Page 80 of Power Play

“If I left now,” she said, her eyes flicking over my shoulder to the kids who were now digging gigantic holes in the sand. “Tess wouldn’t understand. It wouldn’t be fair to her.”

Part of me was relieved. I mean, Tess and I would have figured it out, but Kit was just so much better at this.

“You’ll stay?” I asked.

“As a friend,” she said, her cheeks going bright red. She might as well have said as a lover.

“Like a friend? Or afriendfriend?” I waggled my eyebrows at her to make her laugh. She was so serious and this was supposed to be fun. We were going to have a beach vacation affair, and it was going to be amazing. And, if everything worked out, she could go to school in Portland and we could still see each other. Maybe Janice could hire her to help out with Tess on the weekends or something.

I loved it when a plan came together.

“But there’re some things you need to know,” she said and my ears perked right up.

“Such as?”

“I’m not…” she stopped, shook her head. “Good at this,” she whispered.

“Good at what?” I asked.

She waved her hand between us. “This.”

I still wasn’t catching on and she opened her eyes wide and said. “This.”

“Are you talking about…sex?” I asked, dropping my voice like the kids had a chance of hearing us over the waves and the squawk of birds. “Because if memory serves, you were damn good at it.”

“Not sex. Casual sex,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’m not like the women you’re probably used to dating. I don’t really do flings. That night in Nashville, that was not typical.”

“It’s because you were soooo into me. I get it.”

She slapped my arm and I laughed and pulled her to my chest, holding her against me. I waited for her to pull away. To push back. I waited for a wall to come up and for her to say something sarcastic. But she just stood in my arms until slowly, slowly, she put her arms around my waist.

And it felt – – like I’d won something. I knew her surrender would be sweet, but I didn’t expect thiselation.

“Hey!” One of the kids who’d been digging a hole and collecting shells with Tess came running up. He wore a Bruisers t-shirt. “Are you really Liam Locke?” he asked, his eyes narrowed as if he could spot the lie.

“Is that what you heard?” I asked, putting my arm around Kit’s shoulders. I wondered what this kid thought when he looked at us. Like we were just any other couple standing on the beach. It made me weirdly happy.

“Yeah,” he said. “But you don’t look like him.”

“I don’t?” I asked.

“No. Liam Locke has a beard.”

My eyes went wide like I was outraged. “Are you thinking of my brother?”

He couldn’t contain his smile. “I don’t know,” he said, like a kid who wasn’t intimidated. It was fun. “Am I?”

“You better start running kid…” I said and then gave him a head start before chasing him. The other kid, a little girl, got in on the action, but Tess sidled up to Kit and went back to digging for shells.

I thought of Dillon and his hockey playing daughter and artist vegetarian son and thought how fun it would be to have both.

A kid like me and a kid like Kit.

19

Kit

Liam chased the two kids over to where their parents were set up with umbrellas, coolers and tons of sand and water toys, including rafts that looked like unicorns and those minion things from the movies.

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