“She was,” I said. My gaze met his. This was the part I always hated. Telling someone my mother had passed away. People seldom handled it well. They either felt compelled to tell me about someone they lost to cancer, so more sadness to carry, or they told me how lucky she was to be in a better place. Lucky? They did not know my mom. Her idea of heaven was being with her family. There was nothing lucky about losing her so young for any of us. Period. “She died from cancer eight years ago.”

“That sucks.” His gaze held mine and I could see deep understanding in his long-lashed eyes. This was a man who knew loss.

I was about to open my mouth to agree when he glanced back down at my tattoo. He ran his thumb over it in a soothing gesture, lingering where my pulse beat. There was nothing sexual in the gesture. It was a dry, light touch, clearly meant to comfort and soothe, as if I were a child on the playground who needed a boo-boo tended, but it positively unraveled me. My insides dissolved into a hot puddle of holy shit with a dash of what the hell is this?

He let go of my hand, and it took every bit of self-discipline I’d accumulated in life up to this moment in time not to shove my wrist back at him and say, “Do it again.” Instead, I decided that breathing required a few more feet of distance between us. I casually walked, at least I hoped it didn’t look like I was running, a few paces away.

“You said life is short,” he reminded me. “Doesn’t being reckless make it shorter?”

I shrugged, pleased to note I was getting my equilibrium back. “There’s a difference between calculated risks and stupidity.”

“All right, I’ll play,” he said. “Would you say hosting a party, jumping into my hot tub, and making noise well past nine o’clock was a calculated risk or stupidity?”

“Calculated risk,” I replied. “One hundred percent.”

“How do you figure?” he asked. He looked mystified.

“Because I wanted to meet you. And I knew you wouldn’t be able to let such a blatant disregard for the rules go unchallenged, and now here I am, talking to you.”

He looked surprised and, if I wasn’t mistaken, a little impressed. “So you are brave then.”

I shrugged. I wasn’t, not really, but he didn’t need to know that. He took another long drink from the water bottle and wiped the sweat off his arms with a towel.