Page 85 of Pack Frenzy
“Actually, now is the perfect time. Less UV, better breeze, fewer tourists.” He places the clean, dry pot in the cabinet, then points: “You—swimsuit. I’ll pack everything. Hey, Rowan, canyou tell Cassian that if he hasn’t caught anything but jellyfish, he won’t. Wheels in twenty.”
Rowan’s mouth curves. “Don’t think I can persuade him unless I mention Jess will be in a swimsuit.”
“Whatever works.” I shrug, but inside I’m a bit giddy that they think of me as attractive enough to pull Cassian away from his fishing.
Later, the door swings open. Cassian saunters in sun-drunk and empty-handed. “The sea and I have differences.”
“The sea’s correct,” Eli says, passing Rowan a beach towel; their fingers brush—brief, familiar, lingering. Rowan doesn’t pull back. It looks casual, but I know it isn’t.
I change fast—suit under sundress, quick braid, towel jammed into a tote. By the time I step out, Eli’s loaded a cooler with neat little boxes and tucked a roll of paper towels under his arm like a baton. Rowan jingles the keys, and we pile into the car.
Rowan puts on a local rock station, and we sing along while the road to the bay slides past in slices of cattails and bleached fence posts.
Stepping out of the car, the wind punches a laugh right out of me—cold, salty, alive. It whips my braid across my face. For a second, I forget the city, the noise, everything but the sting of salt and the crash of waves.
We find a spot on the sand, but the second Eli spreads the blanket, the wind snatches it like it has opinions. He lunges after it, half swearing, half laughing, the fabric slapping against his legs while I double over in a laugh I can’t stop.
“Hold still, you little bastard,” he mutters, and the way he’s wrestling fabric like it’s a living thing makes me snort.
“Need a hand?”
“Nope,” he says, but gives me a smug look when he finally pins a corner under his hip. “I’ve got it contained.”
Rowan drops the cooler with a thud that rattles the ice inside.
“I’ll look for something to help hold down the other corners.” He sets his phone and keys on another corner and heads down the tideline, scanning for rocks. Typical Rowan—find the problem, fix it, look annoyingly good while doing it.
Eli straightens, shaking the sunscreen like a cocktail shaker. “Backs,” he orders, the faintest grin tugging at his mouth. The smell hits like fresh coconuts.
“Thought you said late-day sun meant less chance of getting sunburned?”
“It is, but this is just a precaution.”
I hook my fingers into the hem of my sundress and tug it over my head. The wind kisses every inch of suddenly bare skin; goosebumps race down my arms. I fold the dress and drop it on the corner of the blanket, then sit and pull my hair to one side, baring my back.
“If this ends with you writing your name on me, I’m walking home.”
He chuckles low. “Scout’s honor.”
His first touch sends a shiver right through me. His palms move in slow, confident circles, spreading desire that the wind keeps trying—and failing—to take back. My breath catches halfway between a sigh and a moan, and Cassian’s grin tells me he heard it.
“Look at her,” Cassian says, dropping beside us. “She’s five seconds from drooling.”
“I am not?—”
Eli’s thumbs drag higher, then suddenly go still. The air shifts. “Jess.”
The way he says my name—tight, controlled—puts ice straight through the warm.
“What?”
His fingers hover just under my shoulder blade, not quite touching. “What happened here?”
My stomach drops. Oh. Right. Those.
I already saw them in the mirror after getting my swimsuit on. The fading bruises are a faded yellow-green now, ghost-circles around two tiny scabbed dots.
“From when I was tasered,” I say lightly, like we’re talking about a stubbed toe. “After the bus wreck.”
