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“Yeah, but I told him I wasn’t feeling well.” James relaxes.

“How’d he take that?” she asks.

“I believe his exact words were ‘I have a bed at my place too.’”

A barely audible growl comes from his throat.

“Can’t blame a guy for trying,” she says.

“Yes you can,” snarls James.

Ginny scowls at him. “Why are you eavesdropping anyway? No one asked for your opinion.”

His proximity distracts me. Even as I lay there talking to Ginny, I’m so attuned to him that I barely know what I’m saying. It’s almost a relief when he and Max walk down to the shore to throw a football back and forth. But my eyes follow him even then. Every muscle is delineated when he throws. Really not what I need right now.

“Why are you watching them?” asks Ginny suspiciously.

“Why are you watching them?” I ask her back.

“Because I wanted to see what you were staring at.”

I shrug. “I’m bored. Nothing else to do but watch. They’re good.” I see a flash of disgust cross her face before she finally puts her head down again.

I glance up at James when he returns, and he’s already looking at me. “We should probably talk?” he asks in a low voice, as he sits.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Here it comes. I nod.

“I’ll go back to the house. Make an excuse and follow me in a few minutes?”

I agree with trepidation. If he was going to tell me he’s not interested, would he have grabbed my hand this morning? Would he have spent so long putting sunscreen on my back? No. But then why do we need to ‘talk’?

“I’m gonna head in,” he announces.

“I’ll go with you,” says Max.

I feel James’s whole body sag beside me. We exchange a quick glance and what I see in his face heartens me. I doubt he’d look quite so aggravated if he were merely being denied the chance to have an awkward conversation.

But it’s hard to know for sure when we never get a minute alone. Ginny and Max don’t leave our sides during the day. James goes into work before me, and by the time I arrive the bar is packed. It stays that busy most of the night, but that doesn’t stop me from focusing on him. No matter where I move in the restaurant, I’m conscious only of him, as if I’m the minute hand of the clock and he is its center. I look toward him and he turns, holds my eyes, his mouth moving a mere fraction, that secret smile of his for once directed at me.

I feel boneless and breathless, so much so that when I turn from the deep freezer and slam into him I gasp, feel the last remnants of air in my lungs expire. He grabs my hips to hold me steady.

“Hi,” I say weakly. The moment I stand this close to him, my chest against his and our mouths millimeters apart, my heart begins an irregular, fluttering rhythm.

His lips move upward again, infinitesimally. He doesn’t let go of my hips. “I’m finding it very hard to get you alone,” he says, looking at my mouth.

“So we can ‘talk’?” I ask. I smile as if I’m teasing, but I feel frozen as I wait for his response.

His mouth moves closer. I feel his breath brush against my lips. “Among other things,” he says, and then his mouth closes over mine, a light kiss that shouldn’t affect me nearly as much as it does. It’s a whisper of a kiss that still makes me shiver.

“That’s all I get?” I ask.

“When I have to walk back into a crowded bar in about 20 seconds?” he laughs. “Yeah.”

I shrug one shoulder. “Your loss,” I smile, and begin to move around him but he pulls me back into place, tugging me into him and finding my mouth at the same time. He pushes my back to the freezer, his fingers bruising my hips to pull me closer. It’s a different sort of kiss, desperate and without thought, the way he kissed me at Brooks’s party. The kind that makes the bright lights and the din of the restaurant seem to disappear.

His eyes are dark when he pulls away, his hands still tight on me as if he’s not sure he’s willing to stop. “Better?” he asks.

“Much,” I say breathlessly.