by May Archer
Fenn didn’t laugh. “Having strange people in your space all the time sounds like literal torture. And borderline scary, for a kid. Did you enjoy it?”
I shrugged and felt my grin fall. No one asked that. Ever. It was a cute story. Did he not see how cute it was?
“No. I didn’t. When I was young, I thought it was all normal. I thought it was a game to hide your stash whenever anyone in authority stopped by. I thought it was common for brothers to spend their paper route money to buy bread. I was eleven or twelve the first time I realized it was not. That we were that family in town. That people looked at us and pitied us.”
“Ahhh. So the loafers were a form of rebellion.”
I snorted. “No. I tried rebellion as a form of rebellion. I painted graffiti on bridges and stole cigarettes from the corner store.” I tipped back my beer and drank the remainder in one long swallow. “I just didn’t care very much about anything.”
“And then?” Fenn prompted.
I scrubbed at my hair. “Then I slid off the building and ended up at the hospital, where this doctor—Andrew Capon is his name. We keep in touch online still, from time to time—set my elbow. He talked to me like… like I was on his level. Like I could do more.”
I cleared my throat and popped the top off my sixth beer myself, lost in memories. Fenn said nothing, he just watched me steadily.
“He dared me to do something better with my life. He helped me get into college and then medical school. My brother helped pay for it, along with a shit ton of loans.” I shrugged. “And then I met a nice girl from a rich family who had a fondness for Italian leather, lost the girl when she got a better offer from another guy, and realized that somewhere along the way I’d tied my dreams with hers. Which made it kind of a double-bitch when she was gone. So I went looking for a dream that was mine, you know?”
Fenn nodded.
“I thought a fancy resort on a private island and a chance to get my med school loans paid off would be a good start. A way to impress my friends and relatives, earn their respect.” I moved my hand in an arc that included the beach, the island, the whole shitshow I’d committed myself to. “Clearly, mission accomplished,” I laughed.
Fenn did not. “That’s… a much cooler story than I gave you credit for,” he said, almost reluctantly.
I looked up at the darkening sky and smiled helplessly. “Thanks, I guess? Glad my childhood trauma endears me to you?”
Fenn poked me in the ribs. “I’m just saying, that wasn’t easy.”
I shifted my head to see him better. The wind was toying with his hair, and he was looking everywhere besides me, and I was suddenly a hundred percent certain with zero proof to back it up that Fenn had not said that as a throwaway comment. He meant it, and the idea made my stomach go hot.
“Jesus. Okay. Truth or dare?” I demanded.
Fenn sighed. “I feel like a dare would probably require me to move from this blanket—”
He shot me a look, and I nodded. “It would involve letting me drive your car.”
“God.” He shuddered. “So truth, then.”
I grinned mischievously. “What’s your favorite thing about Whispering Key?”
Fenn looked horrified. “Shit, I dunno. Nothing?”
“Truth, remember,” I said, doing my best impression of his deep voice. “One thing. The beach? The fresh air? The scenery? Running a tour boat? Meeting me? Please, do be honest.”
He shook his head. “Beach is fine. Boat is fine. You’re meh. And there were plenty of fresh air and pretty views in the High Country. Ah… Western North Carolina. That’s where I grew up,” he offered when I gave him a puzzled frown. “Where my mom and stepfather still live.” He chewed on his lip for a minute. “I dunno,” he repeated at length. “I guess my favorite thing is… my family.” He rolled his eyes, like his own sentimentality disgusted him. “Kinda sad, since they’re destroying my brain cells on a daily basis just from interacting with them, but beggars can’t be choosers.”
“They’re not your only family, though, right? If your mom and stepdad are still around?”
“Yep.” He looked away, his eyes on the water again. It made the sunlight glint off his eyes, and I had to swallow when my mouth went dry.
Stop it, Mason.
“But the Goodmans, ah… you know. Did what family’s meant to do. See, I didn’t really spend time with my dad growing up, so I’d never laid eyes on my aunt Mary and her family until a few years ago. But when I ran into some trouble, my dad heard about it and invited me here and he—they—gave me a place to live. A job to do.” He shrugged. “I’m grateful to them. They were there for me.”
Which meant his other family hadn’t been? That made me unreasonably pissed off.
“What kind of trouble? Legal? Financial?”
“Nope.” Fenn’s mouth twisted. “The kind of trouble that involved me being really, annoyingly, stubbornly gay, despite Mom and Neil’s best efforts.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded, outraged on his behalf. “What did they do?”
Fenn drew his spine straighter and cocked an eyebrow. “It’s a boring-assed story, and besides, no two-for-one deals, Loafers. You got your truth. Your turn now. Truth or dare?”
I leaned up on one elbow. “Is that how we’re playing this? I feel like I gave you a truth and a half, and got half a truth in return.”
“That’s the exchange rate, Loafers.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I wasn’t informed of this.”
“Have you heard yourself talk? You easily use three times as many words as I do, on average, so to keep things equitable—”
“You’re infuriating.” I shoved at his arm.
“So you keep saying, yet here you are, drinking with me, sooo…” He tilted his head in my direction. “Truth or dare?”
“Fine.” I sighed. “Make it an easy one. Truth.”
Fenn looked at me for a minute like he was weighing multiple options. He shifted forward so he was nearly looming over me, and I felt like a bug under a microscope. I fought the urge to squirm.
“You have a side of this blanket,” I informed him, putting up a wall with my arm. “Kindly stay on it.”
He laughed out loud. In fact, his eyes were still dancing when he said, “So, tell me how you lost the girl,” and I was so caught up in watching him that it took me a full two seconds to even process the question.
When I did, I sucked in a breath. “I asked for easy.” I tried to make it sound less like a whine and more like a joke. I failed pretty hard.
“I know.”
“I would really rather not talk about this,” I said quietly.
“Ah.” Fenn sat back a bit. “You’re not over it.”
“No, that’s not it.” I shook my head once. “I’m over her. I don’t miss her or anything. It’s just embarrassing.” And it was true. I wasn’t entirely sure I was over the way we’d broken up, but I was positive I was over Victoria.
I took a deep breath. “Her name is Victoria. She’s very pretty. We were together for a year and a bit. Now we’re not.” I hesitated. “She left me for a globetrotting photographer we hired to take our pictures—”
Fenn’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re kidding.”
“No, Fenn. Unlike you I understand that jokes are meant to be funny.” I shoved his knee lightly. “The dude’s name is Gunner. He’s six five and built like a blond Jason Momoa. They first met on Instagram because he has a billion followers, he lives in a treehouse in Belize with a tame howler monkey when he’s not traveling the world photographing shit, and he wanted her to be his muse. Whereas I am me—” I flicked my hand up and down myself. “I enjoy binge-watching period dramas. And cuddling.” Not that she was ever into either. “Can’t compete.”
Fenn stared at me for a long minute. “No,” he said finally. “No competition at all.”
I nodded and looked out at the water, trying to convince myself that didn’t sting.
“For one thing,” Fenn said sadly,
“no howler monkey.”
I snorted and darted a look at Fenn, who was grinning, and then suddenly I was full-on laughing, too, flopping over on the blanket, gripping my stomach, even though it honestly wasn’t that funny. I nearly spilled my beer until Fenn grabbed my hand and saved it.
I’d cried a little, after Victoria left. Then I’d gotten mad about it. Then I’d decided to take action about it. Then I’d tried not to think about it at all. But until this minute, I hadn’t laughed about it, and now that I had, I felt something loosen inside me that I’d been holding really tight.
“The worst part was,” I said, wiping my eyes, “I saw the whole thing happen right in front of me, like a slow-motion train wreck. Victoria and I were… okay. Happy enough, I thought. And then that guy walked into our apartment to take pictures and—” I shook my head. “That was that. It was like both of them lit up. My friend Toby says stuff like that just happens sometimes. Some kind of biochemical reaction.”
“Ferrymones,” Fenn said in a hushed voice.
I snorted. “You think Gunner was taking the supplement? You think Dale has any more he could give me?”
“I don’t think you need it,” Fenn said. I couldn’t see him clearly in the twilight, but his voice was soft and my lips opened in surprise.
Fenn cleared his throat. “Alright, one more truth. We’re almost out of beer, and I’m almost out of words.”
“So I should make it count, hmm? You said you got into trouble…”
“God,” Fenn groaned, throwing himself back down on the blanket. “So predictable.”
“You hate my questions when they’re predictable, you hate them when they’re unpredictable. It’s almost as though you’re impossible to please.”
“I can be pleased.” He threw the words down like a challenge, and I nearly shivered.
“Answer.”
Fenn sighed and pushed up on an elbow, those blue, blue eyes half-amused and half-exasperated in a way that did funny things to my stomach. “I have a geology degree. I mentioned that.”
I nodded.
“I got it specifically because my stepfather’s old Army buddy owed him a favor and offered to hook me up. And because I was a hick kid in a hick town and I thought it’d be great. I’d be able to travel the world.”
He was silent for a minute.
“And you didn’t?” I prompted.
“Well. I got as far as Texas. It was an okay job. Good money in hydrocarbon exploration. Lots of upward mobility. The boss liked me fine and took me under his wing. Took me to his house for Sunday barbecues with the family. I figured that was that, right? That was gonna be my life. Then I met a guy. A—how’d you put it earlier?—a nice guy from a rich family?”
“And you’re not over him,” I said, quoting Fenn from earlier.
One half of his mouth twisted up. “I’m over him. It’s just embarrassing.”
I grinned and flopped back down on the blanket. “If you tell me there was a photographer involved—”
“Ah, no. According to the employee records, I picked a fight with four guys because I was drunk and bored. I made lewd remarks to them. Sexually harassed them. So they had to defend themselves against my advances—”
“Against all four of them,” I said, no longer amused. “You must have been really bored.”
“—and I lost my job.”
“And your nice guy?”
“Turned out to not be very nice. Or—” He shrugged. “—very mine.” He cleared his throat before I could ask another follow-on question. “Okay, your turn. You pick dare.”
“Do I?” I rolled my eyes. “I’m not getting naked. I’m not getting wet. I do not dance. I will not sing. I can’t do gymnastics without hurting myself. Those are my hard limits. And if you get me sandy, you can expect that I will pay you back when it’s your turn.”
Fenn’s eyes narrowed and his lips pursed. “You’re zero fun.”
“Prettier girls than you have confirmed this. I’m also incapable of passion, FYI, and possibly fundamentally broken thanks to my childhood.” I laughed, but stopped when I caught Fenn looking at me funny. “What?”
“Nothing, just…” He hesitated. “That’s someone trying to put the blame on you for something they did. You’re a pain in the ass, and I mean that sincerely. But you’re never boring or passionless. Okay?”
I nodded, and then I swallowed… or I tried to, anyway.
You know that expression “his heart was in his throat”? I thought I’d experienced it before, in times when my throat went thick with fear or anxiety. But when Fenn said those words, I could literally feel my heart beating in my throat—and my head, and my stomach, and the bottoms of my feet. Every tha-thump set off a Catherine wheel in my gut, which was exactly as thrilling and terrifying as it sounded.
He looked at the water for a minute, and when he turned back to me with a devilish look on his face, I couldn’t come up with a single smart-ass remark.
“I dare you to take a picture or video of yourself doing something fun and a little crazy, then post it online to your Instagram.”
“Like—” My voice cracked and I had to try again. “Like what? I can recite the alphabet backwards.”
Fenn gave me a withering look. “This isn’t a field sobriety test, Loafers. I said crazy. Something your high school self would be impressed by.”
I spread my hands and tried to ignore the relentless attraction I felt pulling me toward him. “Sorry. I’ve got nothin’. I have actively repressed High School Mason. He has left the building. Besides, the whole point of this is for you to give me the specific thing I’m supposed to do, within the hard limits I’ve set. Duh.”
“Unless the dare is to make you challenge yourself and push your own boundaries.” He bopped me on the nose. “Duh.”
I clapped a hand to my face. “I’ll have you know, taking this job was daring. Look how that turned out.”
Fenn smiled crookedly. “But what are your chances of rolling snake eyes twice?”
“At this rate?” I shrugged. “High.”
“Do a dramatic recitation. Or do some yoga. Hashtag-marine-life!” he teased. “Hashtag-Loafers-in-the sand!”
“God no.” I shook my head, imagining myself in downward dog. “My high school friends follow me on Instagram. My former colleagues. Dr. Capon. My sister. I want them to respect me, Fenn, not be forced to bleach their eyes.”
“See, this is a great dare. Because you know what you find daring, so you have to make yourself uncomfortable. If I had a mustache, I would twirl it.”
“If you had a mustache, I would shave it for my dare.”
“Sure you would.” He grinned, as wild as the breeze off the water. “Don’t overthink it. That’s the dare.”
I swallowed. That was the dare, huh? What would I do if I didn’t let myself think about it too much?
I dug my phone out of my pocket, sat up straight on the blanket next to Fenn. I turned the camera on, angled my face toward the pink light on the horizon.
My heart was still beating crazily, but indecision sat like lead in my stomach. Could I actually…?
It was crazy. Foolish. I was drunk off my ass… or I had been, until my adrenaline had started spiking, burning through the haze.
Mason Bloom Takes Charge of His One Goddamn Life and Lives Fearlessly, I reminded myself, when once again my stomach threatened to revolt.
What did I want to do? I wanted to kiss Fenn Reardon.
There. I’d captured the nebulous feelings that had been buzzing in my brain and translated them to actual words, forming an actual sentence.
I wanted to know why Fenn Reardon, who started out as everything I despised, had somehow caught my attention and held it. I wanted to know why this guy who gave me shit and had no plans for the future made me feel steadier than the sand beneath me. I desperately wanted to know why his face had been the one I’d been thinking of when I came the other night.
So I leaned over, pressed my lips to the stubble on Fenn
’s jaw, and clicked the shutter button.
Chapter Nine
Fenn
One minute, I was sitting there, ass on the blanket and hands back in the sand, enjoying the moment—listening to the sound of the water, watching the line of pink cruising along the horizon, wondering if Loafers would surprise me and take the dare. The next thing I knew, his breath was hot on my cheek, his mouth was touching my skin, and the scent of him was all around me, just the two of us in this weird cocoon.
Danger, danger, danger.
I pulled away partly because I so badly wanted not to pull away at all.
“That was the wildest thing you could think of?” I demanded. My voice sounded all croaky.
Mason rubbed his lips together, and I wondered if he could still feel me there. My cheek burned where he’d kissed it.
“Hey! You said not to think too much!”
“Lame.” I ran my fingertips over my face, touching the spot where his mouth had been. Every muscle in my body was gripped with sudden tension. “I could think of a thousand more exciting things without breaking a sweat. Pecking someone on the cheek isn’t wild. I used to kiss my aunt that way.”
“Kissing a guy on the cheek is not typical. Not for me,” he said quietly.
My gaze followed his to the phone in his lap. In the photo on the screen, Mason’s eyes were closed and his lips were pressed firmly against me, but he was smiling, too. Pleased with himself. Maybe pleased he’d taken this dare.
And me? My eyes were half-open, my lips parted in surprise, but though the image was still, I could feel my whole body leaning toward Mason, wanting him. Longing.
How fucking awkward.
When a peck on the cheek turned a guy like me into a yearning idiot, it was a sign I’d had enough beer… and enough trading confidences.
“Well, the dare was for you to challenge yourself,” I said dubiously. I wiped my suddenly sweaty palms against my nylon shorts. “So I guess that counts. The real challenge will be posting it on Instagram where all your friends could see it. No hashtags. No apologies. No explanations.”