I continue on, ignoring her question. “Someone intelligent. Witty.”
“Wow.” She grins. “You don’t think much of Barrett, do you?”
“I just want the best for you.”
“And what about you? Are you on the table?”
I take a beat, thinking over her surprising words, and it’s just enough time for her to regret them. She shakes her head and turns to walk away. I reach out and catch her arm, keeping her near me.
“Hey, do you like me?” I ask, brows furrowed.
“Like you? How could I possibly like you when I’m so busy hating you?” she teases.
“Don’t do that.”
I hate the games. I want honesty.
“Maren! Nicky!” Tori shouts, cutting off our intimate moment. “You guys want to play volleyball?”
I keep Maren in my sights, trying desperately to drag us back to where we just were. Screw volleyball. Screw everyone else. Let’s keep talking.
But Maren blinks and turns away, agreeing to play before dashing off away from me.
Around five, everyone starts to pack it in. We’re all a little tanner than we were at the start of the day, and a little sandier too.
I watch Maren tug on a short white dress over her bikini, and I think I can finally release the breath I’ve been holding in all day.
“Maren, you ready to go?” Barrett asks, nodding toward the exit.
“She’s with me,” I say, like a goddamn brute.
Barrett laughs. “This again? What do you have against me driving her home?”
“Nothing, but I’m headed there already, so there’s no need for you to take her.”
“She can always come with me if she wants,” Tori adds, not helping the situation.
“Wow. I’ve never had so many people offer to drive me somewhere.” Maren laughs. “How’d I get so lucky? Barrett, Tori, thanks for the offer, but I agree with Nicholas. It’s just easiest.”
Tori winks like she doesn’t quite believe Maren’s reasoning. Barrett shrugs and walks over to give her a kiss on the cheek. I’m pretty sure he whispers something about how excited he is that he’ll be her date next weekend, but I can’t be certain. I’m too busy trying to convince myself not to pull them apart. What was I saying earlier about not being the jealous type? Turns out I was wrong.
I nod to Max and Rhett. Rhett gives me a sarcastic salute.
“Let’s go,” I say, grabbing Maren’s picnic basket for her and starting to head for the parking lot.
“So grumpy. What did I do to you?” she asks, running through the sand to catch up to me.
“I’m tired and I’ve still got to get back to the city tonight.”
“Well, if you’re that tired, I can just go home with someone else.”
“No.”
She laughs. “All right, then let me drive.”
“Do you have a license?”
“No. Never got around to it. In fact, I’ve only been behind the wheel of a car twice.”
“And you expect me to hand over my keys?”
“No.” She laughs. “I know you’d never let me. I just wanted to test the theory.”
I toss my keys so she has to think fast to catch them. “Let’s try it out.”
She stops dead in her tracks. “Are you crazy? I could never afford to fix your car if I wrecked it!”
“You won’t wreck it. I’ll be in the car too. Let’s go.”
She has to pick up her pace to keep up with me. “Are you going to lay a towel down or something on the front seat for me? I’m still wet and I don’t want to mess up the leather.”
“I’m not too precious about my car. Just get in.”
“I could take my bikini off.”
Jesus, the thought nearly kills me.
I don’t think I even utter a verbal response, just an animalistic grunt and a shake of my head.
Leave. Your. Clothes. On. Please.
In the parking lot, I pop my trunk and toss our stuff inside, then I round the car and open the driver’s side door so I can adjust the seat for her. She’s shorter than me, so she’ll need to be closer to the pedals.
“Try it out,” I say, pointing down to the seat.
She does as she’s told, gripping the steering wheel and adjusting her posture. “I think it’s good.”
“And the rearview mirror?”
She tilts it a smidge lower. “Perfect.”
“Then let’s go.”
I take my seat opposite her and buckle my seatbelt. When I glance over, she’s drumming her thumbs on the wheel and wearing a shit-eating grin.
“You look mighty confident for someone who’s only driven a car twice.”
“It’s nerves.”
“Uh-huh. Start ’er up. Let’s go.”
The thing about my car is that it’s an older, restored model. It’s not as responsive as new Porsches on the road today, both with steering and with braking, and Ocean Drive has a lot of curves. We’re only two minutes into our drive and already I’m rethinking my decision to let her drive.
“Brake. Brake, brake, brake!” I tell her as we go around a bend in the road, careening toward a stop sign at the bottom of a hill.
The brakes squeal as Maren slams her foot down harder. I’m prepping for impact just as the car comes to a sudden, jolting stop in the nick of time.
“Oh my god,” she says with a wild laugh. “I thought I was braking!”
“Not hard enough.”
“Clearly.”
I glance behind us and am glad to see there’s no one else on the road. We have a second to catch our breath.
“You can let go of my thigh now,” she says, drawing attention to the fact that my hand is gripping her leg.
I look down to find my fingers are digging into her, and I don’t move them right away. I register the feel of her smooth skin beneath my palm, the fact that her white dress has slid up to just below the edge of her bikini. She’s a dream, sitting there in my car, barely clothed, and I have to fight the urge to slide my hand up higher before I take it away completely.
“It’s not too late, y’know. You can drive the rest of the way if you want,” she teases.
“Just keep going. You’re doing fine.”
Fine is a relative term, however, and after another near-death experience, I tell her to pull over.
“Right up there. See that private driveway where there’s a clearing in those trees?”
She turns off the road slowly and puts the car in park, letting her forehead fall against the steering wheel. If she’s anything like me, her heart’s beating a mile a minute right now.
I glance up at the old gate in front of us, blocking the rest of the gravel path that leads to parts unknown. Overgrown ivy does its best to conceal the KEEP OUT sign dangling from the gate, which is redundant anyway; it’s clear no one’s tried to come here in a long time.
“That was…exhilarating,” she whispers.
I laugh and glance over at her.
Her head is tipped toward me, and she’s smiling like I’ve never seen her smile. A big wild grin spreads from ear to ear, dimpling her cheeks and creasing the skin near her eyes. My chest tightens as I take her in, green-eyed and glowing. She’s otherworldly. A nymph. A siren. I’m there on my seat one second, and the next I’m leaning over the gear shift, wrapping my hand around her neck, and drawing her toward me so I can kiss her.