Wishful Thinking Read online

  RipTide was a long, narrow shop decorated with surfboards, hula skirts, and Hawaiian shirts. There was a counter near the front of the shop where a lone attendant, a teenage girl with a bored expression and a pair of earbuds plugged into her heavily pierced ears, stood. The iPod Nano she had on was turned up so loud that Phil could actually hear the Shins playing from three feet away.

  “Hi,” she said, nodding at the girl, who was currently bent forward drawing something in a notebook. The girl kept drawing.

  “I don’t think she can hear you,” Josh said. “Hi!” he shouted.

  “Huh?” The girl looked in surprise. “Oh, hi, welcome to RipTide,” she greeted them mechanically. “Men’s suits on the left, women’s on the right and dressing rooms in the far back. All the rooms are unlocked so you can help yourselves. If you need anything you’ll have to come up here and ask me. I’m the only one here so I can’t leave the front.” She went back to her drawing.

  “Guess we’re on our own,” Josh said, wandering away from the counter, toward the women’s section of the store. “Let’s look for those bikinis.”

  “Uh-uh.” Phil grabbed his hand and steered him back to the men’s section. “Let’s get you a suit first. It’ll probably take a lot less time because I’m really picky and you…”

  “And I am not,” Josh finished for her. “Okay then, do your worst. Just don’t put me in anything with lime green stripes. Those clash with my pretty pink nipples.”

  Phil laughed and slapped him lightly on the arm. “Come on, you. I think I see something that’s about your size.”

  After ten minutes, they wound up in the dressing room with four or five pairs of trunks that were Josh’s size, none of them with lime green stripes. Phil sent him into one of the stalls with instructions to come out so he could see himself in the three-way mirror at the end of the row. “Try on the black ones first,” she told him. “And be sure to take off your socks and shoes while you try them on. You can never tell what a bathing suit is going to look like when you have socks and shoes on with it.”

  “Yes, Mom.” Josh grinned and disappeared. In less than two minutes he was back out, sans socks and shoes and without his shirt, too. “What do you think?” He looked down critically. “It may be a little loose in the waist. I don’t want them to fall off the minute I dive under a wave.”

  What did she think? Phil looked her best friend up and down. Josh looked…there was no other word for it—hot. She always saw him in his office clothes, which usually consisted of a button down oxford shirt and dress pants, and even at the last beach day he’d been wearing a T-shirt with his trunks. She’d caught a glimpse of his chest when he opened his shirt the day before but it hadn’t quite prepared her for what she was seeing now.

  Scanning his broad shoulders and chest, which were hard with muscle, and looking at his ripped abdomen, Phil felt her mouth go dry. The black swim trunks hung gracefully around his narrow hips and flat stomach and ended just above his knees and muscular calves. There was a little patch of curly brown hair just between the flat copper disks of his nipples and his well developed biceps bunched as he twisted this way and that, looking in the three way mirror.

  He looks amazing. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror behind him and realized that her mouth was open and she had a hungry expression on her face, like a dog that sees a bone it wants to chew. She closed her mouth abruptly.

  “Well?” Josh looked at her and Phil realized that she had been standing there staring at him for the last thirty seconds without saying a word.

  “I, uh…I like it,” she managed. “I like it a lot.” She hoped Josh didn’t know that she was talking about more than the swim suit.

  “Yeah, but do you think they’ll fall off?” he asked, still frowning. “I mean, I really doubt we’re going to a nude beach tomorrow so that would be a bad scene.”

  Phil didn’t think so but she didn’t want to make him uncomfortable by ogling his body too openly. “They might.” She came forward casually and put her hand on his waist, as though she was just testing to see how loose the fabric was. Without thinking about it, she let her fingers slide upwards and around to the front until she could feel his rock hard abdominals bunching beneath her fingertips. A little trail of light brown hair led from his belly button down into the black trunks. His skin was like warm satin under her palm and she felt a shiver run through him at her touch.

  “Phil?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “That…” He took a deep breath. “That feels really good. The way you’re touching me, I mean.”

  “I, uh…” Phil snatched her hand away, embarrassed. “I guess I can get you the next size down,” she babbled, trying to pretend she hadn’t just been stroking her best friend’s rock hard stomach. What was wrong with her lately, anyway? Just because they had relaxed their unwritten rules didn’t mean she should start acting on any impulse that came along. “But, uh, this suit looks really good on you. If the next size down fits, I don’t think you should bother with the others.”

  “Is that all?” He looked at her intently and took her hand, which was still tingling from the warm touch of his skin. “Is that all you want to say to me, Phil?”

  “I…” Phil looked up at him, her heart thumping against her ribs. There’s a lot between us that’s unsaid, Josh’s words from the day before rang in her ears. But should she start saying it now? No, Phil told herself, trying to be firm. No, I can’t do this right now. I can’t go there with Josh when I have unfinished business with someone else. It wouldn’t be fair to him or Christian.

  “Phil?” Josh pulled her closer so that her breasts were almost brushing against the hard planes of his chest.

  “No,” Phil finally managed to get out. “I mean…that’s…that’s all. All I wanted to say, I mean.”

  “Okay.” Josh sighed and released her. “So let’s go get the other size and pick out a few suits for you.”

  Phil felt a quiver of apprehension in her belly but she tried not to show it. “Okay, but just so you know, I’ve never thought of myself as much of a bikini model.” She tried to laugh, to ease the tension that had grown almost tangible between them. How was she going to get through this?

  “Well, you are now.” Josh grabbed her hand, leaving his clothes in the dressing room, and pulled her back out into the store.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “No…no…” Phil shook her head in disgust. “I don’t like any of these on the rack—are you having any luck?”

  “Some.” Josh was standing in the far corner looking at something on the ground. “Come look at these.”

  Phil went over to see what was so fascinating and was delighted to see a whole box full of unpacked merchandize sitting in the corner of the store. No doubt Miss iPod was supposed to be stocking them but the girl was still hunched over the counter at the front of the store. Phil recognized the look on her face—it was the same look Cass got when she was painting or sculpting in her studio. Nothing short of an earthquake would get the girl’s attention at this point.

  “Hey, some of these are pretty good,” she murmured as she dug through the box looking for her size. They came back to the dressing room with a wide assortment, some of them modest and some, well, not so modest, Phil thought, eyeing the bright red bikini Josh was holding. It appeared to consist of three quarter-sized triangles made of open-weave mesh and a bewildering array of strings.

  “I hope you’re going to try that one on yourself,” she said, nodding at the tiny red suit. “Because you’re not getting me into it.”

  Josh laughed. “See, you read my mind. This one is just for me and I’m not sharing.” He hung the suit along with several others he’d picked out for her on the hook inside the dressing room. “Try on what you want, Phil,” he said, his eyes dancing. “Some of these are serious choices but some of them are just double-dog-dare you suits.”

  Phil raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me? Double-dog-dare you?”

  Josh laughed. “Yup. I double-dog-dare you