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“And I can’t have you working for me for free.”
“So give me like five percent,” I suggest. “Not half.”
“Firstly, splitting things in half is easier,” he says. “Secondly, wouldn’t you work that much harder for a bigger cut?”
Should I tell him I’d help out for free?
“Look, I have to insist,” he says.
“Fine.” Mostly because I’m just too out of it to argue further. I can always refuse the treasure once and if we find any.
“Oh, I do have one further condition,” he says.
Marry him?
“You have to put on sunblock,” he says.
Oh. How mundane. “Sure.” I walk over to the counter, grab the tube, and apply the cream to my arms and legs.
When I look up, Evan’s eyes are gleaming. “What about your back?”
Oh. Right. There’s a low cut on my back. Knowing I’ll regret it, I hand him the sunblock and turn.
By all the hormones. Evan’s fingers brush the nape of my neck, then slide down gently and caress the skin between my shoulder blades.
If I thought I was hot and bothered by his seductive voice or the poultice application, I didn’t know the meaning of the words. All I want to do is excuse myself to go to the bathroom and scoop water out of my lady boat, like a perv. Alternatively, I want to drag him into the bedroom and enact a different kind of treasure hunt with him there, one where he?—
“There you go.” He removes his hands from my skin, allowing some semblance of coherent thought to return—though not much.
In a haze of lust, I follow Evan to his car, and we head out to St. Augustine via the scenic A1A highway.
“Was your grandfather a big fan of Florida trivia?” I ask when some of my wits return.
“Big time,” Evan says. “And he passed that down to me.”
I tear my eyes from the ocean to regard him skeptically. “You know Florida trivia?”
If so, why hasn’t he cracked the treasure map code?
“I do.” He glances at me, looking cocky. “Go ahead. Test me.”
Since I can never refuse a challenge, I pull out my phone and do a few searches.
“Tell me some fast-food facts related to Florida,” I demand.
“Is orange juice junk food?” he asks. “Because seventy percent of US oranges come from here.”
“Fruit is like the opposite of junk food, and I asked about fast food, which is slightly different. I’ll count that answer as a loss.”
He purses his lips, making me want to kiss them. “I’ve always been told that orange juice is pure sugar and therefore junk. But fine. What’s a fast-food fact about Florida?”
“The first ever Burger King was founded in Jacksonville,” I say. “Moving on… What weather pattern is your home state famous for?”
“Thunderstorms,” he says. “We have the most thunderstorm activity of any state.”
Hmm. I was expecting him to say it’s the most hurricane-prone state, but a quick search confirms that his answer is right also.
We continue in the same vein, and he does know his stuff, like the fact that Florida is the flattest state in the US, and that Native American tribes had been living in the Florida region for several thousand years before the arrival of the Europeans. Also, that Florida officially became part of the US in 1821, and that it’s the only place in the world where you can find both crocodiles and alligators in the wild.
