"The blanket doesn't smell like fish."
"It absolutely smells like fish."
"It smells like the ocean. There's a difference."
"There really isn't."
Alex opened his mouth to argue, then caught himself. This was exactly what she wanted—to draw him into pointless banter, to chip away at his resolve with her relentless...her-ness.
"The rules," he said firmly, steering them back on track. "Do you accept them or not?"
"Got it," she responded with a mock salute, wrapping the scratchy blanket tighter around her small frame. However, she added, "But just so you know, I'm more of a 'guidelines' than a 'rules' girl. I mean, in my experience, always following every rule doesn't leave much room for adventure. Some of the best experiences I've ever had were times when I bent the rules just a bit. You should try it sometime. You might like it."
"No, I won't like it and if you try breaking the rules, then it's back to the porch you go," he shot back, the corners of his mouth twitching despite himself. Her resilience was as irritating as it was intriguing. Why did he get the impression that things just always seemed to work out for Lily St. John? She had this effortless effervescence about her that screamed,'Life is always great for me'that he couldn't relate to.
"I definitely don't want to spend the night on the porch," she murmured as if weighing her options. Finally, she nodded, accepting his terms. "Got it, no breaking the rules."
"Good." He couldn't afford distractions; every second was precious regarding his research, and he didn't need a peppy influencer prancing around his carefully controlled environment like they were at Boca Raton.
"So," Lily said, glancing around the cramped space, "where exactly am I supposed to sleep? I'm not seeing a guest suite."
Alex gestured toward the lumpy couch shoved against the far wall, half-buried under a stack of field guides and a spare rain jacket. "There."
She stared at it. Then at him. Then back at the couch.
"That's not a couch. That's a torture device with cushions."
"It's perfectly functional."
"For what? Interrogating prisoners?" She poked one of the cushions experimentally. It wheezed like a dying accordion. "I've seen more comfortable seating in a dentist's waiting room."
"Feel free to sleep outside."
"You know what? The couch is great. Love the couch. The couch and I are going to be best friends." She began clearing the books and papers, and Alex opened his mouth to bark at her—don't touch my stuff—but stopped short.
She was being careful.
Not just careful—purposeful. She lifted each stack as a unit rather than grabbing random papers. Set the booksspine-up on the floor so she could read the titles. When she encountered his handwritten notes on coral bleaching patterns, she actually paused to keep the pages in order before placing them gently on the side table.
He'd expected her to shove everything aside like it was junk mail. Instead, she handled his research like it mattered.
Huh.
"Is there a specific organizational system here," she asked, "or is this more of a 'chaos goblin' situation?"
"Don't touch my—" He stopped himself, recalibrating. "Just... put them on the floor. Neatly."
"Neatly. Got it." She continued working in silence for a moment, and Alex found himself watching her despite his better judgment. Her brow furrowed slightly as she read the label on one of his specimen containers—Acropora cervicornis, Site 7—and something flickered across her face. Not boredom. Not the glazed-over look he expected from someone who probably thought coral was just "pretty ocean rocks."
It almost looked like genuine curiosity.
This was a woman used to making herself comfortablein unfamiliar spaces, he realized. That hit him harder than he wanted it to.
Of course she is, he reminded himself sharply.It's literally her job to invade places she doesn't belong.
But as he caught the faintest hint of a smile playing on her lips, Alex felt an unwelcome twinge. If circumstances were different—if she weren't a walking embodiment of everything he found frivolous—she might have been deemed passably cute.
Not that she was his type—quite the opposite—but he wasn't blind.
