He lifts his chin up to the ceiling and groans to the sky.
“You’re right.”
When he looks back at me, his brown eyes twinkle with amusement. “But Lily doesn’t laugh at my dumb jokes, and Frasier’s definitely not jumping off cliffs with me. He’s always been my camera guy. So yeah, give a guy a break. I’m allowed to reminisce over the only girl who has tolerated my jokes, listened to every dumb thing I’ve done, and still spent three consecutive days in my presence.”
I huff out a laugh. “Three days isn’t exactly a lifetime achievement.”
He dips his chin and leans in. “Is that your way of saying that youarelaughing at my jokes?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Damn.” He takes a step back and shoves his hands in his board-short pockets. “Here I was thinking we were becoming friends, and then you hit me with that.”
“We are friends,” I say. “I just don’t move that fast.”
Or at all in most cases. What Jake doesn’t realize is that he’s lucky I talked to him. Most of the time I push people away, but he and his friends were impossible to ignore when they started chanting my name while I stood on top of a cliff.
He nods, rocking back on his heels.
“Okay,” he says. “I can work with that. Slow is fine.”
I raise a brow. “Good.”
“Yeah,” he continues, glancing down the hallway before looking back at me. “But I feel like there’s a pretty important step missing here.”
“What step?”
He gestures vaguely between us. “The one where I actually have a way to talk to you after tomorrow.”
I fold my arms. “Mhm.”
“Because right now,” he adds, pulling his phone halfway out of his pocket, “this whole ‘slow burn friendship’ thing you’ve got going on kind of ends the second we get off this boat.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Well, we've spent the last three days together. Cliff jumping, eating breakfast, wandering around this ship.” He gestures down the hallway. “We essentially adopted you into our group, and I still don’t know anything about you.”
I take him in. “That's not true.”
“Oh, yeah?” he says. “Where are you from?”
“Nope,” I answer, shaking my head while holding back a smile. “We agreed when we met that we would keep everything to the cruise.”
“Keep it to the cruise.” He nods in agreement. “See, that worked fine until the aforementioned adoption. Since then, you've learned everything possible about me.” He raises his hand between us, counting out the list. “You know what school I go to. Where I grew up. You even found out about the time I asked a girl to prom over the stadium mic, and she yelled back that we were just friends.”
“You left out the part where the marching band then had to carry you back across the field to your team,” I add.
He barks out a laugh and points at me. “See! You know more about me than any of my exes combined.”
“Not out of choice.”
“Still. I feel like it's only right that I know where you're going to college? What if I'm also there, and you start spouting out all my secrets?” His eyes go wide. “Imagine if my team found out that I tried to jump over the bonfire at my homecoming and singed off half my eyebrows. I’d be mortified.”
I smile, clapping my hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to worry about me telling them, though. I’m pretty sure Lily and Frasier would’ve already told them.”
He sighs.
“There’s also the little fact that I don’t go to Brighton U.” Not yet, at least. The reality right now is that I don’t go anywhere.
