Page 38 of Only in Your Dreams

Shutup, Summer.

I bend, fully intending to scoop up the deflated canoe, but the damn thing is a lot heavier than I thought. I stumble forward on my unsteady foot and end up crashing straight into Zac’s chest. His hard, toned chest, so fucking warm and drool-inducing—

“If you wanted to feel me up, all you had to do was ask.”

Cocky prick.

Mustering all my reserves of dignity—which at this point could barely fill a thimble—I wrench myself upright and wave at the deflated canoe at my feet. “I’ll leave that to you while I get changed, shall I?”

Twenty minutes later, we’re coasting along the shore of the deserted lake. Behind Zac, the sky is streaked pink and orange as the sun sets, casting a warm glow over his skin, and he’s such a perfect specimen of a man that I’d easily believe I was staring at a painting, if I weren’t living this moment for myself.

“Thanks for suggesting this,” Zac says as he settles the oars inside the raft. The lake is so peacefully still that we barely glide around in the water. “Swear I was going to lose my mind staring at that playbook another second.”

I stare at the flowering lily pads dotting the water to our left. The family of ducks streaming past us in the water. In the corner of my eye, I see Zac studying the setting sun.

“Personally, I’m starting to think this was a terrible miscalculation.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s a bit…” I gesture around us. “It’s a date out of a Nicholas Sparks novel, isn’t it? Any minute swans will swim by, curving their necks into a heart-shaped omen.”

I make the mistake of letting my gaze drift toward Zac, who’s already looking and gives a shameless smile at being caught. I zero in on the lily pads again, cheeks flushing.

“Would that be so terrible?” he asks.

I shrug. “I wouldn’t mind seeing swans, I guess. But I didn’t think they came out here.”

Zac snorts. When I look around again, he’s rubbing his face with both hands. It might be a trick of the light, but his cheeks look a little flushed. Was he… did he mean about the date, and not the swans?

And does that mean—

God, this has to stop. I feel eighteen again, trying to decipher the words and actions of a guy who only wound up disappointing me. I’m past this. Past him.

“Did you ever miss—” Zac starts, surfacing from behind his palms.

“What time do you think—” I say at the same time.

He chuckles. I blush some more because, evidently, I stumbled into a time machine at some point in the past twelve hours and reemerged as a love-sick teen.

I need to put this man at a safe distance before I make a fool of myself with him all over again.

“What were you going to say?” he asks after another awkward beat.

I fiddle with the knot from my swimsuit at the back of my neck, tucking the strings into the oversized t-shirt I borrowed from Brooks. “I was asking what time you think we’ll get rescued tomorrow. I’m hoping by early afternoon, but that might be wishful thinking if Parker is still… entertaining.”

“Still dying to get away from me, huh?”

Yes.

“I think a return to civilization is what’s best for everyone. What were you going to ask?”

The corner of his mouth tilts in a wry smile. “I was wondering if you ever missed home while you were away.”

“Oh,” I say quietly. “I guess I missed some parts of it. Parker, mostly. He visited me in the city at first, but… He wasn’t a fan of Connor’s, and Connor wasn’t a fan of Oakwood. It’s been hard, not seeing him as much.”

“So, Connor’s the reason you stayed away all this time?”

I’m overheating under Brooks’s t-shirt. “He found it a little boring here.”

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