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He brings my hand to his chest and lays it flat. Under my palm, his heart pumps steady and strong. “You know what I want next?”

“There’s no kitchen on the boat.”

“I want to jump in the water and wash it all away. And then I want to do it all over again.”

THIRTY-FOUR

lorenzo

“So.”Ruby drags a finger from my lips to my neck and down the center of my chest, a small smile on her lips. She’s in my lap, wearing nothing but my suit jacket draped around her bare shoulders.

“So?”

She hesitates, her gaze trained on her finger on my body. “Any regrets?”

I snort. “Yeah, about five years’ worth. I regret every other girl I wasted time on.”

She gives me a doubtful look but she’s pleased. “Maybe you needed to go through them to get to me.”

“Maybe. Right now I can’t even remember who they were.” I put my hand on top of hers. “You? Regrets?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“No regrets. But do you worry—even a little bit—things will change now?”

“Nope.”

She gives me anAre you serious?look. “Not even a little? Everyone knows sex changes friendships.”

“Does that apply when you stopped being friends a long time ago?”

“We’re still friends, though. Best friends. That’s the foundation for everything we are.”

“Yeah, okay.But it still doesn’t apply to us.”

“How do you figure?”

“When has this friendship ever followed the rules? When we were kids, everyone said our friendship would change as soon as we hit middle school, and they were wrong. When we went to high school, they said we’d drift apart because boys and girls can’t stay close like that, and they were wrong. This friendship isn’t like anything else. We’ve never done what anyone expected us to. Nothing could change us, Ruby.”

“How do you know?”

“Because if we weren’t best friends, I wouldn’t be me.”

Her lips form a quavery smile that seems to teeter on the edge of collapsing into crying. She inhales sharply and sighs. Then she rests her head on my shoulder, and I hold her there. She smells delicious, like perfume half washed away by sweat.

I run my hand up her thigh and push my jacket aside so I can admire the sweet curve of her ass. With only the lights of the boat, I almost miss the dark ink marring the smooth skin of her butt cheek. I lean over for a closer look. It’s a tattoo of an anchor. Her smile is a little sheepish when I look back at her.

“Don’t make me explain.”

“It’s pretty self-explanatory, right? It’s about the boat.”

She nods. “And about you.”

About you.Like every tattoo I’ve seen on her. Awe washes over me to realize the depth of her devotion and how much I’ve taken it for granted. How close I came to losing it all. If she hadn’t asked me to choose her, would I still be sitting on the sidelines and watching her give her devotion to someone else?

Ruby’s head drops back to my shoulder. I could easily fall asleep like this, but she’s still got energy coursing through her. I can feel her trying not to squirm in my arms.