“Well, it could be a different sort of self-help.” I shrugged, and my cheeks heated even more. Was I flirting with him now?
“Okay.” He narrowed his eyes in challenge. “What’s the self-help you’re reading today?”
I bit my lip. “Well, the guy in this one explores temperature play with the main character.”
I saw how his eyes widened just a fraction and I tried my best not to glance away.
“Anyway,” I announced fast while I pointed at the lounge chairs out on the sand, “Time for me to go read.”
“I’m thinking I might enjoy reading with you,” he mumbled it so quiet, I wasn’t sure he wanted me to hear him. Then he cleared his throat. “I’ll go for a swim and grab a few towels.”
I waved him off, my heart beating from just our little bit of flirting. I needed to get away from him, try to relax, and enjoy what I had come here to do in the first place.
Explore the world, Delilah. And maybe explore some men,my therapist had told me. As I spread out on one of the lounge chairs, I remembered that she’d also said to bring my romance novels to Puerto Rico and take a page out of one or two of them. She said I deserved to be happy.
Happiness was fickle, though, and I’d been chasing it a long time. Through grades, through the approval of others, through doing what I thought was the right thing.
I found my eyes drifting to the one thing I wasn’t supposed to indulge in that seemed to bring me all the happiness.
Dante.
He stood there in all his glory, smiling at a beautiful towel girl who flipped her hair dramatically in front of him.
When he laughed at something she said, I blew a raspberry. I was far enough away and the waves crashed loud enough that he wouldn’t hear.
That view of him with another woman was exactly why I needed this place to myself. My body needed to stop lusting over a man who didn’t lust over me anymore. I needed to get over my trauma and move on.
And that need had me scrolling my Tinder account and swiping left and right for what felt like an hour. It was draining trying to figure out if any of those men would even be compatible.
I started messaging a guy who I thought was really good-looking and figured I could work through the texts I’d gotten during the time I’d been in jail.
I’d avoided them until now, thinking it would be too much to lie to everyone.
Thankfully, there weren’t many, but my brothers were being dicks on the family group chat now that they knew I’d been in jail.
Dom: Did you make sure not to drop soap in there?
Dimitri: Man, that’s a joke for men in jail, idiot.
Declan: Yeah, they don’t put men and women together in jail. Do they?
Dom: They better not have. Lilah? You weren’t with men in there, were you?
Me: Can you all please do something else with your time? I’m trying to lay low before I start work. I actually have to focus when I'm there. Lives are on the line.
Dom: Not like Declan’s work where he just tackles people for no reason.
I laughed at that because we constantly teased Declan, who was in the NFL. My other brothers made good livings in tech and engineering. Collectively, we’d made our mother and father proud.
I ignored the group chat after that so I could go through the rest of my texts. One in particular I had been avoiding was my work friend, Allan. He was a resident to become a doctor, and I was sure he was into me.
I thought I was into him too. Enough that I’d maybe indulge in some fun with him.
Still, my fingers hovered over his text message inviting me out for drinks once I was back in town. We’d already been out twice. And he was everything I thought I wanted.
Except that Dante was back here.
Swimming in the ocean right in front of me, making it hard to concentrate on anything else.