The Oceanography of the Moon by Vanderah Glendy

Author:Vanderah, Glendy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2022-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

21

RILEY

“Cool Porsche,” Alec says, pulling in next to the black car.

“A Porsche?” Kiran says. “What is that?”

“A brand of sports car,” Alec says.

Kiran rises in his seat to see it better. Alec casts a nervous look at me over Kiran’s head. We don’t know anyone who would drive a sporty car but Vaughn.

I feel like the oxygen has been sucked out of the truck cab. I fumble with the door handle, and when I get out, I have an urge to hide somewhere before Vaughn sees me.

Too late. He and Sachi have come out the front door.

“Let me help,” Vaughn says from the porch. He walks over, his gray eyes fixed on me. He looks good in fitted tan pants and a white, long-sleeved shirt rolled up his forearms. I don’t remember him being that muscular. And his hair is longer, wavy and attractive.

He pulls two bags of groceries out of the back of the pickup. “How are you?” he asks quietly.

He’s standing so close I can smell whatever soap he used this morning. It’s too much. Too sudden. I’m going to cry or say something stupid. Then I remember I already have said something stupid. I sent him the journal. He knows what I did that day.

I can’t stop the tears. I run up the porch stairs.

“Riley . . . ,” Sachi says, reaching for me.

I push past her and run to my room. My room that doesn’t feel like my room. It doesn’t even smell the same since I painted it. Sometimes my need for the seas is a terrible ache in my whole body; other times I’m glad they’re gone. Right now, I need them. I curl up in bed and pull Julia’s flying-geese quilt over me. My tears wet the pillow fast.

When I finally process that Vaughn is here, my first thought is that he might leave, and I don’t want him to. But I’ve made such an ass of myself, I don’t know how to face him. I wish I could act like a regular person. I’m twenty-one and hiding in my room from a man.

A man who said terrible things before he ran out on me. And now here he is acting like he’s Mr. Nice in front of Alec and Sachi. Of course I’m crying and hiding.

Someone knocks on my door.

“May I come in?” Sachi asks.

I open the door. She’s alone.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” I wipe my hands down my face.

“Do you want him to leave? He says he’s going.”

If he does, I’ll never see him again. I’d gotten used to the idea, but now that he’s here, I can’t let it happen. I have no idea why.

“I look awful.”

“You’re beautiful. Hurry before he leaves.”

Alec is at the bottom of the stairs. “He left.”

Every cell in my body screams, No! And how irrational is that when Vaughn was so nasty to me? But I run out the door. This must be how Nikki was with my father. Whoever that bad man was, she just had to have him.

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