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It doesn’t even qualify as touching. He’s carefully not touching me, in fact—his fingertips brushing lightly through my hair without even reaching my scalp.

Reaching up, I wrap my own fingers around his wrist and meet his gaze.

His eyes light up at the contact, so I tug him forward and tip my chin up.

I’m done overthinking this. I want to kiss him.

Nate leans down and presses his smiling mouth to mine, gentle and barely there. A proper first-date hello kiss, and not the kiss I really wanted. When I scowl, he laughs and comes back for another, lingering this time around. God, had I really forgotten the way he tastes?

Gently extracting his arm from my grip, he slides his palm against mine and squeezes my hand. I answer the question in his eyes before he can voice it.

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

He positively beams, tugging on my hand to pull me into motion. He walks sideways down the stairs, glancing down at his feet before looking back up as though he doesn’t want to take his eyes off me.

“How was your morning?” he asks, drawing my attention away from where my hand is still held firmly in his. Nate’s almost holding on to me too tightly, as if he’s worried I won’t be there if he lets go.

His hand is warm from the heat of the day and our shared body heat.

I can feel the scratch of his calluses catching on my skin.

Three months ago this would have bothered me.

I would have been unable to think beyond the possibility of his palm becoming sweaty.

I wouldn’t have let him hold my hand in the first place, worried about the risk of it making me feel like shit.

“My morning was good,” I answer him belatedly. “How was yours?”

“Awesome. I’ve been up since four a.m. Way too excited about today to sleep.”

When we reach his truck, he uses our hands to pull me behind him so he can open my door for me.

I roll my eyes, pretending not to find this as charming as I do.

He closes the door as well, waiting until I’m seated before shutting it and jogging around the front of the vehicle.

He looks so excited, face bright and cheeks already flushed with joy.

Before I can start drooling, I look away and busy myself with clicking my seat belt into place.

“All right,” he mumbles, situating himself in the driver’s seat. “You ready?”

“Depends on what we’re doing,” I reply, fishing for information.

“Not yet,” he admonishes. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

As we drive, Nate continually glances over at me while we chat.

I keep trying to turn the conversation toward him by asking about what he did over the summer, his classes, hockey—anything to get him to talk so I don’t have to.

He doesn’t take the bait, though. Instead, he answers my questions before turning them around and firing twice as many back at me.

We’ve only been driving for fifteen minutes, and I feel like I’ve already talked more than I have in the past month.

“Wow, I can’t believe you guys grew up like that,” Nate says about me and Max, shaking his head in wonder.

“It was great,” I tell him honestly. And then, because I’m proud of my best friend, I add, “Max speaks Spanish fluently, did you know that?”

“Holy shit, no,” Nate replies, sounding suitably impressed. “Just from…being part of your family?”

I smile at that. “Yeah. We don’t use English at home, and a lot of my relatives don’t speak it at all. Max spent so much time with us, he just picked it up. He can’t read or write, but if you talk to him, he’ll understand and be able to talk back.”

“Wow. That’s impressive. I can’t even tell you how excited I would have been to have a kid my age around on the ranch.”

“No other kids at all?” Nate shrugs.

“I mean, I had some friends that were close in age and we spent a lot of time together, but mostly I was out with the hands. Not a lot of kids on a ranch.”

“The hands?” I ask. He shoots me a grin.

“Ranch hands,” he explains. “Around the time I was seven or eight, my uncle was able to hire some people on to help. Most are seasonal nowadays, but there are a few guys who stay year-round. Farm kids start work as soon as they’re able to walk, so I didn’t really notice the fact that there weren’t others around. ”

“Tell me about it,” I urge him.

He does, so I sit back in my seat and tip my head to keep him in view.

Finally succeeding in getting him talking, I settle in to bask in his presence.

He’s painfully and unfairly lovely. A voice meant for radio, and a face meant for the big screen.

His tan skin is broken up here and there by freckles and scars, little blemishes that should detract but merely add to his appeal.

Again, the thought of how unsuited I am for him nudges its way into my mind.

I can’t imagine what he sees when he looks at me; can’t imagine anything about myself that would make someone like Nate look twice .

“Uh-oh,” he says, drawing my attention away from the shine of his hair in the sunlight and back to his eyes. He’s blonder than he was last time we got together, the brown threaded with highlights of gold. Nate glances at me, before looking back at the road. “What’s that face for?”

“Nothing.” I shake my head. I’m not about to explain my insecurity to him on the first date. Or ever, probably.

We drive for a little longer until Nate pulls into a beach access lot and kills the engine.

I’m not surprised, having puzzled out that this was likely where we were headed given the instructions to wear boardshorts.

I really hope we aren’t about to go out on a boat, though.

I’d confirmed there would be no swimming, but being in a boat isn’t much better.

Either way, I’d still be in the middle of the fucking ocean.

“Nate…”

“Trust me,” he requests, unclicking his seat belt with a smile and leaning across the center console. He stops midway, but the desire behind the gesture is clear. Pulling off my own seat belt, I lean forward and meet him the rest of the way.

He huffs in surprise when I kiss him, but wastes no time in grabbing my face and keeping me there.

My skin tingles at the press of his palms against my cheeks, but it’s not unpleasant.

Unfortunately, before I can truly let go of my anxiety and enjoy the kiss, Nate is pulling away.

He gentles his grip on my face, and uses it to tip my head downward so he can press his lips to my forehead as well.

It feels like all the blood in my body rushes to my head, leaving me woozy and off-balance.

God, who does something like that? Not anyone I’ve ever dated, that’s for sure.

“Come on,” he says, letting me go and sliding out of the truck. I hop out on my side of the vehicle, surreptitiously pressing fingers to my face. See? Nothing bad happened. You can let people touch you and everything will be fine, I soothe myself, already worried about being able to maintain this.

I meet Nate at the back of his truck, eyebrows flinging upward when I see what he’s got in the bed. He grins, sweeping an arm out dramatically.

“Ta-da!” he exclaims, like a gameshow host unveiling a prize.

“Fishing? Wait.” I glance behind me at the beach, listening for the soft crash of waves in the distance. “Are we surf casting? For a date?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, looking pleased with himself.

Thank you, Max, I think, as I help Nate carry everything he brought. I love fishing, because it’s a largely silent pastime. Calm, instead of the hectic race my life seems to be sometimes.

Nate walks next to me, close enough that his arm brushes mine when he moves to adjust the folding chairs slung over his shoulder.

I pull back involuntarily, my brain automatically warning me that his skin might be damp with sweat.

He doesn’t notice, too busy scanning the beach for a good place for us to set up.

“What do you think?” he asks me, and I shrug. I have no idea.

“There?” I point down the beach a little way, at what I judge to be a suitable distance from the few people lounging in the sand.

“Perfect,” he agrees genially. Shifting his load, he frees up his right hand and holds it out to me, palm facing upward.

I stare at it for a minute, once more thinking about the possibility of his skin being too warm; too clammy with the heat of the day and the humidity on the coast. But then I think of my therapy sessions over the summer, and the way Nate kissed me in the car.

I like the way it feels when he touches me—am I really going to miss out on that on the off chance he might be a little sweaty?

Inhaling, I slide my hand into his and thread our fingers together. He squeezes my hand and aims a smile my way that feels like the sun shining directly on my face.