“Whether or not it’s interesting is up to personal opinion, but do you actuallymarketyour books?”
Her smile turns lethal in its investment. “No. Why do you know that I don’t? Have you been stalking my author account?”
“Perhaps curiosity got the better of me. Why don’t you market your books? You’ve plenty of assets to create several organized pen names in the separate genres and make something profitable out of each.”
“I don’t write for that reason.”
“Why do you write?”
“Because. I need to breathe, and this world rarely ever seems to have any air.”
My lungs tighten at the notion, and I think I might just agree with her—even as a tepid breeze caresses the locks of her hair, painting them across her cheek.
She pushes them back and asks, “Did you buy all my books a few weeks ago, before you started staying with me?”
I hold myself extremely steady—even knowing it won’t matter at all. She keeps askingyesornoquestions, which are futile to dodge. “What a thing to accuse me of.”
“How long have you known me?”
Crossing my fingers, I stretch and tip her face up on them. “A lifetime and a moment. I think maybe we should take a break before your questions pry this mystery apart far faster than you’d prefer.”
“One more,” she insists.
I oblige.
Her eyes lift, toward my head. “Whyare you wearing a swim cap?”
Uncrossing my fingers, I chuckle and pull back. “Because. I needed somewhere to tuck my secrets, and my pockets were already full.”
Nothing compares to the way sunlight scatters across her spackled cheeks as our game comes to a close and our beach episode continues.
Chapter 16
?
It’s, actually, a lake episode.
August
I’m convinced. We know each other. Somehow.
Some way.
I just can’t figure the how or the way out.
Dominicdoeshave family in town. That makes having crossed paths in our childhood more of a possibility, but does doing all he’s done on what must have been the briefest of meetings make any sense at all? I already checked my yearbooks. Not a single person in them remotely reminds me of him. We’d have to have met when he was visiting his family or something along those lines. But that’ssobrief an interaction. So, so,sobrief a moment. Too brief to warrant the love he’s displaying.
Probably.
I don’t know.
I’dgo to extreme lengths over far less, but that’s me. And I’m nuts.
He seems…more adjusted. Mostly sane. His crazy is a different flavor—I think. He carries an essence of reliability about him. At the very least, he seems like the type to make a shopping list before going to the store, and then getonlywhat he’s put on that list. Which is what I do, too, but I’m not rich, so I can’t afford whimsy.
At a foundational level, he seems to know me better than he should, but as far as details are concerned, we feel like strangers. I don’t think whatever he talked toThe Councilabout had anything to do with my likes or dislikes, given that—while delicious—his picnic wasn’t at all obviously catered to me beyond the cheese board, which is something he learned I liked last week. He made a dragon fruit pie, for crying out loud. There’s no way my grandmother would pop that fresh, fun, cool option on a menu if prompted. She’d have told him my favorite dessert is chocolate pie. Dense, velvety, homemade chocolate pie. Her recipe, even.
So. He knowswhoI am, but he does notknowme.
