A splinter of jealousy lodged in my chest. His voice sounded almost reverent, dreamy, when he talked about her.

  “But for the past year or so, I couldn’t say that I enjoyed it,” he said. “I was getting tired of…everything. I wanted to stop and enjoy things more. We were so busy looking for what was next, I felt like we were missing things. You may not see what’s in front of your face if your eyes are on the horizon. We needed a breather.”

  A breather. I still wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. A breather, like a break up? “Maybe it was a good thing for you to come back to Detroit,” I suggested.

  “Maybe. I wish the reason had been different.” He was looking out across the ocean as he said it. “I heard from Evan’s mom the other day. I can’t imagine how it must be for her, thinking of her son…” He closed his eyes for a second.

  He had seen it happen. “Reid.” I put my hand on his arm.

  He jumped to his feet. “I’m going in the water. I’ll be careful.” I watched as he jogged down to the edge of the surf and dove in, not carefully at all. There could have been a rock, or other submerged objects. Jellyfish. Rays hiding on the sandy bottom. I stood and walked closer so I could observe, just in case.

  “Come in!” he called to me, standing and shaking his hair. Really, he couldn’t have been more attractive if he planned it and worked ahead on moves, like I did with the arm brush on Daniel. I fiddled with the tie of my bathing suit circling my neck.

  “I will soon!” I called back. When he dove under, I ripped off my clothes, threw them up the beach, and hopped in, submerging up to my neck.

  Reid walked from the waist-deep waves to loom over me in the shallows. “Are you squatting in a foot of water?”

  “I’m swimming,” I informed him.

  “Don’t you know how?”

  “Of course I can swim! It’s just that sharks can’t come in this far, so it’s the best place to enjoy the ocean.”

  He tilted his head and his brows drew down. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you statistics about shark attacks.”

  “No, and you don’t have to tell me about the prevalence of lightning strikes, either, but you won’t see me running around outside in a thunderstorm.”

  Suddenly Reid bent and picked me up out of the water. “What if I promise not to let the shark get you?”

  He had me in his arms, all of me, in my bathing suit above the concealing waves below, our bodies pressed together tightly. “Put me down. Put me down!”

  Reid walked farther out. “Just a little deeper.”

  I clutched at him, scrambling up his body like a squirrel. “I don’t want to go deeper. Reid! I don’t want to go deeper!” I got myself up on his shoulders by flinging my leg around his neck and pulling on his head. I wasn’t worried about showing my bathing suit anymore when there were apex predators in the water. I crossed my legs around his neck so that no part of me was below the surface.

  “Ow! Prudence, you have me in a chokehold. I give,” Reid rasped out. I loosened the grip with my knees and he took hold of my ankles and unlocked my legs. “Just your feet in,” he said in a normal voice. “See? You’re fine.

  “It’s colder out here where it’s deep.”

  “We’re in about four feet of water, Karis.” I could feel him laughing.

  I stayed alert for shadows swimming toward us, but I did start kicking my feet. It was pretty fun to be sitting on top of Reid, and I felt strangely at ease perched on his shoulders. “I can swim, I really can. I go to the pool a few times a week.”

  “Along with the running? You’re a triple threat.”

  “What’s my third skill?” I asked curiously.

  “Holding your breath,” he said seriously. His hands moved up to hold my thighs and before I could ask what he meant, he dropped down beneath the surface of the waves, taking me with him. When he stood, he was laughing and when I stopped sputtering, I started laughing, too. He tipped me off backwards into the water and I held my nose as I fell in. I had forgotten how much I had liked swimming in the ocean—I hadn’t, since we lived in Uruguay and I had gone with my mom. I couldn’t remember having so much fun before, though. We both dove and did hand stands and swam…and then something brushed my leg.

  I screamed into the water, took off swimming for shore as fast as I had ever gone in my life, and didn’t stop until my knees scraped the sand. I stood, gasping and looking for a triangular fin. I scanned the water. Where was Reid? My head flew back and forth, searching for him between the waves. Where was he?

  I dove back in and swam out to where I had last seen him. I duck dove and peered through the salt water to look. Nothing. I couldn’t find him! I swam back to the surface and spotted the top of his head twenty yards away. My heart was in my throat as I kicked furiously over to him, needing to get there before he could sink or get swept away by the waves. I was sure he had been attacked and bitten. Maybe he was bleeding out! I grabbed him around his chest from behind and started straining for shore.

  “Karis! What are you doing?”

  “Just let your body relax!” I said, gasping as I tried to hold both of us above the surface. “I’ve got you!” I felt him swimming with me and he put his feet down. “No, we have to get to shore!”

  “Ok, let’s go.” But he was walking. It wasn’t very deep. “What got into you?”

  “There’s something in the water! Something brushed against my leg…” Like maybe a fish. Or seaweed. “I thought you were in danger, or had been bitten or hurt.” We stood with the water up to our knees, me sucking air as hard as if I’d been running four miles. “Are you ok?”

  Reid was just staring at me. “You were saving me?”

  “I thought, a shark…it touched me, then when I swam in, I couldn’t see you anywhere. I was going to pull you in and then make a pressure bandage with a towel,” I tried to explain. It sounded absurd now.

  “You thought there was a shark in the water, but you still came back out to get me?”

  “Well, I know now that there’s no shark. Probably.”

  Reid picked up my hands. “Thanks. Thank you. That was very brave. Thanks for saving me.”

  I looked at our hands, his long fingers dwarfing mine as they linked together. “I didn’t really save you.”

  “You tried.”

  I looked up at his blue eyes. The way he was studying me, with his gaze kind of soft, kind of in happy surprise—it made my heart beat as hard as it had when I was pulling him into shore.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” Reid said. He was still holding my hand as we strolled down the beach. “You’re my hero, Karis Brown.”

  “Be quiet,” I said, blushing. I tugged my hand away but he put his arm over my shoulders and pulled me close to him.

  “I mean it. You didn’t think about your own safety, you just dove in to get me. That’s brave. Heroic.” He pulled me closer. “There’s more to you than meets the eye, Prudence. You impress me all the time.”

  I blushed again, from the compliments and from the feeling of his skin against mine. It didn’t occur to me until later that I should have been worrying about my hips and holding in my stomach. I was just enjoying the moment, very, very much.

  Chapter 10

  It wasn’t bad, especially with the bathroom lights on dim. I turned from side to side, looking at my reflection. Why was it that my eyes always looked so enormous and frightened? I tried to narrow them, but I still looked like an owl.

  My mom had altered one of Augusta’s sister’s old dresses to fit me, and it was beautiful, a deep, forest green with something shot through the fabric to make it sparkle a little. It made my hazel-brown eyes look almost green, too. Although Susannah was at least five inches taller than I was, my mom had managed to make the dress look like it was made for me, and when I discussed what I was packing for the trip with Augusta, she had insisted that I bring it. “It’s perfect on you. I don’t know why my sister would think she could wear such a dark color. She looked like she was wearing kabuki makeup, it washed her out so much.”

  I wasn’t very bronzed myself, but Augusta had insisted that I could carry it off. “You look beautiful in it,” she told me firmly, then sighed. “I have to go pee again. I think that the baby must be literally shoving her head into my bladder. Have a good trip and call me when you get home.”

  Reid and I had stayed at the beach for a while after the shark attack, relaxing. I loaned him my book and he read from it. I lounged on the towel in the shade, almost dozing. I had opened my eyes when Reid draped his towel over me. “I thought you would get cold,” he said, and lay back in the sand in the sun and read more.

  When the sun started getting lower in the sky, we had returned to Miami. Reid left me at the door to my room, saying we should meet in the lobby to go to dinner. So here I was, all dressed up, studying myself nervously in the mirror. Reid himself didn’t make me nervous anymore. I just felt so happy when I was around him. Happy and a little odd, almost buoyant. I was extremely excited that I was going to see him soon, but it was the dress that was making me question things. It went lower on my chest than I was used to, and shorter on my thighs, although my mom would never make anything too short on me. I grabbed my purse and a sweater as I left the room.

  I was buttoning up the sweater as I walked into the lobby to look for him. “Warm enough?” Reid greeted me. “It is Miami. I think wool is banned down here. What do you have on under there?”

  “A dress,” I said briefly. “Should we go eat?”

  We walked through the Florida night, and really, yes, it was too warm for a winter cardigan. I just could not get clothes right. I took off the sweater and tied it around my waist. I saw Reid looking at me.

  “That’s a nice dress,” he said.

  I put my hand over my exposed breastbone to cover the skin. “Thank you. I don’t feel very comfortable.”

  “You need the lady’s maid,” he suggested. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

  “About getting me a maid, or just that you agree that I need help?”

  “About an app the team has been working on in California, kind of a digital fashion assistant. When you said that to me, about someone helping you figure out your wardrobe, I started thinking that a lot of people could use help. I suggested some ideas and they’ve been on it. I think it’s going to be a hit.”

  “Really? That’s great!”

  “You’re not upset that I took the idea from you?” He looked over at me, almost nervously.

  “I didn’t have an idea, I was just complaining about being fashion-challenged. You came up with the concept for something to help troubled dressers like I am.”

  His eyes moved over me. “I don’t think you need any help. You look beautiful. Here, let’s go have a cocktail. There’s a great bar at this hotel.”

  I wordlessly trailed along with him. Beautiful? Really? The biggest compliment I’d received before from a member of the opposite sex was once in college, when a student told me that I looked a little like a cute teacher from his high school (except I was shorter and not as sexy). It was mildly flattering, at best. Not even.

  Reid suddenly wrapped his arm around me and pulled me away from the street. “Watch it there. That guy is backing up pretty close.” I turned and looked over my shoulder at the car bouncing up on the curb where I had been standing. “I’ll walk on the outside of the sidewalk,” he said. He kept his hand on my back.

  The bar was also South Beach-chic but with my cardigan off, now balled up in my hand, I felt a little more like I fit the part. “Two gimlets, please,” Reid ordered for us and I turned to him in amazement.

  “You remembered that I wanted to try one!”

  “I thought this was the kind of place where they might know how to make a good gimlet.” We found a seat and he gestured to me to take it, squeezing in tightly so we could hear each other talk.

  “Cheers.” I held up my glass. He was so close that I brushed his body whenever I moved my arm. I put the glass down and picked it up again, brush, brush.

  “To saving me from the sharks,” he answered, grinning.

  I shook my head and took a sip. It was tasty, for sure, very citrus-y and yummy. I took another, pleasantly surprised. “Cheers to PanyaCreates,” I suggested. We clinked again and I swallowed more gimlet.

  “Cheers to us in Miami.” Sip. “Cheers to books on paper.” Drink. “Cheers to our first gimlets.” Gulp. “Cheers to saving me from getting hit by a car.” Glug. The gimlet went down very easily as we talked about other misadventures going out. Reid told me about his 21st birthday and how, right as he left the dorm for a night with his friends, he tried to jump off a wall and ended up breaking his leg.

  “Not the best birthday,” he concluded, grinning. “Not what I had planned for a big night celebrating.”

  I shook my head. Why did he do things like that? I finished the drink, still shaking my head and now wagging my finger at him. He laughed.

  “Why are you wincing every time you take a sip? Do you want something else instead?” Reid asked, pointing to my empty glass.

  “No, it’s very good. I think I may have found my signature drink,” I answered, so he ordered two more and we clinked glasses again when they came. I ran my tongue around inside my mouth. “I just have a little cut that twinges when the lime juice hits it. Daniel—” I said, but I didn’t continue.

  Reid took my chin in his fingers again. “What happened with that guy, Prudence? Why did you get upset on the plane?” He tilted my head to the side, looking at my lips.

  “Nothing happened.” I leaned back, away from him, and took a giant gulp of my drink, like Daniel had wanted me to do at his house. The thought of him now was making my stomach turn over a little. “I just kissed him some. He kisses hard.”

  “Hard?”

  I demonstrated with my hands, smashing my palms together.

  “Did he hurt you?” Reid asked carefully.

  “Not really. I think he’s inexperienced,” I confided. I just felt like telling Reid things at that moment. “He doesn’t know how to kiss. My teeth cut my lip. And,” I lowered my voice to a whisper, “he grabbed my chest.”

  “Your chest.”

  I pointed at my breast and then blushed. “I didn’t care for it. I thought I might, but I really didn’t.” I rubbed gently at the place where his fingers had bruised, then realized that it was slightly uncouth to rub my own breast in a bar.

  Reid was frowning. “He grabbed you hard, too?”

  “I don’t think he knew what he was doing. Or maybe, I was thinking, maybe other women like that?” I shrugged and nodded, now holding out my hands wide. I was getting more expansive with gimlet number two. “Maybe he knows what he’s doing but it’s just that I don’t.” I shouldn’t have said that. “I shouldn’t have said that,” I repeated aloud. “I didn’t want you to know that.”

  “Prudence, we’re going to have another situation like Augusta’s wedding unless we get food in you. Come on, let’s find some dinner.” Now he put his arm around my shoulders and I leaned against him. “What did you do when he kissed you too hard? And grabbed you?”

  “After I fell on the floor, I said I had to go because I had an early flight.”

  “What’s that?” His feet slowed. “How did you fall?”

  “I didn’t trip or anything! I only do that when I’m around you. I just pulled out from under him.”

  “He was on top of you.”

  “He’s not that big but it was not very fun to have him on me like that,” I confided. “I wanted him off. So when he grabbed me” (here I pantomimed grabbing my breast with a claw-like grip) “I yanked away, and I fell on the floor.” I started to demonstrate this too, but Reid hauled me back to him.

  “What did he do? When you fell?”

  “He sat up and said goodbye. He wouldn’t look at me. I think I really messed things up.”

  “Hang on.” We stopped at a little café, open to the street, and Reid bought two sandwiches. “Sit and eat this.”

  I obeyed, placing myself at a small table in a dark corner. The only lights were from cars passing by on the street and a string of little hanging bulbs over my head. “This is what I did with the wedding cake,” I explained to Reid as he sat next to me. “I tried to eat the cake to absorb some of the alcohol. It really is true. Like, science.”

  “Eat your sandwich.” He pointed at the flattened bread with ham poking out of it, and I took a big bite.

  “This is delicious!”

  “Keep eating. I should have considered your size, Prudence. And how you handled your alcohol in the past.”

  “You’re not responsible for me. I take care of myself,” I told him. He reached over with a napkin and wiped mustard off my mouth. “Thank you,” I said grandly. “I take care of myself, and my mom. And soon, I’ll take care of my dad, too. I do just fine.”

  “I know you do.” Reid watched me take a few more bites. “Explain to me again why you’re going to take care of your dad at home.”

  “My mom wants to. She misses him. Even though,” I lowered my voice conspiratorially, “he was pretty much a jerk.” I nodded to convince him. “He wasn’t very nice to her, ever. ‘Mette, where are my notes?’” I lowered my voice to the booming tenor of my father’s tone. “‘Why don’t we have the right coffee? Did you move my briefcase? The department head is an idiot. Why did you want me to take this job?’ And then we’d move, again. He was always blaming her for everything that happened to him. Because, you know, of me.”

  “What does that mean? What did you have to do with anything?”

  “My mom got pregnant. He didn’t want kids, because he didn’t like them. He didn’t like me much. He was always pretty angry that I was around. But I was very helpful to him. Most of what I studied in my mom’s school was so I could help him with his work, and I did as much as I could. Everything was about my dad.”

  “I don’t understand why she wants him with you. I would think she would be happy to be rid of him.” Reid looked disgusted. I wasn’t explaining this well.

  “No, because she loves him.” I licked my fingers. This sandwich was delicious. The best thing I ever ate. “That’s why you have to be careful. You have to be careful about who you love. You can’t go rushing around, falling hard for some guy you meet and you barely know him and then you pine after him for two years. You have to find someone who has the same interests as you, someone stable and steady. You plan wisely and take things step by step, until you come to an agreement about your future. Then you get married, and if you want, you could have a baby.” Which would mean having sex, and I was even farther from that goal than I had been before. I covered my eyes with my hands.

 

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