Beck threaded his fingers through his locks and shook them. “Right? My future lawyer-slash-hairdresser only missed a major chunk at the back of my head. No big deal.”
Nellie gave a little gasp, kicking lightly at his calf. “I did not!”
Beck’s laugh was delicate, as was the way he grinned up at her. Even with sunglasses hiding his eyes, there was no shielding the fondness in his expression. “I can’t believe you’re showing uplate,” he murmured, watching Jamie set our belongings down on the blanket. “And I can’t believe you mademebe the driver of the Alderton-Du Ponte schmucks. I thought I made it clear the only people allowed in the convertible are you three.”
“Lydia and Raelynn didn’t have a ride,” Nellie said, crouching down to pull a soda from the cooler. The wind stirred her hair. “And you live the closest to them.”
Beck caught at the strands that slid across her face, curling them gently behind her ear. “Just this once,” he allowed.
“Twice,” Nellie corrected. “You’ll need to drive them home.”
Beck puffed his lip out in ascowl.
“Where are they, anyway?” I asked, looking around the beach for Lydia’s stream of blonde hair.Notlooking for a certain muscular boy. The beach was pretty packed, though, a lot of people celebrating their first day of summer vacation the same way we were. “Did they already go into the water?”
“I sent them for a slushie.” Beck reclined further onto his elbows, dramatically ducking lower under the umbrella. “I need something cool. The sun burns.”
I snorted. “Okay, vampire.”
Beck gave a halfhearted hiss.
“You made Jamie be the pack mule, Daisy?” a voice asked from behind me, and I turned to find Raelynn walking up with Lydia at her side, both wearing their bikinis proudly without a cover-up. Raelynn’s bikini was a beautiful blue shade, one that made her eyes pop. “You couldn’t have carried anything?”
Oh, the direct snark from her was new. Normally, it was Lydia who’d throw quips in like that. I had a feeling it correlated with the angry expression that’d twisted Raelynn’s face last night when she’d walked in on Jamie and me.
I smiled at her sweetly. “What else is a boyfriend for?”
Lydia’s expression was far friendlier than her bestie’s, almost like they’d swapped bodies. “Boyfriend,” she echoed with a little squeal, crouching beside Nellie, reaching for a can of soda from her cooler.
“That is true.” Dalton came up alongside me, holding two slushies, one red and one blue. He wore a pair of white swim trunks and nothing else, his broad, tanned,muscular skin on display. He seemed firmer than he’d been last summer, like he’d been hitting the gym. I fought the urge to swallow hard, knowing if I gulped now, it’d be audible. “Boyfriends are supposed to be good for their muscle.” Dalton not so discreetly eyed up Jamie’s narrow frame.
I blinked at his dig, caught off guard. Jamie, though, didn’t bat an eye. “Things matter more than what a body looks like.” Jamie shifted things around in the bag Nellie had packed. “Like mutual respect.”
Dalton’s expression darkened, but he said nothing.
Beck stretched his hand out to Dalton. “Thanks, man. Blue raspberry me.”
Dalton’s scowl deepened as he held the blue slushie out to Beck. Dalton didn’t like cherry. “It was five dollars.”
“I’ll consider it my chauffeur fee.”
As Jamie unpacked the towels from their beach bag, I caught his lips twitching. Then he looked up at me, the sunlight threading through his hair and giving it flecks of gold. “Sunscreen?”
“Duh.” I was a freckled redhead. “Unless you want me burnt to a crisp.”
“We can’t have that.”
My gaze locked onto Dalton’s as he moved to sit on the blanket beside Beck, straw to his cherry slushie in his mouth. My stomach flipped at the idea of sliding my cover-up off, suddenly self-conscious. He’d muscled up in the year since we’d last seen each other, but I’d been stress-eating my butt off from our breakup, dealing withthe kids, and the NYU rejection combined. I suddenly didn’t want him to see me.
Jamie rose to his feet and towered over me. Though he was thin, he blocked Dalton entirely from view. He held an aerosol can of sunscreen in one hand, tipping it one way, then the other. With his other hand, Jamie’s fingers snuck underneath the white strap of my cover-up and slid it over my shoulder.
It’d been a light pressure, but I found myself freezing at the touch. Jamie reached for the other strap, doing the same—slipping a finger underneath the material, easing it over my freckled shoulder. My white cover-up fell to the sand beside the quilt, pooling at my feet, revealing my light green one-piece swimsuit. It had cute lace and a cut out on the sides, so my pale skin stood out against the stitching—and would probably lead to a pretty odd tan line—but I liked the way it looked.
I wondered if Dalton would like the way it looked.
Jamie still stood between us, eyes on the slice of skin at my side as if they’d been magnetized to it. Acting as ifheliked the way it looked. “Close your eyes,” he ordered in a strange voice, and without waiting, he started spraying sunscreen all over me.
I sputtered against the taste, squeezing my eyes shut. “Jerk.”
