Just a Little Kiss

by Renita Pizzitola

  “I was in the dorms last year, but I’m moving into an apartment this year.”

  “How fun. Do you live by yourself, or with roommates, a girlfriend…?”

  I internally face-palmed. This girl needed classes on the delicate art of tact and subtlety.

  “No girlfriend.” Mason grinned, his gaze flicking to me then back to Isla. “A roommate.”

  Colby pulled off his baseball cap and wiped his head. “It’s hot as hell out here.”

  Mason nodded. “We should walk down to the water.”

  Colby’s house had a small fenced-in backyard, but a couple hundred feet away was a strip of private beach for residents. It was gorgeous around sunset, and I’d always wanted to bring my camera out here to get a few shots.

  “We don’t have swimsuits,” Isla said.

  Mason shrugged. “We can put our feet in or something. And if you get a little wet, you’ll dry in no time with this heat.” He stood and stretched. “I know the beach is no big deal to you guys, but to this city boy, that”—he pointed to the ocean—“looks like vacation.” He grinned down at me. “C’mon, you don’t mind getting a little wet, do you?”

  It was the first time he’d been the slightest bit playful with me since the laundromat. I smiled up at him, hoping the awkward phase had passed. “I’ll go.”

  He put his hand out to help me up. “How about you two?”

  Colby started to rise and opened his mouth to answer, but Isla cut him off.

  “We’ll be down in a minute. I, uh, need to”—she glanced around—“talk to Colby.”

  Colby sat back, a look of surprise, or maybe concern, crossing over his face. I couldn’t decide if it was because he thought Isla wanted to have a heart-to-heart, or if he was as on to her lame excuse as the rest of us.

  “Okay, we’ll see you down there.” Mason popped open the latch on the white fence and held the gate door open.

  I passed through but not before giving Isla a pointed stare over my shoulder.

  She grinned in return.

  Thanks to her prodding, I now knew he didn’t have a girlfriend. Which was great. Green light on project Summer Boy. Except I still felt like I had to be cautious because I don’t know what it was about Mason but something told me he was the kind of guy girls could get attached to. Which was rule number one: Never fall for a Summer Boy.

  “I forget how peaceful this can be.” Mason stopped at the shoreline, speaking barely above a whisper.

  We’d stayed quiet as we made our way to the water, but thankfully not an awkward quiet, more like a chance to take it all in and let it absorb us in return. Like our voices would break the harmony nature created. The wind. The waves. Just one sound from us, and we’d be the intruders.

  “I’ve been so busy working out there”—he gestured to the water—“I’m forgetting to appreciate it.”

  “I’ve lived here my whole life, and I think I only truly started to appreciate it in the last few months.”

  “What changed?” He sat on the sand and motioned for me to do the same.

  “I moved to the houseboat.” For the last year and a half, I’d found myself waking up at night unable to sleep, but it wasn’t until I had the ocean for a backyard did I realize the calming effect it could have on me.

  “Where did you live before?”

  “At home with my parents, but my oldest sister separated from her husband and moved in with her two kids. It got a bit crowded.”

  “How many siblings do you have?”

  “Three sisters. The oldest is Charity. She’s twenty-eight. Then there’s Serenity, who is twenty-four. And Hope is twenty-two.”

  Mason’s eyebrow raised slightly, and I knew where his thoughts probably headed. Our names. Yes, we were all named after virtues. And yes, I was fully aware of the ridiculousness.

  “So…Charity, Serenity, Hope and Felicity?”

  “Between you and me”—I leaned toward him—“Charity is the most selfish person I know. Serenity is borderline crazy and nobody is more pessimistic than Hope. And me…well, I’m a ball of anger.”

  He laughed. “I wasn’t going to say a thing.”

  I stared at him.

  He grinned. “Okay, I was. And point taken.”

  I smiled. “My sisters are actually great. But so help me God, I’ll never give my children matching names, nor will I choose ones that will forever be their defining characteristic. I mean, c’mon, it’s like we were set up for failure.”

  He laughed. “So what’s your full name?”

  “Felicity Anne Daniels.”

  “Your initials are—”

  “Fad. Yes. I know. My parents are awful, and I can never get anything monogrammed.”

  “Hey, it’s not so bad. I’m named after a jar.”

  “Doesn’t ‘Mason’ originate from, like, a stoneworker or something?”

  “Yeah, but my mom literally got it from the jar. Apparently, she loved eating my great-grandma’s homemade preserves while pregnant with me. One day, she’s staring at the canning jar and thinks I should name my baby Mason. The rest is history.”

  I covered my mouth to hide my laugh. “Well, it could be worse. You could be named after what was in the jar.”

  “No shit. I’m pretty sure if I’d been a girl I’d be named Strawberry.”

  I eyed him up and down while biting back a smile. “Are you making this up to make me feel better?”

  “If I wanted to make you feel better, I wouldn’t bring myself down in the process. But hey, now that I’ve shared that story, you’re sworn to secrecy. One slip, and every one of those guys on the boat will be calling me Mason Jar Hayes in no time. My fragile ego can’t handle that.”

  With a laugh, I said, “My lips are sealed.”

  A little hum-like sound was all he said in response as his gaze dipped to my mouth. But just as quickly, he shifted and stared out into the water. “It’s so quiet out here.”

  The waves tonight were peaceful, almost nonexistent. Typically, they came in as a uniform curl of water, splashing onto the sand then sweeping back out into the ocean. Other times, they’d rise up as an intimidating wall of water and tumble down in uncoordinated fury. But right now they were little calm ripples, gently brushing the sand.

  “I thought you two were supposed to be swimming,” Colby barked behind us.

  “Well, it was quiet,” Mason mumbled. He turned around and called back. “We were waiting on you two. Are we jumping in or what?”

  “That’s up to the girls.” Colby smiled.

  Isla’s gaze darted to me. She glanced at Colby then back at me, and I could practically hear her internal squealing. With a small grin, she gave me one quick nod.

  The things I’d do for a friend. “I’m game.”

  Mason’s head spun back to me. “Seriously?”

  I shrugged, stood and dusted sand off my clothes. “Why not, considering Colby lives on Senior Citizen Row. I’m pretty sure all the residents of Coral Cove are long since in bed.”

  “Thanks,” Colby grumbled.

  Isla nodded. “Sorry, but it’s true. Your neighbors are seriously old.”

  “I like my neighbors. Mrs. Hall bakes us cookies.”

  “Point is, they aren’t watching,” I said.

  Isla chimed in. “Well, maybe that guy two houses down. He might be a peeper.”

  I laughed then continued. “Okay, minus the peeper…wait, isn’t his name Tom? Like for real.”

  Colby crossed his arms and shook his head. “It’s Thomas. Mr. Thomas. I don’t know his first name.”

  Isla and I broke into a fit of laughter. Partly because of the name coincidence, but mostly from Colby’s clear annoyance over our neighbor jokes.

  With a last gasp for air, I slowly regained my composure. “Okay. Sorry. No more badmouthing Colby’s retirement community buddies.”

  Mason snorted then put his hands up in a defensive gesture. “Sorry, man, it’s funny.”

  “Whatever,” Colby grumbled.

>   “So what do you say?” Isla asked. “Are we swimming or not?”

  Colby looked at Isla and me. “What are y’all swimming in?”

  “Uh, what we have under our clothes. We aren’t going in naked or anything.” I gave both the boys a look. “So you two better have something on out there, as well.”

  Mason chuckled. “Sounds good. Let’s—”

  “It wouldn’t be…I can’t…” Colby sort of rambled as he looked me up and down. He shook his head. “If Brod—”

  “Then you’d better look away.” I cut him off before he could bring up my ex. Even as his best friend, it was incredibly stupid to have any obligation to him at this point in time. I guess old habits died very hard. Suppressing my annoyance, I grabbed the hem of my tank top and started pulling it up. “You’ve seen me in a swimsuit, Colby. It’s no different. I promise you. What I’ve got going on under here is not that exciting.”

  He spun away and came face-to-face with Isla, who had unbuttoned her shorts and let them drop. Interestingly though, he paused and stared at her for a second longer than an “uninterested” guy should before abruptly turning away.

  “Fine.” Colby spoke with his back to us. “Y’all take your clothes off and get in the water. Then we’ll come in.”

  “Speak for yourself.” Mason peeled off his shirt and dropped his cargo shorts.

  I grabbed the waistband of my maxi skirt and shimmied out of it. Superhappy that today’s bra and panty choice not only matched, but also happened to be trimmed in lace. After the whole heart debacle, it was nice to prove I did own something semi-sexy…even if it wasn’t skimpy and red.

  Isla raised her cami over her arms then tossed it at Colby. “Quit being such a killjoy.”

  The flying fabric caused him to turn toward Isla again, and there was no doubt in my mind that he did a full-on checkout. But I wasn’t sure if she noticed because she grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the water, laughing.

  “You coming, bro?” Mason asked.

  Colby grumbled something that made Mason chuckle then started stripping off his clothes.

  We stopped about waist deep to wait for them, which gave me ample time to do a little checking out of my own. Though Mason was on the leaner side, he was well built. Just the faintest of outlines shadowed his abs but when Colby punched him in the shoulder, he flinched and laughed, causing his muscles to become more defined all the way down to that supersexy hip thing leading to all the good parts…which were all too soon submerged into water.

  “He’s so fucking hot,” Isla whispered under her breath.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  She turned to me.

  I blinked then looked at her. When I noticed her expression, I clarified. “Oh, the other one.”

  Isla laughed. “Looks like someone has it bad for her little Summer Boy.”

  What? No, I didn’t…did I?

  Chapter 8

  Mason

  I walked over to Felicity, trying my damnedest to keep my gaze up and not roaming over her body. But c’mon, she was practically naked. I wanted to yank her to me and try for that kiss again, but knew better than to even think about it. And not just for obvious reasons, like Isla and Colby, but more so because we’d finally made some progress in our friendship, and no way would I blow it.

  “Never guessed you for a daredevil.” I splashed her with water as I neared.

  She shielded her face and laughed.

  “No joke, Felicity. I could see Isla doing this, but you…” Colby shook his head.

  It was a subtle shift but I noticed her frown. “Well, shows how much you know me. Although I hardly take late-night swims as daring. We live on the coast. This is by no means the first time I’ve done this.” She shrugged. “It’s very possible that I’ve swum in less.”

  And with that thought, my gaze went south, tracing the curves of her body outlined in lace. Thankfully, the water hid me from the waist down because, damn, she looked good.

  “Yeah. And what do you mean Isla would do this?” Isla’s tone mocked Colby. “Felicity is the free-spirited one. She probably thinks swimming naked in the ocean purifies you or something.”

  Felicity nodded and totally deadpan, said, “It’s also how I collect seaweed for my all-natural wraps.”

  Colby laughed and put his hands up. “Okay, okay. Felicity is one with the earth. And you’re a saint, Isla. I get it.”

  This time Isla frowned. “Well, I didn’t say that.”

  Wow, this conversation was striking all sorts of chords. I cleared my throat. “Sorry, didn’t mean to start…” I motioned between Isla and Colby.

  “Don’t worry, you didn’t.” Felicity shrugged. “This is pretty typical of them.”

  Which made sense if they were both harboring some secret feelings for each other. And it was probably time to change the subject. I looked around, noting how very dark and vast the ocean looked at night. “There aren’t any sharks out here, are there?”

  Felicity glanced around. “Probably not, but you’d never be able to outrun them so, you know, why worry?”

  “Wow. Thanks. You really are a ray of sunshine.”

  “Told you. Set up for failure.”

  I laughed while Isla and Colby stared at us, clearly lost with the inside name joke.

  “So what do we do now to help keep my mind off my impending death?”

  “We could play the awkward question game,” Colby offered.

  Felicity groaned. “No way. That game sucks. And I’ve only had one beer. Not nearly enough to answer those kinds of questions.”

  Colby sighed. “We should have brought more beer down.”

  We all glanced back at the house, but clearly, no one wanted to trek back through the sand in wet underwear just for beer.

  I asked, “What’s the awkward question game?”

  Isla pulled her hair into a ponytail as she answered. “Exactly what it sounds like. Someone asks a question that is extremely awkward to answer—like if you had to have sex with one of your friends’ moms, who would it be—then everyone takes turns answering.”

  I scrunched my face. “What the he—”

  Isla rolled her eyes. “Oh, but don’t worry, no one ever asks that question. See, Felicity and I are typically the only girls around, and the questions tend to go in a very different direction.”

  Colby laughed a little.

  “How’s that?” I asked, glancing between them.

  “Hmm, the favorite seems to be any variety of: How often do you touch yourself, who do you think about when you do, would you let someone watch, do you ever do it together and so on.”

  “And you answer these?” I couldn’t decide if that was funny or a huge turn-on.

  “Hell, no,” Isla said. “Well, unless we feel like screwing with the guys.”

  “I knew y’all were bullshitting us that last time,” Colby grumbled.

  Isla feigned a gasp. “Who, us?”

  Felicity batted her eyelashes in overdone innocence. “Whatever do you mean? I touch myself all the time.” Then, fuck me, she ran her hand down her body. And it. Was. Hot.

  I scoffed, “Regardless of your high level of sarcasm, that image is now burned into my mind, and I choose to file it under things-that-really-happened.”

  “Boys,” she groaned and rolled her eyes then with a sweet smile, said, “Oh, sorry, I mean, good since it’s you I’m thinking about.” And ran her hand down my arm this time.

  But there was no way she could touch me like that and not expect some sort of commentary back. I reached for her hand and lowered my voice so only she could hear. “Should I file that one under things-that-will-happen?”

  Her lips parted in this sexy little O, but then she quickly laughed it off. “Only if it doubles as the keep-dreaming file.”

  I released her hand and grinned at her. She could deny it all she wanted, but I affected her. That much I was sure of, and it was all the confirmation I needed.

  She dipped both her hands into the water and s
moothed her hair. Which only made me think of her in the shower…with me. Brinley always teased me about having a one-track mind, but get me around Felicity and, no denying it, I literally could only think of one thing. Well, that wasn’t totally true. It was several things. All of which involved her naked.

  Suddenly, Felicity startled and jumped a little closer to me. “Eww, something touched me.”

  I smirked. “Maybe it’s a shark.”

  “No, this was kind of slimy.”

  “Probably seaweed.” Colby shrugged.

  She shivered, then sort of made a squeaking sound. “Eww, there it is again. I think I’m ready to get out.”

  “Oh, so I mention sharks and you tease me. You get a little seaweed wrapped around you and we run out screaming?”

  Isla shrieked and bounced on one foot then the other. “I felt it too.”

  Colby laughed. “If it’s moving around, it’s only a fish.”

  Isla was still doing her one-legged hopping dance. “I want to get out now. It’s dark, and I don’t want anything creeping up my legs in the dark.”

  “That’s not what Hunter said,” Colby teased, though I sensed some genuine curiosity on his part, maybe even jealousy?

  Isla swatted him. “Nothing happened with Hunter! I can’t believe you’re still talking about th—” She squealed and grabbed Colby’s arm. “Ah, I just stepped on something.”

  “Quit being a baby. Come here.” He reached over and pulled her closer.

  She shrieked and moved even closer. “What is that?”

  Colby laughed. “Come on. Let’s get you out of the water.”

  Felicity and I followed them to the shoreline.

  Colby offered Isla his shirt to slip over her clothes. “You can get dried off back at my place.”

  Even though I was bummed to see Felicity cover up, I did the same.

  She thanked me and slipped my shirt over her head then grabbed her tank top and skirt and held it bundled in her arm, while I slipped on my cargo shorts.

  When we got inside Colby’s place, we headed into the kitchen to grab another beer.