Oscar: I have a date to a rooftop pool party. Blue sequins or red with gold accents?
The text was followed by two photos of Oscar in different teeny-tiny bikini swimsuits. He had a gorgeous body. Even though he was small, he was fit and healthy. The suits showed off his shapely legs and tight ass.
James: Shameless hussy. You just wanted to show off your booty.
Oscar: I don’t do hundreds of squats every day for nothing. Tell me I’m pretty. Tell me you want to bounce a quarter off this bitch.
I laughed out loud.
James: That ass is so perfect, I could probably bounce all kinds of things off it. Who’s the date?
Oscar: Oh, honey. I don’t bother to get their names anymore. They don’t last long enough for me to need it.
He was joking, but I knew there was a bite of truth to it. Oscar was notorious for always being the bridesmaid and never the bride. After everything I’d been through with Richard lately, I wished I could express to Oscar how lucky he was to be alone. But I knew better. The grass was always greener in someone else’s garden, and no one wanted to be rejected time after time.
James: Wish you were here.
I took a photo looking down my ghostly pale legs toward the edge of the water and beyond.
Oscar: My eyes. MY EYES! Have you never heard of St. Tropez Self Tan?! You can get it at Nordstrom for god’s sake. JFC, James. Have some dignity. Oiy. I’m sending you to a spa when you get back. This is humiliating. Is there anyone around? Christ. Tell them not to look at you. They’ll need medical attention.
He always made me laugh more than anyone else could, but today laughing while lying on the beach in Cape Cod made me feel like almost an entirely different person from the workaholic I usually was in the city.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes again, concentrating on the warm sun and slight breeze. The sounds of seagulls squawking mixed with the soft, rhythmic crash of the waves. Farther down the beach I could hear a family with children squealing periodically as they ran in and out of the water.
I glanced toward them, tenting a hand over my eyes to block the sun. It was a family of four, the mother under an umbrella with a book open on her lap, but her attention on her partner as he chased two little boys around the water’s edge, his hands held up and fingers twitching as he declared himself the Tickle Monster. The boys dissolved into squirming laughter whenever they were caught, their boundless joy infectious.
I found myself smiling as I watched them, trying to ignore the sharp pang of longing in my chest. This was what I’d always dreamed of. This was what I worked so hard for. This was what I’d wanted with Richard.
Except that Richard hadn’t wanted it with me.
With a sigh I closed my eyes and fell back on the towel. I thought about the old couple at the hotel, still so clearly in love after all these years. Forty years he’d said they’d been coming to the Sea Sprite. That was loyalty and history.
That’s what Sawyer was holding on to.
Sawyer. No matter what direction my thoughts trended, they always seemed to come back to the same place. He’d looked so disappointed in me when he’d realized I was the lawyer who’d come to steal his family’s legacy away. But it was more than that. He’d looked disappointed but not really surprised. As if… as if he was used to having the rug pulled out from under him like this.
I rubbed my hands over my face and turned over onto my stomach, shifting around until the lumps in the sand beneath my towel were better contoured to my body.
“You’re turning into a lobster.”
The voice woke me up from a sleep I didn’t realize I was even in. I turned to squint up at the looming shadow. Sawyer was barefoot and dressed only in old, paint-splattered khaki pants turned into cutoffs. I noticed his eyes trailing down my body, taking in my shirtless chest, hesitating on my hot pink trunks, before continuing down my legs.
He tightened his lips and wrenched his eyes away. I couldn’t blame him, especially given Oscar’s horrified reaction to my winter-pale body earlier. I was in shape, and my body was toned, but that didn’t make up for my age and long days spent indoors and out of sight of the sun.
“Um, hi,” I said, feeling a little embarrassed. Especially given the smooth expanse of Sawyer’s chest gleaming with muscles and tan and a sheen of sweat. So robust and young and healthy and vibrant compared to me.
“I came down here to take a quick rinse since the water is shut off at the inn.” His jaw tightened like he hadn’t meant to admit the problem to me. “Should be back on soon. Uncle Mark finally showed up to fix it.”
I struggled to sit up, feeling groggy and stiff. There was no telling how long I’d been snoozing. “What time is it?”
Sawyer reached down and grabbed the water bottle from my shopping bag and tossed it toward me. “Little after three. Drink some of this. You’ll likely be dehydrated if you were asleep for long.”
I started to thank him, but he was already gone, striding toward the ocean as he shook his head and muttered to himself. I watched the tanned muscles of his back move, and I noticed the dip before the swell of his ass in those cutoff shorts.
Oscar didn’t have anything on Sawyer Gilley in the ass department. Especially when he seemed to give it an extra twitch as he knew I’d be staring. Which I totally was, watching him until he dove beneath the waves in a lazy arc.
I knew from testing it with one toe earlier that the water was cold as hell. It was still early June, so the temperature probably wasn’t much more than sixty degrees. Hell, even in the eighty-degree water of the Caribbean, I’d worn a wetsuit when I’d gone snorkeling two years before. The idea of diving into frigid New England waters right now made me shiver even though I was toasty from sleeping in the sun.
I stood and stretched and made my way to the edge of the waves, opening my water bottle to take a few big slugs. Sure enough, the tide was cold on my feet and ankles, but it felt good now that I was hot.
Sawyer popped his head up and shook his hair out of his face like a shaggy dog. His grin matched the playful move. “Coming in?”
“Hell no.” I immediately regretted the answer as my mind conjured images of me and Sawyer pressed together as the swells rose and fell around us. Both of us practically weightless, limbs twisted, bodies slick. Which was a lovely thought if not for the fact that the water was so cold I doubt I’d make it deeper than my knees before scampering out again, howling like a baby.
He laughed. “Aww, come on. Surely your old heart can handle it.”
I glanced around to make sure the kids from earlier weren’t within earshot. “It’s my old balls I’m more worried about.”
The light swells lifted him up and down in the water. He was obviously comfortable riding the waves and seemed to have a sixth sense when a larger one loomed behind him.
He glanced past me toward my towel with the giant, hot pink flamingo on it. “I see you’ve been to town. Did you have a chocolate frappe? Precious works on Saturdays, and she always makes the best ones.”
I shook my head. “Just coffee. But I did have the patty melt. It was delicious.”