I blinked. “You noticed her?”
“I notice things.” He glanced at me. “At the bonfire, she looked like someone trying to talk themselves into something.”
“She’s terrified of you.”
He made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “She keyed a Mercedes bumper to bumper and she’s terrified of me? Never mind what she did to the site.”
“She messed up,” I said. “She’s sorry. And I’m sorry she did it. Lana is an amazing young woman. She lost her dream and she’s been struggling.”
“She’s got guts,” he said finally.
“She really does.”
“Terrible judgment,” he added. “But guts.” He paused. “She’s going places, that kid.”
“That’s what I think too,” I said. “Prison, possibly, if she doesn’t learn to redirect.”
He burst out laughing. He shook his head and looked at me with those eyes that made me feel like the center of the universe.
“Thank you for telling me,” he said.
“Thank you for not being furious at me for knowing.”
“Why would I be furious at you?”
“Because I said I wouldn’t tell and then I told anyway.”
“You told me because you didn’t want a secret between us.” He stepped closer, standing his beer in the sand before he cupped my face in both hands, tipping it up toward his. “That is the opposite of something to be furious about.”
I put my hand over his. The beer bottle dangled from my fingers.
“When she comes to you,” I said quietly, “be decent about it.”
“I’m always decent.”
I raised one eyebrow.
“I will.”
“She’s going to offer to pay for the car.”
He shook his head. “I’m not taking her money.”
“Colt, she needs some kind of consequence.”
“Summer.” His thumbs brushed my cheekbones. “I’m not taking a twenty-two-year-old’s money over a car. I can fix my own car. I have insurance, and even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t take a penny from her.” He looked at me. “I’ll let her apologize. I’ll accept it. That’s enough.”
I exhaled slowly. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he echoed.
He kissed me again. I leaned into it. The ocean moved around our feet with the faint woodsmoke drifting down from the bonfire.
I pulled back and looked up at him. “We should probably go back before Capri sends a search party.”
“Probably,” he agreed. He didn’t move.
“Colt.”