What Lies Beneath (Count on Me Series #7) (20 page)

A ripped from the pages, real life princess.

“Surprise!” Dillon yells across the field and pulling my eyes off Belle just for a second, I give him the finger, which with the shake of his head and the returned hand gesture, is pretty evident he’s caught even from his distance away.

Stalking toward her, making quick work of the distance that even with the speed that she’s walking, is still too much for me, I reach my hand out when I’m close enough and take hold of hers, pulling her to me.

Making sure to breathe her in before pulling back and questioning what this is all about.

Belle has always been a vision to me. A sight to behold. The most beautiful girl in the room—the only girl in the room if we’re being honest—but this, the way she looks standing in front of me now, the way the dress she’s wearing seems to brush against every exposed part of my skin, she’s something else.

She’s Beauty.

Looks like I’m not the only one bringing memories from our past into the present.

Only hers, she’s making it better than it was before.

Belle standing here in her bright yellow dress with the shimmering jewellery to match, is giving me something I never thought I’d have again. A chance to do things over. Do it the way it should have been done.

At least, that’s what I hope.

“Is this what you wear around the house when I go to work?” I joke, fingering the material where it expands at her waist and meeting her eyes.

“Of course. With all the times you’ve called me a princess, I figured why not start living it?” she beams.

“Seriously, Belle. What is this?”

“You first.” She says, moving around and taking in everything I’ve put together. Her eyes seeming to expand out and take in the entire park quickly before coming to land at last on our mom’s sitting together under the tree. A sight that when she takes it in, she rewards me for with a soft laugh and what feels like a permanent rise to her face.

“You know what, Kay. I think I see what’s going on here.”

Turning back she steps back to me, her hand easily finding and sliding into mine as she turns her attention to what’s laid out in front of us. Not another word, or even an idea of what she’s thinking spoken.

When she stops near to our parents, I take the quiet opening I’m being given and take it.

“What exactly is it you think is going on?”

“We’re starting over.” She answers simply and I let it sink in. Sure, I was recreating a memory we’ve already had, but she’s right. These memories are new because we are starting over.

“Is that what the dress is about?”

“Yes and no.” she laughs softly. Fingering the dress in her hands and smiling when she catches my eyes following her movements, she meets my gaze and gives me a little bit more.

“After we went to bed, you fell asleep and I read the last entry, it got me thinking. There was something that even after everything that happened after we read it that wouldn’t let me go. So I stayed awake until I made sense of it.”

“Made sense of what, exactly? What a jerk I was?”

“The opposite, actually. I know what was really going on with you that day in the hall now, Kayden. Deeper than what your journal showed me.”

“Okay, I have no clue what you’re talking about. I’m pretty sure there was no deeper meaning. Well, other than me being at war with myself.”

“Ahh, but see. There it is. You were at war with yourself, and I don’t think it was just because you missed our closeness or our friendship. I think there was more to it. Another war going on that at the time, you would never admit to, but one that now, after everything I’ve read and we’ve lived through together, is clear as day.”

“Tell me.” I quietly push. “What can you see that I can’t?”

“I see what you really wanted that day.”

Huh?

“You mean me wanting my best friend?”

“Close.”

“Belle,” I sigh in desperation. Needing her to tell me what all of this means and put me out of my confused misery. “Tell me.”

“What do you see when you look at me?”

“Right now or always?”

“Just right now.”

She has no clue just how much I see looking at her. How things that shouldn’t be seen to the naked eye are alive and can be seen with crystal clear clarity. Forces that have no tangible look to most people, but that are vibrant and in motion with me.

Just like us.

Our energy.

“I see the air. It cracks and sparks like flames in a fire, but the more I see of you, the more electric it seems to become. Bigger. More powerful, like fireworks on the fourth of July, but without the sound because noise…it settles whenever you’re near. The only sound I can make out, the beat of your heart moving in sync with mine. Our sound. One so strong it can block out all others. Belle, you really are energy. Motion. The air.”

“Okay…” she says, her voice so low it’s barely a whisper, but one that despite its quiet tone, I hear loud and clear. “That wasn’t what I expected.”

“Now you know how I feel.”

Studying me, her brows scrunching as she tries to make sense of what I’ve said, I step even closer, twirling a tendril of her hair around my finger and sigh as the feel of it tickles and then embeds itself on my skin.

“You weren’t what I expected. Not when we were little, not when we grew up, and definitely not now. You’re not at all what I expected, but you are everything I want. I want the unexpected. Love it.”

Please read between the lines. Feel what I’m trying to tell you.
I silently plead as seconds pass with the two of us just staring.

“I love you too, Kayden.”

Thank God.

“Not nearly as much as I love you, Belle, but if you want the chance to prove you love me more, you can start by telling me why you asked me that.”

“Because your answer to that question was going to lead into my next one.”

“Which is?”

“With me standing here in front of you, dressed the way I am right now, recreating a memory that I honestly think we see so differently, is there anything you want to do?”

Oh, there’s a hell of a lot I want to do with her. To her. I’m just not sure a lot of it is appropriate with our mothers sitting a few feet away.

“Dance with you.”

“Anything else?”

“Hold you.”

“Well, since you can hold me while we dance, they’re the same thing. Is there anything else?”

“Kiss you.”

There’s a glimmer of something in her eyes, a split second where she seems to come to life, and I commit it to memory because something tells me, in the answer I’ve just given, I’ll find the answers to exactly what this is about. What she’s really doing here dressed this way.

“God, Belle. I really wanted to kiss you.” I admit. My breath catching when her lips twitch and lift, confirming what I should have known all along.

What she already figured out, but she needed me to learn on my own.

Belle is giving me the chance to do what I wanted to do that day. What I
should
have done then and shit, what I’m going to shut up thinking about right now and just do.

With my hand reaching out and connecting to her face, rubbing against her skin, committing the feel of her to memory the way I’ve done before, I lean in and gently brush my lips across hers. Only pressing for more when her tongue manages to snake out over her bottom lip. With the park fading to black, our family ceasing to exist, and only the beat of our hearts to guide us, I give myself up to the taste of her.

The distraction she presented enough to leave me open and vulnerable as the rest of the world faded away and only she remained. Hit with a healthy dose of shock as the first blast of wetness hits me. A surprise that after I jump out of my skin is quickly followed up by the sound of Belle’s laughter as more of it rains down around us.

Pulling myself from the daze that kissing Belle created, I look myself over and that’s when I see what happened.

Not only did she take me by surprise showing up here this way, but she’d also taken my idea, flipped it on its head and made it her own.

Looking from my shirt now covered in wet leaves, to the still laughing, blue eyed dancing face of my fiancée, I turn as a shadow moves and that’s when it all becomes clear.

Dillon switched teams.

Asshole.

“You think this is funny, huh?” I smirk, stepping toward Belle and chuckling when she starts backing away with her hands held up. Her head shaking like she’s reading my mind as her eyes plead with me not to do what I am so going to do now that I see what’s going on. 

I’m definitely not letting her get away with this.

Swiping the leaves off my clothes, I kneel down and grabbing as many of the fallen leaves as I can, hop back up quickly and shift my attention to her, smiling serenely.

When she bolts, I’m ready, especially after catching sight of the area she’s just taken off toward. The other portion of this day and what I asked that turn coat best friend of mine to put together looking to be her final destination.

It might not have gone off the way I saw it in my head, but its damn sure going to end that way.

I’m not the one going into the leaves in this memory.

Belle is too.

Giving chase, making up the head start I’d given, I pull her into my arms, spinning her around as she squeals in laughter, losing breath with every turn. Making sure that as I drop her feet to the ground, I don’t give her time to get her footing, instead using her unsteadiness to push her lightly back into the pile.

My own laughter quickly joining hers until the hard shove of something heavy hitting me throws me off my own feet and straight down in the leaves with her.

“Thanks, D!” Belle calls out and before I can mount a defense, I feel her body pressing tightly to mine before she slides over and straddles me. Leaves beginning to fall from the sky, raining down over my head and landing in my face until they’re blocking my view entirely. Her laughing drowning out the sputtering I do as I attempt to swipe the cool wetness of the leaves from my face.

My only thought as our eyes finally connect when we’ve worn each other out trying to get the upper hand, is so simple I can’t believe it didn’t happen before.

This is even better than the first time
.

Something tells me that life with Belle is always going to be that way.

Every day, every memory.

Every single moment better than the last.

A few days together with only a book, our memories and dreams between us and I finally get it.

Belle has always been what lies beneath the ugliest parts of me. 

Only ever her.

That’s not all that’s clear, though.

“Look Forward.” They all said and now that I am, there’s only one last thing to remember as we go forward.

She’s also what lies ahead.

Epilogue

6 Months Later

Between classes for my degree and working at the shop, I’m running on empty.

So when I finally pull into the driveway and put the car in park, all I’m thinking about is grabbing Belle away from whatever task she’s in the middle of, taking her to bed, making love, and falling asleep with her in my arms. The best gift I can think of to give myself at the end of every long monotonous day being the feel of her body pressed to mine, the light brush of her soft hair against my skin, breathing the best kind of life into me.

A life filled with contentment. Calm.

An endless boardwalk leading into forever.

What I’m not expecting is for her to be waiting at the bar, her normally bright and smiling face, subdued and serious. A detached look in the blue eyes that on an average day seem to hold all of the happiness in the world behind them.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, tossing my bag to the floor, forgoing the hook and instead making my way across the room as quickly as my legs can carry me. Taking her face in my hands and studying her, the closeness of her face to mine now only making the earlier expression even more potent.

“We need to talk.”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the few relationships I’ve had, and especially during my time with Belle, is just how scary those four words can be. Especially when as far as you’re aware, things couldn’t be better.

Our lives settling into an even rhythm after our day at the park months ago. Each day, no matter how little time we have together during it, spent making memories.

Capturing them in pictures and words for our next walk down memory lane.

I’m never going to have a problem talking to Belle, but I’m definitely not going to look forward to it if she’s looking like someone just stepped on her heart.

All that look makes me want to do is find the asshole that did it and crush them.

“About what, baby?”

Pressing a kiss to her head, I shrug out of my jacket and lay it across the bar. Making sure as I do to bypass the papers I didn’t notice in my haste to make my way to her.

“I’ve been doing some thinking.”

Throwing my ass down onto the stool and pulling her into my lap, I reach across the bar until my finger lands in the center of the papers.

“Does it have something to do with this?”

“Yes and no.”

Picking them up and pulling them toward us, I take a closer look and looking from her to the papers and back to her again, she blushes.

“Why do you have these?”

Applications. Two or three different copies. For what has to be the last thing I would ever expect Belle to do.

Become an ordained minister.

Who the hell does she want to marry?

“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.” She says, as her cheeks continue to change shade as her blush grows deeper.

“Well, I’m all ears. I’d love to know why my fiancée, who hasn’t even given me a date to marry yet, is thinking about doing it for someone else.”

“It’s Mom, Kay.”

This is about Grace?

Wait…

“Your mom’s getting married?” I ask in disbelief. I’m aware she’s been seeing someone, and according to Belle it’s someone that she knew around the same time she met Belle’s dad, but I had no idea that it was this serious, let alone that it was leading to marriage.