Page 25 of Surfer's Paradise

Liar.

It wasn’t about burdening. It was about asking.

Rosie never asked for help. Not when she was twelve years old and bouncing between foster homes. Not when she was sixteen and running away. Not when she worked a thousand jobs just to get through school.

The one person he’d ever met who actually needed help but never fucking asked for it.

Isaac clenched his jaw. “You could’ve said something.”

She laughed, but there was no humor in it.

“Yeah?” she said. “Maybe that’s because that ‘help’ always comes with strings. And I can’t afford strings, Isaac.”

Silence.

Heavy. Knowing.

Isaac exhaled slowly.

“You’re staying with me.”

Rosie snorted. “Obviously not.”

Isaac stood beside the truck, hands braced on his hips, breathing in slow. The night was quiet now. Just the hum of the city in the distance, the occasional car passing, the streetlight buzzing overhead—throwing long shadows over the pavement, over her.

This fucking girl was always a pain in the ass.

And for the first time, he really looked at her.

Not like his best friend.

Not like the girl who used to sit beside him in class, rolling her eyes when he copied her math homework.

Not like the stubborn, impossible person he’d known his entire life.

No.

Like a man looking at… a woman. Fuck, she was thirty-one now. Same as him.

And fuck.

When the hell did she get so gorgeous?

The thought punched him in the gut.

Her dark hair, a little messy from the night, framed her face in soft waves. Her dark-rimmed glasses caught the glow of thestreetlamp, blue eyes flickering underneath, sharp, irritated, full of fire.

Her mouth—pink, plush, still swollen from the way he’d kissed her last night.

Her dress, something tight and professional, hugging her lean frame in ways he’d never paid attention to before. The heels, making her just that much taller, just that much more dangerous to his sanity.

Isaac swallowed hard, dragging a hand over his mouth.

Fucking hell.

She was hot.

Hot?

---