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“Lauren, your hat,”Sage said the following evening, and Lauren turned back to retrieve it.She already carried the chair she’d sit in that evening, as well as a beach tote with her eReader, her phone, a portable charger, and sunscreen.She had fairly tan skin normally, and she rarely burned, but they’d already spent a large portion of today out in the sun.Grant had rented a boat, and they’d packed food and fun into several hours together.
He'd brought a friend of his Lauren had met before—Harrison Tate—but Blake had not been present.She hadn’t wanted to bring him up with anyone lest they think she was interested, as she wasn’t even sure she was.
“Hey,” a man said, his voice bright and full of life.Lauren’s ribs tingled with the vibrations in that deep tone, and she swiped her beach hat off the top of the minivan and turned around to face the speaker.
Blake Williams stood there, wearing a pair of shorts the exact blue as in the field of stars on the American flag.They too had stars all over them, stitched into the fabric, not just printed on.He wore a pair of loafers with them, no socks, and his shirt was red-and-white striped.He was the personification of the flag, and she scanned him from head to toe one more time before looking into his eyes.
Blake was tall, trim, and tan.He grinned at her.“Lauren, hey.Bea said you’d be here again this year.”He touched his chest.“Blake Williams.”
“I remember who you are, silly,” she said, her blood bubbling in her veins as if she’d poured baking soda into them and it was reacting with vinegar.
So she was definitely interested in him.She’d felt this on both previous occasions she’d been around him.She smiled and moved in to hug him.“How have you been?”
“Good,” he said, embracing her lightly in return.That was the appropriate response since they really didn’t know one another.She wondered—and hoped.Prayed, really—that he had the same physical reaction to her as she had to him.She had no way of knowing, as his smile stayed hitched in place, and his dark blue eyes fired friendliness at her.She wanted more than that, but she told herself not to be impatient.
The first time they’d met, she’d been kind, but she’d definitely brushed him off.She didn’t live here, and she didn’t want a long-distance boyfriend.
But her situation had changed.She wondered if his had too.Or what his situation was at all.“Are Bea and Grant here?”she asked.
Blake nodded back the way he’d come.“Same spot as the last couple of years.”He looked down the aisle of parked cars.
“Are you leaving?”she asked, noting that the other women had left her behind.Joy would have questions, but Lauren trusted her explicitly.All of the women in her Supper Club, though she did reveal things to them in stages.
“Just for a few minutes,” he said with a smile.“I’m going to get my girlfriend and my momma.”
Lauren’s heart turned into a lump of ice.“Oh, great,” she said.“See you back here in a bit then.”She turned away from him, not needing to embarrass herself further.She walked away in what she thought was an even stride.Not too fast.Not too slow.Just a walk.
She stepped off the hot asphalt and onto the sidewalk, and then finally under the trees.The shade cooled her face, and since she worked out every day in the corporate gym at her office, she caught up to her Supper Club friends easily.
“Who was that?”Joy asked.
“Blake.”Lauren only gave her a cursory look.“I’ve met him a couple of times.Here.For the fireworks every year.”
Joy nodded.“He was handsome.Is he single?”
Lauren shook her head, her smile almost ironic.“Nope.He just told me he’s going to pick up his girlfriend and his mother.”She linked her arm through Joy’s.“Sorry.But surely Blake and Harrison have more male friends on the island.”
“Maybe Harrison himself,” Bessie said.“He’s single.”
Lauren looked over to her too, wondering why she saw things no one else did.“Is he?”she asked, vowing she wouldn’t say any more than that.
“I asked him this morning,” Bessie said, coughing immediately afterward.
“Bessie,” Joy admonished.“You did?”She leaned forward to see Bessie past Lauren.
“Yeah,” Bessie said, lifting her head and shaking her hair over her shoulders.“If you want a hot summer boyfriend, Joy, I’m going to help you find one.”
They all started to laugh, and Lauren kept her vow of silence.After all, Cass deserved to tell everyone that she’d already set her sights on the handsome Harrison Tate.
