I sighed, and that only made him grin more.

“Am I annoying you?”

Was he annoying me? It was the furthest from the truth in a way. And I told him so. “No. You’re just—” I waved my hand a second before dropping it. “You’re so nice to me.” Even though you don’t tell me things.

His laugh almost eased the ache away. “Am I supposed to be mean to you?”

“No.” I snickered.

There was a smirk on his face as he turned his back to me to head into the water, when he threw over his shoulder, “If you decide you need to jump on my back today, give me a warning, will you?”

My mouth might have dropped open for a second before I blinked at him. “Has anybody else ever told you what a pain in the you-know-what you are?”

Aaron stopped walking and tossed that blond head back to laugh. “Yeah. Except you’re the only one who’s ever called it a ‘you-know-what.’”

“Ha, ha,” I joked, starting to follow his path. “It’s something to work on, I’m just throwing that out there.”

He snorted and glanced over his shoulder, a small smile on his face. “Lessons with Ruby at 8:00 a.m.”

I was at his side when I nudged him with my hip. “Shut up and show me what we’re looking for.”

“Need a hand?”

I froze with my elbow in the air, my hand just barely touching the back of my neck as I sat on the edge of the couch in the living area of the beach house with a tube of aloe vera gel balanced on my thigh. Sitting on the recliner to the left of where I was, with the clanking of pots and pans in the background, was Max, leaning back against the seat with an amused smile on his good-looking face. On the love seat to the opposite side were Brittany and Des, who were busy snuggling adorably and watching television. Aaron was in the kitchen, washing the dishes that weren’t going into the dishwasher, following a nice spaghetti meal the seventeen-year-old with only one good arm had managed to make, despite most of us offering to help her out. She’d gone to her room to talk on the phone.

I’d been trying to reapply aloe vera to the achy skin on the back of my neck, which hadn’t gotten more burned after the three hours we’d spent scalloping… but it hadn’t exactly helped either. The problem was, I couldn’t exactly see what I was doing and my arms felt dead after hunting for clams and then following that up by going for a swim.

“Uh,” I kind of muttered to myself for a second, taking in the man that had been sleeping most of his days away. I hadn’t really spoken too much with him on this trip, but… it was fine. “Sure,” I told him, with a shy smile, not wanting to tell him no when he’d offered assistance. I hated when I could tell someone needed help, and when it was offered, they denied it.

With a tip of his chin, the very handsome man that I’d learned through bits and pieces was thirty years old and worked graveyard shifts at a refinery, got up and took a seat on the cushion directly beside me. The side of his knee touched mine, but I didn’t think anything of it as I handed him the tube of gel.

“Thanks,” I said a little weakly, dipping my chin toward my throat to expose the back of my neck.

I heard the tube lid click open and followed by that was the almost farting sound of the gel coming out of the container and onto what I could only imagine was his palm. Seconds later, I felt the cool touch of his gel-covered fingers lightly grazing the nape of my neck and moving around. “I thought Aaron was going to make you wear a scarf or something?” he asked, spreading the gel.

Looking at my ultra-tan thighs from all the sun I’d taken in, I smiled. “He did. This is from two days ago. I think it’s getting better.”

“I guess,” he said, his fingers still moving back and forth in circles and lines across my skin. “It looks painful.”

“Only a little,” I admitted, peeking at him over my shoulder.

Max leveled a smile at me that six months ago would have knocked me off the couch, or at least had me texting someone to tell them all about the hot guy touching me. But now… well, now I felt nothing but appreciation.

“You’re good,” he said, pulling his hand away.

“Thank you,” I told him, taking the tube from him to set it on the side table beside me. Turning back around to face forward, I found a familiar pair of khaki cargo shorts standing nearly directly in front of me.

I didn’t get a chance to say anything before he’d turned himself around and dropped that rounded butt into the sliver of space separating me from Max. Leaning to the arm rest, I lifted a thigh to give him room to sit as his best friend scooted over. Way over. What was he doing? I didn’t need to look around the room to know there were other spots he could have taken instead. Not that I necessarily wanted him to sit somewhere far away, but…

I snickered when he leaned back against the back cushion, wedged so tightly in there that the only way he fit was because Max and I were both crowded into the sides. “What are you doing?” I asked him with a grin once he’d settled in and looked down at me.

He slipped an arm over the back of the couch behind my head. “Sitting down.” I scrunched up my nose at him, and all he did was smile back. “Does your neck hurt?”

“Not really,” I told him honestly. “It’s fine. It was worth it.”