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It all feels more intense as I pull my cover-up over my head.
He looks me over slowly. He doesn’t try to hide it. Not the gaze and not the attraction.
My skin flushes. My chest and stomach and cheeks, too. I turn, so he can’t see, so he gets my back.
He takes the sunscreen from my hand, squeezes a dab on his palm, and brings his fingers to my shoulder.
Slowly, he rubs the cream into my upper shoulder. The feeling of his touch is so strange. Familiar—he is my next-door neighbor—but charged with something totally unfamiliar.
An attraction.
A desire.
Is it coming from him or me?
Am I falling for the guy obsessed with my sister?
Maybe he’s right about destiny, and this is mine. Forever fated to fall for the guy who loves Lexi.
I close my eyes and push the thoughts away. No. This is a normal neighbor-slash-friend thing. Sunscreen. We all need it. And he’s helping.
It doesn’t mean anything.
The flutter in my stomach is out of place. The goose bumps on my skin, too.
And the sheer thrill as he rubs sunscreen into my upper back—
That’s nothing.
He works slowly and carefully, down my back, then he goes to my shoulders, and he says something.
I don’t hear it. “Huh?”
He leans close enough to whisper. “Should I get the front, too?”
I see it immediately—his hands on my chest, my bikini top on the floor. “No. I’ve got it. Thanks.”
He hands over the sunscreen. “Good luck.”
With what? He leaves before I can ask. I watch him join Fern and Lexi’s conversation as I slather lotion across my chest, stomach, legs.
After I’m fully covered, I drop the bottle in our beach bag, and I join Ida at the chairs.
We’re only ten feet from the rest of the gang, but we’re too far away to hear anything.
Still, I don’t want to stare. I need to look at something else. The beautiful blue sky, maybe. Or the miles and miles of sand. The twenty-something guy in red board shorts and thick sunglasses, sitting at the lifeguard tower, surveying the scene.
He sits there and watches all afternoon.
A tedious job but an important one. Sure, he mostly sits there, staring at the expanses of blue. But if there’s someone drowning, he needs to jump into action.
He needs to be ready at any moment.
“Are you going to watch them talk the entire morning?” Ida asks, pulling me out of my head.
“It’s almost afternoon,” I say.
She laughs the way River does, with the perfect mix of enthusiasm and distance. “The entire afternoon then?”
