“Shhh,” he says in a hushed whisper as he strokes my hair back and forth, soothing the wound in my heart and for the briefest of moments, instilling a seed of hope that I can heal.
He finally pulls away, but not completely, piercing me with his stare, his eyes a penetrating blue. “You know it’s possible to have more than one love in a lifetime, Fran, right? Especially for someone like you.” He pushes an errant hair from my face. “Someone so authentic and rare….” He clears his throat and faces the water once again, leaving me momentarily stunned by his words.
Matt just managed to repair one of the tiny cracks in my heart without even realizing it.
Chapter Fourteen – Matt – Castles in the sand
Is she for real? First she tells me that she likes it when I laugh, well, not in those words, but it was pretty clear. Then she taunts me and I find myself coming back for more. What the hell? The fucked up part. I liked it. All of it. I like the way I feel around her, the adrenaline surge that kicks in, the way she challenges me, almost to the point of not caring what I think about her. That is so damn attractive and she has absolutely no idea.
I’ve always been the pragmatic one, ever since I can remember. I’m not sure if it’s from being the oldest of three children, or if it’s something that was ingrained in my personality since birth. But I do know this—it’s been nearly a day and all of my rational thought has gone right out the fucking window. Nothing makes sense when I’m around her and I find myself in a constant state of confusion. She throws me off my game and I can’t figure out if I like the feeling or not. Well, I think I do. It’s just that I’m used to being in control and having my shit together, yet one snarky comment from her and I’m sent into a tailspin.
I’ve always loved a good challenge. Ever since I was a kid, if you told me there was something I couldn’t do, I’d work three times as hard to prove that I could. When I was eleven and Mom told me that if I ate one more peanut butter and jelly sandwich, bringing my count to four, that I’d end up getting sick—I mentally talked myself out of throwing up the entire night. I even snuck a couple glasses of ginger ale when she wasn’t looking, just so I could show her she was wrong.
When we went out on my parents’ small boat on Greenwich Beach as kids to go water-skiing and my friends said anyone who didn’t do it was a scaredy-cat, I was terrified, but never let on that it scared me to death. Instead, I went ahead and did it so everyone could see how brave I was…and then I ended up breaking my leg. But hey, they couldn’t call me chickenshit.
So when Fran looks at me with those dazzling green eyes and dares me, she has absolutely no idea what she’s in for, because that’s the one word in my vocabulary that gets my juices flowing, and she’s about to discover just how much.
“You wouldn’t dare,” she says, mashing her lips together, forming an adorable smirk.
“Oh, I would dare, Fran. Ask Caleb. He’ll tell you how I respond to dares….”
When Caleb dared me to eat a worm in third grade—I ate two. When he dared me to see if I could get to second base with Nancy Trimbell—I got to third. When he dared me to moon a car full of girls on the highway for one minute—I kept my ass up there for five. So this, well, this is cake.
I catch Fran by surprise and hoist her in the air. She tries to fight me, kicking her legs and attempting to wiggle out of my grasp, but I just tighten my hold.
“Put me down,” she yells, half laughing and half screaming while attempting to call Peyton for backup, but she’s way too busy locking lips with Caleb to come to Fran’s rescue.
When her eyes come back up to meet mine, I can feel that energy pulsating between us. Although my attention flickers to her lips, a dark pink from the sun, the cool breeze has made her nipples taut against the thin fabric of her tank, and my breathing accelerates. It’s impossible not to appreciate every single detail about Fran; she’s unbelievably gorgeous.
My gaze is drawn back to her lips when her tongue darts out to moisten them, making me want to taste her, to kiss her, to go exploring. What the hell am I saying? I’ve known this girl for barely twenty-four hours and yet I feel like I’ve known her for years.
I finally lower her to the ground, because if I don’t, I’m not sure I’ll be able to control myself much longer. As if that isn’t bad enough, then the words start spilling out about my sister. I don’t know what possessed me to say them. I’m usually very tight-lipped about my mother and sister’s deaths, Brad and Caleb being the only ones to bear the brunt of my anger, my grief, and my absolute heartbreak over losing them. But for some reason, standing next to Fran, an ease washes over me and I let a little piece of myself go. And, fuck me, she grabs that piece of me by taking my hand. I exhale a breath I didn’t even realize I’d been holding, and by the time it leaves my mouth her hand is gone, and I want it back.
I vaguely remember now that Brad mentioned something about her boyfriend passing away, but hearing her tell me about it was devastating. I know all too well how it feels so I pull her into my arms, as much for myself as for her. I smooth her hair down and tell her it’s going to be okay, but sometimes that’s such a bunch of bullshit.
But I’m not bullshitting her though when I tell her she’s authentic and rare. What possessed me to say that? I have no freaking idea, but I do know I meant it with my whole heart. She’s the real deal. There’s nothing fake about Fran.
“I must look a bit like a raccoon now,” she says, changing the subject, as she wipes her face with the back of her hands, concentrating on the area underneath her eyes.
“A cute raccoon,” I jest. “Here, you missed some.” I swipe my thumb at the corner of her eye to remove the rest of the black from it. “There. All set. As good as new.”
She bends down and picks up a smooth rock, launching it into the ocean before plopping down on the sand in front of the water.
“Wow, that’s quite an arm. I’m impressed,” I say, joining her on the sand, the sun warming our backs.
A smile causes her lips to quirk up. “They used to call me the ‘golden arm of the Bronx,’” she tells me, holding her head up high with pride.
I turn my whole body to face her, making a pile of shells and rocks between us. “That’s quite a title. What’d you do to earn it?”
“Well, we didn’t have parks in the city, but my friends and I would play ball in the courtyard near our apartment and my ball always made it over the fence and into the street.” She covers her toes with sand, rendering them invisible.
“So did you ever play little league?” I ask, drizzling more sand on her feet.
“No. I never wanted to make it official. It was just fun playing around, you know? Less pressure. So…do you want to help me build a sandcastle or what? We’ve got the beginnings of a world class one right here.” She points to the mound of sand and our collection of shells.
“Sure, but we don’t have a bucket or a shovel.”
She rises to her knees and scoops sand into her hands. “Who needs those? It’s called improvising, you know, like what the cavemen did. Geez, you do need to get out more,” she says, smiling, and I chuckle before we get down to the serious work of digging a water hole for the foundation and pounding wet sand into odd shapes. We finish off with a surrounding wall to protect it.
“Where do you want to put the shells?” I ask, patting the sand down to create what looks like a road around it.
“Hmph. How about we put them on top? You know, instead of a flag. Ooooh!” she exclaims, eyeing a shell on the ground. “I love this one. It’s so pretty!” She examines it, holding it up to the sunlight. “It’s got silver and blue inside. Let’s use this one, too.”