Free To Be With You by Opal Mellon Page B

because he felt slighted by being skipped in her options of guys? Perhaps he’d always used her as his ruler of what he wanted in a woman, maybe he’d always wanted to please her, and he’d done all of this as a misguided way to finally do that.
    Another navy blue wave crashed on the dark sand. Sean looked up at the dark horizon and the roiling water beneath it. He felt soothed by the sound of crashing waves. There was so little he could control. Someone had once told him the only person you could control was yourself, and he was seeing that now. He needed to stop chasing Nicole and start working on himself. He’d given her too much power in his life. In some ways, no matter how he denied it, he was still that eleven-year-old boy begging to be the hero. Why would she want to be with someone like that, someone she couldn’t respect? If he just took care of himself, tried to be as independent as she was, maybe he could develop a confidence that didn’t depend on her. Then he’d really have something to offer.
    He made a decision in that moment. To let her go, so that if she came to him it would be on her own. He pulled up a handful of sand and smiled at it as it fell through the gaps in his fingers. He would tell her everything, and then he’d give her space, emotionally at least. And he’d go to poker night with his friends next week.
     
     
    Nicole was toweling her hair when she happened to look out of her window to the beach. She saw a man there, sitting in the sand. She looked closer, trying to decide if he needed help, or the police called. Homeless people didn’t often find their way down to this beach, and there were plenty of shelters. Maybe the man was drunk, in which case he was a danger to himself near the ocean like that.
    But as she stared at the man, a disturbed feeling came over her, and she could swear he was familiar. Nicole had sharp vision and that build and that hair were—no that was impossible. What was he doing here? Did he know where she lived too? Had he gone insane after she’d acted like such a crazy person at the club tonight? She ran her fingers through her hair, threw on a T-shirt and shorts, and headed downstairs and out towards the beach.
    She nearly tripped on the barrier, but continued towards the man. As she got closer, she could see the man’s shoulders rising and falling. Was he crying? No, laughing.
    “Can I help you?” she asked.
    The man turned to her, handsome and resigned in the moonlight, his face like the face Sean had the day she left him in Idaho.
    “What are you doing out here? How did you know where I live?”
    “I didn’t. I was just walking,” he said. His eyes moved from her to the road. “What are you doing out this late? It isn’t safe.”
    “Oh, but it is for you.”
    “My hypocrisies in that area have already been pointed out tonight, thanks.”
    Nicole came closer. She wanted to just get everything in the open between them, just get the farce out of the way and talk as friends. “I know it’s you, Sean.”
    He froze, and his eyes widened.
    “I’ve known since the reception.”
    “How?”
    “The way you smiled when you saw me.” She sat by him and gave his knee a playful shove. “I’m sorry if you thought this was going to just go on and on, but you’ve always had a certain smile.”
    “I see,” He leaned back on his arms. “It was a stupid plan from the start.”
    Nicole watched the muscles lengthen and his shirt stretch across his chest. His profile in the moonlight seemed carved in stone, all hard lines.
    “I don’t know about it being stupid,” she said. “It was actually pretty well executed.” She watched the ocean, happy to see the detail she usually missed from the window. “Now you can tell me how you ended up in Cali and why you did all of this.”
    “I’m sorry I lied to you,” he said, not making eye contact.
    She nodded. “I’m sorry I made it necessary.”
    “We’ve both been pretty stupid huh?”
    “I guess