‘Well, if you put me on the spot like that again,’ I told him, ‘And they’ll be needing to add a criminal record section to it.’
‘Duly noted.’ He bumped into me with his hip. ‘You should be thanking me, though.’
I gaped at him. ‘For what, embarrassing me in public?’
‘What have you got to be embarrassed about? I thought you handled yourself well with Celia. No, you should be thanking me because now, thanks to me, we get to hang out at the festival.’
‘Who says I want to hang out with you?’
Ray poked me in the ribs with his bony finger.
‘Ouch.’ I rubbed the spot. ‘What was that for?’
‘Do you think you could stop flirting long enough to take me home? My hip hurts. I don’t want to stand around all night watching you drool over this guy.’
Mortified, I glared at him. ‘I am notflirting, or drooling.’
‘As good as,’ he replied. ‘If you like him, just say so. Stop playing silly games.’
Jack grinned. ‘Yeah, Taylor. If you like me, just say so.’
Ray swiveled his body so he could scowl at Jack. ‘You can wipe that smug look off your face, because you’re no better than she is,’ he informed him. ‘Staring at her with that soppy look on your face all night when you think she isn’t watching. I saw you. In my day, if a man fancied a woman, he asked her out on a date.’
‘I don’t… we’re not…’ I stammered.
‘Yeah, we only just… I mean we don’t even…’ Jack added.
Ray sighed. ‘Pathetic.’
20
JACK
I couldn’t sleep that night, and it wasn’t just because the summer heat was stifling. It was my thoughts that kept me tossing and turning, mulling over and over Ray’s words. Was he right? I mean, what wasn’t there to like about Taylor? She was funny, caring and kind, judging by the way she’d worried about Casey after her fall. Not to mention of course, that she was gorgeous and every time I was around her, I felt ridiculously nervous and jittery. It seemed to get worse the more I got to know her, and that could only mean one thing.
Ray was right.
I liked Taylor.
As in,liked.
It was a startling thing to admit to myself. After everything that had happened with Alex and Hannah and moving here to Pine Harbor, I had closed that part of my life off. Ignored it. Tried not to let myself think about love or romance. I made sure to keep myself busy so that I could ignore the occasional sense of loneliness that crept in, and the little pangs inside that reminded me there was a part of life that I was missing out on. Not just love, but friendship. Companionship. Having that someone special to come home to. To confide in. I missed being someone’s reason to smile.
But Taylor… what was the point? She was only here for a few weeks and then she’d be gone, back to her life in New York again. It didn’t matter if seeing her made me feel goofy inside, or that for some bizarre, unknown reason, since I’d met her, she was the first person I thought of when I woke up, and the last person I thought about as I drifted off to sleep. It made no difference that she’d started invading my thoughts at inopportune moments, like the other day when I was in a staff meeting and mid-sentence I’d remembered that first night I met her and she was nothing but a silhouette in the dark against a starry sky, and I’d mused how special it was that we’d got to know each other by voice only. And then someone had coughed and reminded me that I was supposed to be talking about rosters and overtime and I couldn’t believe my thoughts had just drifted off like that. It just wasn’t like meat all.
I went for a morning jog along the beach to try and sweat out the angst. I hadn’t felt angsty about a girl since I was seventeen years old and madly in love with Deborah Martin, a gorgeous, blonde cheerleader at my school. Unfortunately for me, she only dated jocks and had no idea I even existed. Hence the angst. The jog certainly made me sweat, but it did nothing to banish Taylor from my mind. I showered, and afterwards I stood there, with my towel wrapped around my waist, and stared at myself in the mirror.
‘Ray’s right,’ I told myself. ‘Youarepathetic. Since when did you let someone get inside your head like this?’ I pulled the lid off my deodorant and rolled it onto my armpits. ‘You like someone, you ask them out. That’s how it works. You’veneverbeen afraid to ask a woman out before. So what if she’s only sticking around for a few weeks? It’s not like you’re planning on marrying her. Go out for a meal, enjoy yourself for a change.’ I put the deodorant down and ran a hand along the stubble on my jaw, deciding it wasn’t too bad and would be fine for another day. ‘She’ll either say yes, or she’ll say no,’ I pointed out the obvious. ‘And if shedoessay no, nothing lost. Life goes back to the way it was and you can stop thinking about her all the damn time.’
Which was a very good point.
‘Also…’ I pulled a face as I reached to flick off the light switch. ‘Since when did you become the kind of guy who talks to himself in the bathroom mirror?’
At the fork in the driveway I took a left instead of a right, parked my truck behind the garage where her motorcycle was, and headed on foot towards the main house. She opened the door thirty seconds after I knocked, wearing tiny denim shorts and a white tank top. In her hand was a slice of watermelon. I could see the juices running down her arm.
‘Oh,’ she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘It’s you.’
Which wasn’t exactly the warm welcome I’d been hoping for.
