4
Summer, Five Years Ago
Bridget was in the shower, singing at an earsplitting decibel, while I hid in her bedroom. Felix was downstairs, and I didn’t want to be alone with him.
He was Bridget’s younger brother, and I was reeling. So far, since returning from picking Bridget up at the airport, I had successfully avoided him.
I doubted Bridget’s room had changed since she left for Toronto to attend university. There was a puzzle of the 2010 Canadian Women’s Olympic Hockey Team holding their golds, assembled, framed, and mounted on the wall, and a Team Jacob canvas tote hanging from her closet door handle.
Three hockey trophies. The patchwork quilt that covered the bed was made of purple and pink squares. The space belonged to a different version of Bridget than the one I knew.
I was sitting on a pile of faux-fur pillows, flipping through a fashion magazine I’d bought at the airport, when I heard the knock.
Tap, tap. Pause. Tap.
I froze.
“Lucy?” Felix called.
“I’m busy.”
“Can you let me in? I’d like to talk.”
I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers into the sockets. I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to return to yesterday afternoon, thank Felix for the oysters, and not have sex with him four times in the house my best friend grew up in.
He knocked again.
But I also didn’t want Bridget to catch her brother talking to me through the door, so I unlocked it and pulled him inside.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I hissed, letting go of his arm. “Bridget could have heard you.”
A loud Oooh-oooh-oooooh! rang from the bathroom.
“I think we’re safe,” he said, deadpan. “Next time, don’t leave me standing in the hall. I used our secret knock.”
“We don’t have a secret knock.”
“We do.” Felix held my gaze while he rapped his knuckles on the door.
Two soft taps, a pause, and then a third, louder one.
“Well, we don’t need one.”
He took a step nearer.
Being this close to Felix was a bad idea. His fresh-air smell was impossible to ignore. Even without touching him, I could feel the heat of his body. The rebellious swirl of hair above his eyebrow called to my fingers. I wanted to climb him. I wanted to plunder his mouth. I wanted to slide my tongue over his dimple and sink my teeth into his bottom lip. I stepped back.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “You’re not allowed to be in here. We’re not allowed to do this.”
His smile was as slow as molasses. “We’re not allowed?”
“No! I’m under strict instructions!”
He blinked at me, baffled.
“Bridget has rules.”
“Rules?”
“Yes. Rules. Three of them.” I technically hadn’t broken any, but there was no doubt in my mind sleeping with Felix would be frowned upon. To say
the least.
“And they are?”
“Eat your weight in oysters.” I paused. I didn’t want to tell him all the rules. “And leave the city behind.”
Felix’s gaze was steady. Hypnotic. “You said there were three. What’s the third one, Lucy?”
I may have been evading Felix, but my brain had been circling him all day, unearthing every single detail Bridget had ever shared about her brother.
He was twenty-three, had lived on the island his whole life, and he was a competitive oyster shucker. But of all the facts I’d excavated from my memory, his ex-girlfriend, Joy, was the one that stood out most.
“Bridget asked me not to fall in love with you. It was sort of a joke, but also not? She doesn’t want a repeat of what happened with . . .” I winced.
“Well, you know. You were there.”
A shadow passed over Felix’s eyes like a rain cloud. “Got it.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. Bridget told me you’ve had a bit of a rough time.” Actually, what she’d said was that her brother had been “drinking like a fucking fish” and doubted we’d see him while we visited.
Apparently, his best friend’s couch had formed a Felix-shaped dent since the breakup.
“Anyway,” I rushed on. “We don’t have to worry about that rule. Because that’s not what’s happening here—not that there’s anything happening here.
I’m not anywhere close to falling in love with you. I don’t have any interest in starting a relationship. We just met and you’re okay, but . . .”
Felix’s grin returned, carefree. “I’m okay? Wow.” He ran his hand through his hair, laughing. I stared at his fingers. They’d been on me this morning. They’d been inside me this morning. “You’ll be happy to know I didn’t come here to ravish you. I thought we should clear the air, so you don’t
spend the next two weeks dodging me.”
“I wasn’t dodging you.”
He stared at me, one eyebrow arched.
“Okay, maybe a little. Felix, we had sex!”
“More than once,” he said, eyes glimmering.
“How could this have happened? Bridget must have told you that she missed her flight. You must have known I was coming.”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I crashed at my buddy’s place and left my phone in his truck yesterday morning. I knew Bridget was coming home, but I guess I didn’t pay enough attention to when.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Bridget cannot find out.” She’d disown me.
“She won’t. Unless you throw yourself at me in front of my sister, I think we’ll be fine.”
“There’ll be no throwing.” Felix was so off-limits, he may as well have
been wearing a medieval chastity belt.
He smirked. “So you say.”
“You’re not that hot,” I lied.
“I’m kidding. I’ll be on my best behavior; you’ll be on your best behavior. No one needs to know about last night.” A vision of Felix above me, his arm around my knee, flashed in my mind. “Or this morning.”
“Agreed.”
“But you should try not to blush like that,” he said. I put a hand on my sternum, the skin hot beneath my palm. “Might give us away.”
“There’s no us,” I said, glaring.
Felix chuckled. It was such a good sound. Throaty and a little rough.
“This isn’t funny. Bridget is my best friend in the entire universe. I love her like family—better than most of my family if I’m being honest. She can’t know about us.”
Bridget was protective of the people she cared about, and under normal circumstances, that circle included me. But when it came to her brother, all bets were off. I didn’t want to risk the most important relationship in my life.
“I’m not going to tell her,” he said. “Believe me, I have no interest in discussing my sex life with my sister. Or getting involved with one of her
friends.”
“Thank you.”
He leaned in a little closer. Dropped his voice. “That will be our first rule:
We don’t tell Bridget.”
“Do we need rules?”
His gaze moved to my mouth, and need thrummed between my thighs. “I think we might.”
I swallowed. “Okay, fine. We don’t tell Bridget. What happens on the island . . .”
“Stays on the island.” He nodded. “Rule two: We won’t sleep together again.”
“That goes without saying.”
“And three’s obvious.”
“Is it?”
“It is.” Felix’s dimple winked. “Rule three: You’re not allowed to fall in love with me.”
