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“Are you hungry, Princess?”
“How could you tell?”
He laughed. “Any chance you’d be open to going to a place on the boardwalk near your hotel?”
I nodded. “I got a text from my mom. She and Dad are already out at dinner with Michael’s future in-laws at some sushi place. And Michael told me he’d be out most of the day with his best friend, Ben. So, I don’t think we have to worry about running into any of them.”
“Great. The concierge at my hotel told me about a popular little place that’s a restaurant and a bar. Water’s Edge Eatery. It’s supposed to have great food.”
“Sold,” I said as he pulled out onto the street. “But I have to be back at the hotel by eight. The bachelorette party is tonight.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t miss your night of debauchery.”
I laughed and fiddled with the radio until I found a soft rock station. The drive was short, and when we reached the boardwalk, the parking area was nearly full. Levi managed to find a spot, and we walked to the little restaurant at the end of the boardwalk. Levi took my hand again, and I didn’t tense up this time. I was more at ease now that I knew where we stood, and his touch made a comforting warmth travel up my arm.
The inside of the restaurant was packed, but we got lucky as we walked inside and a group of three got up from a table right by the door. Levi pulled me over to the table, and we claimed it before anyone else had the chance to steal it.
“Wow, you two are on top of things.”
A woman with long brown hair pulled into a high ponytail and bright blue eyes had appeared at our table and was gathering the empty plates left behind by the trio. She was wearing a small black apron around her waist over her low-cut jeans and red tank top.
“I’m Freya,” she continued, holding the haphazardly stacked dishes in one hand and using a wet rag to wipe down the table with the other. “Is this your first time?”
My mind flashed to the night before andthatfirst time—Levi pumping into me as I succumbed to raw pleasure.
“Well, neither one of us has been here before,” Levi replied, and when his eyes darted to me, I could tell that his mind had traveled to the same place as mine.
“You’ve picked a good night to come in,” she said. “I’ll bring you some menus, but we do have a couple’s surf and turf special tonight. Two eight ounce steaks with a steamed lobster tail and grilled asparagus. First two draft beers included.”
She pointed to a blackboard behind the bar with the special scrawled in white chalk. I looked at Levi questioningly, and he nodded.
“Forget the menus,” he said. “We’ll have the special. Cooked medium.”
I smiled slightly. He knew me so well that he didn’t even have to guess how I liked my steak cooked. There was something comforting in that.
“Good call,” Freya said with a saucy wink. “I knew I had a good feeling about you two.”
She sauntered away, and I had the urge to laugh. She was certainly a character.
There was conversation buzzing all around us, and we had to speak up to hear each other. We avoided heavy topics as we waited for our food, mostly rehashing old stories and fond memories. By the time Freya returned with our drinks, I was laughing so hard my side hurt.
“Oh my God, I forgot all about that time you went missing,” I said between gasps of air.
“I wasn’t missing,” he corrected me with a sexy grin. “I just found a great hiding spot and thought it would be funny to see how long it took my mom to find me.”
“They called the police,” I pointed out, wiping a tear from my eye as I picked up my beer and took a sip. “You were missing for four hours.”
“Well, I got bored and fell asleep.”
I shook my head. I remembered that memory well. We were only nine years old, but the incident caused enough panic among both families to really stick with me. Levi had finally been found under the deck of his house, curled up in the dirt and sound asleep.
He’d never really lived that down.
Our food came shortly after that, and it looked amazing. It was the kind of food that I would have expected to get at an upscale place, not a random bar by the beach. It looked like Levi had discovered an unexpected treasure.
The steak was cooked perfectly, and the lobster tail was a bright red color. Silence fell between us as we enjoyed our meal. I glanced out the window and saw that the sun was going down over the water, painting the sky in shades of pink, orange, and purple that reflected off the water. The view was breathtaking. This whole day had turned out to be the best one I’d had since arriving on the island.
My uncertainty about Levi had faded, I realized. I believed that he didn’t purposefully betray my family. He wouldn’t have done that to me.
