Page 37 of A Shore Fling
The sand is warm under my feet as I approach my two new friends.
Ginger stares at me with wide eyes. “Girl, I thought you were about to float away and never return.”
A wave of embarrassment hits me, but I laugh. “Yeah, I guess I lost track of time and how far out I was floating.” I drop the paperback in my beach bag and then set the bag on top of the inner tube. Grabbing the towel from my chair, I begin drying off my arms.
Willow taps a fingertip to her lips. “Good thing there was a strong, handsome man to come rescue you.”
“Yeah,” I agree automatically, but then I catch the sly glint in her eye, and flatten my lips. “I didn’t float away on purpose.”
Willow nods. “Right.” But her tone screams the exact opposite.
“I’m serious.”
“Someone’s protesting too much,” she teases, grinning like she knows a joke and I’m the punchline.
“Travis wasn’t even here when she went into the water.” Ginger jumps in to defend me.
“Exactly,” I say, wrapping my towel around my waist like armor. “I know what caused my lack of awareness, and it had nothing to do with wanting any man’s attention.”
Willow leans forward, elbows on her knees. “Oh, now I’m curious. Spill.”
“I promise it’s a lot less exciting than you’re imagining.”
“I still want to know,” she insists.
I open a water bottle and take a long sip before settling into my beach chair. “When I read a great book, I lose myself in the story to the point where someone could stand next to me yelling ‘fire!’ and I might not hear them. Which is why I lost track of where I was when I was floating around.”
Willow’s expression goes contemplative. “I don’t know if I’ve been that into a book.”
“Then you’re reading the wrong ones,” I say matter-of-factly. “People’s tastes in books aren’t universal. You have to find the ones that resonate with you. As a kid I was obsessed. By the time I was twelve, I was devouring multiple books a week.”
“My parents would’ve killed to have a kid like that,” Ginger says, laughing. “They had to bribe me to open anything that wasn’t a cereal box.”
“My parents didn’t exactly celebrate it,” I admit. “They said my reading habit was keeping me from ‘broadening my horizons.’”
Willow squints. “What does that mean?”
“They thought I was isolating myself too much and not engaging in theproperextracurriculars. Reading doesn’t look impressive on a debutante profile.”
Willow snorts. “What are you, royalty or something?”
My stomach drops. We may not be royalty, but my parents get treated as such.
Ginger’s eyes light up like she’s just struck gold. “Ooh, I know. You’re an unknown Kardashian.”
“Are you Bill Gates’s daughter?” Willow grins, bouncing on the edge of her chair.
“No,” I say, laughing tightly. How long will it take them to figure out who my family is? “I should go thank Travis for saving me.” I push to my feet, my towel falling to the chair. Maybe when I return they’ll have moved on to discussing something else.
Travis is standing with his brothers, all of them barefoot and sweaty, which isn’t doing my brain any favors.
“Hey,” I say, stopping a few feet away. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
His eyebrows pull together as he shakes his head. “Now isn’t a good time.”
Reed chuckles, like he enjoys watching other people suffer. “I think it’s the perfect time. Go on and talk with Nina.”
Travis shoots him a murderous glare before he turns to me. “What’s up?”
