Page 30 of The Summer I First Saw You
I’m sent home following the lunch shift. I earned nothing at all since I’m only shadowing, and it costs fifteen dollars to get my car out of the lot—so far, gainful employment is less rewarding than I’d hoped.
I go straight to Harrison’s outdoor shower to wash the smell of fried food from my hair. I’m emerging with one towel around my head and one around my chest when Harrison’s Range Rover pulls into the garage.
His sunglasses are still on, but I don’t miss the way his gaze travels over me as he climbs out of the car.
I adjust the towel atop my head. “You’re home when it’s still light out? Has someone died?”
His mouth quirks up on one side. “I was falsely hoping it might be the one time of day you’d wear sufficient clothing.”
I laugh as I open the door to walk inside. “You should know better than to ever hope I’d wear sufficient clothing.” I glance over my shoulder at him as I climb the stairs and catch him checking out my ass.
He blinks away guiltily. “I assumed you’d have gotten fired and would be in need of moral support.”
I turn as I reach the main floor, holding my towel in place with one hand. “You seriously assumed I’d be fired on my first day?”
“How many customers did you mouth off to, Daisy?” he asks, eyes twinkling.
“Not a single one, for your information. To be completely transparent, however, I wasn’t allowed to speak to any of the customers, so my opportunities were limited.”
He laughs. “I guess that explains it.”
I glance toward the ocean. “Tide’s coming in.”
“I guess you wouldn’t want to surf, since you just showered.”
I run my tongue across my lip. “Of course I want to surf. Unlike Audrey, I don’t mind the feeling ofsandone bit.”
His gaze meets mine. He’s thinking of my comment from last week and so am I.
I don’t mind the feeling of a lot of things, Harrison.
“Only you could make the wordsandsound filthy,” he grumbles, heading to his room.
Ten minutes later, we’re in wetsuits, crossing the street quickly, eager to make the most of the remaining sun.
I follow him to the lineup, closer to the heart of the break, though still a fair distance from the other guys already out here. “Apparently, I’ve graduated.”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
“I’ll probably make you regret it.”
He laughs. “I know.”
I take the first decent wave, and he takes the second. My gut tightens, watching him. He’s so fucking big, so sure of himself, so focused.
Is he like that in bed too? Would he look at me as if nothing else mattered, as if the world could be ending and he’d never even notice?
Perhaps. But that doesn’t mean there wouldn’t come a day when hestoppeddoing it. When his eyes would remain shut because he was pretending I was someone else—someonesmarter, someone special in all the ways he’d finally seen I wasn’t.
We each take another handful of waves and return to the lineup at the same time. The sun is now an orange ball on the horizon, painting streaks of gold in his dark hair, lighting up his face.
“This is more like the rich guy adulthood I always imagined you’d have,” I tell him.
He shoots me a lazy smile. “How exactly does a rich guy spend his day? In case I’ve forgotten.”
“Well, you start by counting your money, obviously.”
“Obviously. Gold coins in a vault. I did that first. Then what?”
