“Huh?”
“The other day? You dropped it?”
“Oh… no. Gone forever. Figures, right?”
“Figures.” He gives me a side-eye. He reeks of suspicion, though he’s still ambling along next to me. I only have to wonder at what he’s thinking for a moment, because he says, “Elise, if you don’t want to hang out, all you have to do is say so. I swear, I’ll take it like a man.”
“That’s not—I do want to hang out. It’s just… The other day, I needed time alone and I didn’t know how to say so.”
“What about today? Still need time alone?”
Bambi hurls herself toward a squirrel that’s crossing her path and, a millisecond later, I’m yanked after her. I recover, barely, and tuck an escaped lock of hair back into my ponytail. “I think I’m over time alone, actually.”
Ryan grins. “Cool, ’cause I’m over sitting around my gram’s.”
Fine as I am with Ryan’s company, the closer we get to the shore, the more I feel like I’m sneaking around behind Mati’s back. Ridiculous because, God, he and I arenothing, but after yesterday, the beach feels special, like our place. Visiting with another boy—a cute, blond Texan with a broken heart in need of mending—seems wrong.
We’re approaching the stairs, passing the picnic table with the tumultuous history, when I feel the phantom tingle of Mati’s palm on the backs of my hands. My heart does a little flip, and then I’m spewing a stream of imprudent words in Ryan’s direction: “I’m seeing someone. Talking to him. Hanging out with him… I don’t know. Maybe it’s not a big deal, but I don’t want to give you the wrong impression.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder, edging me around so we’re face-to-face. I’m expecting him to be chagrined or indignant or maybe even pissed, but his eyes are lit with mirth and his mouth is turned up in an amused smile. “You think I want to be your boyfriend?”
“I—uh, that might be premature. But you’re up early again, just to help me walk my dog.” My face blazes as I say, “Am I reading the situation wrong?”
“Just a little. Weren’t you listening the other day when I told you about Jordan?”
“Yeah, but you guys are over. I thought you were looking for someone to distract you.”
He laughs, but not unkindly. NowI’mchagrined. Damn it—I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Bambi must feel my confusion, my discomfort, because she sits at my feet and lets out a long, low whine.
“Sorry,” Ryan says, coughing laughter from his throat. “I thought I was clear.”
“Apparently not clear enough.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am looking for someone to distract me. Just… not you.”
“Wow,” I say, taking a step back. “Don’t soften the blow or anything.”
He looks me up and down in a decidedly nonthreatening manner. “It’s not personal, Elise. It’s just, my tastes run toward people of the more… masculine variety.”
In the swirling mess of my head, a lightbulb blinks on. “Wait—Jordan’s a…?”
“Guy.”
“Oh God,” I say, covering my face. “No wonder you were laughing at me.”
“Not atyou. At the situation. I mean, I thought it was pretty obvious.”
“Maybe now that I’m paying attention!” I recall the way Iris spoke about him last week, before he arrived in Cypress Beach, her mention of living next door to a pretty girl, and her implication that Ryan would appreciate as much. “Wait—does your gram know?”
“Nah. My parents are cool, but Gram’s old-school. She’s hung up on big weddings and bigger families and white picket fences—she’d never understand.”
“But youcanhave a big wedding and a bigger family and a white picket fence.”
He grins. “Truth. So, we’re cool? You’re not worried about my trying to seduce you?”
I laugh. “We’re totally cool.”
elise
