Lawless by Tracey Ward

collapse inside of it. I want to be home and I want to be whole.
    My body is at war with itself, a contradiction of everything, standing there a stone still, shaken mess. I want to be over it, I want to be me again, but I’m so fucking angry that I don’t know if I ever will be. It’s not the fear that has me frozen at the water’s edge. It’s the rage. The indignation at the absolute treachery I was handed.
    “Is it happening?” Lawson asks, showing up out of nowhere. “Are we getting naked and swimming out?”
    He’s standing in water up to his knees, his board back under his arm and his body dripping wet.
    “I’m pissed off,” I tell him bluntly.
    “At me?”
    “No.”
    “At who then?”
    “The water.”
    “For what?”
    I scoff. “What do you think, Lawson?”
    “Be mad at the shark, not the ocean. It’s not the ocean’s fault.”
    “I can’t find the shark.” I point to the water swirling around him. “I can find the water.”
    “That’s not fair.”
    “Tell it to my leg.”
    “Come over here.”
    I frown at him. “What?”
    He holds out his hand to me. “Come over here. Stand in the surf with me.”
    “No.”
    “No shark is coming up this far on the beach,” he reasons patiently. “If you know it’s the shark’s fault and not the ocean’s, then you shouldn’t have a problem getting in the water.”
    I hesitate, my skin turning hot. “I could have drowned.”
    “Because the shark pulled you under. You’re a strong swimmer. You were fine until he got there so again, not the water’s fault. Get over here.”
    “You’re being bossy,” I stall. “Normally you ask me to do things. You don’t tell me.”
    He sighs. “Rachel, will you please come stand in the water with me?”
    “Well, since you said please.”
    I don’t move.
    “I’m missing some serious time out there,” he laments.
    “Then go back out.”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because this is important.”
    I take a deep breath and a slow step toward him.
    He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t even move, but the water does. It comes to greet me, slow and easy. Gentle and full of foam that tickles and pops effervescently over my skin. Up to my ankles. Then my shins. It leaves me, pulling out and taking the sand around me with it until I’m standing in a small hole created by my weight and resistance. By my reluctance. I step outside of it, moving slowly. I keep my eyes on Lawson’s hand and it when I can reach it I put my palm against his just as a new wave washes over me. It reaches my shins, making me gasp, but Lawson threads his fingers through mine and he pulls me the last step toward him until I’m in it up to my thighs and my scar is almost under the water and my chest is against his, warm and wet.
    He looks down at me with admiring eyes, a ghost of a grin on his lips. “You see?” he asks deeply. “You’re still alive.”
    “I don’t want to go any further,” I reply rapidly.
    “Okay. We won’t.” He squeezes my hand still clasped in his. “Thank you for coming this far.”
    I laugh shakily. “Thank you for getting me here.”
    “It feels good, doesn’t it?”
    The waves rush forward, knocking Lawson in the back of the legs. He’s sturdy but he leans forward with the force, pushing into me. His face comes closer, his eyes look deeper, and his hold on my hand is softer. Warmer. Everything about him so strong and beautiful. So natural it’s hypnotic.
    “It does,” I breathe, his mouth only inches away and closing. “It feels really good.”
     
     

Chapter Thirteen
    “You slept with him, didn’t you?”
    “No.”
    Katy raises a skeptical eyebrow but I keep my poker face. I hold my ground and I deny it, not because I’m ashamed of it but because I like it. Because I’m protecting it. I don’t know what Lawson will say if one of his boys asks him if we’ve had sex, but judging by the fact that he didn’t know I slept with Baker back in high school I’m inclined to believe