Chapter 1
BLAIR
I looked down at the photo of his gorgeous, angular face.This can’t be real.It was the handsome guy from the lobby, the same one I specifically remembered admiring when I checked into this place. Big and strong. Almost reminded me of a Viking. He had tatted arms and gorgeous, dark brown hair that fell over his eyes a little. It was mostly families or couples here at Midnight Key Resort. I’d assumed he was married, or maybe someone’s hot dad—he’d looked old enough to have kids.
Yet I’d just found him on the hookup app I’d joined.
After staring at his photo for far too long, I moved on to the details of his profile.
Tate, 36
I’m not good at describing what I’m looking for. Sometimes we don’t really know what we need until we find it. But I guess if I’m on this particular app, you can guess what I might be interested in for now. Anything more would bean unexpected but welcome bonus. Just trying to keep it real.
Hmm… I appreciated his honesty. Rather than trying too hard to write something witty, he’d written what he felt and what most people were probably thinking. I had to respect that.
Thirty-freaking-six.
Okay, so he wasa lotolder than me. It didn’t matter, though. In fact, that sort of turned me on. Being with an older man was always a fantasy of mine, one I never thought I’d have the opportunity to entertain. Tate looked a bit younger than thirty-six, though. I would’ve put him in his early thirties, maybe.
I felt guilty that I’d lied about my age on my profile. But my first instinct when setting up this account was to not give any true personal details. Yes, that was ironic considering I’d just appreciated the fact that he seemed honest.
Without thinking it through much longer, I swiped right. Almost instantly, a message came on the screen.
It’s a match.
Oh my God.
What now?
The room spun a little as adrenaline coursed through me. Actually, maybe that was the one margarita I’d had in months going to my head. Both the margarita and this vacation had been badly needed. Up until recently, when I was dumped, I’d had the same boyfriend since I was fifteen. So, this was the first time in my life I’d ever installed a hookup app. What better time, I supposed, than while onvacation alone at a resort, courtesy of my best friend, Taylor, who had footed the bill. His family owned the place.
A notification sounded.
Hot Lobby Viking Guy had sent me a message.Gah!
My heart began to race, but I wasn’t ready to click on it, for some reason.
I slurped the last of my margarita, desperate for some liquid courage. I’d managed to finagle that drink from the twenty-four-hour bar downstairs with my fake ID. Not wanting to get kicked out of this beautiful place, I didn’t plan on whipping out my fake ID every day while here, though. But the bartender on duty when I’d ventured downstairs this morning looked gullible, so I decided to take a chance. Just because I’d gotten lucky this morning didn’t mean it would happen again. Not sure why I ever thought it was a good idea to start my day with alcohol, but here we were.
At nineteen—almost twenty—I was likely the youngest person on vacation alone at this resort. The teenagers closest to my age were generally traveling with their families. I didn’t really fit in and had wondered if I might be the only single person here. Though apparently, I wasn’t, unless Tate was lying about his status. It seemed like chancing it on this app was my only opportunity to meet someone, since it matched people by proximity. And leaving the premises down here in Key West wasn’t an option, since I didn’t know the area and didn’t have a car. I also didn’t want to leave the safety of this all-inclusive, secure place.
Maybe it wasn’t exactly what I would have picked for myself, but it was an incredible gift from Taylor, my guy best friend whom I’d first met at sleepaway camp when Iwas a preteen. While we didn’t see each other aside from those weeks at camp, we’d bonded over the course of several summers and also kept in touch online. Eventually, we both became camp counselors together when we turned sixteen. I’d been in a relationship with Daniel since I was fifteen, so nothing romantic ever came of my time with Taylor during those summers. We were true friends, though, and Taylor felt like a brother to me. He’d recently met a girl, right before my breakup with Daniel. So even if we’d had those feelings for each other, the timing was never right. And that was just as well, because Taylor was someone I hoped to have in my life forever. My experience with guys had proven that being in a relationship was one way to ensure you eventually lost the person you cared about. So I was glad Taylor seemed happy with his new girlfriend, and I knew our friendship would withstand the test of time.
After my terrible breakup with Daniel, the last thing I wanted was to get into another relationship. But Daniel breaking my heart had opened the door for me to explore my sexuality. I’d previously resigned myself to only ever being with one guy, but I’d always been curious what it would be like to be with someone else—someone new and exciting. Maybe a little older and mysterious. Maybe that was asking for trouble, but I couldn’t quell this itch inside of me right now.
Yet I was still stalling when it came to clicking on the message. I stared down at Tate’s photo again. In it, he was leaning against a truck, dressed in a fitted, charcoal gray shirt with his inked forearms crossed. His blue eyes shined. He was an unattainable type of gorgeous.Why this guy needed an app to meet women was beyond me. Surely all he’d have to do was go to a bar, and women would flock to him. But maybe he didn’t want to deal with all that, and the app was just easier.
Since I’d never used a hookup app before, it had taken me a while to create my profile. I’d selected a fake name—Delores—and made myself ten years older, twenty-nine. Maybe that was a bit much, but it was too late to change it now, at least as far as Hot Lobby Viking Guy was concerned. In retrospect, I probably could’ve picked a more age-appropriate name—okay,a lotmore age appropriate. I didn’t know anyone under the age of seventy named Delores.
I’d said I was willing to meet men within a one-mile radius, and the app had shown me three options. Two were men in their sixties, so I immediately rejected them. (I hadn’t set an age limit, but that was taking it too far.) The last one, though, was Hot Lobby Viking Guy, whose message was currently burning a hole in my phone. And he had a name now.Tate. That seemed to fit him.
Am I really gonna do this?
I stared at his image a little longer before biting the bullet. I remembered being unable to take my eyes off him the day I’d checked in. He was stunning, his slight dark beard peppered with a few hints of gray. But I hadn’t seen him again since that first day. I might’ve convinced myself I’d imagined him were it not for today.
After I closed my eyes for a moment, I clicked.
Tate: Is it really you? I haven’t seen you since check-in.
