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“You want to play?”
“Yeah. But I don’t know how. And I don’t have a ball.”
I turn and dig into my beach bag. “Here, hold this,” I say, handing him a bottle of sunblock. “No, that’s not it…where is…hold this, too,” I say as I pass him a volleyball. “I’m not sure where I put it—
“Here!” He says, giggling.
“No, I don’t think so,” I say, as I pretend to keep digging.
He laughs harder. “This is the ball, Lily!”
“Oh. There it is. Why didn’t you tell me you had it?” I wink at him over my sunglasses.
“Come on!” he squeals as he runs to the net.
Me and Franny run to catch up, and just as I’m about to launch into a lesson, a familiar man walks toward us. But I smack my hands on my hips and tease, “That can’t be Cormac MacMillan. He’s not wearing a business suit.”
He laughs and the kids run up to him for hugs. Then he picks up Franny on his hip and says, “I thought a business suit might be overkill for the beach.”
The breeze tousles his dark hair as he smiles at me. His navy swim trunks and linen shirt combination suit him.If this is his typical beach attire, then he should live out here.The outfit is even more well-fitting than his business suits, and something about it makes my body react to him in ways I shouldn’t. Slowly, I nod, trying to think of something intelligent to say. “Uh, do you play volleyball?”
“A little. When I was a teenager.”
Bet he was one of those cute boys who could aim the ball at a group of girls and spike it there so he’d have a chance to talk to them.I nearly laugh at the thought—as if Cormac MacMillan needed an excuse. He probably just walked right up to girls—
“So, do you want to play?” he asks, shaking me from my thoughts.
“Let’s do it.” Bad choice of words. But also not the wrong words.
We run the kids through the basic idea, as he lowers the net for them. Once they get going, though, Franny and Aiden hardly need us around. Their hand-eye coordination isn’t great, so they take to just throwing the ball over the net to each other, and we stop objecting after the first couple of minutes. But then Aiden says, “If we’re doing it wrong, why don’t you show us?”
“Yeah,” Franny chimes in.
We shrug and they step back as we begin to play. Cormac went easy on me—I could tell. “I’m not a child. You can play harder.”
“If you say so.”
The match heats up after that, grunts and slams between us. Almost like the night we’d had together. I dive for a spike, but hadn’t seen the shell in the sand to my right, and I slip instead of diving, twisting my ankle as I fall onto the sand. “Shit!”
The kids giggle until they realize I’m hurt, and then Cormac and the kids hop into the sand next to me. He says, “Lily, are you alright?”
“I think I’m fine. Just twisted—
“Nothing snapped?”
“No. Not that bad.”
“Are you sure? That looked like a hard fall.” The concern in his eyes touches me.
Softer now, I tell him, “I’ll be okay.”
Franny asks, “Is it broken?”
I smile at her. “No, not at all.”
Cormac asks, “Can you walk?”
I sigh. “Let’s find out.” He helps me to my feet, and his firm, strong hands warm me through. Once I stand, I smile. “See? I’ll be fine.” But when I take a step, I nearly fall. Instead, I fall into Cormac’s arms. “Nice catch.”
