“Nana. She was staring down in the valley with her binoculars and I got it on my dash cam. Can’t help that. The law’s the law.”

“You gonna call her parents too?” Ray scoffs. “Quit being a dick, Chester. We all know the dash cam can malfunction.”

“It’s fine,” I tell Ray. “Let him cite me. Whatever. He’s the one with the birthday coming up.”

“And the bachelor party,” Aunt Bea agrees.

“And the wedding,” Nana muses.

“What do you think his bride would say about him citing Tillie Jean for bird-watching?” Dita murmurs.

Chester mutters something he probably shouldn’t say in uniform.

I hold my hands out. “Go on. Arrest me. I can take it.”

Some time in the slammer might cool my attraction to Max. That wouldn’t be a bad thing, would it?

He’s scowling as he pulls out his citation pad and scribbles something on it. “I’m just doing my job.”

And I’m totally busted.

You don’t get a citation from Chester without the news of your indiscretion making it all over Shipwreck in three-point-two seconds. Aunt Bea already has her phone out.

Probably texting my mom.

“Tracy knows I’m just doing my job,” he tells me as he hands me the citation. “Now go on. All of you. Get out of here before I have to cite you all for loitering.”

Ray grins at me as he heads for his car. “But it was worth it, right, TJ?”

“Don’t worry, sugarplum,” Nana says. “We’ll get you drunk at The Grog and help work out your defense. It’ll all be okay. And I’m gonna pay for your ticket. The one to Cooper, I mean. And I’m gonna tell him I made you. You might be on your own with Chester though. Your grandfather wants me to quit baiting him.”

It’s not the citation that bothers me.

It’s knowing that Max will find out I was willing to pay to see him naked.

Three weeks without a peep after he went to town on my lady bits like he needed to teach me how a real man gives a woman the big O.

After informing me he’s a one-night-stand kind of guy, and after I freaked and ran away because it was the best orgasm of my life, and I didn’t want to let myself get attached to a guy who doesn’t do attachment.

Plus, Grady almost caught us, which would’ve meant Cooper found out, and then Max’s life would be hell.

And now, I’m no longer the woman who flirts with him to annoy him.

I’m officially a citation-holding stalker.

And I need to get over Max Cole.

Pronto.

“The Grog sounds great,” I tell Nana. “It’s not too early to start now, is it?”

“Don’t make me come back for a drunk and disorderly.” Chester’s face is pained like he knows Dad’s going to overcook his steaks and Mom will get his coffee order wrong and Grady will only serve him ugly baked goods already for the next forever just for citing me for using binoculars on an overlook, and he really doesn’t want to get on anyone else’s bad side.

But I also know he wouldn’t have cited me at all if he wasn’t still holding a grudge about the chocolate cake incident at the fair.

Still, I smile at him. “Start the day the way you intend to finish it, Chester. It’s a life rule.”

I don’t look back over the valley at Max throwing naked down below as I head back to my own car, citation in hand.

But I want to.

I very, very much want to.

And that’s the whole problem, isn’t it?

23

Max

Being back in Shipwreck is weird.

Wasn’t sure I wanted to come back after three weeks on the beach, but I miss working out with the guys, and if I’d rescheduled today’s photo shoot, it wouldn’t have happened at all.

Do the Bare Naked feature for Arena Insider, Max, my agent said. You want the big endorsement deals, people need to know who you are.

Strip down physically?

Yeah. I can do that. Made almost two grand for charity selling tickets too.

Can’t argue with that.

It’s the mental shit that fucks with me though. Watching families. Lifelong friends. Wanting to fit in.

Not trusting they’d still want me around if they knew all of me, but starting to want to try anyway.

What’s the worst that happens?

I sleep with Tillie Jean, Cooper finds out, and gets me traded so I don’t have to get closer to anyone here?

Fine.

Fine.

I almost didn’t come back to Shipwreck because I want to sleep with Tillie Jean Rock, and once will not be enough, which became glaringly clear when I couldn’t look at another woman the entire time I was gone. All I could think of was TJ and her magic pussy and how much I want another chance to hear her scream my name.

Happy now?

Is that enough honesty for one day?

Jesus.

I have issues.

I shrug off the thoughts as I pull into Cooper’s driveway. I can act normal. Laugh. Shoot the shit. Plan for spring training next month. Talk about doing today’s photo shoot and interview on school grounds with my junk hanging out like that’s not the creepiest possible thing a guy could do.

While knowing a bunch of women were watching with binoculars from the ridge above.

The guys get it. Our lives aren’t normal.

There’s a bunch of cars here at his mountain mansion already, which doesn’t matter when my phone dings with a message from my agent.

Good shoot today. Got a call already. They want a more in-depth interview. You said the A-word. Ready to strip all the way down and talk about your anxiety?

I roll my shoulders back on the way to the front door.

Am I?

Do I want to put it all out there? Talk about the ghost haunting me twenty-four-seven? About growing up with a depressed father who self-medicated with vodka? Relying on virtual strangers to get me to baseball practice and buy my gear for me?

Nope.

Not really. As far I’m concerned, every athlete has some level of anxiety, and that’s that.

I rap my fist on Cooper’s door and wait for him to open the door and let me in.

Learned that lesson once. I don’t need to learn it again.

He looks equal parts cross and amused when he yanks the door open. “Dude. You can just come in.”

“Nope.”

“She’s in massage chair number three, and she’s toasted. She’s not pulling shit on you today. And she swears she was only up there on the ridge to tell everyone else to give you your privacy and didn’t know we sold tickets. Whatever.” He pulls the door open wider. “You coming in? Trevor’s having a day too. Pulled something in his shoulder at the bowling alley last night. Pretty sure he’s done. Done-done, you know? Like, finally accepting that his contract isn’t getting renewed and he doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up, and when he grows up is today.”

Fuck.

I angle into the house, walking through the foyer like a glitter bomb might jump out at me at any minute.

And when we turn into the living room—high ceiling, plank walls, massive top-of-the-line television set-up on one side, stone fireplace on another—there’s Tillie Jean and Trevor, both of them in their own massage chairs, since Cooper has four in here.