irrational; as it was, they were already going to be late getting to Tampa now. The wedding was tomorrow, and they shouldn’t even stay much longer.
But God, how she wanted to.
Andie sat up and plucked a blade of grass from the earth, stroking it between her fingers as she stared off into the ocean. She never would have come here if it weren’t for him, she thought as she saw the tiny shape of him off in the distance, squatting against the sunlight with his head titled to the side, his face pressed almost intimately against the camera.