“Have fun, you guys,” Gary said, disappearing behind his machine with a screwdriver.
Dax rolled his eyes and led her out of Gary’s yard, but she was pretty sure he was protesting too much.
“Oh, come on,” she said, “you love Gary and his mystery machine.” Or he was just being really, really nice to his neighbor. It was kind of annoying how often, in the past week or so, she’d been presented with facts about Dax that didn’t jibe with the image of him she’d carried around for so many years.
“What do you want to do?” he said, following the question with another before she could answer. “You bring a bathing suit?”
“It’s under my clothes,” she said. “And I don’t know, what are my choices?”
He raked his gaze down her body as if he were trying to see through her clothes to the bathing suit underneath. “I have a canoe, paddleboards, and kayaks. Have you ever kayaked before?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve never done anything before. Watching baseball is about as athletic as I get.”
“Okay, so I recommend we either canoe or paddleboard, and save the kayaking for a time when I can borrow a double one. It can be hard to get the hang of, and it will be better if we go together the first time.”
Amy ignored the little thrill that shot down her spine at the way he was just taking for granted that they would do this again, that there would be a future in which they went kayaking together.
“So, canoeing or paddleboarding?”
They both sounded fun. “You pick.”
There was that look again—the X-ray vision move where he stared at her body in a way that probably should have offended her. “Paddleboarding.” He opened the front door and nodded into the entryway. “You can leave your clothes here.”
…
He knew exactly what he was doing. That was the maddening part. Dax had chosen paddleboarding because he wanted to see Amy in her swimsuit. There would have been no cause for undressing if they’d merely gone canoeing.
So when she stepped out of her shorts and peeled off her T-shirt—another Jays one—and then bent over as she rummaged through her bag to produce a bottle of sunscreen, he deserved everything he got.
He’d signed up to be tortured, in other words.
It wasn’t even a particularly skimpy suit. It was a two-piece, but in keeping with her fondness for retro fashion, the black-with-white-polka-dotted bottom was high-waisted, and a matching top covered her small breasts fully, halter straps tied in a big bow behind her neck.
“So, does a person wear shoes while paddleboarding?”
He looked down at her feet, which should have provided some relief, but the bright red painted toenails somehow only drove him more crazy. “Keep the flip-flops on for now, and you can leave them on the shore.” He took in the rest of her. “Leave the hat here—you’re likely to lose it to wind, or if you fall in. But the sunglasses should be okay.”
He led her around back where all his water toys lived. “Gary!” he called over the fence. “We’re gonna borrow your board, okay?”
“Sure,” came the reply from beneath the machine. “It’s still at your house anyway, right?”
“Yep.” He hoisted a board under each arm and nodded for her to precede him out of the yard.
“I can carry my own,” she said.
“They’re much heavier than they look.”
“Let me carry it,” she said again, her tone growing annoyed.
He shrugged and handed her the lighter of the two boards. “You carry it under your arm like this, with your fingers curled around the edge.” He tried not to laugh as she staggered under the unexpected weight—the boards really were heavier than they looked. They made it about half a block when she sighed theatrically and set the board down. She was sweating. It was inexplicably cute.
“Look,” he said, “Let me carry it. It’s not a commentary on your worth as a human being. It’s heavy, and you’re—”
“Weak?” she interrupted as if daring him to agree.
“That wasn’t what I was going to say,” he shot back, annoyed that she still thought so little of him. “I was going to say new at this. Plus, this thing probably weighs almost as much as you—no exaggeration. Here, you carry our paddles.”
Pursing her lips, she stepped away from the board. She saw this as a defeat somehow, when really it was simply about the laws of physics. She didn’t like situations she couldn’t control, he knew, but she was being unnecessarily obstinate.
And he was being unnecessarily pissy. But he couldn’t help it. They’d spent so many years at each other’s throats that it was sometimes impossible not to fall back into the old patterns with her. He hoisted a board under each arm and marched on ahead, knowing it was better not to speak.