Page 26 of The First Kind of Love
And I know what you’re thinking—I sound an awful lot like Fulton’s absent, shit-for-brains dad. But I’m not like him.
I’m not.
I rub at the corners of my sleep-crusted eyes, braving a glance over at the attention-garnering throng of hockey players spotlighted by the sun’s glaring rays. Alternating shades of honeysuckle and saffron bounce off the ocean’s glitteringsurface, and foamy spumes lap at a shell-littered shore in their routine ebb and flow. Packs of loving families and doublets of infatuated couples mill about the beach, raucous laughter competing with the caws of faraway seagulls, the horns of nomadic boats, and the constant crash of well-behaved waves. It’s…well, it’s nothing short of paradise.
“Earth to Shiloh?” Lila’s voice prods, dragging me back to the temperate present where she slathers sunscreen on her best friend’s back.
Even though I’m toasting out here—and soon to be the unfortunate “after” picture of a painful sunburn—the lighting at least covers the embarrassment setting up camp in my cheeks. “Sorry. You were saying?”
“The night of our first date, Hayes kissed me and then basically said it was a giant mistake afterwards,” Aeris continues.
I try to keep my judgment at bay. “Hesaidthat?”
“Okay, he didn’ttechnicallysay it, but it was implied.”
And here they are, getting married in two weeks.
Lila pauses from her sunscreen application and whispers, “He also screwed her over and broke her trust, but we don’t talk about that part.”
“Lila!” Aeris reprimands, her arm flailing in a half-assed attempt to whack her.
The blonde manages to evade her with minimal effort, and the two of them start bickering with one another while my attention gets carried away by the sea’s incoming tide. Back and forth. Monotonous but mandatory.
My gaze involuntarily drifts to Fulton’s far too delectable, breathtaking form, and I don’t realize I’m ogling his oiled-up muscles until Aeris and Lila both catch my unabashed perving. I didn’t realize that hockey could carve such a physique; I thought all it was good for were black eyes and broken noses. His back looks especially grabbable, a lattice of discipline, dedication, and definition that spans his mile-wide shoulders. Notto mention that the same muscle distribution twines up his arms.
“Fulton’s definitely a looker,” Lila comments, following my line of sight with a knowing half grin. “Way too young for me, but he has this boyish charm about him that I can appreciate.”
“Yeah,” I agree dreamily, watching the way he rubs a hand over his pecs.
He’s laughing at something Gage is saying, and God, does it make basal want ripple through my belly. I can almost taste his searing kiss, and I touch my mouth under the guise of fixing my nonexistent lip gloss. I’d sacrifice all my working eggs for him to tongue-fuck me right here, right now.
“You should go talk to him,” Aeris proposes, and although I appreciate the support, my heart’s one shudder away from crumpling my body into a sad, pathetic accordion. I can’t go up to him when he’s looking like…that…and I’m looking like a preteen stuffed into a Justice one-piece bathing suit.
I frantically glance around for a figurative lifeline, but Faye’s in her hotel room with Eda, Casen and Josie are probably partaking in some bed-breaking activities, and Cali’s waist-deep in the ocean.
“Come on, Shiloh. You guys are going to be sharing a bed for three weeks. Don’t you think you should clear the air?”
My mouth is inconveniently dry. Not only that, but I’m sweating, the overly rich lunch in my stomach is turning, and I have baby hairs popping up around my face like a lion’s mane. I’m also pretty sure that the humidity has thinned the foundation covering thegiganticpimple on my forehead.
It's just Fulton, Shiloh. I’m sure he doesn’t care what you look like. Just go talk to him. What if he thinks you’re purposefully avoiding him because of what happened last night and not because you’re intimidated by literally every aspect of him?
I don’t have much experience navigating a crush, even less so when said crush is a world-famous hockey player who hasmillions of adoring fans willing to commit heinous crimes just to breathe the sameairas him.
It’s like there’s this invisible string pulling me toward him, and against my better judgment, my body moves of its own accord without any self-preservation instincts whatsoever. As I slowly amble over—granting him enough time to see me coming—the world throws me a nasty curveball by sending a child sprinting in front of me at sixty miles per hour. It’s practically attempted murder as someone’s unauthorized kid is about to bowl me over, and I’ve already accepted that I’m going to eat shit in front of Fulton and all his friends. But although I brace myself for impact, I never feel my body slam against the ground.
I hesitantly peek out of one eye to assess the damage, only to find myself safely embraced in Fulton’s arms, the sun imitating a glowing halo above his mop of messy, brown hair. I’m beginning to think he’s a literal angel who’s been sent down from heaven to grant every repressed wish of mine. If this was a cheesy romantic comedy, “(I Just) Died in Your Arms” by Cutting Crew would be playing somewhere in the background.
“Hi,” he says in a gritty purr—the kind that unleashes a kaleidoscope of butterflies in my belly.
His eyes are even more enticing than I remember—melted pools of caramel that foster tiny branches of gold in the innermost rings—and they’re framed by long, thick lashes that have no business being on a man. Up close, I can see he has a constellation of freckles scattered across his cheeks, which are much more prominent now that his skin’s developed a bit of a tan.
“Hi,” I greet breathlessly.
Being this close to Fulton isnotgood for my sanity or the state of my stupid, ridiculously tight swimsuit. And not tight in a sexy way, but more like tight in anI-haven’t-broken-this-baby-out-since-I-was-twelve-and-still-honing-my-backstrokeway.
His lips wrench into a lopsided grin, and if my retinas weren’t temporarily scorched by the sun, his Colgate-white smile would’ve blinded me instead. He also smellsreallygood. There’s an underpinning of saltwater and sweat, but his citrusy, overly clean scent is unmistakable. That’s probably not all from his cologne, either. I bet his natural man musk smells that good all the time.
Oh, this is bad. I should’ve let the kid torpedo take me out.
