by Tessa Bailey
The only remaining option was friendship.
Wow. What a turn the day had taken. When he woke up this morning, if someone had told him he’d be chumming around with a girl, he would have called them a damn liar. But here he was. Not even trying to have sex with her. It went against his nature not to check her out a little, just for posterity’s sake, and she had the kind of twitchy buns that drove him crazy. But he was filing that away under irrelevant.
“What kinds of things do you normally overshare about?” he asked her.
She looked up at the sunset-streaked sky but quickly ducked back underneath the brim of her hat when a gull circled above. “My greatest fears, what movies make me cry, my relationship with my mother. Things like that. In Los Angeles, you’re supposed to lead with what you do for a living.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask, what do you do for a living?”
An honest-to-God giggle tumbled out of her. “I’m a location scout for an independent movie house.”
Yeah, he could see her doing that. Clipboard, earpiece, chewing gum, watching some drama unfold on a movie set. “That sounds like it nurtures your intensity, sure enough. Is that what you want to do permanently?”
“No.” She seemed hesitant to say more.
“Come on, oversharer. Don’t let me down.”
“It’s just that I haven’t told anyone yet.” She dipped her cheek toward her shoulder. Her version of a shrug? “I want to craft movie soundtracks. Not scores. Just, selecting the perfect songs for a scene.”
“That sounds pretty fucking cool.”
She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her jeans. “Thanks.” Was she biting that lip to subdue a smile? Damn. He kind of wanted to see it. “What about you? I gather you’re a fisherman like the mean one?”
“That’s right.” He tapped his inner wrist. “Got salt water running in these veins.”
“Does it scare you? When the ocean gets rough?”
“I’d be an idiot if it didn’t scare me.”
For some reason, that seemed to bring this interesting girl over to his team. She nodded, examining him a little more closely. “I heard him call you the relief skipper. Do you ever want to captain your own vessel?”
“Hell no.”
“Why not?”
“Too much responsibility.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I like things exactly the way they are now. Work a job, don’t make any mistakes, come home with cash in my pocket, and end of the bargain fulfilled. Let someone else think about the big picture.”
Hannah pursed her lips. “Are you lazy or afraid of messing up?”
Defensiveness stuck in his middle unexpectedly, and using the only weapon he had, Fox dropped his attention to her thighs. “I’m sure as hell not lazy, Freckles.”
She gulped, hands balling in her pockets. “So you’re . . . afraid, then?”
“Can’t help digging, can you?” Laughing, Fox shook his head. “You’re not going to find the bad in me that easily. It’s sealed up tight.”
“Famous last words,” she murmured, and they regarded each other for a drawn-out beat. “Is there really a record shop, or are you luring me to a watery grave?”
“Don’t be dark, Freckles.” He pulled her to a stop outside Disc N Dat before she could walk past it. “This is it.”
“Really?” She studied the low white-stucco building. “There’s no sign.”
“Don’t you know that’s what makes it cool? I thought you were from LA.” Fox opened the door for Hannah before she could respond, grinning as she passed. And yeah, fine, he was a little gratified when her cheeks turned pink. He could be friends with a girl, but it wouldn’t hurt for her to at least recognize his attractiveness. After all, he worked so hard to make sure it was the main thing people noticed about him.
Hannah set foot inside the record shop and came to a dead halt.
He wasn’t a record enthusiast like this girl, but he’d been in Disc N Dat enough times growing up in Westport that he knew there was something magical about it. The fact that he’d been the one to present it to Hannah gave him a surprising sense of pride. Still standing in the doorway, he tried to see the shop through her eyes. The shelves had blue inset lighting, casting the rows of records in a dreamlike glow. Vintage bulbs hung down from the ceiling, amber and gold and silver, paper mobiles turning around them to cast shapes and shadows onto the walls and original flooring. The place smelled like coffee and dust and leather.
Hannah turned to him with wide eyes. She took off her hat, letting loose a tumble of dirty-blond hair, her face awash in jewel-toned lighting, drying up his mouth.
Cute.
Friend.
Fox repeated those words three times each, but he stopped thinking altogether when she took two steps and wrapped her arms around his neck. Hugging him. Snuggling her dips and peaks right up against his muscles and squeezing tight.
“Thank you for bringing me here.”
Her breath was warm, her chin propped in that spot where his neck and shoulder met, and Jesus, it felt nice. Too nice. Way too nice. But that didn’t stop him from leaning down slightly to compensate for their height difference and pull her closer to his chest.
Hannah shifted slowly, turning her head . . . and their eyes met.
“Fade Into You” played low and entrancing from the speakers. Nothing about this was expected or remotely resembled real life. Not for him. He didn’t have moments like this. Not with anyone. But this . . . girl. This off-limits girl.
She was making him need to kiss her. How was she doing it?
Already mentally calling himself a moron, Fox lowered his head—and his phone vibrated in the front pocket of his jeans. This time, he didn’t pull it out, but Hannah stepped back, visibly shaking herself free of the moment, because it seemed to hover unspoken between them that a woman was calling. Most likely it was. No sugar-coating it. Fox’s hands didn’t seem capable of doing anything but dropping heavily to his sides.
“I’m going to browse,” Hannah said, hidden beneath her hat once more, already turning for the first aisle. “If you want to take your call.”
“Yeah, thanks. I’ll just . . . be outside.”
But when Fox left the store, he let the call go to voicemail and watched Hannah moon over records through the window instead.
Also by Tessa Bailey
Hot & Hammered
Fix Her Up
Love Her or Lose Her
Tools of Engagement
The Academy
Disorderly Conduct
Indecent Exposure
Disturbing His Peace
Broke and Beautiful
Chase Me
Need Me
Make Me
Romancing the Clarksons
Too Hot to Handle
Too Wild to Tame
Too Hard to Forget
Too Close to Call (novella)
Too Beautiful to Break
Made in Jersey
Crashed Out
Rough Rhythm (novella)
Thrown Down
Worked Up
Wound Tight
Crossing the Line
Riskier Business (novella)
Risking It All
Up in Smoke
Boiling Point
Raw Redemption
Line of Duty
Protecting What’s His
Protecting What’s Theirs (novella)
His Risk to Take
Officer Off Limits
Asking for Trouble
Staking His Claim
Serve
Owned by Fate
Exposed by Fate
Driven by Fate
Beach Kingdom
Mouth to Mouth
Heat Stroke
Sink or Swim
Standalone Books
Unfixable
Baiting the Maid of Honor
Off Base (with Sophie Jordan)
Captivated (with Eve Dangerfield)
Getaway Girl
Runaway Girl
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
it happened one summer. Copyright © 2021 by Tessa Bailey. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
first edition
Cover illustration by Monika Roe
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
Digital Edition JULY 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-304566-8
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-304565-1
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