At first, he’d been dreading coming out here. He’d only decided on it because it seemed like the most practical thing to do. Getting out of the city for a little while would throw Graham off any plan he currently had cooking to expose Nate. Since very few people knew about this house and it was listed under Nate’s mother’s name, he was fairly confident that Graham wouldn’t find out about it.
So far, so good.
Actually… so far, so much better.
A figure on the beach caught Nate’s eye. Jasmine. Walking back from the water’s edge, the wind whipping hair around her face.
The sight of her sent a wave of relaxation through him. The last week and a half suddenly seemed like it had lasted no more than a few hours. The sleeping in. Cooking meals together. Late-night board games. The few trips to town when they covered up to the point that it was comical — hats, glasses, wigs, the whole nine yards, anything to prevent a picture from getting out and alerting Graham to their location.
Nate wanted it all back. Every minute of it. He wished he could live those ten days on a loop for the rest of his life, his own personal Groundhog Day. Except he’d be in heaven, too happy to ever think of leaving.
“Hey,” Jasmine called from where the bottom of the steps met the sand. She jogged up to him, the soles of her sneakers creating a rhythmic pattern on the boards.
“Find anything good?”
“Check it out.” She extended her palm, revealing a sand dollar, only a little chipped, resting in the middle of it.
“Oh. Wow.” He gingerly lifted it from her hand and held it up to the dying light.
Jasmine turned around and leaned against the railing, her elbows propped up. The setting sun backlit her hair, making it look like she had a halo. “Can I tell you something crazy?”
“What?” He carefully placed the sand dollar on the railing next to her.
“I was apprehensive about coming here, but now I don’t want to leave.”
Nate burst into laughter.
“What?” She frowned. “Why are you laughing at me?”
“I’m laughing at myself,” he corrected. “No, the situation. I feel the same way.”
Her frown softened into something quieter. She turned back to the ocean, and he turned with her, and they stood side by side watching the last of the light move across the water.
“What is it about this place?” she asked after a while.
“No agenda.” He said it without thinking and then realized it was exactly right. “No photographers. No Dove calling about optics. No Graham.” He paused. “No performance.”
She was quiet for a moment. “We should go down,” she said. “Watch the sun finish from the sand.”
They went down the steps and settled at the base of the dune, close enough to the water that they could hear every wave but far enough that the tide wouldn’t reach them. Jasmine pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. Nate sat beside her, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched, and watched the sun drop toward the line of the water.
“This time last week,” he said, “you were barely speaking to me.”
“This time last week you were barely speaking to me.”
“I was giving you space.”
“You were avoiding me,” she said, but there was warmth in it, not accusation.
“I was,” he agreed. “You make it difficult to keep a reasonable distance.”
She turned to look at him. “Do I?”
“You know you do.”
She looked back at the water, and the corner of her mouth moved in a way she was trying to suppress. It was anotherone of those little quirks he appreciated about her. Just like the way she laughed when something caught her off guard, the way she always made two cups of coffee even when she hadn’t been asked, the way she’d looked standing in the cold shallows with her sneakers soaked through, completely undignified and completely herself and more beautiful than anyone he’d ever stood next to.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said.
