“What happened?” Pax asked as he wrapped his arm around her.
“Nothing. I’m fine,” I answered, giving her a smile. At least, I think I did. I wasn’t sure, since I felt numb just about everywhere.
That numbness didn’t go away as we were driven back to where our ship was docked. It didn’t go away while Pax told me all about our new numbers since he’d just pulled off the first-ever triple front flip on a motocross bike a few days ago during our live exhibition. Our YouTube subscribers were way up and so were Instagram and Snapchat, but our video views were through the roof.
It didn’t go away when they scanned my ID card as I boarded the huge cruise ship we’d called home since August. All I saw as I walked into our massive, three-bedroom suite at the back of the ship was the replay my brain wouldn’t shut off: the glimpse of the woman I’d seen next to Leah.
“Landon!” Pax shouted, breaking through my brain fog.
My head jerked toward him. “What? Damn, you don’t have to yell.”
“Apparently I do, since I called your name about three times first.”
“I said, I’m fine.”
His eyes narrowed. “Right, but I asked if you wanted to go to the pool?”
I blinked. “I need to work out.”
“You just finished boarding. Skip the gym for one day and come hang out. I know you’re prepping for Nepal, but one day isn’t going to kill you.”
He was right. I could skip one day. Besides, I was so distracted that I was liable to go flying off the treadmill or some stupid shit that was on par with running into a wall.
“Okay. Pool. The pool is good.”
“Hey, maybe you’ll find the snow bunny,” he teased as he headed up the stairs to his room.
“No snow bunny,” I said quietly to myself as I went into my room. Another girl wasn’t going to help me in this situation—not when she was all I could think about. I’d been through it before; I just needed to clear my head. I stripped out of my clothes and changed into trunks before I met Pax in our living room. Bobby had the camera crew in a meeting at the dining room table. If we hurried we could get some undocumented time.
“Seriously, you’re being weird,” Pax said while we took the elevator to the pool deck. “Leah said she saw you hit a wall while we were boarding. Do you think we need to get your head checked out? She’s already up at the pool saving us some lounges, but we can meet her later.”
“I’m fine,” I repeated.
“So you keep saying.”
Music was blaring on the pool deck as we stepped into the ninety-degree heat. The sun beat down onto my skin, but it did nothing to warm the numbness that I couldn’t kick.
Maybe Pax was right and I’d hit my head.
The crowd was thick, and the music was loud—it usually was as we were leaving port—and Pax disappeared to find Leah. I surveyed the gyrating masses and wished I could feel a little of their excitement.
First term was over, there were two more to go, and we were headed toward the Indian Ocean. It was all pretty overwhelming if I stopped to really think about it. Then again, stopping to think about anything was what had gotten me into this situation.
“There you are!” The blonde from the slope bounced over, her tits hanging out of her triangle top.
“Hey.” I forced a smile as she looped an arm around my waist.
“Want to get a drink with me?”
Not really.
“You know, I think I’m going to—”
“Oh, come on. The bar is right over here!” she said, turning us around.
Ice hit my bare chest and slid down my abs to my trunks as I sucked in a lungful of air. Holy shit, that was cold.
“I’m so sorry!”
Her voice hit me with the force of the hurricane that she was, and as she looked up, I lost what breath I’d managed to take in.
Her eyes widened, panic running across her beautiful, so-familiar face.
“Oh God,” she whispered.
The purple streaks in her hair rested against the smooth line of her chin, and her lips were parted in a look of shock that I was sure mirrored mine.
My entire world narrowed to the woman standing in front of me. Even my heartbeat stilled in reverence to the moment. How was she here? After all this time, she was close enough to touch, and all I could do was stare at her, like if I blinked she would disappear.
A thousand emotions crashed through me, fast enough to give me whiplash, long enough to sting me with the force of a billion needles, and none were able to steady me. Unadulterated joy and wonder at seeing her after all this time, fear that she was going to toss what was left of those margaritas in my face, and the most overpowering urge to kiss her, to beg her to forgive the mistakes I’d made as a stupid kid and forget the last two years we’d been apart.
But the biggest was sheer and utter relief that I could breathe again, that the numbness I’d felt since the slopes was gone, my skin tingling everywhere as if the blood had finally rushed back into the starving capillaries.
It all came down to one word.
“Rachel?”
Chapter Two
Rachel
Dubai
I had thought I was prepared for the inevitability of this moment.
I was so wrong.
Breathe, I told myself—not to calm down, but to push oxygen into my lungs before I passed out. Planning on seeing Landon and coming face-to-face with him were two completely different things. One was purely logical, and the other…well, there wasn’t a single nerve in my body that didn’t come alive at his nearness.