Saugatuck Summer (Saugatuck, #1)(12)

I pulled out my earbuds to find out what he had to say.

“Sorry, I just gotta ask what made you decide on the Justin Timberlake hair. I didn’t think anyone did that to themselves anymore.” There was a hint of laughter in his voice, and his eyes sparkled.

I rolled onto my side and propped myself up on my elbow, trying to get a better look at him.

“Well, gorgeous, the answer depends on whether you’re being bitchy or trying to genuinely strike up a conversation.”

“Definitely the second one!” He dropped down to sit on my blanket without asking permission, but I didn’t mind because I could finally get the whole picture. I notched my estimation of his age up by a couple years. Twenty-seven to twenty-nine, maybe. Nowhere near as femme as I was, but with a respectable amount of flash and sass. His eyes were so dark they were nearly black, with no discernible difference between iris and pupil at this range. I’d probably have to be face-to-face and up close to see that.

Which really didn’t sound like a half-bad idea.

“I’m Jace.”

“Topher.” I held out my hand, and he shook it warmly enough, adding a nice little caress on the release.

Oh yeah, he was on the hook and I had no interest in throwing him back without weighing him first.

“Nice to meet you, Topher.” He stretched out, leaning back on his elbows. “So?”

“The hair? It’s natural.”

“No f*cking way.”

“Mm-hm.” I dug in my bag for my second bottle of Vitaminwater and offered it to him. Then I flipped through pictures on my phone until I got to the scan I’d had made for just this reason: the only baby picture that anyone had ever taken of me, aside from the ubiquitous just-born Polaroid from the hospital. I held it out to prove my honesty. There I was, dark skin topped with a froth of blond curls, at the age of nine months.

“Okay, so at the risk of being really tacky—and if I am, please accept my apologies and go ahead and call me on it, because I don’t mean to be—how does a guy with your skin tone get that hair?” He took a closer look when I slid my sunglasses down my nose. “Not to mention—holy shit—green eyes?”

I chuckled. The brush of our fingers as he accepted the bottle had made it clear just how much darker I was than him. In fact, he was way too pale for his eyes and hair, giving the impression that he was trying for a goth look, which it was pretty obvious he wasn’t. As for me, with my complexion somewhat darker than the whitewashed version of Halle Berry you see on the cover of magazines (closer to the real Halle Berry, actually) I couldn’t blame him for wondering, because the hair was incongruous—which was why I kept it. But his curiosity was just that: curiosity.

“Well, you see, when a green-eyed, blonde, white girl really likes a black boy with a green-eyed gene somewhere on his family tree . . .” I lifted my hand palm-up in an expansive shrug. “You kinda hit the genetic lottery. As for my hair, I suppose I could color it darker, but why?”

“Fuck yeah, why!” He waved off the idea with a flap of his hand. “Angel, you look damn fine just the way you are.”

“Or at least I do now that you know I’m not ten years out of fashion.”

“Oh, you looked good before that, I just couldn’t come up with another line of approach that wasn’t creepy or overused.” He cracked open the water, and I watched his throat bob as he swallowed. I really liked the balance his slightly square build struck between being too slim and too beefy. Compact. That was a good word for it. When he put the cap back on the bottle, he looked over at me, and about the only word I could come up with to describe the way his eyes danced was “devilish.” And he had enough thick, sooty lashes for any three guys. “So what brings you here?”

I shrugged, sipping my own water. “I’m staying for a while with a friend’s family at their beach house down the lakeshore, in Douglas.”

“But you’re here alone?” He glanced around, as if looking for some unknown companion to approach.

“Yeah, my friend’s working this week.” I frowned, suddenly feeling lame for being on the beach alone. “But it’s my twenty-first birthday today and I decided I didn’t want to sit around the house, so here I am.”

“No shit? Happy birthday!” He grinned, clearly delighted by the huge-ass opening I’d left for him. “Planning to party tonight?”

“I was if I could find some company for it.”

“Consider company found. First drink’s on me. A couple friends and I have a two-bedroom cottage this weekend at the Dunes. Come on over, we’ll hit the nightclub.”

Now it was my turn to grin. This was getting better and better. I trawled out a little more bait. “I’m in. I just need to be careful, since I won’t have a designated driver when I head home.”

“Stay with us if you get too smashed. There’s a sofa sleeper in the living room if you need it.”

I gave him my best flirty smile with a side of batting eyelashes. “Oh, please. You’re just trying to get me into your room.”

“Hell yeah, I am.”

“Excellent.”

Jace grinned and pushed himself upright, then reached over to me. His fingers trailed across my shoulder and down my arm. I didn’t bother to shift to hide my reaction to that. We each knew we wanted what the other was selling.