I do, but I think I’m too antsy. I find myself checking the beach access stairs for some stupid reason…really stupid. “I’m good.”
“Then let’s play football.” He shields his eyes from the sun as he looks at the blankets where Bailey, Simone, and Isaac sit. “Isaac, you wanna play?”
“Sure,” he says and hauls himself up. “Only if I can be on Cohen’s team.”
“No, fuck that,” I say. “You and me.”
“Why?” Isaac asks.
“Because if those two are on separate teams, they’ll kill each other.”
Cohen and Logan look at each other and shrug. They’re cousins, but they’re more like brothers with a vengeance for one another.
Logan tosses me the football, and we start a game. We’re probably half an hour in when Tori strides toward the group with Kylie in tow. I hate that my stomach does that stupid fizzy thing when I see her.
“Dude,” yells Isaac. “Eyes over here, man.”
“Sorry,” I say and make a point to play the game without looking at the blanket once, which takes some serious work on my part.
We finish the game and head over to the blankets, where Kylie has shed her cover-up to reveal a yellow sunflower bikini, her blond hair draping down her shoulders, a smile stretched across her face as she talks to Bailey.
Kylie meets my gaze with a smile and then looks away quickly as something Bailey says gets her attention, and they laugh together. Damn, she’s got a beautiful face when she laughs.
Logan and Cohen both collapse on the blanket while Isaac rifles through a cooler. I’m trying to figure out my next move when Kylie pushes herself up off the blanket. “I think I’m going to walk down the beach…check things out.”
“I’ll go with you,” I say without even thinking about it, which earns me the side-eye from Tori.
As we head toward the shoreline, I say, “I see you’re getting cozy with some of the girls.”
“They’re fantastic. I met Bailey and Simone last night. They’re being super welcoming today.”
“They’re both sweet girls,” I say.
She nods agreement and looks downward, twirling the string on the side of her bottoms. She’s all torso in that bikini. Damn. “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry if I came on too strong in the kitchen. I wasn’t trying to maul you, I promise.”
I shrug as if I’m not even sure what she’s talking about.
“I swear I’m not usually this emotional. It’s been a rough few weeks.”
“Want to tell me what happened?”
She rubs her forehead, thinking for a minute. “Let’s just say I’ve been living with my head in the sand. I’m not used to being grateful for food. It’s been an eye-opening experience.”
I just nod, wondering what her story is, but I don’t want to push her.
“I mean, I did a lot of charity work in my previous life, but I’ve never really understood what it’s like to be totally on my own and literally hungry. I mean, usually I’m hungry on purpose because all women where I come from are hungry on purpose. But I’ve always known where my next gourmet salad or kale smoothie was coming from.”
“What the hell’s a kale smoothie? That sounds nasty.”
“And that’s not even fair for me to say,” she says, ignoring my question. “I’m choosing to be on my own. If I got truly desperate, I do have…options.” By the look on her face and the fact that she’s sleeping in a stranger’s bed for the weekend, I’m guessing the options aren’t great. She glances over at me. “I know you probably want to roll your eyes at me.”
“Not necessarily.”
“It’d be okay if you did. I’ve been doing a lot of eye rolling at myself, lately.”
I point at her. “I won’t be peer pressured into an eye roll.”
This gets a smile out of her, even though it’s a small one. She heads into the water, so I follow her in. When we’re both far enough out that we’re past the breaking waves, she turns to me, waist-high in the water. “You Floridians have no idea how lucky you are. I’ve been landlocked for twenty-five years.”
“You’ve been to the beach before this, though, right?”
“Yeah, but my crew usually goes to New York for shopping or to Sedona for spa treatments. My dad hates the beach. We always went to the mountains growing up. It made me a good skier, though.”
“I am, too,” I say.
She gives me a doubtful look. “Anyone can ski on the water. Try suiting up in a ton of garb and tackling the slopes in Aspen.”
“You never had a boyfriend take you to Aruba or Cozumel?”
When the smile leaves her face, I want to kick myself in the nuts for pushing her. She gives a closed-mouth smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. She turns and ventures out a little farther into the water, jumping waves, her mouth breaking out in a grin like she’s ten years younger than she is. “This feels so good.”
I join her, my body reflexively hopping waves with her like I haven’t done since I was a kid. My mind goes to a memory from my childhood. Kylie looks at me curiously.
“What?” I say.
“It’s just that I haven’t seen you smile like this yet.”
“Smile like what?”
“Like you’ve quit the player game for a second…like you genuinely mean it.”
I turn away from her, embarrassed about how well she has my number. “I was just remembering something.”
“Tell me about it.”
I shake my head. “It’s nothing really. Just a memory of Tori and me out here, each of us holding our little brothers as we jumped waves.”
Kylie smiles so sincerely it makes my heart sore. “Tori’s your family, isn’t she?”
The idea strikes me as truer than anything I’ve ever known. “Yeah, I guess she is.”
“Tell me about your brother.”
A tornado of words and phrases collide in my brain when I think of Matthew. It’s hard for me to put him or the need I feel to protect him into words.
“He’s clever. Hates sports.” I
