Page 43 of The Paradise Plan

Blake’s eyebrows went up.Do you want to break up?

Like you said, I’m not really feeling things between us either.

Blake didn’t know how to respond to that.Should he confirm that he’d gotten the text?Like,Great.We’re not together anymore.Thanks for the good times.

That sounds so ridiculous in his head, and he didn’t let his fingers type that out.

Okay, he did type.Well, no hard feelings?

None, she said, and just like that, Blake tucked his phone under his leg and looked over to Lauren again.She sat about twenty feet from him, which was close enough to observe without being creepy or too obvious.

She wore almost no red, but plenty of blue and white.Only her shoes were a crimson canvas with a white star on the top, and he found her classic and sophisticated.He hadn’t spoken to her much last year, but he knew she worked in the corporate world too, just like him.

He wondered if she had a boyfriend, but she’d never brought anyone to Hilton Head with her.Of course, taking a trip together from Texas to South Carolina would require a very serious boyfriend, and she could have a new boyfriend or one she wasn’t ready to take trips with back in Texas.

Someone like her… She couldeasilyhave a boyfriend back in Texas.Probably two or three.

He stopped his thinking there, because Grant returned with his mother’s lemonade, and he pulled his chair up next to Blake.“So,” Grant said.“Bea has her Supper Club tomorrow, and I was thinking we should grill at Harrison’s.”

“Is that what you were thinkin’?”Harrison asked.

“I bought all the food this afternoon,” Grant said with a grin.“I have Shelby, so kids are welcome.”He looked at Blake.

“Tommy’s with his mother,” Blake said, to which Grant nodded.

“Just us then,” he said.

“I can invite Scott,” Harrison said, lifting his eyebrows.“Anderson.”

“Sure,” Grant said.“I’ll text Oliver too.He’s usually down for a good barbecue, and he can bring smoothies to keep us cool.”

A plan came together, and Blake simply went along with it.Grant was one step away from Bea, who was intimately connected to Lauren, and Blake just needed to figure out how to erase the distance between them without being too obvious.