"Aspirin, aspirin, aspirin. Where the hell is the aspirin..."

Being bent over while I rummaged through the bottom drawer of the bathroom sink was not helping my migraine. But I was in a hurry. I had roughly thirty minutes to get down to the beach before Lanie would come looking for me.

With all the weirdness that has been this morning, I really didn't need this right now. What I needed was a normal day on the beach with my girls. I just wanted to lay out under the sun and go swimming. I wanted to relax. Maybe the three of us could go somewhere tonight. Maybe we could see an actual movie.

That sounded nice. Being in the darkness of a theater while we stuffed our faces with candy and popcorn. Sign me up. But first I needed to find that damn aspirin. Otherwise the rest of the day was not going to be spent relaxing. 

"Well, well. Isn't this a sight."

My cheeks heated instantly and I straightened. Squeezing my eyes shut, I mentally cursed myself. Why didn't I close the bathroom door when I came in here? That would have been the smart thing to do, wouldn't it? But no. I had to leave it wide open so that the one person I was avoiding could catch me in this position and stare at my ass.

When I finally turned around, I mentally cursed myself. Again. Why did he have to look so damn attractive right now?

"You just going to stare at me, gorgeous?"

"I'm not staring at you," I lied, crossing my arms over my chest. "And don't call me gorgeous. I was looking for aspirin. I have a migraine."

Nathan leaned against the door frame. "Not surprising. You were pretty out of it last night."

Don't fall for it, Karma. He was baiting me. He wanted me to ask him about what happened. Well, I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

"I'm fine, Nathan. Is there something you wanted? I'm kinda in a hurry."

It came out bitchy, but I didn't care right now. All I cared about was putting distance between me and a certain Jenkins. And finding that damn Aspirin bottle.

"I found this on my bed. Wanna tell me why?"

He held that folded black t-shirt in his hand. The same one I woke up in. The one I returned to his room before starting my search.

"I returned your shirt."

He cocked his head to the side curiously. "Didn't you get my note? I told you to keep it. I want you to keep it."

Mayday. Mayday.

"Thanks, but I don't need or want it."

Nathan scoffed and shook his head at me. "I knew this would happen. To be honest, I thought I was the one who was going to be giving the cold shoulder and freaking out." He took a step back to leave. "God, I fucking knew I should have said no to you last night."

"Wait," I called when he started to leave. "Said no about what?"

Realization dawned on him. "You don't remember, do you?"

I shifted on my feet, dropping my gaze and tucking a hair behind my ear. "I remember the club..."

"But not after?"

"The rest of the night is kind of a blur," I muttered.

He ran a hand through his hair. "Well, shit. I guess it's my lucky day then, isn't it?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" I snapped, assuming he meant that since I didn't remember that he was off the hook for dealing with it and free to move on to some random bimbo.

"Whoa, gorgeous. Settle down." He took a step closer and lowered his voice to a husky whisper. "I just meant that since you don't remember, I could've spent the rest of the day reminding you about what happened last night. Just the two of us."

My body heated at his words, not hesitating to scream 'yes' to what he offered. What the fuck happened last night? Thankfully my brain was the one who answered.

"No need," I said curtly. "Besides, Harper and Lanie are waiting for me at the beach."

"I see," he murmured. "Well, in that case..."

He leaned in close, and for a second my mind flashed to that moment in the club and I thought he was going to kiss me. But he didn't. In fact, his body never touched mine.

My heart was pounding so loud in my chest that I vaguely heard the sound of rustling behind me. Then there was his voice. God, his lips were right next to my ear.

"After what I did for you last night, I feel like I deserve a little...appreciation. But if you're going to be snippy about it, then I'm not going to fill in the blanks for you."

"But I—"

"Don't bother, gorgeous," he whispered into my ear. "It's going to eat at you all day long. You're going to want to know how you ended up in my shirt. In my bed. And...everything else that you can't seem to remember. Maybe I'll remind you when you learn some manners."

He withdrew from the closeness of my body and stepped back. As if it missed his presence, I swayed a little in his direction.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Without looking back, he tossed me something over his shoulder. I caught it in my hands and looked down to see what it was. Aspirin. That's what that sound was before. He was getting the medicine from the drawer.

I lifted my eyes and watched as he started down the hallway.

"See you at the beach!" he called.

My lips parted slightly. He didn't mean... "Great. Just great."

***

"Harper, can you hand me some water, please?"

Before she even made a move, Nathan jumped to his feet from the lounge chair. "I'll get it. I want a soda anyway."

"You really should stop drinking that," Lanie advised her brother. "It's like battery acid for your body."

Nathan opened the cooler and grabbed a water for me and a Coke for him. "If I wanted your opinion, little sis, I would ask for it." He turned and walked over to where I was stretched out on a towel. "For the lady," he said softly, holding the bottle out to me.

Even behind his dark sunglasses, I could feel his eyes run over on my body. Which was why I still had my coverup on right now.

"Thank you." I took the bottle and laid it on the blanket next to me.

His smirk made me shiver even though it was hot as hell out today. "Anytime."

A little part of me was hoping that when he said he would see me at the beach he meant in passing while he did whatever he usually did. All this attention he was not so subtly giving me was driving me crazy.

And not in a bad way, either.

Besides the usual sibling banter between him and Lanie, and the snide exchanges between him and Harper, there were a lot of stolen glances coming from Nathan. Hot and sexy stolen glances that were getting harder and harder to ignore.

Two can play at that game.

I tossed the magazine I was pretending to read to the side and got to my feet. "You girls wanna go swimming? I'm feeling super hot and could use a cool down."

"I'm in," Lanie replied.

Harper rose from her chair. "Me too. I want to look for sand dollars."

"Oh! Me too!" Lanie squealed before squinting and looking out at the water. "Looks like the sand bar isn't too far out. Maybe we'll find some!"

While Lanie and Harper reapplied some sunscreen, I purposely faced Nathan's general direction before pulling my coverup over my head. Thankfully my sunglasses were dark enough that he couldn't see me looking right at him.

But I didn't miss his reaction. His hands tightened on the armrests of the chair he was sitting in. He clenched his teeth before cursing under his breath.

I turned and bent down to get my hair tie out of my bag. The 'fuck me' he muttered made me smile. Thankfully the girls were still oblivious to what was going on as they yammered on about some guy at the club that Harper danced with.

After retrieving my hair tie from my bag, I straightened and took my time putting my hair in a ponytail. Even with my back to him, I could feel Nathan's eyes on me. I always felt his eyes on me it seemed. I knew what I was doing was going to come back and bite me in the ass, but I also wasn't comfortable with him being the flirty one.

The dance at the club was a mistake. He shouldn't have initiated it and I shouldn't have allowed it. But now that it happened, we needed to deal with it. Which we would. Later. Tonight? Yeah, tonight. Tonight I was going to tell him that the dancing was a mistake and that we needed to pretend it never happened.

"Ready Karma?" Lanie called as she and Harper darted towards the water. "Let's go!"

I watched the two of them run into the ocean. Once they were waist deep, they started swimming towards the sandbar. Just as I started past him, Nathan grasped my elbow.

"You're playing with fire, Karma."

I lowered my sunglasses enough so he could see my eyes when I teased, "Afraid of a little heat, Nathan? I thought you weren't afraid of anything."

Before he got the chance to say anything back, I joined the girls in the water. And just like I suspected, Nathan followed.