I read the text Jagger sent this afternoon again and toss my phone on the couch cushion next to me.

Joke’s on him. I sprawl my jean-clad legs on the table, thumbing through a book on plotting that I usually would’ve finished if not for the distraction that is Jagger for the past couple days.

I shouldn’t be doing this. I should be holed up in my office, working on the book that’s due to my editor. Note to self—call editor back tomorrow before they retract my book offer. If I don’t get my book to them soon it’s not going to matter how well my first book did. I push the thought of my first book to the back of my mind.

The small part of me that’s agreed to this damn four-date deal admits it’s because Jagger’s always been the one for me. You know, the guy you placed on the highest pedestal and no matter how many times you tried to convince yourself of his flaws, every other guy couldn’t reach him. They couldn’t even touch his damn toes. Why couldn’t I have met him when I was eighty, after the passing of a subpar husband? No, it had to be at thirteen, in the infancy of my teenage hormones surfacing.

My doorbell rings and I toss the book on the table beside me and stand to go answer it.

As soon as the door’s open, I roll my eyes.

“I think I should’ve put a clause in our agreement that included you smiling.” He holds out a bouquet of wildflowers. “Your favorite,” he says while I turn on my heels without taking the flowers and head for the kitchen.

“Were my favorite. When I was sixteen and thought it’d be cool to like something that wild and free and beautiful. I’m more of a rose person now. You know—predictable, color-coded for meaning, and warns you with its thorns not to get too close.”

He chuckles, leaning against the archway. As expected, he looks completely edible tonight. Does this guy never have an off day? His tall figure is highlighted in his jeans, a t-shirt that hugs his broad shoulders and lean muscles and a pair of flipflops. Wait, flipflops? That’s not Jagger.

“Where are we going?” I ask, taking the flowers from him and dropping them into a vase and wiping my hands on a dishtowel.

He admires me the entire time with a grin of amusement. He can just turn that smile off now because it has no effect at all on me. It doesn’t wet my panties even the littlest bit. Honest.

“The movies.”

“The movies?” I repeat back, exiting the kitchen and leaning over the back of the couch to grab my phone and my purse.

“Yeah. Cinespia. Outside.”

Cinespia. My heart pitter-patters and I’d sigh if he wasn’t two feet in front of me and expecting it.

“Psycho’s playing.”

Fuck him and his trip down memory lane.

I paste on a nonchalant smile, trying to act like it’s not my favorite horror movie of all time. “Okay.”

He chuckles lightly, grabs my sweater from the railing leading upstairs and hands it to me. I give him a nod rather than saying thank you. “You’re really going to make this hard on me, aren’t you?”

“I’m going, aren’t I?”

He nods, and I snatch the sweater from his hands. “I suppose so.” He leans in, grabbing the door handle before I get to it. “Definitely don’t snuggle close to me tonight, or fall into my arms during the shower scene.”

“Ha. More likely that you’ll be falling into mine.” I raise my eyebrows in challenge. He must be forgetting when he snuck in my bedroom window one night after a horror movie marathon. Not the other way around.

“Let’s go.” He opens the door, and I almost feel bad about his smirk turning into a tight straight lip. Almost.

* * *

With my hand in his—only because there are so many people, I fear I’ll lose him—he leads me to a spot with a blanket laid out and a reserved sign placed on top. Of course, Jagger wouldn’t be able to just grab any old spot—he has to have the best.

“Here.” He sets down a picnic basket and another bag filled with blankets.

“Victoria can really make a spread,” I say, taking everything in.

He slips off his flipflops, sits down on the blanket, waiting patiently for me to look at him. “I did it. All of it.” There’s a bite to his tone. A curtness I can remember him using with his parents.

My stomach tightens because he’s using it on me and for a moment I feel badly that I thought the worst of him. There was a time in my life when I only ever thought the best of him.

“It’s nice. Thank you,” I say with sincere gratitude.

The corners of his lips curl up in that smug, satisfied smile of his and I regret my change of heart immediately. “Are you hungry?” he asks.

“No.”

Yes, I haven’t eaten since my late breakfast, but a part of me refuses to give in too easy. It feels like if I do it’ll be like saying that what he did to me all those years ago was okay.

“Humor me.” He pulls out a tray of sushi. “Still love the spicy tuna?”

“No.” I look away as my stomach clenches with objection.

“Shame. So, I get the whole tray?” He opens the plastic lid and, grabbing a pair of chopsticks, he breaks them apart, putting them in his hands perfectly like he’s done it a thousand times before.

Distracting myself, I cast my gaze over the large lawn where couples are cuddled together as the sun starts to descend over the hill. Groups of friends are huddled together, drinking and carrying on for a night of fun. Then there’s the two of us—me sitting on the far corner of the blanket as far as I can get from Jagger while he spreads out the food. Food I’d usually be gorging on.

“Try this one?” He holds it up to my lips with the chopsticks.

“What is it?”

He nudges it closer. “Just trust me.”

“I shouldn’t.” I fight it and his smile grows. He’s saying nothing but not moving it away from my lips.

I open reluctantly, and he places it on my tongue, pulls the chopsticks away and sits up straighter to wait for my reaction.

Spicy tuna. I shake my head, chewing the mound of rice, seaweed and raw fish.

“Remember the first time you ate it?” he asks, and my body heats. He fed it to me naked wrapped in a blanket on the beach. His brother had left it behind after getting a call to go out with his friends.

I somehow swallow down the piece of sushi past the growing lump in my throat. “How about we stop going down memory lane?”

His smile falters and I see a glimpse of the teenager I once knew. The boy who didn’t have it all figured out and who at times seemed vulnerable. “They’re some of the best memories I have,” he says, an octave lower.

I feel bad, but I can’t move forward while constantly being reminded of the past. Which, now that I think about it, seems laughable given what I’m keeping from him.

“A lot of good happened during that time, Quinn. I know it ended badly, that you only see that last half hour of time, but our summers together—especially that last one—were the best of my life and I’m going to use these next four dates to make sure you remember exactly why we fell in love.”

I scoff. “Fell in love?”

He slides closer, his cologne breaching my nostrils, and I restrain myself from leaning in and touching him. “I fell in love with you that summer and you never left my heart. Sure, I tried to patch over the mark you made, but you’re still there and that’s why after all this time, after seeing you once, I’m that lovesick teenage boy again.”

“You want me in bed, that’s all.” I pull my legs up to my body, tightening my arms around them. He’ll seep into the smallest crack if I allow it.

“I’d be lying if I tried to deny that. I want you screaming my name as I taste the woman you’ve turned into. I want to hold your hands over your head, kissing you as my hips circle and grind in and out of your slick warmth. I won’t deny that, but Quinn”—he grabs a hold of my chin with two fingers and forces me to face him—“I will make you fall in love with me again. Because there’s more between us than just a shit-ton of hot sex. There always was, and you know it.”

Our eyes lock and my heart picks up pace as I stare into his deep chocolate eyes. I say nothing. There’s nothing to say. Everything he said is true and arguing against it would be pointless.

“Now, let’s eat the sushi and remember the night you discovered sushi and sex on the beach—not the drink.” He winks and picks up another piece of spicy tuna as if he didn’t just turn everything on its head by telling me how he feels.

I open my mouth without an objection. He’s taken a bit of my fight within five minutes of our first date. That’s when I know I’m in trouble.

* * *

I bite my lip, knowing the shower scene is coming. Girls around us sigh, some scream and I tighten my grip on the blanket covering both of us. We’re hip to hip, but Jagger has kept his hands to himself. He’s being a gentleman. I’ll admit that I didn’t think he had it in him. After all his verbal insinuations about getting me into bed, he doesn’t cross any lines.

My pulse increases as we watch the infamous scene, a dark shadow coming in from behind the shower curtain. My fingers knot the blanket in them. The curtain slides across and the woman turns around. Janet Leigh’s scream is drowned out by every woman here. My arms tense. I’m staring as the knife jabs her over and over again and the clear water turns dark, while the snaps of the curtain holders ring out as she pulls it down with her body inside the tub. The part at the end of the scene focused on her eye and just the sound of the shower running has always made chills run up my spine.

A large hand covers mine, plucking my fingers from the blanket until it’s wrapped in his. I close my eyes at the sensation of swirling in my stomach from his warm hand on my skin. He doesn’t squeeze, doesn’t ease me into his arms. He holds my hand, offering a silent comfort as we watch one of my favorite scary movies.

The movie ends, and people laugh at themselves and how scared they were, standing up, grabbing all their belongings. Jagger doesn’t stand and neither do I, our hands still entwined. I look over to him and find him staring down at me.

“Thank you,” I whisper. Despite myself and our past, I’ve really enjoyed myself tonight.

His I-just-won-the-lottery smile appears on his lips. “My pleasure.”

All the animosity I felt for him is gone and a new dread settles over me. That he’s going to drive me home right away and walk me to my door, say goodnight and get in his car and drive away.

He squeezes my hand in his before letting go and sliding out from under the blanket. “The eyeball thing still freaks you out, huh?” he asks.

I stand, too, and fold the blanket, then stuff it in the bag. “Weird, right? I think I could watch a scene where an actual knife does get jabbed into the person and it wouldn’t freak me out the way that eye thing does.”

He chuckles, moving the picnic basket to the grass and grabbing the other blanket from the ground. I take one side and him the other.

We fold it over. “It unnerves you for some reason.”

I nod, the two of us meeting with our ends. Our fingers brush as he grabs a hold of my side and finishes the job for us. The line to get out grows and the area around us becomes more sparsely littered with people.

“Next time you can grab my hand when we watch The Shining.”

“Whatever, you’ll probably jump in my lap.” I laugh with him, a genuine real laugh.

“Probably.” He chuckles along with me.

“You ever find it weird that we never watched romantic movies? Have you ever even watched one?” There’s absolutely no way.

“Not unless it’s at a client’s film premiere.”

“I figured you’re too cool for that.”

He shakes his head and we start moving toward the line. “Not too cool, but I doubt there are very many males who choose to watch a romantic movie on their own.”

I think about it for a second. “Surely, some girl has made you watch a chick flick?”

He stops at the back of the line and glances over at me for a second, but doesn’t respond. Everyone around us is preoccupied with their own conversations.

“You’ve never struck a deal where she watches an action movie like Iron Man and you watch The Notebook? Every girl’s seen The Notebook.”

He chuckles, rolling back on his heels. “You just don’t get it.”

“Get what?” I lean forward, trying to catch his gaze in order to understand what he’s talking about.

His eyes focus on me and there’s a seriousness in them I’ve only seen a handful of times, and back then it usually had to do with his family. “There’s never been a girlfriend. I don’t date.”

My heart leaps and then falls. Is this something I should be happy about or not? He’s pursuing me, right? Presumably he wants to date me, but none of the other woman he’s ever gone out with were contenders. A sadness washes over me for all those other women. Some might have fallen for him like I did, and I know firsthand how devastating it feels when this man doesn’t reciprocate your feelings. Real or pretend, it doesn’t matter.

He leans closer, tugging on the end of my hair. “Don’t short-circuit over there. I tried in college once, but it never got past two dates. That was my freshman year. After that I never saw the point.”

I press my lips into a thin line.

“For the record, I’m not an asshole. Not completely anyway. I’ve never led anyone on. They all know the deal and if that works for them, great. If not…” He lets the statement hang there and shrugs.

“And now?” My voice cracks, worried about the answer I’m about to get.

“I know you aren’t this slow,” he says, a soft smile on his lips.

A throat clears behind us, and we look in front of us to see that we’re holding people up. Shuffling ahead a bit, we mumble our apologies and lock eyes once we’re stuck again.

“You’re the only girl I’d try this with. The only one worth my time to try to win over.”

My heart flips so many times it’s like a gymnast in the finale of her floor routine. I wish I could keep my lips straight, and I really wish I could control myself. Because rising on my tiptoes and pressing my lips to his cheek wasn’t what I ever thought would happen at the beginning of the night.