Unafraid (Beachwood Bay) Read Online Free PDF Page B

don’t know how much braiding you’ll get done with this,” he runs a hand through his shaggy brown hair.
    “I don’t know,” I pretend to muse, setting out ketchup bottles and mustard. “I think you’d look cute with a couple of barrettes, maybe some highlights…”
    “Shut up!” Garrett throws a dishtowel at me. I duck back, laughing.
    “Wait, where’s Jade?” I look around. “Don’t tell me she got lost on the way to the storeroom.”
    “I’ll go check.” Garrett starts towards the door, but I cut him off.
    “Oh no. I’m not leaving you alone in there with her. That room has history.”
    Garrett’s eyes widen in recognition. “That’s right, Em and Jules…”
    I shudder, remembering the time I caught my brother in a very compromising position with Juliet, back before they were even officially together. “Don’t even talk about it.” I order him. “Some things, you can’t unsee!”
     

     
    I spend the first half of my shift hidden away in the back office going through purchase orders. At least, that’s what I tell myself I’m doing, but the truth is I need a moment to myself, to process everything that’s happened over the past twenty-four hours.
    Hunter.
    It was only supposed to be one night, that’s how I justified it to myself at the time. One night to taste a world I knew I couldn’t own; one night to surrender to a feeling far beyond my control.
    The last night of summer.
    I’d just turned sixteen and the Covingtons were back in town again. I’d always stayed out of the way of the rich kids before. I had a gig waitressing at Mrs. Olson’s diner, and the closest I’d come to them was serving pancakes on a Sunday morning, or laying out on the beach a few towels over from their non-stop party crowd. I kept my distance for a reason. I’d seen the damage the summer people could do. My brother, Emerson, had his heart ripped out by a girl who left town and never looked back.
    But something was different about Hunter.
    It felt like we were circling each other, all summer long. We never said a word to each other, but I would catch him staring when we passed on the street, and one day when I was down by the docks I saw him, taking in the sail on their boat. He was stripped to his swim trunks, the muscles of his shoulders and torso gloriously defined in the midday sun as he reached to haul in the heavy fabric. I watched him from behind the safety of my shades, and felt something flicker to life I’d never known before.
    Desire.
    This wasn’t the frustrating tension from the brief hook-ups and clumsy fumblings I’d already experimented with. Those encounters left me feeling empty and unsatisfied, but this was something deeper, a strange awareness that seemed to flood my whole body, a magnetic pull towards him, as if my flesh and bone knew something I hadn’t yet discovered for myself. And once that flame flickered to life, I couldn’t damp it down again. That wanting haunted me all summer long, every time our eyes met, like a secret you have to tell.
    It was inevitable. Even I knew it. You can’t resist an ache like that, so I made a deal with myself, building up my walls so I wouldn’t be the one to get hurt. It would be simple. Clean. One night, that’s all I’d have, and then he’d be gone, back to his golden, shining life, and I’d carry on as normal. Curiosity sated. Safe again.
    And my plan worked—at first. I had my perfect night with him, and the next morning, I kissed his cheek and slipped away while he was still sleeping, making the long walk back to my run-down house alone in the pale dawn light. I told myself that I’d gotten everything I wanted. He left town that day with the rest of his family, and my life went on.
    Except nothing was the same again.
    That’s the dangerous thing about tasting something so perfect. I found out the hard way that once I’d had a glimpse of that beauty, even for a brief moment, it broke my heart a little every day to go without. The