Page 55 of Borrow My Heart

“Your ex showed up today?” Kamala caught my eye. I knew what she was thinking. Was Elinor Asher’s catfish? Had she been trying to meet him today? A weird play to get him back or to get back at him?

“So, seriously,” Asher said, changing the subject, “why didn’t you bring your boards?”

“They’re locked in her sister’s garage,” Kamala said, surprising me. I didn’t think she was ready to perjure herself for me, but maybeshe had gotten a glimpse of the girl in the parking lot too and was second-guessing her declaration earlier that Asher would choose me. Maybe she decided with that one look, that he wouldn’t. “She borrowed them and now she’s at work.”

“We can rent some from the place on Main,” Asher suggested.

“No, we can take turns on these,” Kamala said, grabbing hold of Dale’s wrist. “We’ll go first.”

I wanted to hug her, but instead I dropped back onto the towel and tried to gain the feeling back in my legs.

Rule:Most games worth playing have boundaries. Don’t date a guy who doesn’t have any.

“Have you ever taken any of the dogs from the shelter paddleboarding?” Asher asked. He’d spread a towel out and was sitting next to me.

“No. We should’ve brought Bean. Got that on video.” Before he asked me any more questions about my paddleboarding history I flipped it to him. “Have you ever taken your dog?”

“No, my mom thinks Buffy’s too little and that the creatures of the deep will eat her.”

“Smart mom.”

He laughed like I was joking.

I dug my sunblock out of my bag and applied some to my arms. “Are you okay, by the way?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

I nodded behind us, to where his ex-girlfriend had been fifteen minutes ago.

“Oh yeah. It was weird. I haven’t seen her since school got out. It just surprised me. I don’t…There’s no leftover feelings or anything.”

I raised my eyebrows, moving on to my legs with the lotion.

“Okay, no leftovergoodfeelings.”

“What happened? You said she broke up with you, but why?”

He took a moment with that question, as if thinking about how to summarize the downfall of a relationship in one sentence. “She wanted more of me, I think.”

“You’re so open, though. How many layers did she want?”

“What I mean is, she wanted me more to herself.”

I put a quarter-sized dollop of lotion in my hands, rubbed them together, and applied the sunblock to my face. “Oh, she thinks you share yourself with too many people?”

“Yeah, probably,” Asher said thoughtfully. “That’s a good way to put it.”

We had the opposite problems. I shared myself with next to nobody.

“Well, share myself in the non-prostitute way,” he clarified.

I gave a breathy chuckle. “You only do it for free?”

His eyes went wide and then he let out a large laugh. “Exactly.”

“Is it all rubbed in?” I asked, facing him. “The sunblock?”

He studied my face for what felt like an eternity and then reached out and ran a finger along my temple. “Now it is.”

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