“I was a teenager.” His voice shifted into something more serious and drew me in. “Learning to dive with my sister Brenna was a game changer. We were both nervous at first. The ocean can be intimidating, you know? But once we hit the water, it felt like entering another world. Just us, the fish, and the endless blue.”
I watched him, riveted by the way his eyes became so expressive. “It must have built a special bond between you two.”
“Yeah, it did. We spent hours exploring. But it was pivotal for me. Diving taught me to embrace the unknown, to trust myself.” He stared at his wine, considering his words. “Brenna actually talked me into it—I was reluctant at first. Instead, I learned what I wanted to do with my life.”
“That’s so rare.” His passion resonated within me, softening the edges of my own guarded heart. “Few people get to do what they love. What they were born for.”
“Accounting isn’t your great true love?”
I ignored the gleam in his eye. “No complaints. It suitsme very well. I love the precision of numbers, how black and white they are.”
“Less messy than people, that’s for sure.” His eye landed on a framed picture of my parents, my sister, and me on an end table as he chopped lettuce into ribbons. “You know all about my family. What’s your story?”
I took a sip of wine, considering. “I had a good childhood. Solid middle class. I had a best friend, Jessa, that I used to get into all kinds of trouble with.”
Eli flashed me a deadpan look, but humor lurked in his eyes. “Really. You, trouble?”
I laughed and flipped the fish in the pan. “Probably not trouble in your definition. No police were involved.” I grinned at his eye roll. “Jessa and I loved scavenger hunts. I started reading Jules Verne at the same time, and the two worked off each other so well. That’s what fostered my adventurous side, I think.”
“So you and your gal-pal tore around finding hidden treasures until…? I’ve never heard you talk about her.”
My smile fell. “We grew apart by the time I left for college. Our final scavenger hunt ended in kind of a disaster during our freshman year of high school. She was sleeping over and I hid a clue in a canister of flour in the kitchen. When she tried to find it, she dropped the container, and it shattered on the floor.” I shuddered at the memory. “Flour went everywhere. I meaneverywhere. My mom completely lost it and told me to grow up. So I did. I can kind of laugh about it now, but at the time, it was a big deal. A turning point. I was mortified and felt about five years old. I cleaned up the mess and after that, the scavenger hunts were history.”
“That’s kind of sad,” he said quietly.
I shrugged one shoulder. “Mom was right. Jessa and Iwere in high school, not grade school. That incident helped set me on my way. I excelled in my math classes.”
“Adventures in trigonometry?” The smile was clear in his voice as he opened the package of tortillas.
I laughed again. I liked how he always made me laugh. Eli teased a lot, but it wasn’t malicious, just gentle humor. “Something like that. My future lay in spreadsheets, not treasure hunts.”
“Well, I just want you to know that no police were involved with any capers Chase and I got up to as kids.”
“I would imagine Chase’s common sense kept some sort of tether on you.”
“Yeah, he wasn’t shy about saying when one of my ideas was completely out of bounds.”
As we sat down to eat, I found myself musing on our talk about friends and trust. “It’s kind of funny that our best friends are brother and sister. It’s a wonderful thing to have someone in your life you can trust completely like that.”
Eli nodded, swallowing some of his taco. “Chase is my ride or die. And even though my siblings and I fight like dogs and cats sometimes, we’ve got each other’s backs.”
“I haven’t always been great at trusting people,” I admitted, pushing a pepper around my plate. “Not after I left home to go to Ohio State, anyway.”
Eli held my eyes, his brows rising in a silent question.
It was time to come clean with the whole story. “I told you before about Travis, my college boyfriend. What I didn’t say was that he cheated on me with my college roommate and best friend at the time.”
Eli set his fork down and gave me his full attention. “God, Jules. I’m so sorry.”
I shrugged, but it felt unnatural, forced. “It was a long time ago. But it… it changed me. Made me build walls, you know? It took years before I could even trust another friend.”
“But you did,” Eli said softly. “You’ve got Lacey now.”
I nodded, warmth blooming in my chest at the thought of her. “Yeah. Lacey’s been a godsend. She bulldozed right through those walls I put up.”
“Trust is tough,” he agreed. “But it seems like you’re doing all right now.”
“Maybe.” I hesitated, weighing my thoughts. “But it’s hard for me to open up. You’re not the only one who keeps relationships on the casual side. I don’t want to get hurt again.”
