Go Away, Darling - Alexis Anne Page 0,50
don’t think we need to send in reinforcements just yet. Let Ben work his magic first.”
“Okay.” Paris frowned, finally standing upright again and returning her voice to normal. “How are you, by the way?”
“I’m good.”
Then she arched her eyebrow and zeroed her gaze in on me in a way that made me feel like someone had just turned on a spotlight. “Do I need to lock you and Olivia Saldana in a room together?”
“Shhh!” I glared at her. “There are ears everywhere!”
She giggled. “Like the whole island doesn’t know.”
Great. Just...great. “Again, no meddling needed. Let me work my magic.”
She pursed her lips. “There’s no magic happening, Christopher Robin.”
I glared at her. “There will be very soon.”
“I’ll get the popcorn ready.”
“Smart ass.”
She grinned, clearly proud of her meddling ways. “Oh hey Mr. and Mrs. Rossi. Getting a new kayak?”
A man and a woman about my parents age, maybe a little younger, had an orange tandem kayak in their hands. “The old one finally cracked,” the woman said. “Hopefully this one lasts ten years as well.”
“Wow! My kids destroyed one in under a year. I’m impressed. How’s Sam? I haven’t seen her in a while.”
“Oh she’s well. She was just here for the weekend. You know how she likes to lay low. I’m Jean, by the way. And this is my husband Cal.”
I shook each of their hands. “Chris.”
The husband grinned. “I’m a huge fan, Chris. Will you sign our kayak?”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I signed my first and only kayak with a Sharpie from aisle four at the Calusa Key rec shop. “Now it has to last ten years,” I said as I added the marker to my basket.
Jean shook her head, pushing her husband toward the end of the registers. “It was nice of you to indulge him, Chris. See you around!”
“Don’t blame me if they charge you double for the kayak now that it’s a collector’s item,” I joked.
“You should have had him sign it after we paid for it!” Jean sighed.
“That was really nice of you,” Paris said quietly.
I shrugged, feeling a little embarrassed for some reason. “They were really nice people.”
“Their daughter Samantha is really nice, too. She’s a researcher in Gainesville, but she comes home all the time to see her parents. You might meet her one day. She was tight with Summer growing up.”
Well, if they were friends with Summer then I’d sign anything for them. Maybe I’d make it a joke and secretly sign random things for her to pass on to Sam. That could be pretty funny.
I dropped Ben’s stuff off at Gram’s house, stopped by Trent’s to fix a leaky pipe he couldn’t reach, and got home in time to see Summer driving off with Linc for his afternoon adventure club meeting.
My eyes tangled with Liv’s as she finished waving goodbye. I saw them flare in panic but instead of backing off like I’d done every time for months, I found myself propelled forward, my feet eating up the ground between us. I swear she looked around for a way to escape and realized there was no possible way she could, so instead she stood frozen, eyes wide, like a deer trapped by oncoming headlights.
“Hey there, Liv.”
“Hi Chris.” Her voice was steady but remarkably quiet.
“I was thinking of taking the boat out for an evening run. Does my fishing buddy want to tag along?” I intentionally used the word buddy since she’d just used it on me, and because I hoped I could convince her my intentions were friendly.
When they were, in fact, not friendly at all.
“I…” her eyes darted around as she tried to come up with an excuse.
“You?”
“Uh.”
“Linc’s at his meeting for the next two hours. They’re learning about the lifecycle of sand dollars tonight. Come on. You’ve been working nonstop. We haven’t hung out in at least a week.”
She swallowed and stared at my chest. “Yeah. Okay. It would be nice to feel the wind in my hair. Let me text Summer and change.”
“I’ll meet you at the boat.”
I waited until she slipped past her front door before I walked back to my house with a spring in my step. I was going on a date with Olivia Saldana. She just didn’t know it yet.
16
Smile and relax
Chris
Even with the roar of the engine and the sound of the wind racing past my ears, I could hear Liv’s sigh as that same wind washed over her face and danced through her hair.
It made me sigh to see