Page 47 of Between the Lines

Luca stilled. “Who has?”

“Theo Wishart.” She waved a hand off to the left, toward the north end of the bay. “Been there for ages.”

Luca turned, lifting a hand to shade his eyes despite his sunglasses, and spotted Theo lying on the sand close to the dunes. He was half in the shade of a beach umbrella, but wouldn’t be for much longer. “He’s going to burn.”

“Wow,” Ashna said, and he glanced up to see her staring at him with genuine astonishment.

“What?”

“He’s going toburn?”

A self-conscious heat rose in his face. “Shut up.”

But Ashna was gleeful. “Oh, man. This isawesome. Are you—? Dude, are you inlove?”

“No. Shut up.” Fuck. He pulled his t-shirt on, growling when it snagged on his sunglasses. Slipping his phone into his t-shirt pocket, ignoring the three missed calls from Don, Luca draped his towel around his neck and glanced back at Theo. He wasn’t moving, he looked like he was asleep, and if he stayed in the sun his tender skin would crisp badly.

“Hey, heads up.”

He looked over at Ashna and she tossed him a bottle of sunblock. “Go rub sunscreen all over your boy,” she said with a grin.

“He’s not my anything. He’ll be leaving in a couple days.”

“Right,” Ashna nodded, putting a thoughtful finger to her chin. “If only we had some kind of cheap and easy way of keeping in touch, but I guess you’ll never be able to speak to him again once he’s as far away as New York City.”

He didn’t dignify the sarcasm with a response, just stomped—there was no other word for it—across the sand toward Theo. He knew Ashna would be watching the water, but even so he felt as though her knowing eyes were on his back the whole way.

Your boy.

Theo wasn’t his boy. He couldn’t be. Yet the closer Luca got to him, the more the butterflies in his stomach swooped, and he found himself smiling at the sight of Theo lying on his back, one arm under his head and the other resting on his stomach. His face was turned to the side, the raven hair Luca had plowed his fingers through falling across his forehead, long dark lashes fanning beneath his eyes. Flushed with heat, Theo looked enough like he did in the throes of passion to make Luca’s heart trip and his cock give an interested twitch. He found himself caught between simple desire and something much more complex, something responding to the gentle curl of Theo’s fingers in sleep, the way his lips were slightly parted, the steady rise and fall of his chest. His vulnerability made Luca’s heart squeeze.

He slowed and stopped, letting his shadow fall over Theo’s body, shading him from the sun. And Theo stirred, blinking as he gazed up at Luca, confused for a moment and then smiling sleepily. “Hey.”

“You’re gonna burn,” Luca said.

“Oh. Shit.” Theo sat up, pulling his legs into the shade. “I fell asleep.”

“Yeah.” Luca hesitated, then decided to ignore the part of his brain remembering how he’d felt when Theo drove away that morning, the part of his brain warning him to back off, and dropped down into the sand next to him. “Long night, huh?” He offered the comment with a smile.

Theo answered with a shy but delighted grin. “A good night, though.”

“Yeah.” He looked down at his feet, burying his toes into the cooler sand beneath the surface. “Very good.”

They sat, lost in their own thoughts for a while, and then Theo sighed and said, “You should know that Don called my dad.”

Luca looked up, startled. “About what?”

He waved a hand between them. “This, I guess. He thinks I should be putting the hard sell on your mom instead of...hanging out with you.”

“Screw that.”

“He has a point,” Theo said. “Itiswhy I’m here, Luca. To persuade Jude to sell.”

“I hadn’t forgotten.” Luca gazed back out at the water. He was hungry after his long surf, but had no desire to go in and face Jude or Don. He knew from the three missed calls that he was gonna get it in the neck for his outburst this morning.

“Neither had I, despite what my dad might think. And I still believe selling’s the right choice for Jude. Unless...”

When Luca glanced over, he saw Theo frowning at the sand. His knee, Luca noticed, was still in the sun and turning pink. He wanted to put his hand over the exposed skin, protect it. “Unless what?”

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