Rachel twisted her lips, paused her stride, and shook her head. “We’re done. Change of subject.”
Then she stuck her head back into the depths of the beach bag filled with snacks and extra gear and just-in-case bandages and water bottles. Where the heck had she put those damn glasses? Gah.
“Good call, Rach. Because that’s the worst advice I’ve ever heard.” A throaty male voice with a hefty dose of southern drawl came from behind them.
Rachel paused. She knew that voice like the inside of her handbag.
Don’t get her wrong. The southern accent was nice. Sometimes if he said the right thing with extra southern mixed in, it made her tingly and her tummy twist in ways that weren’t bad. Not bad at all. Actually, the twisting was sorta good. Which was bad.
Blurgh.
Of course, it would be Travis.
“Don’t go around squeezing a guy’s nuts. We don’t like that.” Travis knew where his sunglasses were because he pulled them from the bridge of his nose, folded them carefully, and tucked one end into the front of his shirt.
If he kept up that look, pretty soon he’d be wearing loafers with no socks. He could probably pull off the look, though, and still knock all the ladies out with his brand of handsome.
Travis was a hottie. The worst kind of hottie—the kind who knew it, embraced it, and owned it. He was also untethered, immature, and irresponsible.
Short black hair with a bit of an unintentional Superman-esque wave, muscles because he embraced his hotness, worked out, and apparently didn’t eat Puffle Yums, and the kind of symmetrical features that probably turned on even facial recognition software. Yes, the symmetry of his face wasthatgood.
Rachel did not like Travis’s brand of hottie knowledge, preferring the kind who had no clue they were attractive. They were so much nicer to her.
Rachel ignored him, shoving her face back into her bag on her sunglasses search.
She didn’t have to look up to see him shaking his head; she knew intuitively that’s what he was doing. Probably closing his eyes in a half-lidded what-the-fuck, this-is-ridiculous eye roll he did so well.
“Some of you do.” Molly laughed, lighthearted, the subtle hint of flirt in her tone that Travis ate up. “Like the squeeze thing, I mean.”
Travis laughed. “Rach, you know how you say I never take anything seriously?”
Yes, she did.
“I take my stance here extremely seriously.” He gave her a smolder and a wink that made her nearly—only nearly—forget who he was, where they were, and why he was a bad idea.
Between him and Molly, it was like a big ol’ flirt bomb had decimated the Little League field.
Molly was dancing the dance to hand deliver Travis right to Rachel.
Which was…blah.
Of course, Molly wouldn’t try for Travis herself. Rachel had suggested it, but Molly said that would be, and Rachel was quoting here, “weird.”
Rachel mentally batted Travis away like the unreliable annoyance he had proven over and over to be.
“Tell Rachel and me more about what you’d prefer squeezed,” Molly said, right on cue.
Rachel extracted her head from her bag, wishing that Molly had not just asked that. But, oh boy, she had. “Or you could, you know,notdo that.”
Travis grinned. “I’d love to tell you what to squeeze.”
“I just said not to.”
“But did you mean it?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
