“What about you?”
“I don’t think you’ll let me or yourself down.”
That didn’t answer my question and, frustrated, I sucked in air through my teeth. After that, the conversation shifted to the cast of the movie—a bunch of relatively unknown actors if you didn’t count my love interest who starred as a dreadlocked werewolf on some CW show—and Cooper’s next surf competition in October.
When the waves picked up soon after, we sat back down and paddled back to shore where the beach was slowly beginning to fill up with the morning crowd. I slipped my enormous sunglasses from the top of my head over my eyes and grinned up at him.
“Do I not look like Willow Avery?” I asked in a teasing voice.
He shot me a sideways grin. “Hottest tourist I’ve ever seen. But even if you were”—he winked—“Willow Avery, nobody would bother you here.”
I sniffed. “Are you kidding?” Lifting my paddleboard and oar, I followed him through the sand. “You don’t know how it is. Being noticed.”
He stopped, halfway up the beach, just feet away from sunbathers soaking in the hot morning sun. “Tell me then.” He tossed his board and paddle into the sand and I gently placed mine next to it. He held up a finger. “I’ll be right back.”
He ran through the sand towards his house, disappearing inside, and came out less than a minute later carrying a bundle of towels in his arms. He grinned as he sprinted down to where I was sitting on the gritty ground, shook out the towels, and motioned for me to lie down with him. I complied, stretching out on the soft fabric and letting the sun warm my damp body.
“I’ve got community service today,” I reminded him.
“Stay with me.”
I groaned. “Why do you have to say things like that?”
“Telling you what I want?”
“Yes,” I said through clenched teeth. “I thought you didn’t want to do this with me . . .” My voice trailed off because neither of us had mentioned what we’d talked about in his Jeep last Friday, and I didn’t want to bring it up.
“I don’t want to do this with you if you’re not willing,” he corrected. “It’s just that I’m still kind of shocked by this.” I cocked my eyebrow and he sighed, rolling over onto the side where his tattoo was. Propping himself up on his elbow, he explained, “I’ve not been the best boyfriend in the past.”
I made a strangled noise in the back of my throat. “Let me guess? Perpetual cheater?”
He frowned. “I don’t cheat, Wills. If I say I’m with you—if we agree that we’re together—we are. I just tend to sometimes . . . put other things first.” He stared out at the sea as he said this, and my eyes followed his.
I understood what he was saying. I’d had boyfriends after things had gone to hell with Tyler—some of them good and some of them so bad I would have been left broken into a million and one pieces if I hadn’t already been so screwed up— but in each relationship, I was the one to ruin things. I’d put my desire to drown the world out over everything else.
Cooper rubbed his tongue back and forth over the center of his upper lip and curled strands of my dark hair around his fingers. Staring down at it, he continued, “But the thing is, I’ve known you for a little over a week, Wills. I think about you more than surfing. I think about you when I wake up, when I’m giving someone else a lesson. Fuck, I think about you when I’m in the bathroom.”
“Nice to know you shit while picturing me,” I said, cocking an eyebrow.
He let go of my hair and stroked the back of my neck, staring me directly in the eye. “No, what I’m saying is I can’t get you off my mind. I’ve never felt like this over a girl.”
My heart felt like it was shrinking because I’d heard that before many times. The only difference now was that I wanted it to be true.
Finally, I found my voice. “Not even my probation officer’s kid sister?” He laughed, plopping his head back on his towel to gaze up into the clear sky.
“Nice to know Miranda’s sister is professional, but to answer your question—no, I didn’t. We were high school sweethearts, Wills. Lo—relationships were different then.”
“Were you about to say you loved me?” I joked, leaning over him to stare down into his eyes. My hair fell in a canopy over his face and he inhaled the scent of it—some Victoria’s Secret shampoo my mom had mailed me. I shivered. “Because just so you know, I don’t believe in love at first sight,” I whispered.
“Neither do I.”
I dropped my own body flat on the towel, barely breathing when I asked, “Then what are we going to do?”
“Be honest with me for a second, Wills.”
“Yes.”
“If things were different, would we have already given in to this yet?”
He was asking me what would have happened if Tyler hadn’t jaded me, and I answered without missing a beat. “Yes.”
Cooper groaned, and out the corner of my eye I saw him rub his hands over his face. “I’m still trying to figure you out.” His voice was lulling but powerful enough not to be drowned out by the roar of the sea and the piercing screams of kids playing by the shoreline.
Closing my eyes, I shook my head. “I’m not that difficult.” I slid over toward him until our bodies touched—shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. Our towels had separated, leaving my right side exposed to the coarse beach floor, but I didn’t care. I needed this closeness. He smelled like warm air and salt water and it intermingled with the scent of coconut wax drifting from our boards a few feet away.