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“Am I ever not?”

“Tell me the truth.”

“No. I’m not…” She sighed, raking her fingers back through her hair. “I just need to get back to shore. And breathe. And… how…” She frowned, opening the zipper and looking out. “Er… how do we move?”

“Oh, you tie a rope to it before you leave shore, so you don’t drift away and you can pull it back.”

“And you… didn’t bring that up before we left with no rope?”

“Oh yeah.” I cocked my head. “I didn’t really think about it. Ms. Connelly didn’t give you one?”

“Nope.”

I laughed. “She’s a forgetful woman.”

“I’m glad this is funny to you. Now what do we do?”

Stay with me and we can drift away together.That sounded romantic. Did I want that? Romance with Harper? The idea left me churning, and I couldn’t figure out why. Wasn’t love supposed to be hit-you-over-the-head obvious?

Not that it mattered. I’d pissed her off and she was trying to storm away.

“Paddle,” I said.

“Son of a bitch. I’m going to look like a fucking idiot.”

“I’ll get out and push. I always look like a fucking idiot.”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “In your nice new clothes?”

I shrugged off my coat and tugged my cap off, pulled the elastic out of my hair, and I pulled my leggings off, down to my swimwear bottoms. Harper blushed, looking away.

“I—Paisley. Tell me before you get naked.”

“It’s a bikini, you dork. I know you’re not gonna faint at the sight of a girl in a swimsuit.” I took off into the water, mostly just grateful for an opportunity to not have to look at Harper right now. Or maybe for her not to look at me.

This bucket journey sucked. And it was my fault. And—really, how didanythinghave the audacity to be Paisley Macleod’s fault?

Chapter 11

Harper

At least Dingo wouldn’t judge me. The whole world would judge me before Dingo did.

I stepped into Jeremy’s pub, suddenly surrounded by the smell of beer and fried food—the exact smell I needed to lose myself in after Paisley being so damn oblivious I wanted to cry—and I nodded to Dingo, the big guy in a leather jacket on the far end, hunched over his laptop and wearing sunglasses. Never got the guy’s deal—I don’t think I’d ever heard him say a word—but no one in Bayview doubted he was a good soul. When I’d sprained my ankle my first summer in Bayview, he’d happened by where I was sitting nursing my injury by the side of the trail, and he’d hoisted me up in one arm as easily as if I was a doll and walked stoically with me back to town.

Jeremy said he was in here all the time for his side job of writing romance novels. I’d have believed either that or that he was hacking government servers to bring down the world order, but nothing in between. Either way, he nodded back at me, pausing to take a swig of his beer and go back to writing.

“You’re looking down in the dumps,” Jeremy said, standing up from where he was cleaning out the fridge under the counter. “Weren’t you closed today, for once in your life? Something happen?”

“Truth be told, Paisley just told everyone I was closing today so that she’d get an opportunity to show me something. And with everyone thinking I was closed, I figured there was no point opening anyway, since nobody would come in…”

He laughed. “Was it worth seeing?”

God, was it ever. I wasn’t even sure what it was about her all dressed up that way that had made me weak in the knees. It was easy to say it was just a good look on her, or even just that I liked a girl with a keen sense of style, but… there was more to it than that. She looked cute in her regular stuff, too, drowning in big hoodies and big glasses and big hair. Just… something about how she’d looked today…

“It was something she very well could have shown me after my shift.”

“Shocker. Well, it’s your first day off all year, as far as I’ve heard, so… better treat yourself to something good. What can I get you?”