He’s obviously trying to impress me with his AP-level vocabulary. Like a bird flashing his brightly colored feathers. Loquacious. Delectable. Squawk.

“It’s ‘a-sigh-ee.’” I drop into the lounge chair next to him. Another passing cramp. Ugh, if I could only cut my uterus out and fling it into the sea, that’d be preferable.

“It’s good.” He digs around in the bowl with his spoon and settles on a huge bite of sliced banana and blueberries. “Normally, I’m not a fruit guy, but this is making me rethink my position. What is acai, anyway?”

I have no idea. “Some kind of magic berry. Why don’t you like fruit?”

“My dad’s always trying to get me to eat fruit and vegetables. I have to make him work at the parenting thing, you know? I hate to be so easy.”

“Or, like, healthy, right?”

He shrugs his thin shoulders. “I try to be noncompliant now and then. Especially when it comes to my dietary choices.”

There’s an acai stain on the front of his shirt.

All morning I’ve been wondering if, when I saw Nick again, I would still have that almost-sexy we’re-about-to-kiss feeling from last night.

I don’t.

For multiple reasons, I guess.

He’s looking at my face. “Have you changed your mind?”

I feel bloated. God, I love being a woman. Oh wait, no, I don’t. But I say, “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You could be here to tell me you’ve changed your mind.”

“Well, I haven’t.”

“So we’re still on for having sex,” he says slowly. “I thought I might have ingested some bad pineapple upside-down cake yesterday and hallucinated everything that happened.”

“We’re still on.” I struggle to sound casual about it. “But we need a plan.”

“Absolutely,” Nick agrees. “It’s common knowledge that having sex always requires a strategy.”

“Right. Now be serious.”

He arches an eyebrow. “I’m very serious. I’m a very serious guy.”

I bite back a smile. Before this, I did think Nick was fairly serious. All my life he’s been this solemn, quiet kid standing in the back of our tour group (excluding that one time in Rio). But now here he is being a wisecracker.

His gaze drops from my face to what I’m holding. “You brought a notebook. So obviously you’re serious.”

“It’s my sketchbook.”

“Oh, are you going to show me some of your work?” he asks, too eagerly.

“No. I use this for everything. Sometimes I use it like a bullet journal.”

“Bullet journal? That’s alarming. Is this like a hit list?”

“No,” I sigh. “It’s like bullet points.”

He stares at me blankly.