Surrender (Club X #2)(41)
Author: K.M. Scott

Stefan nodded. “Yep. Still my favorite, hands down.”

“Ok. What’s your favorite place?”

“Right here on this beach on a warm fall night under a clear sky. And if you’re going to ask me when, the answer is right now.”

“Don’t ruin this with cheesy seduction talk, Stefan.”

He rolled over on his side to face me and propped his head up on his hand. “I wasn’t. It’s the truth. Remember, we’re supposed to be honest.”

“I don’t believe that. You’ve had twenty—how old are you anyway?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“You’ve had twenty-seven years of experiences, and you want me to believe this is your favorite with me right here on this beach?”

“Why not? You’ve seen what my life is about. I spend my nights in a bar watching everyone have a good time, and the only enjoyment I’ve ever found from it was chasing women. Do you know no one has ever asked me what my favorite food was? No one has ever asked me what my favorite anything was.”

“I’m sure your family has,” I offered, wondering if the person staring up at me was as lonely as he sounded.

“You mean Cash and Kane? I’m just the pain in the ass little brother to them. I create problems they have to clean up. And they never let me forget it.”

“Well, what about your mother? Moms are always good for that kind of stuff.”

His face lit up at the mention of his mother. “Yeah. She doesn’t ask, but if I tell her I’m coming over she’ll make me that meatloaf she knows I love. I’m her favorite.”

“You’re the youngest. Moms always love the baby most.”

“I think it was more that Cash was my father’s favorite, so she didn’t want to see me left out.”

And with that, his smile faded away and an uncomfortable silence settled in between us. I didn’t know how to deal with this Stefan. The asshole who I thought of as a borderline misogynist I could handle. The decent guy at work I liked. The man who rocked my world in bed I had to resist falling for. This Stefan, though, made me want to take him in my arms and ask what his favorite everything was. He just seemed so alone that I had to fight reaching out to make him feel better.

But I did fight that urge, as overwhelming as it was, because no matter who he was right now, there with me as the water gently lapped against the shore just a few feet away from us, the reality was Stefan March was that player I’d intended on playing. Even if I didn’t want him to be.

Even if I really wished at that moment he was the guy next to me who I could fall for.

He looked up at me and quietly asked, “Do you think people can change, Shay?”

“What kind of change are we talking about?”

“The kind that matters.”

I looked at him, unsure of what he meant but knowing people don’t change. “Leopards can’t change their spots, Stefan. They are who they are. Like in the story about the scorpion and the frog.”

Chuckling, he shook his head. “Who?”

“Haven’t you ever heard of the story about the scorpion and the frog? The scorpion asks the frog for a ride across a stream, and the frog says no because he knows he’ll sting him and he’ll die. The scorpion promises he won’t. Why would he, right? He’d die too. The frog is convinced and lets him get on his back, but halfway across the stream the scorpion stings him. The frog can’t believe it and asks him, ‘Why would you do that? Now we’ll both die.’ The scorpion simply says, ‘This is my nature.’ He couldn’t change who he fundamentally was, so they both died.”

“So you don’t think people can change?” he asked, his brown eyes wide with interest in my opinion on what seemed very important to him at that moment.

I thought about it and shook my head. “No, I don’t think they can. You are who you are, no matter how much another person wishes you weren’t that person.”

“What if the part of you that you wanted to change wasn’t who you really were? What if it was just something that wasn’t really you?”

“What do you mean?”

He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, frowning as he sighed. “You’re smart, but what if you weren’t and you were just pretending to be smart? You could change to be a different way because what you were changing wasn’t the real you.”

As tortured logic went, that wasn’t bad. I couldn’t argue with it, at least, even though I had no idea where he was going with this. “I guess if someone was trying to shed a façade, then that kind of change would be possible.”

Stefan nodded his approval and smiled, obviously pleased by my answer. “Maybe it just takes the right set of circumstances for a person to change.”

“Maybe.” I didn’t know what to say because anything I believed about people changing went completely against his positive ideas about the subject. I’d never seen anyone really change. Not for anyone or anything. Not even for love.

Looking out at the water, I moved to change the subject. “I like it here. It’s quiet. After all the noise from the bar each night, this feels so relaxing.”

He ran his finger through the sand toward me and lifted a handful of it up, dumping it out on my thigh. “You know what I’ve always wanted to do? Bury someone in the sand.”

“You’re creeping your new friend out, Stefan.”

Scooping up another handful, he poured it out over my knee and smiled up at me like he was proud of his handiwork. “I’m not trying to kill you, Shay. I’m just saying I think it would be fun to bury someone in the sand like they do in the movies. Haven’t you ever wanted to try that?”

I brushed the sand off my leg and onto his arm. “No. I have a deathly fear of being trapped in anything, even sand. Small enclosed spaces, elevators, even those tiny Italian cars freak me out.”

Even as I sat there explaining how I dreaded the very thing he wanted to do, he scooped up another handful of sand and then another, dumping both on my shin and nearly covering it. “Sounds like you have a fear of being out of control, if you ask me.”

I kicked my leg and sent sand flying everywhere. “Thanks, Dr. Phil. I’m thinking in a past life I was trapped in some enclosed space, like a mine shaft or a box, and smothered to death, so I’ll thank you not to cover me in any more sand.”

Brushing myself off, I stood to move away from him, but he grabbed me by the ankle. “Don’t leave. I promise not to bury you in the sand, okay?”