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Goddamn, she was so fucking cute. If Annie was offering to let me stand close enough to her, knowing my rock-hard dick was between us, then I was going to take it. I stood, and she watched as I reached into my swim trunks to adjust myself.
Maybe I should have been embarrassed for how hard she made me from simply applying suntan lotion, but I didn’t care. The way her tongue darted out to lick her lower lip told me she didn’t mind it all that much either.
She turned around and placed her arms out like a petite bouncer at a nightclub. “All right, Sullivan, I got you covered.”
I stood and stepped behind her before curling my fingers around her hip bone. I lowered to whisper in her ear. “Let’s do this.”
I kept my hand planted on the lush curve of Annie’s hips as we walked across the beach. The sand made it tricky, and more than once her round ass bumped against my front, completely negating the fact she was trying to hide my erection.
I ignored her scent, her soft skin, the curve of her waist, and instead focused on the sun blaring in my eyes, the warmth of the sand beneath my toes, the old guy down the beach sporting a very tiny neon-green Speedo.
Anythingbeside how good it felt to be in Annie’s space.
We met up with the rest of the group by a folding table near the edge of the water. Picnic baskets were lined up with labels indicating each couple.
As the group gathered, Bug waited for a hush to come over the crowd before she spoke. “You’ll have one hour to enjoy your picnic lunch before the charter boats take us in groups of six for your adventurous fishing date.”
A few light whoops and hollers sprinkled through the crowd. I pulled Annie closer to me. I knew she wasn’t particularly sporty, but I had been fishing a thousand times with Dad.
“To add a little more fun and competition to the date, the couple with the biggest fish and the couple with the most fish will each win an extra prize!” Bug held up two large white envelopes.
I leaned in close to Annie. “It’s in the bag.”
She may not be very athletic, but Annie had a competitive streak a mile wide. She turned her head with a smirk and a glint in her eye. “Let’s do it.”
I glanced at the large whiteboard with each couple’s name scrawled across it. Annie and I had a red heart next to ours. I knew Annie desperately needed that bonus prize money to make her dreams come true. When I saw Royal and Millie had three hearts next to their names, my competitive nature kicked into overdrive. No fucking way was he walking away with Annie’s prize after his brother all but evicted her from her shop and her home.
Fucking Kings.
If Annie wanted to create the art experience of her dreams, she needed money. Besides, my plan was working. I hadn’t had a single biddy from town corner me and try to set me up with their granddaughter. In fact, mostly they just hugged me and told me how happy they were for Annie and me or to warn me not to break Annie’s heart.
Only a few still managed to bring up Margo.
All I had to do now was get Annie on board. This plan was fucking perfect.
I grabbed our picnic basket and was relieved when underneath the striped umbrella, it was almost as if nothing had changed between Annie and me. She watched the waves while we ate the freshly made deli sandwiches. I used my backpack as a makeshift table to try to keep sand out of the potato chips. The beach was bustling with energy, and while she watched children splash in the sand and a group of teens play sand volleyball, I was watching her.
When a kid decided to showboat and took a header in the sand, she laughed, and as always, calm and reassurance settled over me. Part of me wondered why I hadn’t seen it before—seen her in this new light, where she was no longer just my best friend but my entire universe.
Then it hit me that I hadalwaysseen her that way. Only now it felt like her seeing me in that same light was becoming more and more of a possibility. Every one-night stand, every girl whose number I took and never called back, every time I made a show of my dates to prove to everyone I was over Margo, was like an arrow to my heart.
I wasn’t that person anymore.
I didn’t want to be.
If I was being honest with myself, I wished I could say that he wasn’t the real me, but the pathetic reality was that it had been. The future I had envisioned with Margo fell apart when I got home and she was like a totally different person. Then she was gone. Friends, neighbors, hell, even my own family took to constantly reminding me of what I lost.
I couldn’t imagine a life without the woman I had come to love in those letters. Instead of dealing with the pain, I drowned it out with recklessness and the facade of adon’t-give-a-shitattitude.
I may have enacted a self-imposed celibacy for the past several months, but it didn’t change who I was and what I had become. Even now I knew Annie deserved someone better, but there was an invisible tether between us, one that I would never be willing to cut.
A life without Annie felt like a life without oxygen. I had taken my first breath after being trapped underwater, and now I couldn’t stand the thought of going under again.
If I wanted things to truly change between us, then I would have to change. It had already started.
By the time Bug rang the bell to alert everyone it was time to head to the boats, the sun had climbed even higher in the sky, and the sweltering heat pressed down on us. We were instructed to clump together into groups of six for the boat.
Emma had muscled her way next to Annie, threading her arm through Annie’s and locking their elbows together. “We’ll go together!” Emma shouted.
