Page 72 of The Beach Trap

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I wake to the feeling of Noah’s lips pressing against the back of my neck.

“Good morning,” he murmurs. “You smell good.”

A soft smile spreads across my face. I’ve already gotten way too used to waking up like this. We quickly migrated to sleeping together in his bedroom at the Rooneys’—so much nicer than either the casita or his room over the garage. The dog sleeps curled up at the foot of the bed, a fluffy ball of happiness.

“Let’s stay in bed all day,” Noah says in my ear, and I roll over to face him. I love the way he looks in the morning, his hair rumpled, his eyes soft. “My arms are aching from painting baseboards yesterday. You’re quite the taskmaster, you know that, right?”

I run my hand down his cheek, his beard soft against my palm, and trace his lips with my fingertips. “Hopefully what I did for you last night made it worth it?”

He tilts his head, his eyes dancing with laughter. “Eh, I’m not sure. You might have to do it again to remind me.”

I laugh and snuggle against him, my cheek against his chest and my legs twining with his under the sheets. We’ve been spendingpractically every moment together—making breakfast in the mornings in the Rooneys’ fancy kitchen, then heading over to my beach house to knock out whatever is on my list for that day. Noah may not be very skilled at home improvement, but he makes up for it by feeding me and making me laugh so hard I nearly pee my pants. And I appreciate having his body at my disposal—not just for the renovation-related tasks that require his height, but also for whatever activities we get up to in bed.

“Have to say, it’s weird to sleep in a room where you’ve slept with a dozen other girls.” I say it in a teasing tone, but there’s some truth behind it. I’m guessing teenage Noah—or rather,Junior Rooney—was a hit with the girls of Destin. I remember Kat talking about how dreamy he was when we were at camp.

“I was way too afraid of my parents’ disapproval to have sex right under their noses,” he says, trailing his fingers across my stomach. “The only person theyknewslept here with me was Annalise.”

Ah yes. His ex-fiancée. Thinking of her gives me a pinched feeling inside. Jealousy? Or maybe confusion. I found a picture of her, tucked into the top dresser drawer. She’s tall and brunette, posh and preppy. Exactly the kind of woman I’d picture a guy like him with. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a building at some Ivy League school with her family name on it. It makes me wonder what Noah is doing with me.

But I’m not going to waste time being insecure. We have a few short weeks left together before the summer ends and we go our separate ways, and I want to make use of every moment.

“The way you say that implies that there were other women your parentsdidn’tknow about,” I say, glancing up at him.

He hums, thinking. “Well, just one when I was seventeen. It was a girl whose family has a beach house in the area. We were both desperate to lose our virginity. My parents had gone toPensacola for the evening and CoCo had a bunch of friends over. I snuck the girl in my bedroom window and her shorts got torn on the windowsill.”

“Sounds dangerous,” I say.

He gives a soft chuckle. “Honestly, it wasn’t very good. I was nervous and kept awkwardly apologizing, like, ‘Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to do that.’ But hopefully”—he flips me over on my back, grins down at me—“I’ve gotten better since then.”

I smile up at him. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

•••

We spend theday running errands together, picking up supplies for next week. Somehow, we get on the topic of food, and when I admit I’ve never had oysters, Noah is horrified. He insists that we go to Hunt’s Oyster Bar for dinner, so we tuck the dog in my room at the casita with a treat and drive an hour from Destin to Panama City.

The restaurant is a ramshackle yellow building surrounded by a crowd of people waiting. Seashells and oyster shells litter the ground, and a few old guys play cornhole outside. My stomach growls with hunger and excitement. Inside, Hunt’s is packed, with people sitting at the bar and around tables, the wood-plank walls lit up with neon beer signs. We order drinks, and Noah orders a whole bunch of oysters, raw and baked.

“My parents never wanted to come here,” Noah says, after our waitress leaves with our orders. “Annalise, either. Too much of a dive for them.”

“Dives like this are always the best places to eat,” I say.

“You look really nice tonight, by the way,” he says, smiling at me. “Just in case I haven’t told you.”

“You’ve mentioned it a few times,” I say. And yet I still feel myself glowing with the compliment. I’m wearing another vintagesundress of my grandmother’s that I borrowed from the beach house. This one is red gingham with a keyhole neckline, and once again, it feels like it was made for me. Judging by Noah’s reaction—his eyes are drifting over my body right now, a smile curving his lips—he agrees.

“Have you decided what you’re going to do when the summer is over?” he asks.

“Just return to my regular life,” I say, shrugging. “Working for the Vanderhaavens, picking up their dry cleaning, driving the kids to school, taking Charlotte to dance lessons and Zachary to soccer.”

“Is this what you want to do long term? Like, does it fulfill you?”

His question makes me pause—I’m guessing he’s thinking about his own life—but fulfillment has never been the point for me. I’ve never had the financial safety net to consider what Iwant; I’ve lived paycheck to paycheck my entire adult life. “It allows me to visit my granddad every weekend. It pays fairly well. But...” I take a breath. “It’s not my dream job.”

“What is your dream job?”

I contemplate that. “No idea. I’d have to go back to college to get a ‘real’ career, but being cooped up in an office, having to say ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘yes, sir’ all day—that doesn’t appeal to me. What about you? Now that you’re no longer heir to the Rooney Underwear Empire.”

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