One Last Chance (5 page)

“
That is one alumni who has definitely gotten better with age,” Emily murmured. “Don’t you think?”

Claire managed a nod.

“
I sort of wish I’d gotten my reservation messed up. Maybe I’d be sharing a room with him instead of you.”

Claire stiffened. “You
…
? I thought you and Dylan
…
”

Emily waved her hand. “Oh, please. We hooked up a few weeks ago. Just before the reunion.”

“
Oh.” It felt like a very inadequate response.

“
He’s just a diversion,” she said. “A fun one, yes. But Griffin? He’s someone I could get serious about.”

The words stabbed Claire like a knife and she sucked in her breath. She knew she didn’t stand a chance with Griffin—hell, she wasn’t even sure if she wanted one—but she didn’t want to think of Emily with him, either. Or anyone else, for that matter.

Emily leaned closer and Claire could smell her peppermint gum.

“
Anyway, I was hoping you could help me,” she said, her eyes wide. “You know, like help me hook up with him.”

“
Me?”

Emily nodded and her hair bounced like she was in a shampoo commercial. “Yes! Put in a good word for me. Stuff like that. And, if things progress the way they should today, maybe stay in my stateroom tonight? So Griffin and I can have his.”

Claire swallowed. “Um. Sure.”

Emily squealed. “Great! I knew I could count on you, Claire. This is going to be so perfect. And just think—you can say you helped bring us together!”

She flounced off and Claire sat there, her head throbbing more than her ankle as she watched her go.

Emily wanted Griffin? Never in the history of ever would she have seen that coming. They’d run in the same circles at St. Andrew’s but they’d never dated. Had always been just friends. Griffin had played basketball and had been popular but he’d never been one of the
It
boys the way Dylan had. He’d never been one of the guys a girl like Emily would even consider dating.

Claire knew things changed after high school. People grew up, saw beyond the superficialness of looks and popularity. Maybe that was it. But considering Emily’s interest in Griffin was rather sudden, Claire was pretty sure a change in maturation wasn’t the motivating factor here. But she didn’t know what was.

“
Are you done being angry at me?”

Claire looked up.

Griffin stood in front of her, dressed in gray board shorts and a white Hurley t-shirt. A visor sat on his head and sunglasses shaded his eyes.

“
I guess.”

He sat in the chair Emily had just vacated. “Good. So you’ll come to the beach with me?”

“
The beach?”

“
Shore excursion.” He smiled. “You don’t wanna sit on the ship by yourself all day, do you?”

She hadn’t given it much thought. The shore excursions were expensive and she’d known when she signed up that the most she would probably do was de-board and walk around the port of call. Cabo San Lucas wasn’t a huge town, but, from what she’d researched, she could shop a little and walk the dock area and wander down to one of the beaches nearby.

He didn’t wait for her to respond. “There’s room on the parasailing excursion. It leaves in thirty minutes. I took the liberty of signing you up.”

“
I can’t parasail!”

“
I know. But you can watch. And the beach is pretty fantastic.”

She muttered an oath under her breath and he chuckled.

“
It’ll be fun,” he said. “I promise.”

“
What if I say no?”

“
Pretty sure you won’t.”

“
Oh? Why is that?”

“
Because I think you wanna see me out over the water. And I’m pretty sure you’re gonna be hoping my sail malfunctions and I go flying into the great beyond. Or into the mouth of a great white. I’ll have to make sure you don’t sabotage any of the equipment.”

Claire smiled despite herself. “Good idea.”

“
So you’ll come?” Griffin tried to sound nonchalant, like he didn’t care what choice she made.

She nodded.

A broad smile stretched across his face. “Awesome. We’d better get going. With that ankle of yours, it’ll probably take us a half-hour just to get to the elevator.”

Claire reached for her cover-up.

“
You do know that swimsuit you’re wearing covers up less than what I stripped you down to last night, right?”

She froze.

“
Oh, wait,” he said. “That was before I undressed you with my eyes. The swimsuit does cover up more. Never mind.”

She knew her cheeks were as red as Emily’s bikini, but she couldn’t help it.

“
Claire,” he said.

“
What?” she said through clenched teeth.

“
I turned the lights off last night,” he said. “Before I got you changed. I didn’t see a damn thing and I’m just messing with you because I want you to lighten up.”

“
A good way to get me to lighten up would be to stop making jokes at my expense,” she said.

Her response caught him off-guard and it looked to her like he almost winced.

He sighed. “Look, I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I’ll knock it off. I’ve just…I’ve missed being around you. We always screwed around. Teased one another. I missed that with you.” He hesitated. “But I’ll stop. Sorry.”

She remembered that. His incessant teasing. She’d both loved and hated it in high school. And she didn’t know what to do with the response she still had to it. Hated that he might really be picking on her, but loved that she was the center of his attention.

“
We should go,” he said. “I’ll go hold the elevator.”

He headed toward the bank of elevators before she could say anything.

“
Weren’t you afraid of heights?” Claire asked.

They were sitting on a pristine, mostly deserted beach in Cabo San Lucas. A cloudless blue sky played host to a brilliant sun and Claire was positioned on the sand, her face tilted skyward while Griffin waited his turn to parasail.

“
Still am.”

“
Well, this should be interesting then.”

He nodded, lost in thought. He glanced at the sky over the dark blue water and saw a pair of legs hanging from a harness, a shout of excitement coming from somewhere above the legs.

But he wasn’t thinking about his fear of being up high or who was in the harness or what they were screaming at.

He was thinking about Claire.

He’d been stung by her reaction to his teasing. He’d always teased her when they were kids. Always. He was a smart-ass and so was she. It was what they did. And he only did it because she could give it right back, which he’d always liked. He thought she did, too.

But now she definitely seemed less than thrilled with it. And with him.

This wasn’t the plan,
he thought
.

“
Have you done it before?” she asked. “Parasailing?”

He turned to look at her and his stomach did a little flip-flop, just like it had when he’d first seen her at the reservation counter. He still couldn’t believe he was sitting next to her after not seeing her for ten years. Everything about her made his knees turn to jelly, made his heart catch in his throat. But he couldn’t let her know that. Not yet.

“
No,” he said. “I haven’t. Always wanted to, but never had the chance. Or maybe not the guts.”

“
Even with all the places you’ve been?”

He smiled, squinting up at the sky. “Okay, so maybe it was more about the guts. But you know what? It’s not that I have a fear of heights.”

She looked at him. “No?”

He pushed himself up and shook the sand from his hands. “I have a fear of falling.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Right.”

“
You gonna be okay while I’m up there?”

“
I’ll manage.”

“
I know you’ll manage,” he said. “But do you need anything?”

She thought for a moment. “I need to know how long a stupid sprained ankle takes to heal.”

He took off his shirt, tossed it in his backpack and pulled out his cell phone. “You can research it on this. Google it or something.”

She took it. “Okay. Thanks.”

He took a step toward the boat dock, then stopped. “Hey, Claire. I’m sorry.”

“
For what?”

“
For teasing you,” he said. “And for getting you changed. If I overstepped my bounds, I’m sorry. I apologize.”

“
You don’t need to apologize. And I probably overreacted.”

In the past, he would’ve made some crack about how stunning it was for her to overreact because she always overreacted. But now he was feeling gun-shy and didn’t want to tease her anymore. She was clearly sensitive to it and even though he wasn’t sure why, he didn’t want to push it.

“
Go fly,” she said. “And come back in one piece.”

“
You want me in one piece?” he asked.

“
Yes.”

“
Should I take that as a sign that you aren’t totally sick of me yet?”

She adjusted her sunglasses. “You should take it as a sign that I need you to help me gimp around on these crutches and having both of us injured would be hugely pathetic.”

He laughed, shook his head. “I guess I’ll take that.”

Claire watched Griffin trudge off across the white sand, his tan torso sending a small quiver through her stomach.

She clenched his smartphone in her hand, trying to talk herself out of what she knew she was going to do. He’d given it to her to research the ankle. She hadn’t lied about that. She wanted to know when it was going to feel better and when she could ditch the damn crutches.

But she also wanted to know more about Griffin.

He’d told her some things the night before but she couldn’t shake the feeling that he had held some things back. She wasn’t sure what they were, but she thought he had been a little too quick in summarizing what he’d been doing the last ten years. Something didn’t feel right.

And now she had his phone and access to the Internet.

She knew she could probably find things he’d written, but she was wondering if she could find more.

She watched him step on the dock and shake hands with the boat handlers. He was so at ease, so comfortable in his own skin. She envied him in that way. He’d always been like that, brimming with confidence, just a shade shy of arrogance. She had no idea what that felt like. None.

They strapped the harness around his chest and midsection and he looked in her direction. He gave a little shrug and a smile, then a wave.

She hesitated, then waved back.

How could he still make her feel like that eighteen-year-old girl from ten years ago just by waving at her?

The dangerous part was that he could probably just as easily bust open her heart again.

She wanted to ask him why he’d done it. They’d never talked about that then. In fact, they’d never spoken after he’d broken up with her. About anything. Everything disappeared with one conversation and she remembered how difficult it was to have him uprooted like that from her life, like a gardener snipping a weed. Gone.

The boat’s engine roared to life and pulled away from the dock. Griffin went out over the water and the parasail blossomed above him, carrying him up and away. Claire watched, her heart swelling with pride and just a touch of envy. He wasn’t afraid of anything.

She glanced at the phone. Now or never.

She punched a button, bringing the screen to life. She found the browser and opened it. She typed his name into the search bar and waited for it to bring back the results.

The first few hits were from articles he’d written and she was immediately jealous. He’d written for several major magazines and been to more countries than she could count. His words were out there for the entire world to see. She scrolled through a couple of the articles and immediately found his voice in them, telling a story as if he were sitting next to her, whispering it in her ear.

But the last item on the first page was what caught her eye.

“
Pro Surfer Calls Off Engagement” was the headline and she immediately clicked on it, wondering if he’d written the article.

He hadn’t. He’d been one of the subjects.

She clicked on the embedded photo and grimaced. Sarah Polk was some beautiful professional surfer from Sydney who was apparently a national hero in Australia. It was big news when she’d broken off her brief engagement to the guy who’d first profiled her in Surfer Magazine.