EVERYONE IS ACTING strange.

More so than usual.

For the past day, Thalia, Atlas and even June, whom I went to go see, have been acting strange. Sharing looks, sneakily trying to look at their phones. Even now I am behind the counter making coffee for me and Thalia as she sits at a table in the shop, looking at her phone, texting, but her eyes keep darting up to me. As if checking when I am coming back over.

Weird.

Grabbing our coffees and making my way back to the table, I slide hers towards her before sitting down in the seat opposite her.

"Okay, why have you all been acting strange for the past day?" I ask her, raising my eyebrows as I rest my arms on the table.

"What do you mean?" she asks innocently, putting her phone away and I give her a 'really' look.

"Seriously? You and Atlas have been sharing glances, checking your phones a lot, and positioning them away from her. Even June was acting strange," I explain to her. "You know, if you're all trying to just hide talking to Easton from me, you don't have to. I'm fine with you all still talking to him and talking about him. You don't have to censor yourselves."

"You caught us," Thalia says with a smile. "We just didn't want to upset you by bringing him up."

I nod my head. "Well, it's fine. I know you're all still going to talk to him."

"Have you talked to him?" she asks and I shake my head.

"No, I thought of maybe reaching out after he did the interview just to see how everyone was taking it, but I wasn't ready," I explain to her.

"Do you think you could forgive him?" she asks.

"In time? Yeah. I know his heart was in the right place. He just wanted to help me to make sure I didn't lose everything. I just wish he told me himself. After all, we were in a good place, slowly starting to get somewhere and yeah I would have been hurt but not as much as it did finding out from his agent," I say and she nods.

"Guys are dumb," she says and I laugh, nodding my head. "What are your plans now you are back?"

"I'll continue to run this place," I say, gesturing around me. "There aren't a lot of marine biologist options around here, but maybe while I run this place I can publish a few papers, do some research on sea life."

"Will you miss all the traveling?" she asks and I nod.

"It was cool, seeing new places, different oceans," I say, and she nods. "How about you? Now that I'm back and you don't have to run this place."

She shrugs and looks around. "I kind of liked it. I'll go back to running my lessons full time, but I've gotten great at coffee art, so don't be surprised if someone comes in asking for my coffee."

I laugh at that and shake my head. "Noted."

"Why don't we have a girls' night tonight? We'll meet at the beach and have our own bonfire with some wine," she says, wiggling her eyebrows.

I laugh, agreeing. "Sure. Make sure Atlas knows he isn't included, no matter how long his hair is."

✺✺✺

Smiling, I wrap my cardigan around me more as I walk down the street towards the beach that sits outside of Thalia's house. The breeze blows past me, and the quietness that surrounds me is nice. A feeling of peace washes over me.

I come to a stop as the beach comes into view, and I furrow my eyebrows.

Are we watching a movie?

A projector screen stands in front of the little bonfire, with a blanket and some wine. Walking down the steps of the beach in my comfy clothes, I look around for Thalia but come up empty.

There is no one here, but the things are set up. Although it looks slightly more like a romantic night than a girls' night. Getting my phone out, I call Thalia and place my phone to my ear.

"Hello?" Thalia asks as soon as she answers.

"I'm on the beach. Where are you? Are we watching a movie? Why is there a projector screen?" I ask her, confused. "Also, if Atlas is crashing, and that's why this all looks romantic, tell him I am not third wheeling."

She chuckles. "No, he's not crashing. In fact, I'm not actually coming."

I furrow my eyebrows.

"Why?" I ask her, confused.

"Our girls' night was never a girls' night," she admits.

"What are you talking about?" I ask, confused, and turn around when I hear a noise.

The projector screen lights up, and my face appears on the screen. The video starts to play, and it's me on the beach cheering on Easton at one of his competition, it moves to Easton coming out of the ocean after winning and kissing me for the first time where I went crazy on him after.

Video after video plays, some of them videos from our hotel room taken on Easton's phone. Videos that were captured by the cameras at the competitions.

"What is this?" I ask her through the phone.

"This is his apology. Do me a favor and just stay. I promise you can murder me after," she tells me. "You deserve to be happy."

She hangs up, and I put my phone away as I watch the videos. Tears springing from my eyes. Soon enough, Easton appears from behind the projector screen, the videos still playing as he walks over to me.

Seeing him again for the first time in person makes me want to run into his arms but slap him at the same time. He looks as bad as I do, bags under his eyes and just a tired look.

"Aren't you supposed to be on tour right now?" I ask him, wiping some tears away, and he shrugs.

"Some things are more important than surfing," he tells me before reaching up to wipe some tears away.

"Some things?" I ask him and he smiles.

"You're more important to me than surfing, Gabi. There's nowhere else I'd rather be right now," he tells me.

"This is why everyone has been acting weird?" I ask, and he nods.

"Yeah, they were all in on it, but they've asked if you can not murder them," he says and I chuckle.

"Where did you get all the videos?" I ask motioning to the projector.

"I asked the media to send me everything they had, some videos I took when you weren't looking," he says.

"Creep," I joke and he chuckles. "Is this supposed to be an apology?"

"It's me showing you that I'm not going anywhere, that I want to fight for what we have and that I'll always come back for you," he tells me.

"It really hurt, East," I admit, and he nods.

"I know. I should have told you, when things started changing between us, I should have come clean about my intentions. A part of me inviting you on tour was to make sure you would take the money, but the other part I wanted to try to convince you of what we could be," he admits.

"Some girls prefer flowers," I joke and he laughs.

"Noted," he says. "I know I fucked up multiple times, but I'm human. I'm not perfect and I'm going to screw up. But my intentions are always in the right place. Everything I do is out of love."

"I can be stubborn. I know I should have accepted the money from everyone who was offering. But I've been on my own for so long, you know this. My mom, as soon as I turned eighteen, saw me as an adult and left me to myself essentially, I've had to run the business myself. It's just been me for the longest time," I admit to him.

"You've never been alone Gabi. You've always had Thalia, Atlas, grandma and me in your corner," he says, taking my hands in his.

"Accepting help is going to get some taking used to," I admit, and he nods.

"I can be patient," he says and I laugh. "I know you might not forgive me, but I'm not going anywhere. Hell, I'll pester you every single day if I have to."

"Oh god," I moan and he laughs.

"But we can go as slow as you need. I promise from here on out, no more secrets. No more lies. Every decision is a conversation between the two of us," he says.

"I can deal with that," I say. "What about the tour? You have to go back."

"Yeah, I do. If you want to stay here, then stay here. I'll come back in the off season just like we planned," he says.

"I kind of miss it, the tour," I admit, and he chuckles.

"Come back with me then. I'm sure Thalia won't mind helping again, and we'll come back in the off season and we can go from there," he says to me.

"Traveling the world was fun," I say, and he chuckles.

"I love you Gabi, and I'll spend every day of my life proving it to you," he says.

"I love you too," I admit, and he smiles.

"Does baby steps include no kissing or?" he asks and I shake my head before cupping his cheeks and kissing him softly before pulling back. "Screw baby steps."

He pulls me in for a proper kiss, wrapping his arm around my waist and picking me up. We hear shouting and pull back, seeing Atlas, June and Thalia on the balcony of Thalia's house.

I can't help but laugh, resting my head on Easton's chest.

Now this feels like home.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A U T H O R   N O T E

HE CAME BACK FOR HER!

I have to admit when I was imagining the scene in my head of the video playing it was really cute. 

Also after seeing your comments on the last chapter and realising everyone was having an issue, the top and bottom banners have been changed! The Wattpad system does not take kindly to removing a banner and adding a new one so if you got multiple notifications about each chapter being re-uploaded twice that is why, I had to publish before going back to re-add the top banner otherwise it doesn't let you add it after removing the previous one.