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“I don’t. I mean, I do it to exercise. Sometimes it helps me think, kinda clears out the cobwebs. Plus, we haven’t exactly been hitting up gyms very often and I gotta work off all those pork rinds somehow,” he said with a cheesey grin. She read the numbers on the screen and looked back up at him.
“Jesus, it says you’ve been running for over two hours! Have you been doing this speed the whole time?” she asked. He shrugged again.
“Well it’s the only real equipment he has, and I woke up early and needed something to do. I didn’t want to wake you up. So what’s up, did you wanna go do something?” he asked and it wasn’t lost on her that he kept changing the subject.
“No, I’m in no hurry. Just checking on you. You can always wake me up, you know. For any reason, if you wanna hang out, or talk, or anything,” she said lamely, suddenly feeling awkward. She felt stupid. She didn’t even know how to be a good friend. He smiled down at her.
“My god, Paige, is this you being sweet to me? I knew you’d fall for me sooner or later,” he teased.
“See? This is why I’m never nice to you,” she snapped, then leaned back over the screen of his treadmill and hit the increase button.
“Are you crazy!?” he yelled, struggling to keep up with the treadmill as it got faster and faster.
Paige laughed evilly and hurried out of the room, slamming the bedroom door behind her. That would teach him a lesson for making fun of her when she was just trying to be nice.
She chewed on her thumbnail as she made her way back to her room. He'd been laughing and smiling while talking to her, but it seemed obvious that something was bothering him. She tried to think back on anything he’d said about things going on in his life, but she quickly realized he hadn’t said much of anything. She knew he had a younger sister, and that his parents were divorced. His mom was still in New York, and his dad lived in Seattle. She knew he was going to Trinity College in Connecticut.
And that was it. That was all she knew about Parker Carrington. It wasn’t very much.
God, she really had no clue how to go about being a good friend.
*
SHE'S TRYING TO KILLme.
Despite the stormy weather, they'd headed downtown on that first day. He took her to the beach and watched her run around on the sand in the blustery weather. They'd walked around the shops and Paige surprised him by purchasing a pair of fancy looking strappy sandals.
She'd not only cooked him breakfast that first morning, but she'd made him stop at another grocery store and she'd cooked him dinner that night – and every night for the next three nights. She was a damn good cook, which also surprised him for some reason.
On the fifth night, Parker decided he was gonna take her out the next night. Take her somewhere nice, to pay her back. It was all feeling suspiciously like a “dating” kind of scenario, but he pushed that feeling away and just basked in the good times and good food.
Now Parker was stretched out in a lounge chair by the pool, watching Paige swim lazy laps around the pool. A strong wind was ruffling through the palm fronds – it was still stormy out and he'd heard it was only going to get worse. It was supposed to rain later on in the night. But he didn’t care.
Paige had come out to the pool in a bathing suit.
A black bikini.
It was the simplest, plainest bikini he'd ever seen, but she wore it like it had been hand tailored for her, and he had trouble keeping his tongue in his mouth. She would look sexy in a garbage bag, but strutting around in a bikini, he wanted to eat her alive. It didn’t help that during their first morning there, Paige had gone all caring on him, looking up at him with her warm brown eyes and telling him he could talk to her whenever he needed.
He'd almost spilled everything right then. It was tearing him up inside, all his secrets, and his feelings towards her were getting harder and harder to control. But then he'd looked down at her, and knowing she had things in her own life that bothered her, he couldn’t put his own issues on her. So he'd renewed his resolve and cracked a joke, made her laugh, broke the tension. He was good at doing that.
The only problem was, ever since that morning, she'd begun to act differently. Just a little, but enough to throw him off. Her snarky, smart ass comments had lost some of their sharp edges and become friendlier, softer. She seemed more concerned about him, asking him how his family was whenever he came back in the room after being on the phone. She'd never asked before, he hadn’t even realized she knew he was talking to family. It almost seemed like she was trying to ease his stress, even though he'd been working very hard to act like he wasn’t stressed.
Paige Davis, bad attitude and sarcastic mouth, he liked a lot. Paige Davis, funny personality and caring woman? He was in serious danger of falling in love. And he hadn’t even kissed the girl.
“Hey!” came a shout, followed by a splash. A second later and his feet were soaked.
“Ack! What?” he asked, sitting upright. Paige was leaning against the side of the pool, slicking her hair back from her face.
“You were gone,” she said. He squinted at her, toweling off his feet.
“Huh?” he asked, confused.
“You were gone. Your mind. You were staring off into nowhere, a million miles away from me. What’re you thinking about?” Paige asked. Parker chuckled and stood up.
“About tomorrow night. Wanna have dinner with me?” he asked, walking to the edge of the pool. She laughed and floated out on her back, looking up at him.
“Are you asking me on a date?” she said in a teasing voice. Staring down at her, while she was stretched out in the water under him, he nearly swallowed his tongue. He'd envisioned her stretched out beneath him a million times, in a million ways, but never quite like that – she was quite a sight. He coughed a couple times.
