Scarlett Vanderburg's POV

"Are we there yet?"

It was a great thing I had connections with the world's best criminal lawyers because I was on the brink of murdering Silas Rothwell. Simultaneously the four of us let out groans.

"I am going to toss you out of this car." Calix grits out, I look over at him seeing his jaw clenched in annoyance, I lift my sunglasses onto my head and smile at him, when the car rolls to a stop at the traffic light he glances over from where I sat in the passenger seat and I saw his expression melt, instead of the annoyance that had been flickering inside of him was now being replaced with amusement,

We were thinking the same thing.

I look away from his gaze, lowering my white sunglasses onto my face again.

The place Imogen had booked was an hour away from the airport in a more rural tourist town. We were almost there, but Silas had made sure to bug us every single minute of the trip. Calix was driving and I was in the passenger seat, the other three crowded behind us.

I had tried to sit at the back so one of the others could be more comfortable but Calix had basically forced me into the seat saying he might drive this car off a bridge if it was his best friend sitting next to him. And honestly, I wouldn't have blamed him.

Their relationship was truly like most brothers I had met, including my brothers growing up. It was adorable.

"You guys never answered my question." Silas kept on talking since none of us had bothered to answer the same question he had asked a million times.

"If you don't shut up I'm tossing you out of this car myself," Imogen warned her boyfriend, pointing a finger in his direction. I watch in the rearview mirror as Silas gently takes her finger between her teeth but the actions make her squeal, I look away from them with a soft smile, despite everything those two were perfect for one another.

My eyes flick away from the couple to find my best friend, Quinn was watching his phone, normally I would have thought he was working but the content expression said otherwise. I watched with a single raised eyebrow and felt the weight of my stare. He looks up and catches my eyes in the mirror. He sees the inquisition in my gaze but instead of answering me his cheeks flush and he looks back down at his phone.

Feeling more bewildered than before I watched him a second longer before looking away out the window to the blue expanse of the sea right out of my window. The last time I had seen him act was five years ago when he had met a dark-haired girl that had swept him off his feet and ended up leaving him broken-hearted and in charge of a human life all by himself.

I might guard my heart but I was a million times more protective over Quinn's, after all, I was the one who witnessed it getting heartbroken the first time.

After what had felt like a billion years Calix pulls to a stop in front of a beach house, no a beach mansion would be more like it. We all offload the car, grabbing our respective bags and just as I was about to lift my suitcase a hand reaches there before I do, I look up, my eyes following up the tanned arm to the back t-shirt all the way to meet a pair of dark brown eyes that are looking at me softly.

"Are you going to give me my bags, Mr Radcliff?" I ask, waiting for him to pass my beige suitcase.

"I think I'll be a gentleman and carry it up to your room for you, Miss Vanderburg."

"Oh, Mr Radcliff.'' I give a fake, soft gasp. "Don't you know that it is unbecoming for a man to see a woman's bedchambers before the wedding?"

He lets out a deep chuckle, grabbing both his and my bags and carrying them into the house in each arm, trying to find where the others had disappeared to.

Quinn had disappeared but Imogen and Silas were waiting for us.

"Okay." Imogen clasps her hands together. "I wish I could say we had limited rooms so you two would have to share one but there are eight rooms in this place so you each get your own room. There are three floors, there are three rooms on this floor, three on the next and two on the top floor. Quinn, Silas and I are all on the middle floor and we left you to choose from the top of this floor, but just a fair warning the view on the top is spectacular."

The two of them head up the stairs to their bedrooms and Calix looks down at me.

"Top floor?" he asks.

"Top floor." I nod, confirming, following after him.

♦

A knock sounds at my door almost half an hour later and I know exactly who it is from the signature style they knocked, after all, I had heard it multiple times, especially in the morning and evenings.

"Calix," I called to the person behind the door. "Can you help me?"

The door opens and Calix walks into my room, his eyes narrowing on my outfit once he notices what I'm wearing, before they rise to meet mine, a fire burning in his gaze.

"Can you help me tie these?" I ask the swimming costume I had picked had many ties that would wrap around my back and I was struggling to get them tight enough that nothing would fall out. He turned me around, taking the strings from me and tying them into a strong knot. I wouldn't be worried about coming apart in the ocean.

"You're trying to kill me, angel." My gaze meets his as he stands behind him, and my light grey eyes meet his dark ones as we scan each other, his look far from innocent. "Come on darling, we need to meet the others."

He mutters something else under his breath but it wasn't intelligible to me, but I didn't pry, from his looks I think I could make a pretty good guess on what he was thinking.

"Finally." Silas groans when we make it downstairs. "You guys took ages."

"They hardly took ten minutes, we haven't even been down here for five." Imogen sighs, acting like she was annoyed with him but as he gives her a cheeky grin she melts, letting him pull her into him but still looking exasperated with the man-child she had decided to date.

She stands up and holds her hand out to me. "Come on, let's go swim."

"What about Quinn?" I ask, but follow her out the sliding doors that lead onto the sand anyway.

"He said he wants to call Rhett and to just go without him, he'll catch up to us." I frown but down say anything as the two of us stroll down the sand.

That was until I found myself lifted off the ground and swung into the air, and then I found myself being raced into the ocean.

"Calix!" I exclaim, shrieking but I can't keep the laughter from bubbling out of me. Instead of dropping me as Silas had done to Imogen, he goes further into the ocean, lowering me so my legs are wrapped around his waist. He was standing but in a place, I wouldn't be able to do the same.

He still holds me, our chest pressed together, my arms wrapped around his neck.

Our mouths are so close.

So, so close.

But then water coats the both of us. I gasp as my head gets wet for the first time since we got in the water."

"Silas." I screech, trying my hardest to launch myself at the laughing brunette but the arms around my waist stopped me

"What are you going to do, blondie." he teases, wading backwards. "You have a 200-pound man between us."

"I don't know," Calix grumbles in a low voice, drilling holes into Silas's head. "The 200-pound man might pound you himself."

The threat caused Silas to try and swim away as fast as he could but he had nothing on Calix who was able to keep up with him with strong strokes, the two of them rough-housing in the water. I shake my head at their antics, paddling back to the shore.

Quinn was now sitting on the sand, unlike the rest of us still completely dry. I grab a towel and wrap it around myself, I walk over to where he sat and take a seat next to him. Instead of either of us speaking we just stared out into the ocean where we watched three people who had become such important people to us in such a short amount of time.

"So.'' I start but I don't finish but when he doesn't take the bait I keep on talking. "You've found someone new."

He looks down at me. "You noticed."

"You've been my best friend for ages now, I'm a little offended you didn't think I would." He looks back out to the beach. "It's incredibly new. I like her and all that, but..."

"But." I urged.

"I'm terrified, Lettie." He reveals. "The last person I let in took my heart, stomped it and left me so shattered I don't know how I ever put the pieces back together again."

My mouth purses at the mere thought of what he went through, anger threatening to show on my face but I keep my mask intact.

"You can't go forward always protecting your heart, but that doesn't mean don't go in with caution. Is this relationship different to your one with Selene?"

Quinn visibly flinches when I say her name. "It's very, very new, Lettie. I kind of wanted to tell you before I even progressed further. But yes. I can already see all the difference between her and Selene."

I frown in confusion, sure Quinn and I were close but I didn't have any say in his relationships and he didn't mind, sure we let each other know about our feelings towards our partner but at the end of the day it's his life.

"Remember the other day when I came to your place and your other friends were there." My eyes widened in shock, why hadn't I put two and two together? The one night when Quinn had joined me while Vanya and Gallan were over he and Vanya had talked all night. I thought it was sweet, two of my closest friends during my whole life.

"You and Vanya." A smile rises its way onto my face once the shock wears off and I immediately start teasing him taking great pleasure in watching his cheeks go from a pale flush to an overall bright red colour, once he had enough he rolled his eyes and wrapped an arm around my shoulders pulling me into a side hug.

"I love you Lettie bug."

"I love you too, Q."

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