“Let’s buy this place and live here and grow old together,” Hayes said. We were lying on the beach staring out at the sea.
“LikeThe Blue Lagoon?”
“The what?”
I laughed. That he did not get my pop culture references.
“What? Why are you laughing? Was that a movie?”
“Forget it.”
“Am I too young?”
“You’re not too young,” I said. “You’re perfect.”
Later, when we’d swum back out to the boat and were lying on the sun pads in the back, our captain otherwise engaged, Hayes was taking liberties. There were a handful of other boats that had anchored near us, including the sleek catamaran that we’d spotted earlier in the day at Shoal Bay, but none were close enough to detect him tracing the triangles of my bikini top with his finger. His touch at once faint and deliberate.
“Why are your bones all sticking out? You haven’t been doing some crazy juicing thing?”
I watched his hands descend over my ribs. Drops of water from his hair falling and pooling between my breasts. “No. But it might have something to do with the fact that your fans are calling me at work.”
“Are they?” He stopped. “I’m sorry. Are youtalking to them?”
I shook my head. “They’re just leaving messages. Letting me know how they feel about me.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I can’t imagine Lulit’s happy.”
“No. Lulit is very much not happy.”
“You should talk to them. Tell them I say hi. Tell them I send my love. Tell them, ‘Hayes says, “All the love,”’” he snickered, his fingers moving once again, traversing my belly, dipping in my navel.
“Are you just trying to make me laugh?”
“I’m trying to make you laugh. I’m sorry. I know you didn’t sign up for this…”
“I signed up for lunch.”
“Lunch, and some polite fingering?”
I laughed. “I thought that’s what lunchwas.”
“It’s code, actually.”
“It’s boy band speak?”
“Not all boy bands. Just ours.” He repositioned himself, maneuvering on top of me, spreading my legs. “Dinner is something completely different.”
“Dinner is anal?”
“No, that’s dessert.”
I smiled, my hands exploring his back. Smooth, broad, firm. “I’m too old for this.”
“You keep saying that, but clearly you’re not.”
He lowered his head then to my hip bone and undid the string of my bikini bottom with his teeth.
“You. And your mouth.”
