Chapter Four #2
Tyler unscrewed his bottle. “I know.”
“You going to do anything about it?”
“I asked her to leave me alone yesterday.”
“No, she asked you to leave her alone yesterday.”
“Details.”
Jack snorted. “You like her.”
Tyler drank water instead of answering.
“You do,” Jack said, delighted. “You like the woman who threatened to sue you over a volleyball and then baptized you with coffee.”
“She’s interesting.”
“She’s mean.”
“She’s funny.”
“She’s mean-funny.”
Tyler looked at Hailey again.
She turned a page with aggressive dignity.
His mouth curved. “Yeah.”
Jack groaned. “You’re doomed.”
Probably.
Tyler tightened the cap on his water bottle and tossed it into his bag. “Hit one wide.”
Jack’s eyebrows rose. “Excuse me?”
“Not at her,” Tyler said quickly. “Near her.”
“That sounds like the start of a lawsuit.”
“She threatened to sue if the ball touched her. It won’t touch her.”
“You are aware there are normal ways to start a conversation with a woman?”
“Name one.”
“Walk over there.”
“That’s boring.”
“That’s legal.”
Tyler ignored him and backed onto the court.
Jack shook his head, but there was a grin on his face as he served.
The rally started clean. Tyler received, Jack set, Tyler rolled the ball deep. They traded several quick hits, the rhythm easy between them. Then Jack sent the ball wide, exactly as requested, not close enough to be dangerous but close enough to land several feet from Hailey’s towel.
Hailey looked up slowly as the ball bounced near her.
Tyler jogged after it, slowing when he reached her.
“If that ball touches me,” she said, lowering her sunglasses, “I’m suing.”
He stopped and held up both hands. “No contact. I’m improving.”
“Barely.”
He picked up the ball and tucked it against his hip. “Fancy meeting you here again.”
“This is a public beach.”
“And yet you picked the exact stretch with my court.”
“I picked the stretch with the best sun.”
“Convenient.”
“Very.”
Her mouth twitched, and that almost-smile hit him harder than it should have.
Tyler crouched beside her, careful to keep a respectable distance. He had learned several things about Hailey Greenwood in the past twenty-four hours. One, she did not like being crowded. Two, she weaponized politeness when irritated. Three, she looked even more beautiful when trying not to laugh.
Four, he wanted very badly to make her laugh again.
“How’s the book?” he asked.
“Better than yesterday, when someone interrupted it with blunt force trauma.”
“I deserved that.”
“You did.”
“What’s it about?”
She glanced at the cover. “Second chances.”
“Any good?”
“So far, the hero is emotionally constipated, but I have hope.”
Tyler laughed. “Emotionally constipated?”
“It’s a serious condition. Very common in romance novels.”
“What’s the cure?”
“Usually groveling.”
He absorbed that with the solemnity it deserved. “Good to know.”
Her smile appeared for real this time.
Small. Bright. Dangerous.
For a few seconds, Tyler forgot he was crouched in the sand with a volleyball under one arm while his teammate probably watched with open delight.
Up close, Hailey was even more striking.
Big green eyes behind her sunglasses. Soft, sun-warmed skin.
Curves that made the red bikini feel like a direct threat to his better judgment.
Her dirty-blond hair fell over one shoulder, messy from the breeze and somehow more tempting than anything carefully styled had ever been.
But it was not only the way she looked.
It was the contrast that got him.
The sharp mouth and the tired eyes. The polished edge and the softness underneath. The sense that she had spent so long holding herself together that she no longer knew what would happen if she relaxed.
Tyler knew something about pressure.
He knew what it was like to be measured by performance. To have people praise your potential until the word started to feel like an accusation. To live with the constant awareness that you were running out of chances to become who everyone thought you should already be.
Maybe that was why he could not leave her alone.
Or maybe he just liked the way she glared at him.
“You know,” he said, “I still owe you for yesterday.”
“You apologized.”
“Not enough.”
“You apologized approximately one hundred times.”
“I’m willing to make it one hundred and one.”
“How generous.”
“Have dinner with me tonight.”
The words came out before he could refine them, blunt and honest in a way he usually avoided.
Hailey’s expression shifted.
There was interest. He saw it before she could hide it. A flicker of heat, quick and unmistakable.
Then caution slid into place.
“Tyler—”
“One dinner,” he said. “Public place. No volleyballs. No coffee.”
“That does sound safer than our usual interactions.”
“I’ll even sit on the opposite side of the table if you’re worried about accidental beverage attacks.”
Her smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, but it faded too quickly.
“I can’t.”
He tried not to let the disappointment land visibly. “Can’t or won’t?”
She looked away toward the water.
The breeze lifted a few strands of hair across her cheek. She tucked them behind her ear, and something about the smallness of the gesture made his chest tighten.
“I’m here on a solo vacation,” she said. “The whole point is to de-stress. Be alone. Remember what it feels like not to be needed by anyone.”
Tyler nodded slowly.
That was fair.
More than fair.
He had not meant to step into the middle of whatever she was trying to heal. He barely knew her. He had no claim on her time, her attention, or the fragile peace she had flown across the country to find.
Still, the refusal stung.
“I wasn’t planning to need you,” he said.
Her gaze returned to his.
The air between them changed.
The beach noise softened around the edges. The sun, the waves, the laughter nearby—it all seemed to fall back, leaving only the two of them and the awareness humming in the narrow space between their bodies.
“That’s not what I meant,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
He did know.
Mostly.
But a part of him wondered who had needed too much from her. How long she had been carrying everyone else’s messes. What it would feel like to be the person who offered her something simple instead.
Dinner.
A laugh.
A night without expectations.
Behind him, Jack called, “Von! You flirting or practicing?”
Hailey’s eyebrows lifted.
Tyler did not look back. “Multitasking.”
She laughed, and the sound did something reckless to him.
“I should let you get back,” she said.
“Sure.” He stood, brushing sand from one knee. “For what it’s worth, I hope your solo vacation does what you need it to do.”
Her expression softened.
Not much.
But enough.
“Thank you.”
He nodded once and turned toward the court.
He had taken three steps when she called after him.
“Tyler?”
He looked back.
She lifted her book slightly. “Try not to let your emotionally constipated hero complex interfere with practice.”
A grin spread across his face. “No promises.”
He jogged back to the court with the ball tucked under his arm and her laugh behind him.
For the next hour, he played better than he had in weeks.
Hailey stayed on her towel, pretending to read.
Tyler pretended not to notice.
Neither of them was particularly convincing.
By late afternoon, the sun began to lower, softening the beach into gold.
The sharp heat of the day eased into something warmer and lazier, the kind of light that made every surface glow.
Tyler and Jack finished practice with one final drill, and Tyler used the last of his energy on a clean, brutal spike that landed exactly where he wanted it.
Jack whistled. “Where was that last week?”
Tyler bent forward, hands on his knees, breathing hard. “Maybe I needed an audience.”
“Maybe you needed a woman to reject you.”
Tyler straightened. “She didn’t reject me.”
“She said no to dinner.”
“She said she was on a solo vacation.”
“That is polite woman for no.”
Tyler glanced toward her towel.
Empty.
His chest dropped before he could stop it.
Her towel was gone. Her beach bag was gone. Her Stanley, her snacks, her sunglasses—everything had disappeared. Only a faint rectangle in the sand remained where she had been lying.
Jack followed his gaze and, for once, did not make a joke.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s pack up.”
Tyler nodded, irritated with himself for caring.
They were strangers.
Flirtatious, accident-prone strangers, but strangers all the same. Hailey did not owe him dinner. She did not owe him another conversation. She did not owe him anything except maybe a safer distance the next time she carried coffee.
Still, as he gathered his gear, he looked down the beach toward the row of houses and bungalows.
Wondering which one was hers.
Wondering whether she was thinking about him too.
He told himself to stop.
Then he saw the paperback lying half-buried near the edge of the court.
Forget Me Not.
Tyler picked it up.
A grain of sand clung to the heroine’s face on the cover. He brushed it away with his thumb.
Jack came up beside him. “Well, look at that.”
Tyler looked toward the beach path again.
Hailey had forgotten her book.
Which meant he now had a reason to see her again.
Jack’s grin returned slowly. “Do not look that happy. It’s embarrassing.”
“I’m not happy.”
“You’re holding that book like it’s a treasure map.”
Tyler tucked it into his bag before Jack could snatch it. “She’ll want it back.”
“Sure.”
“It’s a bestseller.”
“Of course.”
“She was invested.”
“She was staring at you for most of the afternoon.”
Tyler fought a smile and lost.
Jack laughed. “Completely doomed.”
Tyler slung his bag over his shoulder. “I’m going home.”
“Are you? Or are you about to wander the beach pretending to look for the woman who rejected you?”
“She didn’t reject me.”
“Solo vacation,” Jack said, raising both hands. “Right. My mistake.”
Tyler ignored him and started toward the showers.
But all the way home, with sand in his hair, sweat drying on his skin, and Hailey’s romance novel tucked inside his bag, Tyler could not stop thinking about her.
Not just the bikini.
Though, God help him, the bikini had made an impression.
He thought about her laugh.
Her guarded eyes.
The way her whole face had changed when she said she wanted to remember what it felt like not to be needed by anyone.
He understood wanting to be free from expectation.
He understood it too well.
By the time he reached his apartment a few blocks from the beach, he had made the mistake of opening the book.
There was a bookmark tucked between the pages.
A receipt from Drift.
On the back, in neat handwriting, Hailey had written a note to herself.
Do not check email. Do not fix anyone’s crisis. Stay present.
Tyler stared at the words for longer than he should have.
Then he carefully slipped the receipt back into place and set the book on his kitchen counter.
He would return it.
Tomorrow, if he saw her.
Or tonight, if fate decided to stop being subtle.
***
Across town, Hailey stepped out of the shower, wrapped herself in a white towel, and realized she had made a terrible mistake.
Her book.
She froze in the middle of the bathroom.
“No,” she whispered.
She hurried into the living room, checked her beach bag, then checked it again as if the paperback might appear through the sheer force of denial.
It did not.
Forget Me Not was gone.
Which meant it was either lost to the sand, stolen by a seagull, or sitting somewhere near Tyler Von’s volleyball court.
Hailey pressed both hands to her face.
“Of course.”
Of course she had left the book. Of course it had probably happened after Tyler asked her to dinner and she pretended to be too emotionally evolved to say yes.
Of course the universe, which had already hit her in the head and thrown coffee on him, would now conspire to keep them in each other’s orbit.
Her phone buzzed on the coffee table.
Meagan: How’s the vacation? Are you relaxing?
Hailey looked toward the beach through the window, where the sky had begun to turn peach and lavender over the water.
Relaxing.
Was that what this was?
Her body still felt warm from the sun. Her mind was quieter than it had been in months. Her heart, unfortunately, was doing something strange and fluttery every time she thought about Tyler’s smile.
Hailey typed back.
Hailey: Define relaxing.
Meagan: Oh no. What happened?
Hailey considered the honest answer.
I was hit with a volleyball by a gorgeous beach athlete, spilled coffee on him the next morning, touched his abs in public, watched him practice for an embarrassing amount of time, turned down his dinner invitation, and may have left my romance novel near his court because my life is apparently now being written by someone with a vendetta.
Instead, she wrote:
Hailey: Nothing I can’t handle.
Meagan : That sounds suspiciously like something you cannot handle.
Hailey smiled despite herself and set the phone down.
Her stomach growled.
She looked at the kitchen, then at the sunset, then at the sundress hanging over the back of the bedroom chair.
The owner’s note on the coffee table caught her eye again.
Please enjoy the sunset. It’s the best part.
Hailey exhaled.
She was hungry. She was on vacation. She had not checked her email all day. And there was no rule that said a woman on a solo vacation had to eat every meal alone in her bungalow like a hermit with excellent skincare.
She changed into a soft black sundress, ran a brush through her hair, added lip gloss, then stopped and frowned at herself in the mirror.
“This is not for him,” she said.
Her reflection looked unconvinced.
“It is not.”
Still, she took the gold earrings from her makeup bag and put them on.
A few minutes later, Hailey locked the bungalow door and stepped into the evening air. The beach was quieter now, washed in soft gold and shadow. The volleyball courts stood empty, the day’s chaos replaced by footprints and cooling sand.
She told herself she was not looking for Tyler.
She was going to dinner.
Alone.
At Nightshade, the restaurant the bungalow owner had recommended in the guidebook as “busy, trendy, and worth it if you can get a seat.”
That sounded perfect.
No planning. No pressure. No date.
Just a drink, a cheeseburger, and maybe enough noise to drown out the memory of Tyler asking her to dinner like he actually wanted to know her.
Hailey followed the beachside street toward the restaurant, the sunset at her back and the city lights beginning to glow ahead.
She had no idea Tyler would be there.
She had no idea the woman sitting beside him would make jealousy flare sharp and stupid beneath her ribs.
And she had absolutely no idea that by the end of the night, she would be the one asking him to stay.