Page 7 of Beauty and the Beach

“Don’t use Nana Lu to pry into my business,” I tell him. “You have your own grandma. And put me down or I’m going to spray paint every nickname I’ve ever given you all over the outside of your office.”

“My grandmother is psycho, and Nana would be very disappointed to learn you’d done something like that,” he replies, and I grit my teeth.

He’s enjoying this thoroughly; I can hear it in his voice. And my hair might be swinging around me again, but I don’t need to see to know people are staring. I look like an idiot.

“Put me down,” I say, the words clipped. “Immediately.”

“I will,” he says, “just as soon as you tell me what’s going on.”

“Nothing’s going on!” I pound my fist against his back again.

A faint snort of disbelief reaches me. “You’re clearly lying. Nana says you’re working more shifts even though you’re dead tired as it is, and now you’re trying to work at the adoption fair. Plus,” he adds reasonably, “your voice is going high-pitched.”

Dang it. He’s right.

I clear my throat. “Nothing is going on,” I repeat. “Nothing is wrong. It’s just work. You work all the time; why can’t I?”

“You can,” he says, “but you usually don’t. Tell me and I’ll put you down. Do you need money? Did something happen?”

I could scream right now, and Phoenix’s shoulder is digging into my hips, and I can feel my pulse in my ears.

“Fine!” The word explodes out of me, loud and abrupt, but I don’t quiet myself. I just keep talking to the middle of his back. “Good grief. You couldn’t possibly be more invasive, could you?” Heat is rising in my cheeks, and it’s only partly because I’m hanging upside down. “I need money, okay? Yes. That’s it. That’s all. Can we drop it now?”

“See?” he says as I feel his hands around my waist once more, and three seconds later, my world is righting itself. “That wasn’t hard.”

I stumble for a second, finding my footing and looking around to see where we’ve stopped. The back of the salon, I realize as I spot the glass door that leads to the small lot—unnecessary, since there are no cars on the island. Even from here I swear I can smell the scent of hair product wafting from the little red-brick building.

“You’re the worst,” I say, turning to Phoenix and forcing myself not to smack him. “Did you know that?”

“I’ve heard,” he says with a little smirk. “Now tell me why you need money, Amsterdam.”

“It’s none of your business,” I say with a scowl. It’s true; Phoenix doesn’t need to know my embarrassing story.

He doesn’t need to know what I tried to buy: a dog bed.

Ahuman-sizeddog bed, for twenty-four-ninety-nine. That’s the product that got me to enter my card information on a website I’d never heard of at two in the morning: a human-sized dog bed, about four feet long with poofy edges and a built-in pillow.

It looked plush. It looked soft. It lookedcomfortable.I was sold.

“None of your business,” I say again, muttered this time.

But he just hums, his dark brows quirking skeptically. The sun overhead loves the angles of his face, his sharp cheekbones, his straight nose. “I disagree,” he says. His mouth twists into a grimace as he stares at me, and for a moment, it seems as though he’s debating with himself. He looks torn, reluctant, like he’s about to do something he doesn’t want to do.

“All right,” he says, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “Fine. It’s possible—I might be able to help you.Might,” he adds quickly, like coming to my aid is hurting him.

But it always pains him to offer me help, and he always offers anyway. He’s constantly in my space, offering his unasked-for advice, trying to take care of me in his weird, overbearing way.

“I don’t need help,” I say automatically.

This claim is a little less true; I do need help. But I want to help myself. Is that really so bad? Is it really so wrong, trying to stand on my own two feet instead of turning to him for everything?

Because here’s the thing: he doesn’t actuallywantto help me. If it weren’t for Trevor, he would have nothing to do with me. But because he and my brother were as close as brothersthemselves—and because the three of us were together when Trevor died—he clings to that misplaced sense of duty.

It’s nice in theory, I guess, but he’s not sincere, and he dislikes me as much as I dislike him. Why would I put myself in his debt?

“You need help,” Phoenix says, like he can hear everything I’m thinking.

I shake my head, still feeling the blood pound in my ears.

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