I shiver at the sensation, prickle with full-body awareness of him.
He doesn’t pull away immediately, and I catch my weight shifting back into his touch. His fingers unfurl, his palm flattening against my low back.
The bodice of the dress is gaping loose, gravity pulling the straps down my arms as the weight of the skirt draws everything toward the ground.
I catch the bust against my chest, pinning it to me as I turn toward him. “Thanks.”
“Here.” He flinches away from me, avoids my eyes as he snatches a loose gray T-shirt from his open top drawer. When he pulls it over my head, his gingersnap smell engulfs me, and he tugs it down over the dress.
When I let go of the bust, the whole lacy concoction pools at my feet. I get my arms through the T-shirt sleeves, and Miles helps me step out of the skirt, gently untucking my hair from the collar.
His eyes lift back to mine, and the room thrums. “Thank you,” I say again, this time a whisper.
“I’m going to need this back,” he teases quietly. “That’s been my favorite shirt since I was ten.”
I register the front of it for the first time: a crackly vinyl cartoon camel smoking a gigantic cigarette. Chortling, I meet his gaze. “This is your favorite shirt from childhood? A walking nicotine advertisement?”
His smile widens. His fingers move absently to my chin, and I feel myself being drawn into him, our stomachs connecting, his heart pattering through me. “It’s a camel, Daphne,” he says wryly. “In sunglasses.”
“I’ll change immediately,” I say, playing along.
“No, no,” he says. “Keep it as long as you want. What’s mine is yours.”
I suppress a grin. “See, this is why all these locals have added you to their wills.”
He frowns. “Sometimes you make it sound like I’m a snake-oil salesman.”
I grab his arm. “That’s not what I mean at all.”
“Then what do you mean,” he asks.
“I mean that you’re nice,” I say.
He laughs. “This again.”
“I mean,” I say, more fervently, “you’re probably the only person I’ve ever met who’s genuinely curious about everyone he meets. And makes them feel interesting and welcome, and like—like they should be confident in what they do. You make them feel like growing corn or making cherry salsa or recommending books is a superpower.”
“If you’re good at those things,” he says, “it is.”
“Exactly,” I murmur. “That’s how you actually feel.”
The only other person I’ve ever known with that particular skill wields it like a shield. Or a tax he’s paying you, a cut of him just big and bright enough to guarantee you won’t ask for more.
“I just think,” I say to Miles, “you like people almost as much as they like you. And it makes being around you feel like—like standing in sunlight.”
His mouth softens. Briefly, he studies the space between our feet. “You feel like sunlight too.”
I snort. “No, I don’t.”
“No,” he agrees. “You don’t. You’re more like Lake Michigan.”
“Cold and bracing,” I say.
His voice drops: “Cool and refreshing.”
“Shocking and painful,” I say.
“Surprising and exciting,” he counters, now close enough that I smell the postshift glass of red wine on his breath. Close enough that I become the moth to his irresistible glow, trying to resist the pull to move closer.
I tip my head toward the living room, the mess, mine and Julia’s. I seize the opportunity for a distraction from this heady feeling. “Have you managed to talk to her? About what she’s really doing here?”
He exhales heavily with a half step back. “I’ve tried. She’s still pretending there’s no big reason other than scraping me up off the floor.” He forces a smile that makes my heart feel like it’s folding in half. “You ready to kick her out?”
“I like having her here,” I promise.
He nods.
“Can I do anything?” I ask.
Now his smile softens. He touches my chin again. “Nah,” he says. “This is enough.”
“I’m not doing anything,” I point out.
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Then why do I feel better?”
The moment swells. Now I step back, the floor chilly beneath my soles. “Thanks again,” I say, “for lubing my zipper.”
“Anytime,” he says.
OceanofPDF.com
23
WEDNESDAY, JULY 24TH
24 DAYS UNTIL THE READ-A-THON
Aside from THE radio silence about my Ocean City library application, I’m having a streak of uncommonly good luck.
On Sunday, Miles surprised me and (a less than thrilled) Julia with a drive down to a little town called North Bear Shores for a bookstore event with a romance writer Sadie had turned me on to years ago. After the signing, the shop owner and her geology professor wife ended up falling in love with Miles (obviously) and making a donation toward the Read-a-thon.
On Monday, two children’s book authors agreed to send videos for Read-a-thon prizes, while a third offered to do a live video call with the kids.
Tuesday, our monthly Fortnite tournament kicked off with our highest turnout ever, and today, when Maya dropped by the desk to pick up her holds, I’d finally managed to convince her to come to next week’s YA book club.
Mom screams with excitement when I tell her on our call as I walk home.
That or she accidentally drops some free weights close to her toes.
“That’s great, honey,” she says. “I know that kid’s been a tough nut to crack.”
“She’s just so shy. But the other kids in the group are really sweet,” I say. “And a couple are homeschooled, so she’s probably never met them, which could be good. A clean slate.”
“God, once, when you were having a hard time at a new school, I remember asking you if you wanted to be homeschooled,” Mom says.
I snort. “When would you have had time to homeschool me?”
“I wouldn’t have,” she says. “But you were so unhappy at school. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to just rescue you from your misery. Do you remember what you said to me?”
“I never even remember homeschooling being on the table,” I say.
“You said you’d miss your teachers too much.” She bursts into breathless laughter, which turns into a groan of exertion, followed by the clank of weights hitting the floor. “You were shy, but you were brave.”
“I was a little nerd, you can say it,” I say.
“Back then they used to call it ‘a pleasure to have in class,’ ” she tells me.
My phone beeps and I step under an awning. “Hold on a second,” I tell her, blocking the glare to read the screen. “What the hell?”
“Is everything okay?” Mom asks.
“Yep!” I say too brightly.
Everything’s great except that my dad’s trying to call me, and it’s not two weeks after a major holiday, when I’d normally hear from him.
I fire a text his way: Sorry, on the phone.
He replies immediately, an extreme rarity: Gimme a call when you get a sec. Fun news.
Anxiety corkscrews through me. Fun news, in Jason Roberts Speak, is usually: Hey, I’m dating a twenty-six-year-old! (Not for long.)
Or, I made a friend who owns a catamaran, so I’m going out of the country for a while. Send you a postcard when I hit dry land! (He won’t.)
“Daphne?” Mom asks.
“Everything’s fine.” She and Dad aren’t mortal enemies or anything, but she stopped having contact with him pretty much the moment I turned eighteen, and as good as my mom is at empathizing, laughing through the shit storms in life, she’s always gone out of her way to not trash Dad. For my sake, I know, but sometimes I just want her to stop being supermom and just agree with me that he’s the worst. So mostly we just don’t talk about him.
