Page 54 of Love on Deck

“You’re leaving?” Annie asked, sounding actually disappointed. Bless her. That made me feel good. “I was hoping to get more dirt on my good-for-nothing cousin. Or give you some dirt. Y’all know I have plenty.”

“That’ll have to wait,” Jack said in good humor, rising. He faced me. “I’ll come with you.”

“You don’t have to—”

He gave me a look that cut off my words at the pass. It was intense, the lights from the stage reflecting in his eyes and making them glow. He gently put a hand on my lower back and led me from the room.

“I’m searching out some aloe first,” I explained.

“I’ve got nothing but time.”

The shop was closing when we got there, but the guy let me buy a bottle of neon blue aloe to take back to the room.

Jack walked behind me. “Okay, ouch.”

I tried to look over my shoulder at my back. “That bad?”

“How bad does it feel?”

“Like fire anytime someone touches me.”

“It looks about as bad,” he said, catching up to walk at my side.

“So I am now a hands-off situation.”

“Darn.”

I chuckled. “Annie fits in well with everyone.”

“She’s always been a bit of a chameleon... with a big mouth. But that’s just the Texan in her.”

“I’m Texan too,” I said, opening the door to our room.

“But you’re from the Metroplex. It’s different.”

That was fair. Annie’s accent was definitely a lot thicker than mine. I tossed my key on the desk and walked to the vanity mirror, turning to look at my back. “Oh, no.” My skin was already an angry red over my shoulders and back, except for the stark white stripes where my swimsuit straps had been.

Jack hovered behind me. “It’s pretty bad.”

“And it’s only going to get worse.”

He cringed. “It might not.”

“It probably will.”

He reached for the aloe in my hand and started peeling off the sanitation cover. “Not if this stuff works its magic.”

“I can do it myself,” I said stubbornly, not making a move to take the aloe from him. I turned away from the mirror to face Jack.

He looked down at me, feeling far closer than he’d been a moment ago. “Do you want to change so you don’t get aloe on your dress?”

“Yes. Good idea.” I pulled pajama shorts and a tank from my drawer and slipped into the bathroom to change. The color was even worse in that light, or maybe it was just more obvious against the stark white of the rest of my body. I looked like the Marvel logo. All white and red in nonsensical stripes and slashes.

I put on a tank and shorts and went back into the room. Jack was sitting on the edge of the bed, his dress shirt unbuttoned at the neck. He hit the bottle against his hands a few times. “Do you want to lay on your stomach? Then I can slather it on and you don’t have to move.”

That was surprisingly thoughtful. Accepting help from him was not as easy though. It required me to be vulnerable in a way I wasn’t used to, which was uncomfortable. “I can probably manage,” I said, more out of reflex than anything else. I was actively regretting the words as they formed and left my mouth. “I do it at home all the time.”

“Well, you aren’t home now and you have my hands at your disposal, so you might as well take advantage of them.”

---