“I mean, it was your mouth I kept staring at,” I say. “And every once in a while, I got a whiff of your smell—”

“My smell?” He looks appalled.

“You smell amazing,” I say, then realize I used the present tense. And that I’m gushing too much. “That night, I mean. You smelled great that night.”

“What if I didn’t smell good? What if I had some kind of condition where my lip skin was peeling off? Would you have made out with me then?”

I snort-laugh and cover my mouth with my hand. “That’s like me saying, would you have made out with me if I had a big wart on my nose and stinky feet?”

His laugh is pure, radiating joy, and the fact I’m the one who caused it makes me inordinately proud.

“Well?” I say, nudging him. “Would you?”

He’s replacing the paper roll on the register, struggling to get it locked in place. “Depends,” he finally says.

“On…?”

“If you were wearing the blue dress you had on that night.”

“Ah, so it was the dress,” I say, matter of fact even though my face is warming.

“It was you in the dress. I couldn’t stop staring at your…” His eyes dip down my neckline and his cheeks flush.

I focus on the cash, sorting the bills into neat piles on the counter. “My what?”

He clears his throat. “Your hair. It was…uh, pretty that night. You don’t wear it down much.”

“It gets in my face,” I say, flicking my ponytail over my shoulder. “It’s messy.”

“Nothing wrong with messy.” He’s gazing at me with soft eyes. Bedroom eyes.

“Do you…think about that often? What happened on the beach, I mean.”

“Pretty often.” His voice is husky and close. “You?”

“Sometimes, yeah.” I straighten a stack of twenties and lay it parallel to the tens. It’s taking all my energy to pretend this conversation is no big deal.

“Do you think about it happening again?”

Startled, I look up. He’s inches away. His pupils are dilated, focused on mine, and they pull the honest truth out of me, a halting whisper:

“All the time.”

His eyes spark with surprise. “All the time?”

I nod.

“Me too,” he says, and leans in and kisses me.

It’s a soft, closed-lip kiss, but as soon as his mouth touches mine, I react, a lion pouncing on prey she’s watched for weeks. I grip the front of his cardigan and yank him closer. He lets out a surprised grunt, and his glasses slip down his nose, but he recovers quickly, lips parting and tongue meeting mine. Soon we’re kissing like we were on the beach—going from zero to sixty like some fancy sports car that’s been kept far too long in a garage.