Page 68 of Only Between Us

“You’re very welcome, but I think I’m about to do you one better. How would you like to run a charter for us in a couple weeks?”

My heart almost launches itself out of my chest. I yank the lollipop out of my mouth. “Seriously?”

I haven’t set foot on theLilly Grace, their sixty-five-foot sailboat, since Dad passed away. Carla and Evan let tourists charter it in the summer months, taking turns between captaining the ship and running their marina.

I’ve never run a charter by myself, but Carla had helped me get my certification a couple of years ago, once I confessed I’d been interested in the idea. Not that I ever ended up using it.

“I’m perfectly serious. We’re hoping to take a few days off to celebrate our anniversary in the city, and it’s the only day we can’t find anyone to cover for us. Come by during your break tomorrow, let me give you a refresher.”

“Carla.” I spin, smiling stupidly at the field. I find Brooks with his arms spread wide, half-heartedly blocking a kid trying to round him with a football. He’s grinning around the stick from his lollipop, and the sight is just too sweet. “Swear to me you aren’t joking.”

Carla laughs. “Not in the slightest. You in?”

“I’m so in.Beyondin. You just kicked up that little peck to a whole wet slobber of a kiss.”

Chapter22Brooks

Through the windshield of my parked car, I watch Siena make her way to the boardwalk. She’s wearing a skirt and polo combination that really does her legs, her waist, her fucking ankles justice.

She’s so pretty from head to toe, and I sit behind the wheel, just staring after her on her way to Ship Happens like I do every morning. More than once, I’ve been tempted to walk her right to the shop itself. But seeing as she always leaps out of my car before I can even get the door open for her, I have to assume she’d laugh me right back into my seat.

She’s self-sufficient. No doubt it’s a by-product of having to raise herself until she turned thirteen, and I like that about her. Admire the hell out of it. But can’t a man open her goddamn door once in a while?

Or, maybe they can. Maybe she lets them, if they’re the right kind of guy.

Siena disappears around the corner to the boardwalk, and I groan into the silent car, bouncing my forehead on the steering wheel over and over.

I don’t date athletes anymore.

I’d believed her that night in bed. Her words were such a blanket statement that my innate competitiveness got me past it. I figured Icould dig up what that idiot Ivers did to her. Correct course on her opinion of athletes. Command myself never to bash in his face the next time I see him on a field, for his yet-to-be-uncovered offense against Siena.

But the more I analyze it, the more I think…

She told me her breakup with Ivers hadn’t been a bad one. She still slept in his shirts, for fuck’s sake, until I packed mine into her suitcase. This couldn’t be about him.

Maybe it was her way of turning me down without hurting my feelings. Which she’s perfectly entitled to do, but… Shit.

Between the online gossip and the injury, it’s been hard to keep the faith that this comeback will work out. That I’m good enough to return, that teams—myteam—want me to return. Only two things have managed to keep me grounded in the weeks since, and I can’t even tell if one of them likes me back.

Pete, thankfully, lets me cuddle him without protest.

A sound chimes inside the car, and I find two phones tucked into the cupholders between our seats. They’re identical, but when I tap the one lighting up with texts, its background is a bright picture of the bay with a sailboat in the distance.

Well, well. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think this was fate acting in my favor.

I kill the engine and make my way along the boardwalk, scanning the row of bright storefronts until I find a square of navy blue bricks with the wordsShip Happenspainted on the large window.

The glass door chimes on my way into the small shop. Aside from the navy shiplap wall framing the checkout desk and the colorful lures dangling from the ceiling, it’s exactly how I’d imagine the inside of a bait and tackle shop. Tall metal shelves flanking a handful of aisles, scuffed-up white linoleum. More bluish fluorescent lighting than natural light.

If I didn’t find Siena busy behind the counter, I’d think I was in the wrong place.

She’s told me just how much her late father loved this shop, how important it was to him. But seeing someone as vibrant as Siena in a drab place like this puts a pit in my stomach.

She belongs out there. Under the sun, in the water. On a mountaintop, doing that little shimmy she does when she shows off an outfit.

“Hey,” she says when she spots me hovering by the door. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. You forgot your phone in the car.” I drop our phones on the counter and let my fascinated gaze wander again. “The infamous Ship Happens. Where all the magic happens.”

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