Page 33 of Forever & Always You

“I’m dying to know how Zach’s first night with Lily went,” I muse while stacking plates into the dishwasher.

“We should hit the beach today. Invite your brother and his fiancée. Tell them to bring Lily,” Austin suggests, and I waste no time at all reaching for my phone and bullying Zach into agreeing to a beach hang-out.

Being on the coast, we are completely spoiled with gorgeous beaches.

Once when we were on the cusp of being teenagers, Austin and I stayed out way too late down at the beach, still traversing the sandy plains long past sunset, and I remember to this very day the lecture my mother gave me that night when my father eventually found Austin and me.

I wasn’t in trouble so much for staying out late as I was in trouble for staying out late with Austin .

I also stupidly applied sunscreen to my entire body except my face, so I sported a killer sunburn on my nose for days after, and Austin took a peculiar reaction to the long grass we prowled through and broke out in hives, but we sure did have fun that day.

As we drive to the beach now, I ask, “Do you remember—?”

“That time we stayed out too late at the beach?” Austin finishes.

“And I got sunburn—”

“On your nose.”

“And you were—”

“Seemingly allergic to beachgrass.”

We exchange smiles. It will take a lifetime to unpick all of the memories we shared together as kids, but we have forever to do so. We already know each other inside out, and that skips a thousand steps in the dating process. At least I think we’re dating. Are we?

“Question,” I say.

“Shoot.”

“Are we dating?”

Austin looks sideways at me. His voice is soft, gorgeous, addictive. “Do you want us to be dating?”

“I don’t really care what we call it, just as long as we’re something and I haven’t deluded myself entirely,” I babble, feeling the heat blazing over my skin. I have no idea what we are right now.

“I don’t think we’re dating,” Austin says, placing his hand on my bare thigh and sending shockwaves through my body. “Dating is figuring out whether you actually like someone or not, right? But I’ve always liked you, Gabby, so .?.?. We’re something. ”

I nod in a distracted daze. “Okay. Something . Good. Also, I’m going to need you to retract your hand from my thigh.”

Austin’s smile stretches into a devious smirk as he runs his hand higher, his fingertips trailing over my inner thigh and brushing the frayed hem on my jean shorts. “You don’t like this?”

I grab his hand, nearly crushing his fingers beneath my tensed grip. “Austin Pierce, stop trying to seduce me.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s working.” I throw my head back into the headrest and groan out loud. I’m really starting to hate how easily the mere thought of Austin turns me on, let alone when he touches me. “You think we’ll find a sand dune large enough to disappear behind for five minutes?”

“Can’t. Allergic to the beachgrass.”

“Damn allergies,” I mutter.

When we arrive at the beach, Zach and Claire are already there with Lily in tow, gathering lawn chairs out of their car. They were the only application for her, so they were able to take her home last night after Fiona from the shelter did some home checks.

“Lily!” I call, and the miniature poodle’s tiny head pops up in response to her name and she pulls hopelessly on her leash to run to me. “Hi, baby!”

“She’s stronger than she looks!” Claire says with a giggle as she gets dragged over.

I drop to my knees and fuss Lily, even accepting her vulture-breath kisses, and Austin scratches behind her ears.

I like this arrangement—I now get to see Lily any time I want without having had to adopt her myself.

Now that I think about it, I have an aunt in Virginia who is dog crazy .

.?. Maybe I should give her a call and see how she feels about adopting a nice Labrador named Teddy.

“How was your first night with her?” I ask, straightening up as a grumpy Zach approaches with a lawn chair tucked under each arm.

“I rolled over in the middle of the night to give my fiancée a nice kiss on the cheek, only to open my eyes and realize I was kissing a fucking poodle. So, not that great,” Zach mutters, and Lily circles his feet, winding the leash around his legs.

My brows lift in surprise. “You let her in the bed?”

“I had no say in the matter.”

“She was whimpering,” Claire explains, sheepishly batting her eyelashes at Zach.

“If she can play fetch, she might just redeem herself,” he says, and as much as he acts like he detests poor Lily, it is clear in the gentle, thoughtful way he untangles her leash from around his legs that he secretly cares for her.

Claire scoops Lily up into her arms and follows Zach over to the beach, and as I set off in their tracks, Austin nudges his elbow into my ribs with a grin and says, “Lily loves fetching balls.”

It’s the perfect day for the beach. Sunday, with clear skies but mild temperatures and a cool breeze, so it’s pretty packed. We find a quiet spot further along the golden sand—far, far away from any beachgrass—and set up chairs, a parasol and a cooler full of sodas.

“C’mon then, Zach, throw a ball for Lily,” Austin prompts, getting comfortable in a chair and watching in amusement from behind his sunglasses. Half the buttons on his shirt are open, revealing his tanned, trimmed chest, and I fight the urge to salivate. “Look at her. She’s dying to play.”

I sink down into the warm sand next to Austin’s chair, leaning back on my hands and stretching out my bare legs to catch a tan as Claire unclips Lily’s leash.

Zach grabs a ball, hurls it out of sight down the beach—he was a football quarterback in high school, so still has a mean throw even a decade later—and breaks out into a joyful grin when Lily goes bounding after it.

He and Claire cheer as the tiny poodle makes her return, ball in her mouth.

“This was a good idea,” I muse, watching Claire throw the ball this time—though not nearly as far—and then suddenly bolt upright. “Oh! Can you pass over my bag?”

Austin reaches for the backpack I filled before we left his house, but doesn’t hand it over. He searches inside until he finds a bottle of sunscreen, then holds it up suggestively. “Looking for this?”

“I don’t want to burn my nose again .”

“Then stay still.”

He sits forward on the edge of the lawn chair and lathers a small amount of sunscreen in his hands.

I whip off my sunglasses and tilt my chin up, my admiring gaze locked on his.

Gently, he brushes his fingertips over my cheeks, my forehead, my nose, massaging the sunscreen into my skin. It makes my heart soar.

I don’t need Austin to look after me, but it means a lot that he wants to. My father was always the one who looked after me, and although I’m now twenty-four and independent and apparently a grown-up, sometimes I still crave that feeling of being young and protected.

Austin kisses the tip of my nose. “I won’t let you burn. Promise.”

The corners of his eyes crease as he smiles and I gaze into the cool blue of his irises. My throat tightens, an ache in my core that’s like blazing wildfire, an indescribable feeling that hurts in all the ways I need it to.

You think blue eyes are just blue eyes until you fall in love with someone whose eyes are blue, and then, God, how they become so much more.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“It’s just sunscreen,” says Austin.

I shake my head, managing a small tinkle of laughter. “You always looked after me when we were kids, and you still look after me now. Holding my hand at the hospital, giving me a place to stay, helping me get my car fixed .?.?. I haven’t felt this safe since I lost my dad.”

Austin touches his thumb to my chin. “I can only dream of giving you the same life your father did. He was an incredible man who changed my life. The least I can do now is make sure his daughter is taken care of. Anything you need, I’m on it.”

“I think I only need you.”

“You already have me in the palm of your hand, Gabby,” he says, tucking loose curls behind my ear, “just like you did when we were eight years old.”

I stretch up and press my lips to his, a kiss so gentle and endearing that I want to live in it forever.

“Am I interrupting something, Gabs?” I hear Zach ask, and I sheepishly pull back from Austin to find my brother watching us, one eyebrow arched. “Hey, Austin. You mind if I talk to Gabby for a sec?”

“No problem,” Austin says coolly. He squeezes my shoulder as he stands from the lawn chair, setting off across the sand toward Claire and Lily, and Zach sinks into the empty chair to replace him.

“What?” I ask hesitantly, glowering at him through suspicious, narrow eyes.

Zach folds his arms across his chest and disapprovingly asks, “Since when do friends kiss at the beach?”

“Did I forget to update you? I’m so sorry, Zachary!” I say with feigned shock. “Austin’s a little more than a friend. There. All up to speed. Anything else you want to quiz me on?”

Zach rolls his eyes. “Does Mom know? She’ll never allow it. You know she never liked him.”

“ Hello? College dropout, bartender, hellhole apartment, remember? It’s pretty clear by now I don’t care about disappointing her. Besides, she doesn’t care much for Claire, either, and that hasn’t stopped you .”

“That’s true,” Zach agrees with a laugh. He rubs his jaw thoughtfully as he watches Austin wrestle with Lily. “You definitely aren’t on drugs?”

“No!”

“Mom wanted me to ask.”

“Of course she did.”

“To be fair to her, you are acting a bit erratic,” Zach says. “You wanted to apologize to Austin, I get it, but now you’re suddenly dating the guy? I have no idea how he even trusts you.”

“We’ve worked through things,” I say, but I feel my blood boiling at having to justify my relationship with Austin. It’s none of Zach’s business. “I think it says a lot about his character that he’s willing to forgive me. He’s a good guy, and he makes me happy. Can we just leave it at that?”

Zach shrugs. “If you say so. But trash is trash, Gabby.”