Chapter 10 #2
Susie headed off down the sand with a spring in her step, and Kendra followed. Lucas fell into step beside her, but Kendra didn’t look at him. She was still recovering from that brief but intense kiss.
“Did she say Divorce Beach?” Lucas asked, his voice low.
“I think so.”
“Sorry about the kiss, by the way. I didn’t see a way to say no.”
“Oh, it’s fine.” Kendra could feel her blush deepening, and she began to fiddle with a strand of her hair.
“I’ve never had my kissing skills described as only ‘fine’ before, but I guess I’ll take it.” His tone was teasing.
Kendra glanced at him, still blushing. “I’d say five out of ten.” It wasn’t true, not at all, but she wasn’t about to admit to him how much the kiss had made her heart race.
“You wound me.” Lucas clapped a hand to his chest dramatically, and Kendra couldn’t help grinning. “It’s a good thing we’re going to Divorce Beach now.”
“Because you’re going to divorce me?” Kendra asked.
“I would, but I think we’d have to get married first…” Lucas winked, and Kendra grinned. She hadn’t seen this side of him yet. He seemed more like a goofy guy than the distant jerk he’d been until now. Maybe the kiss had softened him a little, too.
“My question,” Kendra said, “is about what we’ll find on Divorce Beach. Lover’s Beach was full of couples, so will Divorce Beach be full of people who just ended their marriages?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Lucas said. “Let’s keep our eyes out.”
Divorce Beach, it turned out, was just a regular beach.
A couple of kids played in the water, squealing with delight as the waves washed over them.
There were people sunbathing while listening to music or reading, and a few families were barbecuing.
The food smelled delicious, and Kendra realized she was getting hungry.
The sugar rush from the Coke wouldn’t keep her going for long.
“Would you like to swim before we go back?” Susie asked. Kendra glanced at the water, which did look very inviting. Still, she wasn’t exactly excited to get back in the water after swallowing so much of it the day before. She shook her head.
“No, that’s okay,” Lucas agreed. “We can swim in the pool back at the resort. Right, babe?”
“Right,” Kendra said. It still felt very strange for Lucas to call her by a pet name, even though she knew it was all part of the show. “Honey.”
They got back in the car and headed toward the resort again.
As they drove, Lucas pulled his phone back out and stared at it with a pinched, worried expression.
Kendra wondered yet again what was so very fascinating.
For her part, she was drawn to the view out the window of palm trees, resorts, and small houses with flowers in the yards.
When they got back to the resort, they had a quick lunch at one of the restaurants before heading up to their room to freshen up.
“I would call that a successful trip,” Lucas said, flopping onto the loveseat and taking out his phone.
“Me too,” Kendra said, images of their kiss flashing through her mind again. He’d joked with her, too, which was new. “But you seemed to be more focused on your phone than anything else.”
“Yeah.” Lucas glanced at the phone in his hand. “It’s important to keep up with things, you know?”
“Not really,” Kendra said. Her phone was still waiting in the drawer of the bedside table. By now, there were probably a dozen or more messages from concerned friends and family that she couldn’t deal with right now.
“That’s true.” Lucas frowned. “I’ve barely seen your phone.”
“There are more important things than being reachable all the time,” Kendra said.
She didn’t really want to talk about why she wasn’t checking her phone, so she grabbed her e-reader and headed out onto the balcony.
She needed a little space from Lucas, especially after their kiss.
It was just for show, she reminded herself sternly.
There was no point getting all swoony over a guy who was rude, selfish, and would only be in her life for a very short time.
Things hadn’t even worked out with Aaron, and he’d been perfect — on paper, at least.
Kendra tried to read, but most of the books on her e-reader were romances, and she wasn’t in the mood right now to read about people falling in love and getting married. Not when her own love life was in shambles. Eventually, she gave up and went back inside.
“Want to go swimming?” she asked Lucas, hands on hips. “I would go on my own, but I’d get a bunch of funny looks.”
Lucas looked up from his phone. “Yeah. Okay.”
So, they changed into swimwear and headed downstairs.
Kendra did her best not to stare at Lucas in his swim trunks, with his muscular chest and shoulders on full display.
Down at the pool area, she let her cover-up fall onto a beach chair and dove smoothly into the water.
It closed over her head, refreshing and cool, and she enjoyed the feeling of being weightless before coming up for air.
When she turned, Lucas was watching her.
“What are you looking at?” she called to him, half-teasing.
“I’m making sure you can really swim.” He dove in after her, coming up beside her. “After the kayaking fiasco yesterday, I didn’t want to leave you unattended. Just consider me your personal lifeguard for the rest of the trip.”
“May I remind you that the kayaking fiasco was completely your fault?” Kendra pointed out.
“I’ll take, maybe, twenty percent of the blame. Maybe.”
“Eighty.”
“Thirty.”
“Seventy.”
“Fifty.”
“Fine.” They looked at each other, half-smiling. It was strange to joke with this man whom she knew nothing about, this man who had kissed her. This man who had mostly been nothing but rude. Why overthink it, though? She would try to have fun.
In the spirit of fun, she splashed a wave of water at him. Lucas shook his head, water flying everywhere.
“How dare you?” His tone was teasing.
“That’s payback for the fifty percent of the kayak fiasco that was your fault.”
“I see.” Lucas splashed her back. “Then this is for the other fifty percent.”
“Oh, you’ll regret that.” For once, Kendra wasn’t trying to be the person someone else wanted her to be. Why should she? So, she dove underwater, grabbed one of Lucas’s legs, and pulled it up so that he fell back into the pool. He came up, brushing water from his hair and grinning.
“No one’s done that to me since I was about eleven,” he said.
“I don’t think I’ve ever done that,” Kendra said. “But it was very effective.”
“Not as effective as this.” He went underwater and pulled both of Kendra’s legs up. She flipped backward and, when he released her legs, completed an underwater somersault.
“That was impressive.”
“I know.” Kendra flicked her wet hair over her shoulder. “Thanks. So, where was this pool that you played in as a kid?”
“Is that your confusing way of asking me where I grew up?” Lucas chuckled, resting his arms on the side of the pool. Kendra paddled over to join him, and they looked out over the ocean.
“Maybe.” She winked, but she was curious to find out if Lucas would actually answer. He’d shut down quickly when she’d asked about anything personal before.
“I grew up in a small town in Missouri,” he said. “You wouldn’t have heard of it.”
“Really?” Kendra’s eyebrows rose. “I’d have pegged you for the kind of guy who lived in LA all his life.”
“Have you?” he asked. “Lived in LA all your life, I mean?”
“Uh-huh.” Kendra nodded. She felt like a detective, stringing together scraps of information about this stranger. He owned a vacation house in Cabo. He had grown up somewhere in Missouri. He was running away from something. Eventually, maybe she’d have enough scraps to piece together his story.
Maybe.
“Did you like growing up in LA?”
“Oh, yeah.” Kendra nodded. “It was great. I was in the ocean almost every day as a kid.” Lucas raised his eyebrows, and she splashed him. “I was. I love swimming. The whole thing with the kayak was a one-off.”
“Sure, sure. Whatever you say.” Lucas winked, so she splashed him again.
“Did you like growing up in Missouri?”
“It was okay.” Lucas paused. “It was nice, sometimes. My childhood had a very small-town feel — summers swimming in the pool and riding bikes with my friends and barbecuing; winters spent in school, building snowmen, and all that.”
“That sounds really nice.” Kendra paused. “So, how exactly did you go from quintessential small-town boy to jerk who doesn’t let women go first in line?”
“Hey!” This time, it was Lucas who splashed her. “That line thing was one hundred percent your fault. You’re the one who ran into me, and I was there first.”
“Ha, no way!” Kendra shook her head. “That one was definitely your fault. You had a chance to be nice, but oh, no, you wouldn’t do that.”
“Wow.” Lucas chuckled. “I think we’ll have to go for a fifty-fifty split on the blame for that one, too.”
“Fine. I guess so. But that’s just because I’m feeling generous today.”
“And because I saved your life yesterday.”
“Yeah, right.” Kendra rolled her eyes. “You saved me from a situation you created!”
“If I may remind you, we agreed that the whole kayak thing was fifty percent your fault.”
“I don’t know… We may have to revise that.”
Lucas splashed her again, and Kendra laughed.
It was easier to talk to him now that they were teasing each other.
Maybe this was the secret to a semi-enjoyable two weeks.
They hung out in the pool a little longer, mostly splashing each other and joking around, before Lucas glanced at the time on his smart watch.
“We’d better go back upstairs. I need to check my phone before dinner.”
“Of course you do,” Kendra muttered. They’d been having a nice time, or so she’d thought, but the phone was still more important.
That was another important scrap of information. Whatever was going on with Lucas, he really liked that phone.