Written in 64 minutes.

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Late June 2000

He nearly didn’t go after her, but after a moment of indecision and ignoring the pain in his side, Jason moved as quickly towards the house as he could, only stopping to rinse the sand from his feet just by the terrace.

He expected to find her in her room, the door closed, but instead she was sitting on one of the loungers, a towel clutched to in front of her. Jason stopped just at the top of the stairs, unsure what to do now that he’d caught her.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and her head snapped up, her brow furrowed. Jason swallowed hard. “I wasn’t thinking, and I went too fast, didn’t I? Or I-I made you uncomfortable and I’m sorry for that. It’s just—” It was just that he’d tried very hard not to think about her that way, especially after she’d told him about Lucky, about what that little son of a bitch had said to her. But then he’d seen her, walking towards him out of the water, water sliding down her bare skin, with nothing more than scraps of cloth covering— “I’m sorry,” he said again.

“You didn’t—” Elizabeth slowly got to her feet, still holding the towel in front of her, her eyes averted, on the ground. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s me—”

“But—”

Her gaze flickered to him briefly before dropping again. “I just—um, I forgot. You’re hurt—”

“I’m fine—” Jason stepped towards her. “Is…is that why—”

“Why I ran away like a little girl? The kid that I keep promising I’m not?” She finally met his eyes head on and his throat tightened when he saw the shimmer of tears. “It’s really not you. I promise. You didn’t do anything I didn’t want.”

“Okay,” Jason said slowly, taking another step towards her, relieved when she didn’t back up. “Then what’s wrong?”

“I—” She closed her eyes, took a long, deep breath, then looked at him. “I don’t know. I just—I had a moment to think, and it was—it was just so fast—the way I just completely forgot where I was and—” She sat back on the lounger, pressed her forehead to the towel. “Can it just be enough that you didn’t do anything wrong? Do we have to talk about it?”

“No,” Jason said, carefully sitting on the lounger across from hers. “We don’t have to talk about anything if that’s what you want.”

Elizabeth sighed, sat up, rested the towel on her lap, her fingers plucking at the rough cloth. “But you’ll never touch me again because maybe I’ll go crazy on you—”

“Elizabeth—”

“I don’t want that. I don’t,” she said, shaking her head as if he’d protested. “I just—I want to be normal, you know? You—” She looked at him again. “You looked at me, and I could see what you wanted, and I liked it. And you’ll stop because you don’t want to scare me or pressure me—and then you’ll bottle it up and—”

“I’ll get irritated, and resentful and make it your fault,” Jason finished. Elizabeth wrinkled her nose, but didn’t argue with him. “You think what happened with Lucky is your fault.”

“A little, maybe. I could—I could have done more, I guess—I know he’s the one that said it, and that’s on him, but I know the lack of—that it was affecting us. I could feel it happening, and I wanted to fix it—but it was already too far gone—” She bit her lip. “I don’t want to make the same mistakes.”

“You’re not. Elizabeth—”

“I just—I was so young when it happened,” Elizabeth confessed in a quiet voice. “I didn’t even know how much that night stole from me until I started to get it back—I’d never had a boyfriend. Never been kissed. I’d had crushes, but I’d never felt—” Her mouth tightened, and he hated to see the misery shimmering in her eyes. “The way I feel about you. It’s like pieces of me are waking up and coming back to life, and I s-should be glad. Okay? I sh-should be happy that I’m not scared and that maybe I can do and have all the things that I thought were gone.”

He hated this, he hated every minute of being on this side of the terrace and not right next to her, not holding her as the tears spilled down her cheeks. But he was—

Jason exhaled slowly. He was afraid to touch her. Just like she’d worried.

Bracing one hand against his side, he moved across the small space separating them and sat next to her, leaving a few inches between them. “You get to feel whatever you’re feeling, Elizabeth. There’s no right or wrong here.”

She shifted slightly to angle herself towards him, he was relieved to note, tears spilling from the corners of her beautiful eyes. “I shouldn’t be angry.”

“Why not? Why wouldn’t you be angry?” Jason wanted to know. “Something was taken from you. You had to take it back, piece by piece, and you never should have had to do any of that work.”

She pressed her hands to her mouth, closing her eyes, her shoulders shaking, but when he pulled her against him, wrapped his arm around her shoulders, she didn’t flinch, but leaned in. He kissed the top of her head, and held her for a long moment, before she pulled back, swiping at her eyes.

“I should, um, go take a shower. The salt water is going to make my hair a complete mess.” She nervously ran a hand through the tangled, damp strands, already curling madly in the humidity. “Um, are you—I didn’t—hurt you, did I?” Elizabeth gestured at the wound in his side. He’d stopped wearing a dressing a day or two earlier, and the sides of the wound had started to close, but it would lead a visible scar.

“No, no. I just—” He got to his feet, held out his hand. She let him pull her up. Jason kept her hand in his. “I forgot, too,” he said, echoing her words. Going on instinct, he added, “I saw you—” Then he swept his eyes down her body, before meeting her eyes. “And I wasn’t thinking about it anymore.”

Elizabeth’s smile widened and he saw that light come back in her eyes. “I know the feeling.” She stepped closer to him, their bodies brushing. “Do you remember the night we were out here? A few months ago?”

“I do.”

Elizabeth raised her hand, lightly touched his chest with her fingertips the way she had that night. “You must have thought I’d lost my mind that night, but I couldn’t stop myself.” She licked her lips. “I told myself I was imagining it. But I wasn’t, was I?”

“No. And let me finish what I was started that night.” Jason cupped the back of her head, drew her against him, and kissed her. She relaxed against him, and he held her with his other hand splayed against her back, skin to skin. He’d meant to just kiss her lightly, just to reassure her, but he lost himself in the way she tasted, the feel of her beneath his hands, everything he’d been trying to pretend he didn’t want for weeks and weeks.

When they broke apart, they were both breathing heavily, their hearts pounding—he could feel hers against his chest, the flutter of her pulse under his fingers when he cupped her jaw. Her eyes were slightly glazed when they finally opened. She was so beautiful.

When her lips curved again, he realized he’d spoken the words out loud, and that he didn’t remember saying it before. He hadn’t given her anything she really deserved, and that was going to change, Jason decided right now.

“Tonight, I want to take you somewhere.”

“Oh yeah?” She wound her arms around his neck. “Where?”

“Out to dinner. There’s a place I go when I’m here, and you’d like it.” He kissed her again, stroked his fingers along her cheek. “We’ll go out on the bike.”

“Are you asking me on a date?” Elizabeth asked, her fingers combing through the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Yeah.” He caressed her bottom lip with his thumb, the way he’d done that night on the sofa. “What do you say?”

“The best offer I’ve had in months. Just tell me when and where so I know what to wear.”

“About six,” he decided, because he needed to make a few calls. “And we’re on the bike, so—” He sighed. “None of those skirts you like.”

“You look a little disappointed when you say that, so maybe I’m not the only one that likes them.” She kissed him again, but then backed away. “But I really need to wash my hair so it’s half decent. And grab our things from the beach—”

“I’ll get them.” He didn’t want to let her hand go, but didn’t have a choice when she headed for the doors. She turned back and smiled back at him, then went inside. Her eyes were sparkling, her cheeks pink, and he felt his own smile in response, stretching across his face.

Oh man, he was in real trouble.

—

More than a thousand miles away, another man was in a little trouble but Sonny Corinthos wasn’t one to admit that easily. Which is how he found himself sitting across from Luke in the back office of the club with a bad feeling swirling and no way to explain it.

“You just like being dramatic,” Luke said, looking at the end of his cigar before putting it back in his mouth and reaching for the lighter.

“Coming from you, that’s funny.” Sonny rubbed one finger along his bottom lip. “He made the meeting too easy. That’s what it is.”

“He was supposed to play hard to get?” Luke smirked. “Sorry, but you’re just making up reasons to be worried. Get Jason home, set up the alibi, and you’ll be all set.

“Yeah, yeah. I just—” Sonny got to his feet. “I feel like there’s something I missed. You know? Like a piece of this puzzle I’m missing. I can’t stop thinking that it’s all…simple. We still don’t even know for sure that Moreno set up the hit—”

“You’re not back to thinking my boy did it—” Luke scowled. “Even if he did, he wouldn’t know how to contact David Reece—”

“But other people do. I just don’t—”

“No one else has a reason to hate Jason the way Moreno does. And we’ve been over this. Elizabeth was just an accident — the shooter waited for Emily to be gone. End of story. No one even knew Morgan and Liz were really an item. They do now, but—”

Sonny sighed. “I know. I know. Lucky was the only one saying that bullshit, and no one believed him. They wouldn’t have waited so long if they did.”

“See? What’s what I’m saying. Make the meeting, finish this.”

“Yeah. Maybe when it’s over, I’ll be able to shake this feeling—I just hate feeling like I missed a detail.”

“You missed nothing,” Luke said again. “We went over it and over it. Relax, it’s all good.”

Later, Sonny would wish that he’d paid attention to his feeling, that he’d really gone over every detail because, well, he had missed something.

Something very important.

And it was too late to fix it.

——

On the island, he watched from the protection of the palm streets clustered around the house. Watched as the puta pranced down the steps in skin-tight jeans and a tight black top, strapped on her helmet, climbed on the bike, and the duo roared off down the road.

When they came back, he’d be waiting. He could be patient. He’d waited months, hadn’t he?

But it was going to end tonight.

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