Page 45 of What I Like About You

“Okay, that sounds like fun,” she answered, a little unsure where he was going with this.

“Kyle asked if I minded hanging on the boat so he could go with Drea, and I was wondering if you’d maybe wanna stay behind with me?”

“More than anything.”

Half an hour later, they pulled up at Trunk Bay Beach, and everyone disembarked from the Brown Eyed Girl. For a brief moment, Zara considered clawing CC’s eyes out as she whined that Dalton wasn’t joining them on the snorkel tour, but stopped herself once she saw how swiftly Dalton shot her down. She knew that it probably shouldn’t make her as giddy inside as it did, but she couldn’t help it. Watching him choose her over the famous model might never get old.

Once they were sure everyone was gone, Dalton cleared a spot on one of the trampolines and sat down, patting the spot next to him for her to join him. Smiling like a small child just given a piece of candy, she lowered herself down, sitting close enough to him that their arms touched.

“I’ve got ten years of Zara to catch up on. Tell me about you.”

“I’ve already told you everything,” she replied skeptically.

“No, you’ve given me the highlight reel. I want everything. Big stuff, little stuff. All the stuff that I would have been the only person you told anyway,” he said, turning his head in her direction. His ocean-blue eyes were full of a kind and loving curiosity, and it made her feel warm inside all over again. “What about all the TV and movies that I haven’t had to suffer through?”

“You didn’t suffer!” she squealed, hitting him lightly with the back of her hand.

“Right, because every teenage boy enjoys knowing the finer details of the drama on Project Runway.”

“That’s actually how I met Antwan. I tried to get creative with an outfit and failed miserably. He sauntered right up to me, told me how bad I looked, and then took me on as a project, trying to fix it.”

“Your own personal Tim Gunn.”

“Something like that. That outfit was the best bad decision I’ve ever made. After what happened between us, I wasn’t sure I would ever have another friend. My freshman roommate wasn’t quite as bad as the girls in high school. At least not to my face. But she also never made any kind of real effort to get to know me either. If it hadn’t been for the atrocious outfit choice, I might have gone through all of college alone.”

“It guts me to think that I wasn’t there for you,” Dalton said as he slipped an arm around her and pulled her close. She snuggled into him, enjoying the closeness. Moments just like this, sitting and talking, curled up together, had been some of her favorites when they were younger. She hadn’t realized just how much she had missed them. “I hate knowing that I caused you so much pain. But I’m glad you two found each other.”

“Thanks. He really helped me figure out who I am.”

“You’ve always known who you are,” he pointed out. “It’s part of what I like about you. You know what you like and what you want. Maybe had I been a little more like that, we wouldn’t have ended up like we did.”

“I don’t know that I’ve always known. And as I’m sure you remember, most of my interests didn’t exactly make me cool. It took me awhile to come to terms with that and to find my place in the world. I’d be lying if I said that you didn’t contribute to that. That maybe if I hadn’t been such a loser, you wouldn’t have said the things you did, but—”

“No,” he cut her off. He placed a tender kiss on top of her head, and she swooned slightly at the gesture. “That was my failing, not yours. And you weren’t a loser. You were just way ahead of the rest of us in terms of not being a vapid, self-centered dumbass.”

Zara laughed at his assessment. “Maybe, but at the time I felt like a loser. My point being…” she trailed off. Where was she going with this? She didn’t even know. She hadn’t meant to drag it all back up again, and truth be told, she didn’t want to dwell on it. She wanted to enjoy the easy camaraderie they had found again. “You know what? I don’t even know what my point was. Why do you let me ramble like this?”

“You’re cute when you ramble.”

“I am not!”

“You are,” he laughed. “You’re cute when you ramble, when you get all flustered because you can’t remember what something is called, and you’re extra cute when you bee-bop around the kitchen singing showtunes while you cook. It makes up for you falling asleep thirty minutes into a movie,” he teased.

“Shut up!” she said, nudging him with her elbow. He let out a mock gasp, as if she had hurt him, and fell over in the process, taking her with him. She laughed as she landed softly on top of him. His skin was warm from the sun and just slightly sticky from the salt water, but felt good to the touch. Really, just being with him felt good. It was almost like the ten years they had missed didn’t matter. “I make it at least forty-five minutes in now before falling asleep.”

“You have improved greatly! I’m so proud of you!” he joked, tickling her sides.

Zara let out a shriek as his fingers danced across her midsection. She wiggled and squirmed, laughing uncontrollably. Dalton still seemed to know all her ticklish spots and was playing her like a piano in this moment. When he finally stopped and she was able to catch her breath, she inhaled deeply, drinking in his beauty. He looked the same as he always had, just a bit older. His square jaw and strong cheekbones had become more defined over the years, but he still had a bit of baby face on him. Other than putting on some weight over the years, his father was still a very good-looking man, and Zara couldn’t help but wonder how much of a silver fox Dalton would end up being.

“What else?” he asked after a moment.

“Really, my life isn’t exciting,” she insisted. Despite how it might have looked to someone following the blog, she spent way more time alone in her one-bedroom condo than she did traveling.

“You’ve got the TV thing, that’s pretty cool.”

“It is. But I’m not getting my hopes up. Things like that fall through all the time. It makes me nervous to even talk about it. I’m afraid I’ll jinx it.”

“We don’t want that. Still big into all your books and musicals and all that?”