“My own fault,” he replies in a husky voice. “Should’ve followed your lead and bathed in sunscreen before we left.”
It’s been three days since I woke up to him on my porch, and despite running over to his own villa once or twice, he’s always come back. We’ve been boating. We’ve been hiking. We’ve had meals in and meals out. Spa treatments. He’s crashed on my couch two of the past three nights. And today, to prove he wasn’t as afraid of marine life as he apparently is of chickens now, we went snorkeling.
We saw tons and tons of tropical fish and sea life.
There were no funny looks from anyone. No press spying on us. No questions.
Nothing bad happened.
Except his sunburn.
“When do you start your next movie?” It’s odd that the question rolls off my tongue easier than I ever could’ve expected. But Jonas is so down-to-earth and friendly, it’s hard not to be relaxed.
And grateful.
Sograteful for the distraction and companionship.
And the courage to leave my villa and enjoy my time here.
“Next question,” he says into the pillow.
“You’re not doing more movies?”
“I’m officially a has-been.”
I squirt more aloe into my hand and smooth it over the chiseled plane of his back. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to start playing older characters closer to your own age, but I wouldn’t call you a has-been.”
He barks out a laugh. “You and Begonia…”
I know who Begonia is. He’s mentioned his brother’s girlfriend more than he’s talked about anyone else in his family. “Is she any part of why you got divorced?”
He sighs. “No. She’s just my favorite person because she doesn’t ask questions like that.”
I laugh. Can’t help it. “Not sorry,” I say lightly.
“You shouldn’t be,” he grumbles. “And that’s not honestly why she’s my favorite.”
“Then why?”
“She makes Hayes happy, and it’s impossible not to like someone who can make the world’s grumpiest asshole happy.”
“Aww, you sound like me when I call Theo the world’s biggest troublemaker.”
“We see them for who they are, we understand why they’re who they are, and we love them for who they are, no matter how hard they are some days.”
“Andwho they areare those people who step up in ways no one else understands we need, right when we need it.”
“Do we have the same brother?”
“I think we covered that with the porn star question.”
He chuckles.
I’ve let Theo know a few times that I’m still alive, which I suspect he already knows from checking in with the resort staff. He might be a troublemaker, but he has a massive heart.
And my complete irritation fornot telling me my ex set him up to do jail time.
And all of my guilt for all of the times I asked him to please get along with Chandler despite the fact that Theo was never the problem.
