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If she wanted to get drunk and shirk off stress and heartache, she could call him and he’d be there forher.
He didn’t care if his dad expected him athome.
Nolan realized that was the first time he’d allowed himself to think that since the accident. If his dad had asked him to give up his Sunday me-time, he wouldhave.
But if he’d asked him to give up time with Lilac… Maybe he wouldn’thave.
“Hi! So… Wow. This isnice.”
Nolan spun around. Lost in his thoughts, Nolan hadn’t even noticed Lilac approach him frombehind.
She stood there and Nolan’s eyes first darted to the golden bikini barely covering the most scandalous parts of her body before he snapped back into the moment and realized she was struggling with a tote bag on one arm and her other arm wrapped around an oversized umbrella. “I’m sorry I’m a little later than I expected. I stopped to getthis.”
Chuckling, Nolan scrambled forward to take the umbrella from her, pointing to the almost-setting sun. “You won’t need that for longtonight.”
“I know,” said Lilac, pulling a bottle of sunscreen out of her tote, “but you can never be too careful.” Nolan stuck the umbrella in the sand, struggling a little to open it as Lilac sat down on his pre-arranged beach towel. She squirted some of the lotion onto her delicate hand and started rubbing it on her arm. Nolan leaned on the umbrella stand and grinned. He knew sunscreen was important, but he hadn’t bothered bringing any. It wasn’t going to be sunny for much longer and a little tan wasn’t too risky on occasion. Especially since he spent most of his day indoors and under several layersanyway.
Lilac moved on to her legs and Nolan found himself sliding down the umbrella stand, practically slipping into the sand. He recovered, whistling casually, sure Lilac hadn’tseen.
She was staring right up at him and grinning, one pink-manicured hand resting on one of her thighs. She held the bottle out toward him. “Can you get myback?”
“Sure,” said Nolan, stumbling forward to grab the bottle from her. She turned over and folded her arms to cradle her chin, revealing the most perfectly-shaped ass cheeks known to man and a long, slender arched back.Down, boy, he thought. Inhaling deeply, Nolan slathered his palms with sunscreen before diving into the space between her bikini top and her bikinibottom.
“Ah!” said Lilac, shuddering a bit. “Your hands arecold.”
Nolan wondered if they were clammy because his heartbeat was drowning out all normal sensation. His hands tingled and his barely-covered nether regionsthrobbed.
He’d left his condoms in the car—and he was going to be sure to get them out before his brother or sister played around in the glove compartment and asked what kind of balloons those were. But he’d told himself to stash them there just as a backup because it was never going tohappen.
But obviously, a small part of him hoped something was going tohappen.
“You take sun care seriously,” said Nolan, for want of anything else better to talk about. He finished on the small of her back and he went to move his hands up above her bikini top, but as he trailed his palms upward, she arched a little and let out a smallmoan.
Hestopped.
“Sorry,” said Lilac, grinning even with her eyes closed. “I’m just ticklish. Keep going.” He did, applying pressure to her shoulders but going gentle on her neck, stopping only to refill his hands with thegoo.
“My grandpa had melanoma,” said Lilac, and Nolan’s hands stoppedmoving.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. He removed his hands, his job done, though he ached when the touch between themsevered.
“Oh, he’s okay,” she said. “They caught it in time, but he has to be extra careful and get checked every few months.” She rolled her eyes as she turned over. “And yet the idiot still gets tanned. He hates how he looks pale, he says. Well, I’d hate how he’d look dead, I tellhim.”
Nolan snapped the cover back on the sunscreen, a smile faltering on his face. Any mention of death and his thoughts inevitably strayed toward his mom, even though it’d been just about threeyears.
“Are you okay?” asked Lilac as she sat up beside him. “I’m sorry, that was insensitive of me. Maybe you lost yourgrandfather—”
“I did,” said Nolan, cradling his legs against his chest. “Both of them—so long ago, I don’t even remember them. One of my grandmas, too. And the other one lives in Nevada, so I hardly ever seeher.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lilac, all joy drained from her voice. Nolan hated that he was responsible for that in her. Her joy was so wonderful, socontagious.
But he decided it was time to lay it all on the table. That way, they could just remain friends if that was what she wanted, which was how he expected it to be. “It wasn’t that, it’s… My mom died. Three yearsago.”
“Oh,” said Lilac, sitting straighter. “I… I’msorry.”
That’s what everyone said when he told them. That’s all he expected anyone to say. What could you say to someone who’d experienced loss? Words were neverenough.
“She was our family’s everything,” he said, taking a deep breath. “She kept it all together. And then—bam—one night she was gone.” He checked to see if he was totally bumming Lilac out, but she was gazing at him, concern etched on her features. “An idiot driving the wrong way down ahighway.”
