And again, just as I daydreamed all those weeks ago, the man has thighs that should never be trapped in the crime that is dress pants. They don’t do evencloseto the justice they deserve.
“Graham, I swear to god, I have never wanted to jump your bones more than right now.”
He looks at me, confused, as we slip into his car.
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. Your thighs…” I look at them for long moments, then fan myself. “How do you even maintain those?” A small smirk tips his lips.
“Genetics, and I used to work out for ninety minutes a day.” My eyes widen in awe.
“Over anhour?On purpose?”
I, of course, know he works out because he tends to do it while I paint, but it’s definitely not ninety minutes.
“I never had anything else to work toward, no one else to spend my time with,” he says, looking over at me and placing a hand on my thigh. He squeezes once, and I smile at him. My bad mood is already lifting, but if I tell him that I’ll sacrifice our day out.
“But now you do?”
“Now I do.”
He smiles at me as he opens the door for me, then walks around the car to the driver’s side before taking us to the local deli to grab lunch to go.
“Okay, where to?” he asks once we have a feast inside the small cooler he also bought from the gift shop. With a smile, I direct him toward my favorite beach. It’s not technically in Seaside Point, but a state park right outside of town, so it doesn’t have all of the chaos that Seaside Point does, just the peaceful ocean and stretch of sand. We unpack the towels we brought and spend time lying in the sun or dipping our toes into the water.
It’s the perfect day, perhaps even more perfect since we’re here purely because I was having a shit one. It only gets better when I find a white circle sitting half-buried in the sand. Excitedly, I bend to pick it up, then gasp when I pull a perfect sand dollar out.
“What is it?” Graham asks, putting his hand on my lower back.
“It’s a sand dollar!” I say excitedly, turning to him to show him the delicate discovery. “It’s lucky to find a whole one. I can’t believe it!” My eyes narrow. “Did you drop it?” I’ve lived in Seaside my entire life and have probably spent whole days and weeks wandering these shores without ever finding a whole sand dollar.
“What?” he asks, looking genuinely confused. “Why would I drop it?” I let out a laugh, then shake my head.
“Claire has always been in love with finding seashells, and when they first met, Miles started buying nice ones and dropping them when she wasn’t looking. She thought she was just really good at finding seashells. Last summer, she found out he’s been dropping them for her, long before they even started dating.”
Graham’s eyes widen, and his arm on me tightens, pulling me in closer.
“Was she mad when she found out he’d been dropping them all along?”
I think about that, never considering it because Miles and Claire are so deeply in love, then shake my head.
“No. She understood. It’s a sweet thing between them now. He still does it.”
He smiles then, something close to relief flashing over his face. I open my mouth to question it, but before I can, I’m distracted as the soft tones of an ice cream truck filter through the air.
“Is that the ice cream truck?” I ask, turning my head up the beach and toward the parking lot
“Sounds like it,” he says.
“Oh, my god. Ineedan ice pop. I need to go grab my wallet!” I say, excited, but he grabs my wrist.
“No. I’ve got it,” he says, pulling his own wallet out. I narrow my eyes at him, and something clicks, a memory from a few weeks ago when I said I was craving an ice pop.
“Did you do this?” I ask, tipping my head to the side.
“Do this?”
“The ice cream truck, did you do it?”
