“Don’t even think about it,” I blurted out, my grip on my glass tightening until my knuckles were white.
“Heath,” Yaz said in a warning tone, which I stupidly ignored.
“Hey, man,” Ruben held his hands up in surrender, levelling a knowing smile in my direction, “I was just trying to get my watersports on. No need to go caveman on us.”
“She’s aprofessional. She only teaches adults who are already competent. You’re about thirty years too old for her beginner classes. She also doesn’t need some pervert staring at her chest in a wetsuit for hours on end.”
“Heath!” Yaz’s voice was furious now. “Will you lay off?”
Ruben was smirking – he seemed happy enough to have pushed me over the edge and lose my cool.
“Interesting,” Tim said. “Never seen you even vaguely close to losing your shit. Must be something in the champagne.”
“Fuck off,” I muttered before I could stop myself, which only made their smiles grow wider.
“Come on, Ruben,” Tim said, clearly not taking any offence at being told to fuck off. “Let’s leave Heath to finish pissing around his area.”
As those two pricks disappeared into the crowd, I turned towards a visibly furious Yaz.
“What on earth was that about?” she snapped.
“They were hitting on you,” I said. “They can be real dickheads and I didn’t want them making you feel uncomfortable.”
“Heath, men have been hitting on me since I was thirteen years old.” I flinched at this unpleasant but not altogether surprising piece of news. “I know how to handle myself, and I know how to deal with men like that. They were perfectly harmless. In fact, I’m willing to bet the only reason they even started flirting was to bait you into a reaction, which they got in spades.”
I scuffed my feet on the floor and looked down at my champagne glass. If I wasn’t careful and didn’t loosen my grip, I was going to snap the thin stem and look even more like a crazy man. I didn’t know what to say without digging myself into a bigger hole with Yaz. The fact was that I ached for her with such longing, it was almost unbearable. That sense of acute yearning, coupled with everyone else bloody touching and flirting with her, was sending me over the edge. I had never really experienced real jealousy before. And it wasn’t as if Yaz was even mine to feel jealous over – she’d made that very clear. I heard her sigh and felt her hand on my arm. It felt like her touch was burning through my suit jacket, branding my skin.
“Heath I–” she paused, then took in a deep breath, moving closer to me. I could smell her light perfume and the shampoo from her hair. “I can go if that’s easier. I don’t want to ruin tonight for you.” I closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them, they fixed on Yaz’s beautiful green-brown ones, looking up at me with concern.
“Stay,” I said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s got into me. Please stay. It’s funny, I thought… well, I thought you’d hate this sort of thing. I didn’t imagine that you would…”
She smiled up at me, and for a moment; I forgot how to breathe. “You thought I’d turn up in my denim cut-offs and make an arse out of myself?”
“Yes–I mean, no. I didn’t think that you–”
“I know exactly what you thought.” Her smile had slipped now, and she took her hand off my arm, which felt cold at its loss. “Your opinion of me hasn’t changed as much as you like to say it has. Not really. You don’t think I belong in your world? Well, I know for a fact you wouldn’t last five minutes in mine.”
With that, she turned and left me standing there with my mouth open. How had that degenerated so quickly? For the rest of the evening, she made it very obvious how well she did fit in with all my colleagues.
I needed to stop making assumptions where Yaz was concerned.
And I also needed to prove her wrong. I could charm the pants off her world, no problem.
Chapter 27
Not into all this aggression
Heath
I held my breath as she landed on the crest of a wave after pulling off an incredible front loop. The flash of white in her tanned face proved that the stunts I found anxiety-provoking to watch made her so happy it was visible from the shore. The drone buzzing overhead came a little lower, no doubt to focus on her face for a moment before she went into the next stunt.
“Jesus, Midge’ll break her neck one of these days,” Max muttered.
“She knows what she’s doing,” Mia said. “If you’d taken more of an interest in her ‘buggering about on the water’, then this wouldn’t surprise you.”
“Okay, okay! I’m a shite brother. You don’t have to bang on about it.”
“You’re not a shite brother – you just continually underestimate her and it’s annoying.” Mia took Max’s hand, and he moved in to whisper something into her ear. Huge, grumpy Max being told off by his much smaller and quieter wife was always entertaining, but I could do without the lovey dovey stuff at the moment. If you’d asked me two years ago if my best friend was capable of public displays of emotion, other than the gruff back slaps he bestows on his stepson, I would have given you a resoundingno.But Mia was the best thing that ever happened to him. I only wished I listened to her sooner about Yaz and the way I had treated her.
