No, it was better that he was alone. Simpler.
That didn’t stop him from being so fucking grateful to find out that Kendall wasn’t alone. “Your sister sounds great.”
“She is.” She sighed. “Honestly, it’s a little annoying. She created this standard that neither me nor Marley could ever quite live up to. It didn’t stop me from trying. But my little sister is what you’d call a wild child.”
He grinned. “I’m familiar with the concept.”
“I bet you are.” She dipped her fingers into the ocean and flicked a few drops of water in his direction. “You were one, weren’t you?”
“Guilty.” He set his paddle over his knees and leaned forward, enjoying this moment. “It’s honestly kind of embarrassing how much of a cliché I was. All anger and hormones and a self-destructive tendency that almost landed me in juvie at one point.”
Her smile turned a little sad. “You turned it around.”
“Pop turned me around. Pop and the bar. He gave me a safe space to fuck up, and then grounded me for like six months and made me work the bar as punishment.” Alex snorted. “I thought it was hell on earth, but in hindsight he was teaching me a lot. Giving me a foundation that would see me through.”
“Buildings don’t leave you,” she murmured.
Her words hit a little too close to home. He forced a laugh. “What about you? Your older sister was a paragon. You little sister was the wild child. You never really told me where you fit into that.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Again, that twist of her lips that wasn’t quite a smile. “I’m the one who never steps out of line, who ended up with an over-developed sense of responsibility.” She picked up her paddle and then set it down again over her knees. “My grandmother was a strong personality—strong enough to keep all of us in line even though she lost her daughter the same way we lost our mom. But she had her hands full. I don’t know when I decided that I would be the one not to cause her any grief, but that’s where I ended up. I never got into trouble. I never broke the rules. I worked my ass off to get into a decent college that also wouldn’t break the bank.” She made a motion like she was checking off boxes in a list. “I didn’t want to be a burden.”
He understood that, even if he’d never leaned in that direction with Pop. “We’re a boatload of issues.”
“You can say that again.” This time, her smile seemed more genuine. “I’ve been in therapy since I was old enough to realize it would help, but I’m still a work in progress.”
“We all are.”
She shifted her grip on her paddle. “Alex?”
This was where she let him down gently. Where she said that this was fun, but that’s all it was. He knew this couldn’t go anywhere. Fuck, he knew it better than anyone. That hadn’t stopped him from crossing the lines they’d created time and time again. He’d asked her on a goddamn date.
He’d had a few girlfriends. Back when he was in his early twenties and still hadn’t realized the exact mold life had shoved him into. When part of him still thought he might end up with a future like the ones meant for other people. Women loved him… within certain boundaries. He was good enough to fuck, good enough to play around with for a short-term fling, but he wasn’t husband material. After being told that for the third fucking time by a woman he thought was falling for him the same way he was falling for her? Yeah, Alex stopped trying to change other people’s perception of him. Better to just lay out expectations right at the beginning and let everyone walk away with their hearts unbruised.
He braced himself to have this conversation yet again. “Yeah?”
“This has been really, really nice.” She tucked her wind-blown hair back behind her ears. “I thought this trip was going to be a disaster and, because of you, it’s been some of the best days in living memory for me.”
But that’s all it is.
She took a deep breath. “I don’t want it to end.”
He blinked. “What?”
“I…” Another of those deep, fortifying breaths. “I don’t want it to end. I’ll admit that I haven’t had a ton of time for dating and that kind of thing—and I guess I still don’t—but surely this connection isn’t only because we’re having hot vacation sex?” She kept fidgeting, adjusting her swimsuit, touching the paddle, fixing her hair again. “I mean, maybe I’m reading too much into it.”
Holy shit, she wasn’t letting him down gently.
Shock made him slow to respond. He could barely hear his words over the buzzing in his ears. “You don’t want this to end.”