each other into the oncoming waves, laughing and splashing until I couldn’t even feel the cold over my blood pounding from exertion and the heat of Jazz’s familiar hands on me. After a while, we made our way past the breaking waves into the slow-moving swells, where I could kick my feet up off the sandy bottom and float on my back as the sky darkened from pink to purple.
Jazz drifted over. The water was up to his chin, and he had to tilt his head up a little bit to keep from going under. Dangers of being short. I smirked to myself as I continued floating. “So? What’s the verdict? All those muscles make it harder to swim?”
“Not a bit,” Jazz said curtly. “Makes it easier to bully you, actually.”
He tugged at my ankle, screwing up my balance, and I flailed a little bit in the water. I laughed and set my feet back on the bottom.
Jazz’s auburn hair was wet and slicked back from his face, salt collecting in his hairline. “There’s sand in your beard.”
I ran my fingers over the plait, still thankfully in place. “Is not.”
“There is. You’re gonna have to wash it tonight. Comb it out. What a pain in the ass.”
“You’re just jealous that I can grow a beard at all,” I said. “Some things don’t change.”
Jazz laughed. “That’s what you think.” He grabbed my hand and directed my fingertips to his cheek and his jawline. The dark stubble growing was barely a rough prickle under my touch.
Our eyes met. Water droplets hung from Jazz’s long lashes. I’d never realized how long his lashes were. Maybe that’s why this eyes were so distinctive and vivid in my memory. I swallowed roughly, and then Jazz blinked and cut his gaze away.
“Still patchy,” I said. “Nice try.”
Jazz dropped my hand and splashed me in retribution. “Is not. Not nearly as bad as it was when I was sixteen, at least.”
“Oh, that was a good look for you,” I said, laughing at the memory. At that age, Jazz had been desperate to look older, as he was jealous of my growth spurt and sudden ability to grow a full beard. He’d still had baby fat on his cheeks, but decided he was going to grow a beard to rival my own, which had resulted in a terribly patchy, rough scruff around his jaw and neck that was pocked with angry red ingrown hairs. “You looked diseased.”
“And I had that beard in my driver’s license photo! You let me do that!”
“You can’t even call that mess a beard,” I laughed.
Jazz shook his head at the memory. “I wish I still had that ID. I’d get it framed now.”
“We could put it on the wall at Ballast with all the fakes we’ve confiscated over the years.”
“You’d do that for me?” Jazz asked in joking awe. “What an honor.”
“Come on, Jazzer,” I said, kicking off the bottom and starting to swim toward shore. “It’s getting dark, and I’m hungry.”
“Bossy as always,” Jazz said fondly as he followed.
We walked back to the hotel in comfortable silence—or almost comfortable. There was an odd, simmering not-quite-tension between us, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. As we walked the stairs to the rooms at the Silver Gull, I glanced at Jazz and caught that same expression he’d had on the balcony. Furrowed brow, small smile. Almost secretive. Like there was something he knew that he wasn’t telling me—but I didn’t know how to ask what it was.
Once we reached our doors, we split into our separate bedrooms to shower and change. Looking back at our early years on the ranch together, yeah, we considered each other brothers. But now… Brother didn’t seem to describe the strange bond we had. Friend was too casual, brother too simple. Because Jazz wasn’t my brother the way Coop and Maverick and Gunnar were.
I didn’t know what the right word was. Irritation settled in my chest like sand in my shorts. He wasn’t just a brother, he was like—like a part of my own self. I tapped my fingers together, the same fingers that had brushed over his jaw. Every bit of contact made me want more, like part of me was afraid that if I let him out of my sight, he’d disappear again.
I turned the water up as hot as it could go before I got under the spray. I’d thought Jazz would be the one all fucked up and weird after getting out of