Page 59 of Buzzer Beater

“He will be. Just calm down.”

Right, as if her telling me that would make my brain listen. I paced the room until a knock sounded. I paused to take a breath before opening the door.

His eyes trailed up my body before meeting mine. “Wow. You look gorgeous.”

I almost closed the door in his face. I felt like a nautical themed whale compared to him. All he was wearing was khaki shorts and a t-shirt, but he looked like a model.

“Thanks. You look good too.”

“Are you ready?”

I looked over my shoulder to see Elena give me a nod. “Yeah.”

I shut the door behind me and followed him down the stairs and toward the beach.

“Thanks for agreeing to come today. I’m excited.”

I glanced at him and his wide smile. He wasn’t faking. That was another thing I’d loved about him. His enthusiasm for life. He sought after adventure and wanted to bring me with him.

I’d never been sailing, so my only expectations were based off what I’d seen in movies. Should we be in Cape Cod or something? Looking like a Ralph Lauren ad?

“What’s the plan?” I asked. “Just like an hour or two?”

“Not quite.” He smiled when I looked up at him. “We won’t be back until later this afternoon. Before dinner, though, I promise.”

All right, I guess this was going to be a full day. What were we going to do? Head up to Texas?

When we got to the beach he turned to head to a long dock. A man was waiting for us, standing in front of a long, white sailboat.

“Welcome. I am Samuel. I’ll be at your service today. Our captain, Diego, and my teammate, Sara, are already on-board preparing things for you.”

I looked around for more people joining us.

“Come aboard.” Samuel waved us toward the boat.

Well, at least we weren’t going to be in charge of steering. I wouldn’t know the first thing to do to even get us away from the dock.

Samuel helped me in.

“Thanks,” I said.

“My pleasure, Señorita.”

Colin got in after me and headed to the front of the boat.

“Is it just us?” I asked.

He smiled. “Yeah, it’s all ours today.”

I focused every fiber of my being on not reacting. I’d assumed we would be alone, as in no one else from his or my group, but not alone as in no one else from the resort. What had he done to get this reserved for just us?

“Wow, I’m impressed.”

His grin grew until it reached his eyes. “Lucy, I know this whole week has been unexpected and we have a lot of baggage to get over.”

I held up my hand to stop him. “We both moved on from that.”

He nodded once. “You’re right. That’s why I want us to start over. Fresh.” His gaze bore into my soul. “Can you do that?”