Alec reads it in my face. “Just say it.”
“Okay, well, one of the women who apparently was captured on video was approached with a financial offer to settle, and before that, she didn’t even know she’d been assaulted.” I wait while he processes this, eyes squeezed closed. “So even though the police confiscated all of the video footage from the club, someone on the inside is feeding information to these guys. Even if charges are eventually brought, the perpetrators are getting their hands on all the evidence first.”
“Shit.” He blows out a breath into the water. “So there probably is video out there with Sunny in it?”
“I honestly don’t know. But it’s possible.”
“These past several weeks I’ve worried about everything,” he says. “It’s one of the reasons I left a few days later on the trip than the rest of the cast. I wasn’t even sure I could leave her right now.”
“Is someone with her?” I ask.
“She’s with our parents, yes.”
“How is she doing?”
He tilts his head from side to side. “She’s okay. Obviously, she knows that I’m talking about it, off the record. That’s a huge step for her, letting me do this.”
Watching him struggle with all of this, I dog-paddle closer so that I can come right up against him. “I’m so sorry.”
He nods, adjusting the noodles so that he can pull me into his arms. Alec presses his face to my neck, and even when my legs wrap around his waist, it isn’t sexual. We hug, floating aimlessly in silence.
But then his lips move against my neck as he speaks. “Thank you for listening to all of that. I’m so glad we haven’t been eaten by sharks.”
I laugh. “Thank you for planting that thought in my head, but really, thank you for sharing this story with me. I hurt for you and Sunny.”
“I haven’t talked to anyone about it yet.”
I pull back to look at him. “No one?”
He shakes his head.
“Honey,” I say, cupping his face, “you can’t take this on by yourself.”
Alec pauses, and then a grin slowly breaks over his expression.
“What?” I ask.
“You called me ‘honey.’？”
“I call everyone ‘honey,’？” I lie.
He frowns, skeptical. “You absolutely don’t strike me as the kind of person to call everyone ‘honey.’？”
I kiss his chin. “Well, don’t read too much into it. Remember, two weeks only.”
Lifting his hand, he presses it to my neck, threading his fingers into my hair. Against the sun-warmed skin of my cheek, his palm is cool. He leans forward, salty and wet, and brings his mouth to mine.
Minutes later—many, many minutes later—when we are wrinkled from water and tight with need, we swim back to shore and fall asleep on our towels under the umbrella, beneath the bright, clear blue sky, scores of miles away from stress or responsibility or the eyes of anybody who might want to find us.
Nine
It’s clear Eden has no idea what to do with her face when I walk into the apartment with Alexander Kim only two steps behind me. Her brown eyes go wide and then squeeze shut, and then she does the very last thing I would ever expect brassy, battle-ready Eden Enger to do. She turns and just… walks away.
I burst out laughing. “Eden!”
“I can’t,” she calls out over her shoulder.
“Get back here!” I look at Alec, grinning in amused apology, and pull him inside before chasing her down the hall.
Hooking a hand around her forearm, I turn her to face me. Her cheeks are flushed, eyes wild. “George,” she whisper-hisses. “You should have called to tell me that you were bringing—” She points helplessly down the hall. “That!”
“It’s Wednesday! I assumed you were working! I’m sorry!”
“People get life in prison for lesser offenses.”
I bend, bringing her knuckles to my lips and half laughing against them, half kissing them. “I’m sorry. If I’m being honest, I expected him to realize he couldn’t come over and bail. I didn’t want to tell you and send you into a cleaning frenzy.”
“Alexander Kim is in our apartment,” she says, “and I’m unshowered, wearing a Lakers T-shirt and old jeans. The state of our perpetually tidy living room is the least of my worries.”
“You look adorable.” She really does. Thick black hair in a messy bun, dark eyes glimmering. Everyone who meets Eden loves her because she is so unapologetically herself. “Come on. We’re sweaty and tired and sandy anyway.” I make puppy eyes at her. “And he’s so sweet. Don’t be uncomfortable. Think of him as Alec and maybe that will help?”