On the coffee table, the laptop started singing five minutes early. Swallowing her last bite of pasta, Nicole set the bowl on the floor and picked up the computer. Settling cross-legged back into the couch, she accepted Lauren’s video call.

“Hey,” Lauren called out, her bright smile filling the computer screen.

“Hi.”

“Is Paisley here yet?”

As if on cue, a second video call came in.

“She is now,” Nicole answered, accepting the second call.

“What’s up, chaps?” Paisley asked in a fake British accent.

Nicole rolled her eyes. “She’s gone for a month and suddenly she’s no longer American.”

“It’s a shame.” Lauren pretended to pout. “We’re going to have to eat all her corn dogs and apple pies for her from now on.”

“You, Yankees, can have your heart disease,” said Paisley. “Okay,” she added, dropping the phony accent. “Now I’m done.”

“How is London?” Lauren asked.

“Oh, my goodness, amazing. Dad took this whole week off of work, and we’ve been going on a mini road trip each day. Tomorrow we’re going to Stonehenge.”

“That’s awesome,” Nicole said honestly, though she couldn’t stop the slight pang of jealousy the news caused. Paisley’s dad lived an ocean away and she was still closer to him than Nicole would ever be with her own father.

“What’s up with you, guys?” Paisley asked.

Lauren sat up straighter. “Did Nicole tell you I’m coming to visit her this week?”

“You are? That’s awesome!”

“Yeah,” Lauren grinned. “Here’s hoping she’ll pause her work to hang out with me for an hour or two.”

“Come on. Do I really sound so obsessed with my work?’” Nicole loved her internship, it was true. She was only a week in, but any time she and her two best friends chatted, all she could seem to talk about was Florida Keys Conservation and all the awesome work it was doing.

“Yes, you do!” her friends shouted in unison.

“Have you done anything other than work, Nicole?” Paisley asked.

She probably already knew the answer to that, but Nicole gave it anyway. “No.”

Lauren huffed. “Seriously? You haven’t gone down to the beach? How are you going to meet any hot guys? That’s where they all are.”

Not true, Nicole thought. Some of them show up on the edge of marshes. She’d been thinking about Aidan way too much since meeting him the day before—if you could call the way she’d scolded him and then dashed away ‘meeting.’ She briefly considered telling her friends about him but decided against it almost right away. The town was small, but hadn’t he said he was from L.A.? If he was only visiting, there was a very good chance they would never see each other again and this was fine with her. She was twenty-five years old, with two kisses and zero real boyfriends under her belt, and that was how she liked it.

Not that she was a robot. Every time she saw a smiling couple holding hands, her heart melted at the same time her stomach twisted. She wanted that. To love and be loved. To be happy. But it was hard to believe a happily-ever-after could simply happen to someone. The reality was usually much less heartwarming than the sweet romance novels she enjoyed reading.

Lauren and Paisley were going on, chatting about the Costa Rica trip.

“We’re in for sure, right?” Lauren asked.

Nicole ran her thumb over the cross hanging from her neck. She’d had it for years and often found herself twisting it around while lost in thought.

“Yeah,” she answered. “I mean, a year is kind of far away. Who knows where we’ll be then? I really want to go, though.”

“Me, too,” Paisley answered. “Hey, I have to go. Dad needs my help with dinner. Love you, guys.”

“Love you,” Lauren and Nicole both echoed before hanging up.

Closing the laptop and setting it on the coffee table, Nicole leaned back into the cushions and stared out the window. The sun was just about to set, the palm trees’ shadows stretching across the yard. Chewing on her bottom lip, she got up, put on her slip-on sneakers, dropped the house key in her shorts’ pocket, and headed outside. The duplex she was staying in for the summer was a block away from the beach, making it the dream home Nicole had never even dared to want.

While some people might have died to grow up in Manhattan, in a multi-million dollar penthouse on the Upper East side, Nicole had spent nearly every minute of her childhood eager to escape. She hated the confining walls. The endless sidewalks. The people pressing in on her from every side.

Only weekends at Coney Island or in the Poconos had brought her some relief. Once, her dad had taken her skiing in Switzerland. That had been one of the best weeks of her life.

Nicole pressed her lips tight and strode across the yard, in the direction of the beach. She didn’t need to think about Switzerland. She was here now, in the Florida Keys. She wasn’t living in New York ever again. Not if she could help it. Once her summer internship ended, she’d do something else. As long as it involved animals and the outdoors, she would take it.

At the beach, she kicked off her shoes and padded down the wooden stairs. The tide was coming in, the last few surfers riding its waves. A dog ran past in pursuit of a Frisbee, and every cell in Nicole seemed to relax. How could anyone be in a bad mood at the beach?

“Hello!” She heard a deep, male voice.

She spun around, taking in the man walking up to her. With the sun behind him, she couldn’t make out his features. Shielding her brow, she squinted as she tried to get a better read on him.

“Aidan?” The words slid out of her mouth before she could stop herself.

He stepped to the side, away from the sun, and Nicole finally saw his face. The man she hadn’t been able to push from her mind all day was standing in front of her.

“You remembered my name.” He smirked.

Her eyes locked on his. “After you scared away my rabbit? You bet I did.”

“Guilty as charged.” He held his hands up in surrender. “I’m really sorry about that. Lesson learned. We’ll be more careful next time, I promise.”

She liked his apologetic tone and his thoughtful words. He gazed at her so intently a shiver went up her back. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“I never got your name,” he reminded her.

She cleared her throat. “Nicole. Nicole Carson.”

“Nicole Carson,” he smoothly repeated, making it sound as if honey dripped from those four syllables. “Twice in two days, huh? What are the chances of that?”

“This is a small town.” She shrugged off the idea that there was anything special about their encounter. “Where’s your friend?”

“Mikey? Back at the place we rented, working on the next great American novel.”

“Really?”

“Hopefully.” He rubbed his hand against his chiseled jawline. “So you’re into the Lower Keys Marsh Rabbit, huh?”

She squinted, not sure whether he was making fun of her or not. “Among other things,” she answered slowly.

“That sounds very interesting. I’ve never met anyone who works with endangered animal species. Which organization did you say you work for?”

“It’s called Florida Keys Conservation and I’m only interning for the summer.” His interest seemed genuine and she felt surprisingly at ease in his company even though her heart was hammering in her chest. “I’m sorry about how harsh I was yesterday. It’s just, these rabbits are really rare, and I wasn’t expecting anyone else to come up—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Aidan interrupted. “We deserved it. And, trust me, I’ve dealt with worse.”

She peeked up at him through her eyelashes. “Oh, yeah?” she asked, suddenly desperate to hear any nugget about his life he was willing to give.

“Yeah, try walking in on Mikey when he’s jacked up on five shots of espresso and writing a romance scene. You don’t want to be on the receiving end of that anger.”

Nicole laughed. “Are you a writer, too? Is that how you guys know each other?”

Aidan’s smile dimmed and he blinked. “Um, no.”

It didn’t make sense, but Nicole felt like she’d said something wrong. She tucked some hair behind her ear and looked away, toward the ocean.

“You don’t, um—” Aidan paused. “You don’t know what I do?”

“No.” She looked curiously at him. Did he really not remember their first conversation? It couldn’t have lasted more than a couple minutes.

“Oh.” Nicole waited.

“I’m in—well—I used to be in the athletic world. Tennis, specifically.”

“That’s cool.”

“Yeah?” Aidan cocked an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” she repeated, unable to shake the sense that she was missing something.

“You live here?”

“No. New York.” Nicole looked at the shoes in her hand. Home was one of the last things she wanted to talk about.

“So we’re both city dwellers.”

Nicole shrugged. “I like it here better.”

Aidan’s lips stretched into a lopsided grin. He was towering over her, the top of her head coming to about the bottom of his jaw. Nicole’s pulse banged away in her ears, louder than the ocean’s waves. She couldn’t remember ever meeting a man who’d had this kind of effect on her. She chided herself for letting her thoughts drift. She didn’t even know this man. And she didn’t want to. She’d come to Florida to work, not to flirt. Men were not part of her plan and they wouldn’t be for a long time. Maybe never, if she was being honest with herself.

“What do you like about it here?” he asked.

“Everything,” she said. “I love everything about the keys. The heat. The marshes. The animals.” She sighed in pleasure as she looked at the ocean. Pink and purple clouds filled the sky, dusk probably only minutes away.

“I understand you. It is a pretty amazing place.”

This time she found she couldn’t look away from him. “Yeah,” she admitted. “It is.”

Aidan’s lips turned up the slightest bit, going in the direction of such an easy smile. Nicole’s whole body relaxed and she found herself giggling for no reason at all.

“Have dinner with me tomorrow night,” Aidan said.

Her jaw fell. “What?”

“Unless you’re busy.” He raised his brows. “I’m only here for a week and I’d really like to get to know you more.”

Nicole swallowed hard, her heart beating in the base of her throat. Just say yes, a voice in her whispered. It wasn’t the only voice there, though. There was another one, reminding her of all the reasons going on a date would be a bad idea.

“I can’t,” she found herself saying. As the words left her lips, her limbs became heavy. She wanted to dig a hole in the sand and disappear like a crab.

“You’re busy?”

“I just—you don’t live here, so it probably wouldn’t be a good idea.”

Disappointment flickered on Aidan’s face. “You don’t live here either. Aren’t you going back to New York once your internship is over?”

“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully.

Nicole glanced in the direction of the duplex. She was getting way too deep into the conversation. All she’d wanted was a quiet, solitary walk on the beach.

“I need to go,” she said, already walking backward.

“Hold on.” Aidan pulled his hands from his pockets and took a step after her.

“Bye, Aidan.” She waved.

Nicole turned and strode away as fast as she could, Aidan’s name burning on her tongue the whole walk home.