“I do,” I say, feeling suddenly exhilarated, and to be honest, kind of rebellious.
“Okay,” he says. “Let me make a call.”
Two hours later, I’m wrapped in a towel, sitting in the front of a speedboat on a padded bench, a can of Diet Coke in my hand, and Briggs is sitting across from me in the captain’s chair. He killed the engine after my second round of tubing, and now we’re just drifting, rocking slowly with the current, the only sound in the background the rhythmic gentle lapping of water against the side of the boat.
“This is nice,” I say, leaning my head back, feeling the sun on my face, the soft ocean breeze moving across my body.
“It is,” he agrees. “I haven’t been out on the water like this in a long time.”
“I feel bad that I’m the only one who got to go tubing,” I say. I’d offered to drive while he took a turn but then remembered I’ve never actually driven a boat, except the one time I played a Bond girl and was involved in a very intense boat-chase scene. But all the driving I did was on a green screen, and we both agreed that doesn’t really count.
“It’s fine,” he says. “I can do this anytime.”
“Do you . . . do this anytime?”
“Actually, no,” he says with a chuckle. The kind that makes my insides feel mushy.
“Briggs Albus Dalton, have you been working so hard you’ve forgotten to take time to have fun?”
“That’s not my middle name,” he says, pinching his brows together in a very adorable way. “Also, Harry Potter came out after I was born.”
“Whatever,” I say, doing a sulking thing with my shoulders. I looked up a bunch of literary names last night and committed them to memory. I will figure it out if it’s the last thing I do.
He smiles. “And anyway, you’re one to talk about working so hard.”
“Yeah, but it’s different because I didn’t know any better. I hadn’t done any of this before. You have, and you still don’t make time for it.”
“You’re right,” he says. “Thank goodness you’re here to make me do fun things.”
“What would you do without me?”
I watch as the smile disappears, his gaze moving toward the water. “I’d be working in a bookstore and probably spending the rest of my time in an apartment decorated for a ten-year-old.”
I snicker. “It’s not a bad life.”
He shakes his head, looking back at me. “No, it could definitely be worse.”
“Yes, you could have cameras and stalkers and people following you around all the time,” I say. My gosh, it’s going to suck to go back to that. I haven’t even been away from it long enough for my new life to feel like a normal routine, and yet I’m already so used to not having to deal with all the unwanted attention.
“Yeah, that doesn’t sound fun,” Briggs says.
We sit in silence for a bit, my gaze dropping down to the blue-and-white-striped beach towel wrapped around me.
“Oh wow,” I hear Briggs say, and I look up.
“What?” I ask.
“Shhhh,” Briggs says, slowly making his way over to my side of the boat.
“Look,” he says, kneeling on the bench next to me, pointing out in the water.
I turn and look in the direction he’s pointing. I stare out for a moment, wondering if I missed whatever he was pointing at until I see three fins appear above the water.
“Sharks?” I say in a loud whisper, a little tremble of panic racing down my spine.
“No,” he says, laughter in his voice. “Dolphins.”
“Shut up.” I let my towel fall and get on my knees, facing outside the boat, so I can have a better look.
We stay there in silence, and I wonder if that’s all I’ll see of them, just three grayish-blue-colored fins. But then they bob up again, this time two of them surfacing a little more above the water. I spot an eye, and misty air sprays out of one’s blowhole before they submerge below the ocean’s surface.
“Oh my gosh,” I say quietly, even though I kind of want to squeal right now. I’ve seen dolphins in captivity, but I’ve never seen them in the wild.
They surface again, and one flips its tail up before going back under.
I look over at Briggs, watching him look out at the water, and I’m not sure why I do it, but I scoot across the foot or so between us, up against the side of him. And like we’ve been doing this the whole time, like it’s natural, he puts his arm around my waist, his hand resting on my hip. I lean into him and turn back toward the water just in time to see two dolphins breach the surface before going under again.
“This is the coolest,” I say, my face next to Briggs’s, his hand on me feeling warm and comforting.
“I wasn’t sure we’d be able to check this one off the list,” he says.
I turn to him, my brows pinched. “You put dolphins on our summer activities?”
He turns his head toward me. “I didn’t think it would actually happen. I’ve seen them plenty because I basically grew up here, but . . . it’s still always . . . exciting.”
His words have slowed, his eyes are searching my face, and there’s an intensity in them, like a fire has been lit there. He’s so close, I can feel his breath on my face, the way every part of my body touching his feels like it’s on fire.
