At First Hate by K.A. Linde

Savannah

Present

“You’re doing what?” Josie asked on the Bluetooth in my car as I drove to the Savannah Yacht Club.

“You heard me.”

“But why, Mars?”

“You didn’t see him, Josie. He’s a wreck.”

“Well, yeah. You were there. You know what happened.”

“Yeah, and it’s kind of our fault.”

Josie snorted. “Don’t put that on us. They all made their own choices. Ash Talmadge was never good enough for Lila anyway.”

I didn’t know about that. She’d been happy with him. But all of that was over now. He didn’t deserve to be miserable.

“I’m still going.”

“Are you going to tell her?”

I shook my head. “No way. Lila doesn’t need to deal with his baggage. That’s why I am.”

“I swear you’re a saint, Marley.”

I laughed. “Not by half.”

“Speaking of people not good enough for my friends, are you going to see Derek while you’re there?” Josie asked as if she were being nonchalant.

I hadn’t told either of my friends about what had happened with the will. I needed to get it out there, but I was still so mad that I didn’t want it to even exist. And I knew they’d both come running. I wasn’t prepared for that.

“Yeah. I think he’ll be at the party.”

I could practically see her wicked smile. “And he’s divorced, right? Officially.”

“I don’t keep up with him.”

“Well, have fun at least. You deserve some fun after Gran.”

I cleared my throat. “Love you, but I’m here. I’ll call you later and tell you how it went.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“There’s nothing you wouldn’t do,” I muttered.

She laughed. “I wouldn’t hook up with my best friend’s ex.”

I gagged. “Ew. I couldn’t even think that.”

“See, there you go. You’re good.”

I laughed and then hung up. I pulled my bag filled with everything I needed for a day out on the water out of the trunk and walked out onto the dock. Ash’s yacht technically belonged to his father, but Ash used it more than his dad. He always had. Ash and Derek had their love of the water in common. I tried not to think of all the times I’d been on the water with Derek as I stepped onto the yacht and found two-dozen mostly naked women on board.

My eyes rounded in surprise. I didn’t recognize a single one of them. They were all probably a decade younger than me, giggling with White Claws in one hand and their phones in the other. There was nothing wrong with any of that, but I certainly didn’t fit into any of those descriptions.

“Marley!”

I turned to find Amelia Ballentine in a two-piece white suit. She was as stunning as any of the doe-eyed blondes on board. Honestly, I’d never guess she was twenty-eight to my thirty. She still looked exactly the same. Those Ballentine genes were something else. Though I was sure it was a lot of hard work to stay so physically fit. She’d been Miss Georgia and Miss Georgia USA, having competed in both the Miss America and Miss USA pageants.

Amelia pulled me into a hug. “It’s so good to see you.”

“Hey, Mia,” I said, hugging her back. “You too. How have you been?”

“Busy! Working full-time at the boutique and coaching pageants.”

“I really should swing by the store. I haven’t been since you opened.”

“Yes, come by. I’d love for you to try on my new collection.” She twirled in a circle. “This is one of my latest.”

Amelia had gone to Parsons in NYC for fashion design. She’d worked in high-end fashion after but ultimately come home to open her own shop right here in Savannah. I still found it hard to believe that she’d wanted to leave everything behind. But she seemed happy doing her own thing. She always had.

“I love it. Better than my Target bathing suit.”

She laughed as I stripped out of my tank top and shorts.

“Oh, shush. You’re adorable.”

“You’re sweet.”

“I’m glad that someone else with a brain is here,” Amelia said with an eye roll. “The entire thing reeks of desperation.”

My gaze traveled over the lot of women and then found the source of their excitement. Ash Talmadge had appeared shirtless in baby-blue swim trunks and Ray-Bans. He still looked like a hot mess, but he was sure faking it for his adoring crowd.

“Yeah. That’s kind of why I’m here. I saw him at the liquor store. He looked…”

“Rough?” she offered. Amelia threw her long, dark hair off of her shoulder. “Of course he does after what happened. What I don’t get is why all these girls are throwing themselves at him. He needs time to recover, not whatever this is.”

I shrugged. “He’s encouraging it. You can’t blame the women.”

“Yeah. Well, at least he has an excuse,” she said venomously. Then she shrugged a petite shoulder. “Come on. I secured the best tanning location.”

She dragged me away from Ash’s shitshow and to the other side of the yacht. I lathered sunscreen on my pasty self and was grateful that there was an umbrella that I could use to shield myself. Otherwise, I’d be a lobster within minutes.

I pulled out a book. I’d brought one for fun. Usually I was reading the latest articles from the neuroscience field to try to keep up with my research. But since I had the semester off, I could pick up a fiction novel. I’d settled on Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses because who didn’t like hot Fae and a Beauty and the Beast retelling?

My brain was deep in the woods with Feyre when a voice cleared to my left. And then cleared again. I glanced up in a daze and found Derek in all of his glory. He was shirtless, his toned chest and stomach on full display. How he managed to still have a full six-pack was beyond me. His pale pink shorts were a few inches shorter than his knees with Rainbows on his feet. He sported Ray-Bans and a smirk that made my brain short-circuit.

“Sidecar?”

I blinked at him in confusion. “What?”

He held a drink out to me. “You still like sidecars, right?”

“Oh.” I straightened, putting a cute bookmark that read, The stars belong to those who read, inside the book and took the drink. “Yeah, I do. You remembered.”

“Yeah,” he said with that same great smile.

“Derek, if you ruin this for me, I will cut you,” Amelia threatened.

Derek laughed. “Mia, shut it.”

“She’s the only one here I like. I need a good sunbathing partner.”

“I’m mostly in the shade,” I reminded her.

“Your legs are in the sun!”

“I won’t ruin your tan,” Derek muttered.

I took a sip of the drink and nearly groaned. It was perfection. It was the same brandy that Gran always used. For a second, I teared up. All the happy memories soured with the first sweet taste and the note of lemon. I blinked away the tear and took another drink.

“Thanks for the drink.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Fine. Just tastes like Gran made it.”

He shot me a sympathetic look and nodded. “Yeah. I should have thought of that.”

“I like it. I don’t want to forget her.” Then I arched an eyebrow at him. “Or watch her legacy be destroyed.”

He winced. “I did try not to take the case.”

I rolled my eyes and held a hand up. “Let’s not discuss this. If I have to be on this giant boat with you all day, I would rather not bring it up.” Then, I opened my book again and tried to get back into the story.

“All right.” He ran a hand back through his hair and looked out on the water. “I’m surprised that you showed up today.”

I sighed heavily and put my book aside. Obviously he was not going to let me sit here and read. “As I was telling your sister, I saw Ash at the liquor store, and I’m worried about him.”

“Me too.”

Derek grabbed a nearby chair and scraped it across the deck to bring it over to where we were sitting. Amelia glared up at him, and he shot her a look that clearly said, What? She huffed and lay back down, facedown.

“Why are you even letting him have this stupid party?”

Derek snorted. “As if anyone could make Ash Talmadge do anything.”

“True.”

“Are you going to tell Lila?”

“No! Why is everyone asking me that? I’m not going to tell her anything. I just don’t want him to jump off a building or something.”

“Derek! Stop bothering her,” Amelia said.

“I’m not bothering her,” he snapped back. “I’m trying to see if Delila Greer is going to walk back into his life and ruin everything again.”

“She won’t,” I told him confidently. “And anyway, I’m here for Ash. That’s it. I’ll help however I can.”

Derek nodded as if that was what he wanted to know. He was a dick, but he was loyal to his people. He and Ash had been close since high school but had really become best friends once Ash moved back home. This couldn’t be easy for Derek to watch.

“Good,” he said with a wink and then strode away into the sea of women.

I watched him walk away with a pang in my chest. As much as I was mad at Derek, there had always been something between us. Something I hadn’t even known existed for many, many years. Being around him, even when I wanted to slap him, just felt… normal.

“Don’t go there, Mars,” Amelia said softly.

“What?” I said, jerking my attention away.

“I love my brother, but he’s as much of a wreck as Ash.”

“About the divorce?” I couldn’t help but ask.

Derek had been married to another local girl, and it hadn’t worked out. As far as I knew, the divorce had been finalized sometime this summer. But as much as Josie joked, I really hadn’t been keeping up with him. I’d blocked him on my social media so that I didn’t have to see any of it. He made me angry, but we’d been real for however brief of a moment, and I didn’t want it in my face.

Amelia laughed. “Hardly. Good riddance. He was pumped when the divorce was settled.”

“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know what happened.”

“She’s crazy. That’s all you need to know.” Amelia flipped over, applying more bronzing lotion all over her lean figure.

“I see.”

“And he never got over you.”

I laughed heartily and opened my book again. “Yeah right.”

Amelia shrugged. “Believe what you want, but he doesn’t look at anyone else like he looks at you.”

“He took on a case to contest my grandma’s will,” I told her with more bite than I’d intended. “I don’t think he’d have done that if he was still into me.”

“I’m a hundred percent sure that was because of our father.”

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter. Derek and I are old news.”

But as the day progressed, I wondered if maybe Amelia was right. Derek brought me sidecars all afternoon until I had to stop drinking because I was getting drunk. Then, he brought me water unprompted. I finished the book in record time and hadn’t brought a second with me, like an idiot. So, I spent a lot of time hiding under the umbrella and watching all the women fawn over Ash. There were other guys there, too, but it was as if Ash were some Greek god and not just a damaged rich boy.

I headed inside at some point to get out of the hottest part of the day and found Derek on the other side of the bar, chatting with the bartender and laughing.

“Ah, hey, Minivan,” Derek said with a grin. “I was coming up to bring you another drink.”

“Don’t call me that.”

He smirked. “Right. Yeah. Another sidecar.”

“You’re making them?”

The bartender shrugged. “He insisted.”

“I know how you like them.”

“Well, thanks.”

He passed me the drink and swept a finger over the bridge of my nose. “You’re a little pink.”

“Story of my life. Forgot a hat.”

He pulled off the UNC baseball cap he’d been wearing and plopped it onto my head.

I gagged and passed it back to him. “I’m not that desperate.”

He chuckled. “Come on. It’s not that bad.”

“We both know that Duke is better.”

“We both do not know that,” he said with a shake of his head. Then, he dropped the hat back down. “Leave it. It’ll keep you from burning too bad.”

I huffed and tugged it lower on my brow. “I’m going to regret this.”

He laughed and held up his phone. “Let me get a picture of you in that.”

“Oh God, no.” I covered my face as he snapped a picture.

He laughed even harder and showed me the series of pictures of me hiding and then sticking my tongue out at him. “This is definitely your new photo for your phone number.”

“And when are you going to use that again?”

Derek glanced down at me. “Anytime I want.”

I took another sip of my sidecar and a step away. I remembered all the ways that Derek could make me turn to goo and all the ways he could break my heart. I didn’t have time or energy for that, especially with the case between us.

“Oh, Derek… do those lines actually work?”

He tipped the hat up to see my pink cheeks. “Sometimes.”

“Thanks for the drink,” I said, pulling away from that heated look.

He shot me a perfect smile on those pouty lips, and for a second, I was transported back in time. Back when those lips had touched mine and everything in the entire world had been different. A lot had changed since then. But somehow, we were still on opposite sides of everything.