Chapter 01 JESSIE
Sunlight glinting off his bare skin… Salt thick in the air.
The alarm on my phone went off, the annoying chiming sound starting low and slowly picking up speed, but my eyes were already open. I reached for the screen, hit snooze, and stared up at the ceiling.
5 a.m.
Fuck.
The sun was still asleep beyond my window as I sat on the edge of the bed, breathing in slow, steady pulls, attempting to calm the tightness in my chest.
You can do this. You’re a brave, ballsy motherfucker. You got this.
My stomach twisted anyway. I kept my eyes on the wall, fingers curled in the sheets. The seconds dragged by until the alarm chimed again.
“Jessie,“
came a rough, irritated mumble from the bed in the other corner of the room. “That fucking thing goes off one more time, and your ass is sleeping on the couch tonight.”
A breathy laugh escaped me. “The event dragged on forever?”
Rory’s hand shot out from under the covers, pointing at the door. “Get the fuck out.”
He was usually charming as fuck—just not before sunrise… or coffee. As he kept muttering about the ass crack of dawn and never getting enough sleep, I grabbed my clothes and slipped out, heading for the bathroom and closing the door as quietly as I could.
We roomed together for a reason, our schedules lining up just right. Rory the bartender and Jay the grill master. A match made in sleep heaven.
Not today, though.
When I stepped into the hallway, I caught sight of Lani and Trevor in the kitchen, hunched over the counter with mugs of coffee, their voices low and lazy with sleep—both of them heading into breakfast shift at the resort. The three-bedroom apartment housing four cooks and a bartender was usually loud and chaotic, but in these early hours, when one shift bled into the next, it felt calm.
For once, I got first dibs on the shower, which meant piping hot water—my usual preference, but it did nothing for me today. I needed something icy cold to snap me out of it, to make me face the day instead of hiding behind routine.
“Good luck,“
Lani called a little while later as I opened the apartment door, ready to leave. There was a knowing glint in her eyes. Meddling little minx.
I grumbled and stepped outside, drawing in a deep breath as the island’s soft summer breeze brushed over my skin.
The drive was tense. I put on the classics—Queen, of course, because Freddie always managed to cheer me up—but my heart still beat a little too fast.
Nothing is ever going to change if you don’t take a risk, Lani’s voice echoed in my head. And she was right. After Sarah and I broke up, which had been the right call for both of us, I had thrown myself into work. A kitchen is the perfect place to hide when you don’t want to feel anything. The more shifts you take, the better the pay, and no one questions it when you’re pulling doubles, especially if you’re a middleman on the line.
I’d already been at the resort for four years, but that last year I worked harder than I ever had. It paid off. A year later, I was still single, but now I was in charge of the grill.
The problem was that once I got there, I couldn’t keep hiding behind extra shifts. Five years into this job, I finally had stability. Routine. A place that felt like it was mine. But all that free time meant I noticed when my bed was empty.
And then, of course, he had shown up at the resort.
So now my overactive brain had latched onto the one guy it had no business fixating on. First, because he was the son of one of the owners, which was a massive no. Then, because he was a he, and even though I had always known I liked guys just as much as girls, I had never actually been with one—a couple of makeout sessions a million years ago notwithstanding.
I really had to get a crush on the hot playboy whose smile looked like fucking sunshine. Fucking perfect, Jessie. Stellar move.
Since I couldn’t ask him out, I made a desperate attempt to get over it by actually dating someone else. Lani had shown me this ad—stranger sessions, a photo shoot where you got matched with someone you’d never met before. I’d worked up the nerve, filled out the form, and now here I was, pulling into a parking space at Pa?akai Beach with my heart in my throat, minutes away from my first blind date. With a guy. Before the fucking sun was up.
I was white-knuckling the steering wheel, staring straight ahead at the line of palm trees blocking my view of the water, when a rap on my window startled me out of it.
“Oh, fuck,“
I breathed.
The woman outside was tall, with long, caramel-colored hair pulled into a messy braid that rested over one shoulder. Her skin was dusted with freckles, visible even in the early light, and she wore cutoff shorts and a loose tank, like she was ready to wade straight into the water if she had to.
I rolled the window down and gave her what was probably the world’s most awkward wave.
“I’m so sorry,“
she said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just saw the car parked and figured it was you. Jessie, right? I’m Sadie.”
“Hi, yeah. Hi.“
I swallowed. “I recognize you from the ad thing. The email. With the pictures and the… you know.“
My fingers twirled in the air, like that cleared up anything. Great, man. You’re really killing it right now.
She smiled anyway. “Would you mind waiting for about ten minutes? The other participant is already here, and I’m almost done setting up.”
“Sure,“
I said too fast. “Yeah. No. That’s fine. I mean, waiting is good. I can do that.”
“Great.“
Her smile widened. “Then we’ll go straight into the reveal.”
“The reveal?“
My voice jumped about three octaves. “Like… a big reveal? Or just, like, you know… ‘Hi, here is this guy.’ Normal stuff.”
She laughed softly and rested her hand against the door. “Normal stuff. Promise it’s not as scary as it sounds. And if you ever feel uncomfortable, just nod in my direction, and I’ll stop everything.”
That helped. A little.
With one last reassuring smile, she headed back toward the beach.
My forehead dropped on the steering wheel. “Fuck…”
Ten minutes later, as the sun finally started to peek over the horizon, my bare feet sank into the sand as I walked onto the beach, my board tucked under one arm, the top half of my wetsuit hanging loose at my hips. My heart was still lodged firmly in my throat. Even more so when I spotted another board propped upright near the shoreline—someone already standing behind it, hidden completely from my view.
Sadie stopped me with a gentle press of her hand to my elbow. “So here’s what we’re doing. We’ll get your board set in front of his and take a couple of shots before you see each other. Then I’ll ask you to move them to the side, and we’ll go from there.”
I stared at her blankly.
“I’ll walk you through it,“
she added. “But most of it is just you being yourself. If I suggest contact or a pose, just check in with each other first, make sure you’re both good, and then we’ll take the picture.”
“Okay,“
I said, a little breathy.
Her body turned, already taking a step.
“Is he, like—”
She stopped, waiting patiently.
My gaze flicked toward the stretch of beach and then back to her. “Like… relaxed?”
“He’s a little nervous too,“
she said with a soft laugh. “And that’s perfectly normal.”
My free hand brushed over my cropped hair, back and forth, like that might somehow calm me down. I nodded to where he was waiting, and we started walking again.
Sadie talked me through where to put my board and where to stand, the shutter of her camera clicking as she took a few shots of my back before moving around us.
It was incredibly nerve-racking, knowing there was a guy right in front of me. A real person. A real, breathing man who had signed up for this too, who was about to take a good look at me and decide… something.
I had checked all the boxes on the form. Yes to touching. Yes to closeness. Yes to whatever this was supposed to be. I just hoped we found each other attractive, because if we didn’t, this was going to be awkward as fuck and somehow still intimate, which felt like the worst possible combination.
Sadie planted her feet at the edge of the water, waves brushing her ankles as she adjusted the camera so it framed both of us. “We’re ready. Count of three, okay?”
I nodded, hands sliding to the edge of my board. I was supposed to move it left. I repeated that in my head like a mantra. Left. Left. Left. Don’t fuck it up.
“One.”
I rolled my shoulders back, tried to breathe.
“Two.”
Oh god—
“Three—”
My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my ears as I dragged the board to the left. I had just enough time to register that I did, in fact, not fuck it up, and then—
There he was.
And my brain kind of shut off.
Gray-green eyes. Taut, muscled skin catching the early light. Short black hair tousled by the morning breeze. A face I’d already seen too many times around the resort—and way too many times on his social media, mid-jump off cliffs, sunburned and grinning like danger was his favorite hobby—now standing right in front of me, looking just as unreal out here on the sand.
Daniel fucking Harding.
Son of Thomas Harding. One of Kahua Kai Resort’s biggest shareholders. The guy I had no business thinking about, let alone standing half-naked in front of before the sun was even up.
My mouth opened.
The shutter clicked.
And what came out was, “Fuck me—”