“Was it okay?” I tease.

He snorts. “You need to erase the word okay from your vocab, baby. That was…”

“Perfect,” I fill in, my voice a happy whisper.

He holds me even tighter. “Perfect,” he agrees.

“Can we do it again?” I ask hopefully.

His laughter tickles my face. “Did I just create a monster?”

“I think so?”

We’re both laughing as he rolls over to kiss me again, but we don’t start anything, at least not yet. We just kiss for a bit and then snuggle together, while he plays with my hair and I stroke his chest.

“You were incredible,” he tells me.

“For a virgin, you mean?”

Reed snorts. “No. This was beyond incredible. I was talking about the routine. I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

“It was fun,” I confess. “More fun than I thought it would be.”

“Do you think you’ll stay on the team? I mean, if you can stomach being around Jordan, then maybe you should. You looked so happy when you were out there.”

“I was happy.” I chew on my bottom lip. “Dancing is…it’s a thrill. It’s my favorite thing in the whole world. I always—” I stop, a bit embarrassed to reveal my silly hopes.

“You always what?” he pushes.

A breath slides out. “I always dreamed that maybe one day I could take actual classes. Get some real training.”

“There are arts colleges. You should apply,” Reed says immediately.

I rise up on an elbow again. “You really think so?”

“Hell yeah. You’re so freaking talented, Ella. You have a gift, and it would be a waste of that gift not to do anything with it.”

Warmth unfurls like ribbons in my chest. Other than my mom, nobody has ever told me I was talented.

“Maybe I will,” I say through the lump of emotion in my throat. Then I kiss him and ask, “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What’s your dream?”

His features crease unhappily. “Right now? My dream is not going to jail.”

Just like that, the relaxed mood in the hotel room dissolves into tension. Crap. I shouldn’t have said anything. For this one perfect moment, though, I completely forgot about Brooke’s death and the police investigation and that Reed’s entire future is nothing but uncertain right now.

“Sorry,” I whisper. “I forgot about all that.”

“Yeah, me too.” He runs his big hand over my bare hip. “I guess…if I didn’t have these charges hanging over my head…I’d want to work for Atlantic Aviation.”

My jaw drops. “Seriously?”

A sheepish gleam fills in his eyes. “Don’t you dare tell my father,” he orders. “He’d probably throw a parade.”

I giggle. “It’s okay to please Callum, you know. As long as you’re pleasing yourself, too, then who cares?” I study his face. “You would really want to be involved in the family business, though?”

Reed nods. “I think it’s kind of fascinating. I wouldn’t want to design anything, but the business side of it would be pretty cool to get involved in. I’d probably get a business degree in college.” His features become pained again. “But none of that is even an option. Not if…”

Not if he’s found guilty of killing Brooke.

Not if he goes to jail.

I force myself to banish those thoughts. I want to focus on good things right now. Like how happy I am to be lying here with Reed and how amazing it felt when he was inside me. So I climb on top of him and end the conversation by planting my lips on his.

“Round two?” he teases against my mouth.

“Round two,” I confirm.

And off we go.

22

Reed

“You look like you’re in a good mood,” Easton notes on Sunday morning.

I join him out on the terrace. “Smoothie?” I ask, tipping the extra bottle in his direction. At his nod, I toss it to him. “Can’t complain.”

I try but fail to keep from smiling, and the way my brother’s eyes roll to the back of his head tells me he can read the satisfaction all over my face. But I don’t give a rat’s ass, because between the murder charge and Steve’s striving for a Father of the Year award, things have been tense between Ella and me. After this weekend, we’re back on track. Nothing’s going to ruin my good mood today.

If Steve asks, I respected the hell out of his daughter. Three times.

“Nice sweatshirt, though,” I tell East. “What trash bin did you fish that out of?”

He pulls the ratty thing away from his chest. “I wore this crabbing three summers ago.”

“Is that the trip where Gideon got his balls bitten?” The summer before Mom died, we went to the Outer Banks as a family and fished for crabs.

Easton lets out a roar of laughter. “Oh shit, I forgot that happened. He walked around with a hand in front of his crotch for a month.”

“How’d that happen anyway?” I still can’t figure out how the crab jumped from the bucket to land in Gid’s lap, but his scream of pain made every seagull within a hundred yards fly off in terror.

“Dunno. Maybe Sav knows some magic voodoo and stuck him.” East holds his stomach with one hand and wipes tears away from his face with the other.

“They were just starting to go out then.”

“He was always an ass to her.”

“True.” Gid and Sav never made much sense, and it flamed out in a spectacular way. Can’t blame the girl for being bitchy toward us.

“So Wade and Val getting it on again?” East asks curiously.

“Well, you ended up having to get your own room on Friday night, so you tell me.”

“I think they are.”

“Why do you care? Did you want a shot at her?”

He shakes his head. “Naah. I got my eye on some other chick.”

“Yeah?” This surprises me, since Easton’s never settled down. He seems like he wants to tap every ass in Astor. “Who is it?”

He shrugs, pretending to be absorbed with his smoothie.

“Not even gonna give me a clue?”