had been unfair––selfish and mean. I hadn’t been thinking properly.
Mom.
I was a coward. She wasn’t. She was brave and I loved her so much.
My cell rang. I’d heard a couple of texts arrive earlier.
I didn’t know how long I’d been in the shower.
Whoever was calling hung up.
But a moment later my cell started ringing again.
I got up, not hurrying, and turned off the shower. By the time I’d wrapped a towel around me, to hide my body so I didn’t have to see it in the mirror as I passed it, my cell rang for the fourth time. I caught up another towel and wrapped it around my hair.
Something thumped the door of my room. I’d guess the side of Billy’s fist.
“Lindy! Are you in there! Answer! You’re scaring the fuck out of me! How long does it take to have a fricking shower! Lind! Lind! Are you okay?”
I hurried across the apartment and shouted through the door, “I’m just putting on my makeup, give me a minute.”
“I’ll wait!”
I hurried back into the bathroom, unzipped my makeup purse and began applying foundation.
“Lind, come on!” Billy shouted after a while.
I stroked the mascara brush up my eyelashes one last time.
“Lind!” He bashed the door again as I pulled out my lip gloss.
“Wait!” My hand shook as I painted the lipgloss on.
When I opened the door he was just about to bash it again, and the side of his fist came flying at me, I fell back, leaning out of the way. Instead of hitting me, his hand grabbed my arm.
“You okay?” His eyes and his voice were loaded with concern.
He smelt good. He had on a clean white tee, that stretched tight across his chest, hugging all his muscular contours.
Billy always looked good, even on the beach earlier, when he’d been covered in sand and salt.
“Lind, I thought… I’m not saying what I thought…” I knew what he’d thought; he didn’t have to say it. He’d thought I’d taken an overdose.
“I was just having a shower.”
My new guilt complex poked a finger in my ribs. We were good friends. I’d loved him like a brother for years, and I guess he felt the same about me. I lifted up onto my toes and hugged him. The guy had taken two weeks off to bring me here, and paid, and planned it all. Tears slipped out.
Billy stood outside my room, so technically I was in the hall, in a towel sobbing, with my arms wrapped around his neck.
He lifted me up, like I was nothing. His massive biceps like bars around me, and carried me into the room three paces before shutting the door with his heel.
He put me down then, his big hands bracing my head, and then he kissed my temple. It was a protective gesture. I’d scared him.
His fingers splayed on my cheeks as he looked into my eyes.
I liked his eyes. They were always warm, they were dark blue, but there was heat in them. The guy had always been the complete opposite of Jason.
“I’m allowing this,” he said, “because this is your mourning time, but you’re gonna have to stop crying in seven days, and you are definitely gonna have to carry your cell at all times. You scared the crap out of me.”
I knew. He’d hugged me back fiercely.
His hands dropped. “Do you want me to get lost until you’re dressed?”
“No, stay. I’ll get my stuff and change in the bathroom. You can talk to me around the door.” I didn’t want to be alone.
I valued his friendship. I’d lost touch with all my girlfriends the summer we’d left high school because everything in my life had changed and I’d turned to Jason. I’d spent every moment with him, and Billy had become mine and Jason’s shared possession. He could be relied on for anything.
I grabbed my clothes up from the bed I’d pulled out from the sofa.
He hadn’t answered.
I glanced back.
An odd expression twisted his lips, but he smiled. “Okay. I’ll wait out here.” He turned away and headed toward the balcony. “What do you want to do once you’re ready?”
“I’d like to go back to the beach!” I headed into the bathroom. “The air down by the ocean felt good. There was so much energy in it. We can paddle now you’ve got your cargo shorts on.”
“I’d have thought you’d have had enough of the ocean?”
I pushed the bathroom door up so there was only a narrow crack we could talk around.
“I don’t mind splashing around in the shallows! I hate swimming in the ocean, though! It scares me! You never know what’s beneath the water and if the seaweed wraps around my legs I think it’s something horrible!”
“Then I guess you’re not gonna want to go surfing with me? I was gonna take you out on my board.”
“Since when did you learn to surf?” I looked up, avoiding the reflection of my ass in the mirror as I slipped my panties on, without taking the towel off. My heart pounded. I hated seeing myself in mirrors. Scratch that. I just hated myself. I hated my face and I detested my body.
“I learned here, the summer we left high school. I’ve come out here every year since. Believe me, it’s awesome. Just sitting out there letting the waves swill under you, until the right one comes along, and then you fly…”
I hadn’t even known he’d been out here. But the summer we’d left high school, I’d had other things on my mind. Like Mom. And last summer Jason had decided that what he really wanted to do was leave me behind and go fulfill some dream I’d never heard of before.
“Don’t worry, we’ll go paddling and jump the waves like little kids.”
I faced the mirror once my body was hidden under my clothes. The makeup mask I’d painted on my face looked back at me. I looked okay. I think I’d managed to hide the fact I’d been crying but I was overly pale. . My skin could do with some sunshine. I’d hardly gone out of the house for months.
“What’s taking you so long?”
“I’ve got to dry my hair.”
“Lind, you’re going down by the ocean, it’s salty and damp. Forget your hair.”
“No way! I am not looking ugly just ‘cause I’m gonna be walking on a beach.”
“Believe me, you did not look ugly in that towel combo…”
I laughed, though the sound only came from my throat not my soul. Billy was vibrant, full of talk, and a just-do-it attitude… I really did like all those things about him. Jason had always been more silent, thoughtful and hesitant. I really did need Billy’s company to get me out of my shell and over Jason.
He didn’t say anything else as I finished getting ready, and if he had said anything when I turned on the hairdryer I wouldn’t have heard.
When I came out of the bathroom, he still stood out on the balcony.
“Hey.”
He turned and his gaze dropped to my bare feet, then ran up my legs, over my mini-skirt and up to my face. “Sorry.”
I frowned. What did he have to be sorry for?
He stepped forward. “Come on, then, let’s go jump some little bitty waves.” His hand lifted.
I held it for a moment, but then