Something’s going on and I’m not so sure I should question it. I’m actually kind of enjoying it at the moment.

Trace has yet to touch me in a crude manner in the last 24 hours. He even has gone as far as to be kind of sweet. He pulls out my chair at dinner, gets up off the couch when I enter the room, letting me take his seat.

I’m really surprised I haven’t heard anything about Justin and I sleeping in the same room this morning. I was expecting to get an ear full about what liars we are. As if we are just sleeping in the same bed together, but I got nothing but a very nice meal and smiles out of him.

I’m actually a little in shock about the whole thing. I wonder what Justin said or did to him to make him turn into Mr. nice guy.

“So what’s with your tattoo?” He asks, after swallowing a mouth full. See? He’s not even talking with food in his mouth anymore.

“Which one?” I ask, nervously.

I always said if I was going to get a tattoo it had to have a meaning behind it and one of them has a lot of meaning behind it. One I wouldn’t really feel comfortable talking about to him either.

“You have two? I’ve only noticed the flower with the petals falling off it.”

Shit. Go figure he sees the one I would rather he hadn’t.

“She has a Tribal butterfly on her lower back, too.” Justin says, picking up the plates to wash them for me.

“Do they mean anything or are they just spur of the moment type things?” Trace asks, helping Justin with the dishes.

“Umm… N-no… I mean they kind of mean something, but noth-nothing special.” I stutter nervously.

Justin turns to look at me and I can just tell by the look him face he knows I’m hiding something. I have no problem telling him, but his friend is another story.

“Hey, why don’t you go get ready and we’ll go down to the beach I was telling you about.” Justin suggests to Trace. He shrugs, walking off to his room.

“Thank you.” I say, smiling.

He nods, “No problem. You didn’t look like you wanted to talk about it so…”

“Yeah…” I pause contemplating whether or not I should tell him. He stares at me with questions in his eyes so I decided, what the hell.

“The butterfly was just a spur of the moment thing, but it still meant something you know? I got it after I left Joey, one of the crazy guys I was with. He ruined my life and it was meant to set myself free of all the bullshit. That worked out well…” I say, shaking my head.

“And the Flower?” He ask, taking a seat next to me.

“That’s a lot more meaningful than the Butterfly.” I turn away from him to show it to him, “You see the three large petals and two little ones?”

“The ones falling off the flower, right?” He asks, running a finger over it.

“Yeah. The three big ones are for people I’ve lost in my life. One was my Grandmother, then my Aunt, and then… My brother.” I say quietly, swallowing the lump in my throat.

“Your brother?” He ask, turning me back towards him.

I nod, letting a tear fall down my face, “Yeah. My brother was a Marine. He was over in Iraq for a total of 5 years. He was actually on his way back home when his plane was shot down. Amazingly he survived the crash, but he later died at the Hospital. One day I’m going to get a tattoo just for him, because he deserves that much from me. He was my life, he was my other half. Literally. We were twins.”

“Oh Wow.” He says, shocked by my admission.

I shrug, “That was the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through. My parents weren’t even there for me. They were so pissed off that he went into the Marines and got himself into the war that they didn’t even go to his funeral. They kept saying he did this to himself and they weren’t going to mourn a person that committed suicide.”

“That’s horrible, Maddy.”

“He’s why I was getting so upset when you’d call me Maddy… His name was Matt and I called him Matty.”

He dropped his head, “I’m sorry, I wont do it again.”

I shrug, “It’s actually growing on me.” I say, chuckling.

“I’m sorry… But uh, what about the small ones?”

I take a deep breath, “One’s for my nephew and one’s for my unborn child.”

“Your what?” He asks in shock.

“Matty had a son that died when he was just a few weeks old. Matt had to be at a mandatory meeting at the base and he left Grady with a friends daughter. She had watched Grady before so he didn’t think twice about it, but what he didn’t know was that his nanny was so hyped up on coke that she had passed out while giving Grady a bath… Matt came back a few hours later to find both of them dead in his bathroom. She overdosed and Grady was head down in the water… It was the most horrible feeling in the world to know how he was feeling, but not be able to do a damn thing about it.”

“I’m sorry Madd… Madison.” he quickly corrects himself, “Why don’t they have picture of him in here?”

“Like I said, they weren’t so thrilled with him after he went into the Marines, so they took down everything of his in the house and out here too. I have a picture of him in my room.”

“In the top drawer?” He asks, curiously.

I laugh, “Sneaking around in my drawers?”

He shrugs, “I was looking for the remote?” He says, trying to cover himself.

“Right.”

“I’m just glad I didn’t toss it like I wanted to.” He says, chuckling, “I thought it was one of your old boyfriends.”

I laugh, “You didn’t notice that we look exactly alike?”

He laughs, “Actually I did, but I just thought it was a coincidence.”

“Hey, I’ll meet you down by the water when your done.” Trace says, announcing himself to the room.

“No… You go with him.” I sniff, wiping my face with a napkin.

“No, I’ll be fine. You two keep talking.” He says, making a quick getaway out the back door.

“You can go with him.” I say again.

“Finish your story, Madison.” He says, running his hands up and down my thighs for support.

I groan, dreading this conversation, “One of the horrible six got me pregnant. I found out after I had left them… or they had left me I guess.”

“They?” He asks with a raised eyebrow.

I shrug, “I was dating one of them and he decided to bring home his old high school buddy one night. I didn’t have much of a choice, I was tied to the bed… One of them got me pregnant.”

“What happened?”

I shrug again, “I don’t know. I was having a ton of cramps and went to the doctor. I had to… You really don’t want to hear this… Let’s just say I lost the baby that day.”

He stares at me, telling me he wants to hear it.

“I’m serious Justin it’s disturbing and you really don’t want to hear it. I lost the baby a way some women do. It’s not at all pleasant, but it happens.”

“Did you get an abortion or something?” He asks, still not letting it go.

“No! I had no reason to.”

“You didn’t know who the father was and I‘m sure neither of them would‘ve wanted to be a father anyways. That’s a pretty good reason.”

“But I was the pregnant one. I don’t care if they wanted to be a part of it or not. I would’ve been.”

He nods, “What if they would’ve wanted it and you hadn’t. Would you have kept it and let either of them take care of it?”

I stare at him, confused, “I did want it though.”

“I know, but what if it was reversed. What would you have done?”

I stare at him for a minute before speaking, “Why are you asking me this Justin?”

He sighs, “Because one of my exes didn’t want to have kids and didn’t care about what I thought and just got an abortion without even telling me. I found out from her mother a year after it had happened.”

“I’m sorry, Justin.” I sigh, “I honestly don’t know what I’d do in that situation because I’d never be in that situation. No matter what, I had a part in making this child. I can’t just get rid of it because I made a mistake. No baby deserves that. Every one has their own opinions about this though.”

He nods, “So what really happened?”

I bite my upper lip, “I lost the baby in a toilet at my doctors office.”

“Oh my god!” He all but yelled, “That’s horrible.”

“Tell me about it.” I sigh again, “I’m gonna go lay down. Why don’t you go have some fun with your friend.” I say, standing and heading straight for my room. I climb on the bed, pulling the sheet up over me.

A few minutes later I hear someone come into the room. I assume it’s Justin getting his swim shorts, but I’m surprised when I feel the bed dip and an arm around my waist.

“You ok, Madison?”

“Mmmhmmm.”

He hugs be in closer to him, kissing my bare shoulder.

I’m really going to miss him. I only have three more days here before he leaves to go back to his life. I don’t know what I’m going to do here all by myself. I’ve become accustomed to seeing him everyday and hanging out with him. I’m going to drive myself insane.

I’m going to miss this part too.

He brushed my hair off my neck with his nose, latching his mouth to my neck in soft wet kisses. His mouth does insane things to my body and I’m not even sure he’s really trying.

He gently tugs on my waist, pulling me onto my back. He continues to kiss my neck, slowly moving to my cheek and down my jaw line until landing on my lips.

If I haven’t told you yet, I’m completely and utterly obsessed with kissing this man. I could literally lay here for hours just kissing him. I’ve kissed some pretty great guys before, but there’s something about the way he kisses me that makes my heart flutter and I get butterflies in my belly.

I slide my hands up the front of his shirt, rubbing the hard, silky skin of his abdomen.

Another thing I’m going to miss, his hard ass body.

His hand glides under my shirt, stopping just below my breast. His knuckles gently graze the bottom of them sending jolts of pleasure through my body. I pull away from his kiss to catch my breath and he immediately attaches his lips to my neck again. His hand slips, his thumb rubbing over my overly sensitive nipple causing me to moan.

Justin freezes on my neck and the only sound in the room is our labored breathing.

“We should probably stop.” Justin whispers in my ear, kissing me on the temple. He slips his hand out from under my shirt, then slowly pulls my hands from under his.

“I should probably go meet Trace.” He says, still breathing rather heavily.

“You don’t have to go.” I say, not really knowing myself what I mean by that.

“I-I think I do.” He stutters, backing away from me.

He stands at the end of the bed, staring down at me, “We made a deal. We can’t just break that with only three days to go, right?” He says, and I wonder if he really means it or if he wants me to say fuck it.

We did make a deal and at this very second I can’t for the life of me figure out why. I know this is the last thing we need. It’s been a little over a week for the both of us and this will just bring us back to where we started. We both are on this little vacation here to get a new start. What good would it do us to revert back to how we were before we came here?

Listen to me, I sound like this is a frigging rehab center or something. It’s a beach house for Christ’s sake. I’m not a therapist and neither is he. What do we know about fixing our problems?

I say fuck it.

I just hope he’s feeling the same way.