come to the beach at night. It’s pretty as hell, and there’s no one around.
“You’re here.”
Except…her. Ellie Vice, standing on the beach with the wind blowing her hair around her face, wearing black leggings and a Princeton hoodie, is enough to bring any man to his knees.
I forgot she went to fucking Princeton.
“Hey.” Without giving it any extra thought, I wrap my arms tightly around her and hug her small frame against me.
She melts into the hug, folding into me as I rest my chin on the top of her head and take a slow, deep breath of the ocean air.
“Now…” I pull away, delicately holding her chin and angling her head up to meet my gaze. “Do you want to tell me exactly why you’re at the beach by yourself at eleven o’clock at night?”
Her lips are parted and her eyes wide, flashing with racing thoughts and that fiery Ellie spirit that constantly lights her up.
Everything in me is begging to press my mouth to hers, to taste the sweet and sexy and vibrant woman I can’t get off my mind for love or fucking money.
“I just…” She glances to the side, the moonlight bouncing off her glowing skin. “I don’t know.”
“Let’s take a walk,” I say, lacing my fingers through hers and turning to face the long stretch of vacant beach as far as the eye can see.
“Okay,” she whispers, tightening her fingers against mine and taking a deep breath.
“So.” I give her arm a playful swing. “You had dinner with your family and now you suddenly want to know everything about me?”
“Sort of. Yeah.”
“Is this for, like, work? The PR and Twitter and all that image stuff?” I ask, frowning.
“No.” She slows her pace and looks up at me, locking our gazes and making the world stop turning for a split second. “This is just for…me.”
“Okay.” I smile. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, my dad said that you’re from Texas. Like I said on the phone. And that you were…” Her voice trails off.
“Poor,” I finish, drawing out the word and laughing a little, hopefully letting her know it’s okay to say it. “Yeah, I grew up in Bumfuck, Texas, and was raised by my grandma. We didn’t really have anything except a lot of laughs and an unhealthy obsession with football. The whole town did, really.”
“What do you mean?” Her voice is softer and more relaxed with every passing second.
“High school football is basically the entire center of the universe in Eastwood. Despite the rural and sort of depressing vibe of the town, we had a hell of a football team when I was there, and everyone—I mean everyone—followed it. The Eastwood High Tigers are like royalty in that town.” I shake my head and chuckle at the memories. “It’s the happiest part of everyone’s week, those Friday-night games.”
Ellie smiles and looks straight ahead, still holding my hand as we make hundreds of footprints in the cool sand. “It sounds like fun.”
“It was, at times.” I glance down at her. Sweet and well-meaning, but a little naïve. A girl who grew up like Ellie did likely doesn’t even have a concept of the realities of living in a place like Eastwood. “At other times, it was tough,” I continue, feeling weirdly comfortable letting her in on my past. “There’s not a lot of money in the town, lots of people sort of just scraping by. I’m proud of where I come from, but it’s a place you want to make it out of, if that makes sense.”
She nods. “Sorry for saying it sounds like fun. I didn’t mean—”
“I know.” I give her hand a squeeze and let myself be still in this conversation, calm and relaxed, talking about things I almost never bring up.
“And you guys were…scraping by?”
I swallow the bitterly nostalgic images of eating peanut butter sandwiches with Grandma for dinner every night and having to duct-tape my sneakers when they started falling apart. A little lump rises in my throat, and I clutch her hand. “Yeah. We were.” I take a deep breath and shake off the heavy memories. “But…here I am now. So it’s all good.”
“It’s amazing how far you’ve come. I had no idea you grew up in a place like that.”
“Yeah.” I puff out a breath. “Bet you never thought the father of your first child would be a trailer-park kid from Texas with no one to call family but one old grandma.”
I coat my words in sarcasm and self-deprecation,