Page 51 of Hot Saltwater Kisses

I pinched his hip, and he snickered into my hair.

When he continued, his voice had gained a serious note that fused with the shadows. “Not quite how I meant it, though. It’s more that mine set such a high standard. My whole family, really—smart, driven, good entrepreneurs, mostly well-liked…”

“Ilike you,” I offered, and he shot me a smile that faded a little too soon.

“Yeah, well.” A small pause. “It’s just, you know. There’s all that family clout, and then there’s the black sheep—me. Who’s just drifting from one thing to another, one short-lived boyfriend to the next. Meanwhile, my parents have been together for almost thirty years, and they’re still in love. How am I supposed to live up to that?”

Almost thirty years?

I moved past it to think of my own parents—they’d loved each other in their own way, but they weren’t in love. They were friends who happened to share a home and a child. No passion, no arguments. When they disagreed, they discussed options with the calm detachment of my dad’s professor and my mom’s lab scientist mindset, and then they found a joint way forward.

Maybe it was why I’d thrown myself headfirst into my thing with Michael—embracing the addictive cocktail of emotions, an obsession that had quickly spiraled into mind games and possession.

Anyway.

“It’s not a competition,” I told Logan. “I’m sure your parents just want you to be happy. In your own way, whatever that looks like.”

“Probably, yeah.” He puffed out a self-deprecating laugh that feathered over my forehead, his fingers playing with the short hair at the nape of my neck. “When I was little, I thought all marriages were like that, you know? Or—relationships in general. Loving and close. I mean, they had their rough patches here and there, sure. But even now, I sometimes come into a room and they’re just standing there, hugging and talking quietly.”

Crickets sang in a nearby chorus, their voices rising and falling. I exhaled, strangely heavy. “Is that what you want, then—to find someone like that?”

“Isn’t that what most people want?” He paused, his fingertips warm on my skin. “Like, find someone who’s similar enough to get it, but different enough to challenge you. Who seesyou, not the size of your wallet or whatever.”

No. I didn’t want that. Somehow, the words wouldn’t quite come.

Silence stretched for a brittle second before I shrugged, made awkward by how we were tangled on the ground. “I don’t know. Haven’t really thought about it, I guess.”

Logan shifted. “Guess you don’t exactly meet guys by the dozen here, so…”

Not me, no. But he would. Compared to Dominica, Miami was like trading a single village pub for an all-night rainbow circuit party. If he wanted, he could date an entire parade of Mr. Wrongs to find his Mr. Right.

I didn’t want to think about it, so I changed the topic. “You said it’s been almost thirty years that your parents have been together. They had you quickly, huh?” It hit me a second too late that if he’d been an accident, he might feel sensitive about that.

“Sort of.” His voice twisted into something that didn’t quite passfor humor. “My sperm donor didn’t care to stick around once the reality of diapers and short nights sank in, so, you know. He left my mom to fend for herself with hardly any money, just a scholarship, in her last year of college with a baby. My mom and dad met when I was just a few months old—I grew up thinking he was my biological dad.”

Hot damn. Watch me step right onto the closest conversational landmine.

“Wow.” I propped myself up to study Logan’s face, his features a shadowed relief in the near-absence of light. “That’s… quite something.” Eloquence and emotional competence? Sorry, we’re fresh out. “How did—how old were you? When you learned that he wasn’t.”

“They told me when I turned eighteen.” He exhaled a soft sigh. “Shook me up quite a bit.”

I reached out a hesitant hand and cupped his cheek, thumb light against the corner of his eye, thin skin stretched over fragile bone. Affection bloomed in my chest—delicate like a moonflower unfurling its petals under the cover of darkness.

“Because they lied to you?” I asked, soft like a secret.

“Partly, yes. But also…” He tried for a tiny laugh that fell shy of its mark. “My dad’s a great guy. My sperm donor, on the other hand, is a deadbeat jerk who didn’t even care to see me when I reached out. It’s not fun, realizing you’re one half asshole genes.”

“So that’s what made you grow up?” I wasn’t sure whether he remembered our conversation about that—my half-joking claim that since he was hot and rich, he had no reason to question himself.

“My traumatizing eviction from la-la land?” The humor felt slightly more genuine this time. “Yeah, maybe. I went rebel for a while—Kyle says I needed to test if my parents really loved me.”

At eighteen, I’d been a fucking idiot, convinced I had it all figured out. My heart ached a little for Logan, who must have had the rug pulled out from under his feet at just that age.

“I take it they do?” I asked.

“Yeah.” A smile warmed his voice. “I’m lucky—I get that now. Just got stuck in my own head for a while.”

“Is that why you went for an Art degree? To spite your entrepreneur parents?”

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