Back to the Beach (Hunt Family Book 4) (4 page)

Chapter 5

The upper two floors of Dee-dee's house had balconies, but the main deck was attached to the first floor. The house was set up on piers, thus so was the deck. There was a long, wooden staircase leading off the deck to the sandy ground below, and Nico and I made our way down it.

I had been wearing sandals, but I kicked them off at the foot of the stairs so that I could walk barefoot on the beach. There was already a small pile of shoes sitting there from other people who had done the same thing.

"Were you planning on swimming?" Nico asked, watching me stash my sandals near the others.

I smiled and shook my head in answer to his question. "I'm just gonna take a walk," I said.

Nico didn't elaborate on what he was doing. I wondered but didn't ask whether he was planning on coming with me on a walk, or if he was going to hang out on the beach with the others who were already there. I had planned on going alone, so I wasn't counting on him coming with me. I wasn't counting on it, but I wanted him to. I didn't say as much.

There were a few people sitting in chairs near the shore, and another small group standing in the water far enough out that their ankles were submerged. I smiled and waved at both groups when they caught sight of us, and Nico did the same.

"I'm gonna head this way," I said, still unsure of what Nico was doing. I glanced at him, and he smiled at me.

"I thought I'd come with you if you don't mind the company," he said.

I shook my head. "I don't."

We walked between the groups that were gathered on the beach. The ones who were standing in the water were far enough away that I didn't think they could hear me, but I spoke to Andy and Willow and their bunch, who were sitting in chairs. I pointed down the shoreline and told them we were going for a walk and would be back in a little while.

"Where are you going?" Ryan yelled, running up from behind us a few seconds later.

I turned and smiled at her as she approached. She had on a swimsuit and her curly, sandy-blonde hair was blowing in the wind.

"Nico and I are taking a walk," I said, smiling at how adorable she was. "You wanna come with us?"

She looked over her shoulder in the direction of Paige before focusing on me again. "My mom said I only have five more minutes before I have to go in. Can it only take five minutes?"

"We'll probably be gone longer than that," I said, "but I'll bring you on a nice, long walk tomorrow if that sounds all right to you."

She smiled and nodded at me before squinting up at Nico. "What's your name again?"

He stooped down. "Nico," he said, gently pinching at her bathing suit-covered belly.

"Like Nico-lo-de-on?"

He smiled. "Yep."

"Are you my cousin?" she asked.

"I've been friends with Logan for a long time," he said, still smiling at her. "I think I might be your adopted cousin if that's okay with you."

She nodded. "Yep it is," she said. "I'm adopted, too."

"You are?" he asked. "Not by my dad, but by my mom," she said.

"I figured because I met you and your dad before, but this is my first time meeting your mom."

"She's been my mom for two years," Ryan said.

Nico ruffled her hair as he stood up. "That just shows how long it's been since I've seen you," he said.

Ryan nodded seriously as if she was taking everything in.

"I guess we'll see you in the morning, peanut," I said, reaching out to mess up her hair like Nico had done.

"Okay," she said with a huge smile. Without another word, she turned and ran back to the group who was standing near the water. Paige waved at me when she saw Ryan approaching, and I waved back before turning to head the opposite direction.

"I want one just like that," Nico said.

"One what?" I asked.

"A kid."

"You want
kids
?" The way I asked the question must have made it obvious that I was shocked by the idea, because it made Nico laugh.

"Yes," he said as we walked.

I thought he might elaborate, or at least give me some sort of time frame for when he was interested in starting said family, but he didn't. "You sure you don't already have some out there you don't know about?" I asked, joking around with him. We glanced at each other as we walked, and he shot me a little smirk like I was mean for saying such a thing. I smiled as I fiddled with the end of my braid that was hanging over my shoulder. We walked several paces in silence before he spoke again.

"I think you might have the wrong idea about me," he said.

"How do you know what ideas I have?" I asked.

"Because you just said one of them."

"What was that?"

"That I have random children being born all over the place."

I laughed. "I hope they're not all over the place," I said, in the same joking manner I'd been using.

"That's the thing," he said. "I'm not sure why you think I have them at all."

We were both smiling, but I sort of felt bad. "I'm just messing with you," I said. "I thought you knew you were a ladies man."

He shot me a sideways smile and lifted an eyebrow. "You called me a
ladies man
just now."

"It's nicer than calling you a player."

"A player?" he asked, as if he was surprised and maybe a little hurt by the word.

"Oh, come on, Nico, don't act like you've ever had a girlfriend for longer than a week."

"What do you know about my girlfriends?"

I let out a humorless laugh as we continued to walk. "That they're numerous," I said.

"Numerous, huh?"

"Yep."

We walked for a little while in comfortable silence before I said, "Not that I'm judging or anything, you can have a different girlfriend every day of the week for all I care."

Why did I say that?
Even as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. I
did
care how many girlfriends he had—I cared very much. Anything I said to the contrary was a defense mechanism. I knew it from a Psychology class I had taken in college. I wanted to hurt him before he had the chance to hurt me.

He elbowed my arm gently as we walked. "I might not be as despicable as you think," he said.

"You're probably not," I said. "It just makes things easier if I assume you are."

"Why would that make things
easier
?" he said. "It seems like it makes them harder."

I giggled. "It depends on what you're trying to accomplish, I guess."

"And what is it you're trying to accomplish, Mia?" he asked.

"Just a nice, friendly week at the beach house."

"I guess the key word there is friend," he said.

I didn't answer. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other.

"If there's one thing I can do, it's take a hint," he said.

My heart dropped at his statement. Basically, I had just told him I wanted nothing more than friendship with him, and he agreed to it.

For crying out loud, what had I done? Why couldn’t I go back and erase everything I had just said?

I spent the next ten or fifteen minutes beating myself up on the inside while holding a conversation with Nico and trying to seem fine on the outside. We talked about everything and nothing as the sun went down and it went from dusk to dark. He was kind and funny, and I was devastatingly charmed, yet again.

"That's my friend's house," I said, when we came to the stretch of beach where we could see Travis's mansion. It was impressive despite being difficult to see at night. I was secretly hoping to push Nico's buttons by mentioning it.

"Who? Oh, you mean that guy, Troy?" he asked casually.

"Travis," I said, trying not to smile at his mistake, which was clearly intentional.

Nico didn't even bother looking toward the house, and that made me want to smile even more.

"I can walk back alone if you need to stop and see your boyfriend," he said.

I slowed my pace as he spoke, and we stopped completely by the time he finished.

"I was just thinking about heading back," I said.

The moon was bright, and I could clearly see him even though it was dark. My eyes fell onto the strong bones of his face. I just loved the structure of it. His eyebrows, nose and jaw were sleek and masculine. He had probably turned out to be the very thing his father was hoping for. Flawless. I looked him in the eye, which was a mistake. His light green eyes looked right through me, making me glance away almost instantly.

"You sure you don't need to stay and say 'hi' to your man?" he asked.

"He's not my boyfriend," I said, absentmindedly making circles in the sand with my toe. "I definitely don't need to stay." I paused and looked around. "I wasn't even planning on walking this far."

I glanced at him, and he gave me a little smile before taking the first step toward Dee-dee's. Nico and I walked slowly, and it took us about half-an-hour to make our way back to the house. We told stories about things that happened to us when we were younger. One story would remind us of another, and we'd end up getting completely off track. We talked and cracked up the whole time.

I could see Dee-dee's house in the distance when Nico reached out and gave a light pinch to my elbow with his knuckles. "We should probably just go ahead and get it over with," he said.

I glanced at him with a confused expression as we walked slowly.

"It'll be best to do it way out here where we won't get caught."

"Do what?" I asked. I glanced at the ground again, thinking he would answer while I was looking away, but he didn't, so I looked at him. We just stared at each other as we walked at a snail's pace down the shore. "What?" I repeated, causing him to smile.

"Never mind," he said, with a little shake of his head.

"Never mind what?" I asked.

"If you don't know what I'm talking about, then it wouldn't have worked out anyway."

He couldn't possibly be talking about kissing me, could he? It was the very first thing that crossed my mind, but I thought there was no way that's what he meant.

"Fine," I said, shrugging and doing my best to call his bluff. "Your loss."

"How do you know it's my loss if you don't even know what I was talking about?" he asked.

I smiled and shrugged again. "It's your loss for not telling me," I said. "You should have just gone ahead and done what you were talking about."

"It's not something you do without permission," he said.

By this point, our pace had slowed to the point where it could best be described as standing completely still.

"It's probably best that we don't, anyway," he continued.

"Why not?" I asked, growing more certain by the second that he was referring to kissing me.

"One part of me knows you want to keep your distance, and the other part knows there's something going on. I guess I just thought maybe we could try to get it out of our system so we can leave each other alone about it, but it's probably a bad idea."

My body was buzzing with nervous anticipation. Time had done nothing to weaken my feelings for this man. I was so attracted to him, I felt like I could just burst.
Why couldn't I just throw myself into his arms and force him to catch me?

"Yeah, it's probably a bad idea," I said, dazedly after a few silent seconds.

"What's a bad idea?" he asked, knowing he never said specifically what he was going to do.

"Getting whatever it is out of our system," I said.

He was standing right next to me, and because he was a good six or eight inches taller, I was forced to look up at him. The closer he came, the more I had to lift my chin. Before I knew what was happening, we were just standing there staring at each other—so close that I could feel the warmth radiating off his body. My eyes were drawn to his lips, which were full, and curved with a perfect little divot at the top.

"The longer I look at you, the more difficult this becomes, Mia." He reached up and touched my hairline like he might tuck some hair behind my ear. The warmth of his hand had me feeling like I might melt into the sand and slip into the ocean.

"Maybe we should just get it out of our system," I said. It was hard to find my voice as I made the statement, and it came out as little more than a whisper.

"What'd you say?" he asked. He ducked and placed his ear near my mouth so I could repeat what I had said. His ear was only an inch or two from my mouth. He smelled amazing, and I was overwhelmed with the feeling of wanting to be close to him—to touch him. I put my hand on his shoulder for balance because I felt I might just fall over any second.

"Nothing," was the only word that came out of my mouth when I opened it.

"Because I thought you said we should get it out of our system," he said, pulling back slightly to stare down at me.