Grabbing a liter of water from my beach bag, I rose to a stand, making every movement slow and deliberate. At least without looking ridiculous. His eyes weren’t on me as I stood and adjusted my bikini just so, but a few male sets were. Good sign I was doing the right thing, but bad sign he wasn’t noticing since this whole stunt was set into motion for him.

Pulling my clip from my mass of hair, it fell down my back, and I shook it into position for good measure. I practically cursed under my breath when I chanced another look his way to find him in utter oblivion. What’s a girl got to do to get a boy’s attention these days?

I walked back towards the picnic table where the newest addition to our family, the furry kind, was still smiling through his panting. “There’s a good boy,” I said, kneeling beside him where he was using the shade of the table to his advantage. “Since you’re of the same gender, although I find your species to be more appealing on so many fronts, do you have any suggestions for how to make that boy mine?” I asked, pouring some more water into his bowl as I watched Jude pry a football from the air. The boy played the best game of beach football I’d ever had the pleasure of watching.

My furry friend offered a few licks over my arm before his wet nose nudged at my leg. I could have been reading into the nudge of encouragement a bit, but when his doggy eyes tracked over to Jude and his doggy smile stretched farther, I laughed. “Yeah, yeah. I know it’s a woman’s world and all, but there’s still some things I like old-fashioned,” I said, scratching behind his matted ears. “Like the guy approaching the girl. Don’t call the feminist movement and rat me out or else no steak for you tonight.”

I patted his head as he yapped his vow of silence before heading back to my blanket baking in the sun. I kept my head forward, but my eyeballs were as far in the corners as they’d go, watching as he sailed the football to another little boy. If standing, stretching, and swimsuit adjustment weren’t working, with dinner not even an hour away, I’d have to resort to drastic, or desperate, measures. I was as stubborn as I was a sucker, and since I’d waited this long for him to come over, I wasn’t going to give up now. Giving up was not in my blood.

I stretched on my blanket, stomach down, twisting my arms behind me to pull the string free of its tension. In my experience as a seventeen year old girl, seven of those years having boobs that required a bra, undoing that one little knot at the center of your back had about a ninety-five percent accuracy rate of attracting any male within a five beach towel radius. Jude might have been right on the five/six cusp, but it was all I had left. The last trick in my bag.

I made a pillow of my sundress and pretended to be nothing more than concerned with minimizing my tan lines, but as I took a quick survey of the area, every male eye within five beach towels was staring. Except for him.

A few whistles even sounded from his fellow football player’s lips, of which I played ignorant, but still, not the slightest of looks in my direction. One of my friends at my old school had once told me that if ever a day came where our intended male targets didn’t flock our way after this last ditch effort, it would be time to send word to the pope that a miracle needed to be inspected.

Get Rome on the phone because a miracle was playing out in front of me as the only boy I wanted to notice was the only one who didn’t. Darn you, serendipity and soul typhoons.

I’d give him five more minutes before I’d force myself to swallow my pride and make a move. I knew if I had to approach him, I’d likely get denied, but I wasn’t going to let another one of these pass me by. Carpe diem, baby.

I noticed something whizzing above me from the corner of my eye, but it didn’t seem of much importance until a certain body I’d been lusting over snagged it out of the air right before falling back to the earth from his impressive suspension in the air. Or at least falling right over the top of me.

He didn’t crash into me all that hard, leading me to believe it was intentional, but I still managed to shriek like a little girl. I knotted my top back into place while he struggled to reposition himself.

“The name’s Jude Ryder, since I know you’re all but salivating like a rabid dog to know, and I don’t do girlfriends, relationships, flowers, or regular phone calls. If that works for you, I think we could work out something special.”

So that serendipitous moment I’d been angsting over the better part of a glorious summer afternoon? What a waste. There had been nothing on the other side of that loaded look than an opportunistic summer . .  eh-hm fling. Lord help me, I was going to become a nun if my male radar didn’t realign towards guys that were not walking penises.

“And I’d give you my name if I actually wanted to pursue anything more with you than telling you to get the hell off of me,” I said, twisting onto my back once I was confident everything up front was covered. However, whether it was my twisting motion or his twisted sense of self, his leg caught my hip as it rotated and followed it all the way around. Super, the boy was all put straddling me now and, despite being angry beyond appeasing, I felt my heart pounding through my chest like it never had.

He smiled down at me. Actually, it was more of a grin. A grin full of attitude and ego. It was a tad sexy too, and it could have been hella sexy if I hadn’t already decided to not fall into this boy’s traps. “I was wondering how long it would take to get you horizontal,” he said, eyes sweeping down to my belly button. “Although I’m not really your missionary style kind of guy.”

Whatever was left of my romantic notions of male chivalry and love at first sight was just obliterated. I’d never verbally admit I was a romantic, that was one of the many secrets I kept to myself, but it was a special ideal and one guy took the last bit I’d clung to.

Pushing his chest, which was like trying to move a tank, I removed my sunglasses so he could see my glare. “Is that because it would require a real, living, breathing female—not one of the imaginary or blow-up kind—to have sex with you?”

He laughed at that, like I’d just said something as cute as a kitten. “No, a supply of girls is never a problem. But if they’re the ones that come aknockin’ at my door, why should I be the one to do all the work?”

That nasty taste in my mouth might have just been a bit of vomit. “You’re a pig,” I said, shoving him again. Harder so my hands slapped his chest, but it was like nothing more than a gust of wind had come at him.

“Never claimed to be anything but,” he answered, raising his hands in surrender when I came at him again with my palms. “I also knew you wouldn’t stop your staring until you learned the cold, hard truth. So, consider yourself warned. I might not be the kind of guy that reads textbooks at the beach,” he said, glancing back at my open book, “but I’m smart enough to know girls like you should stay away from guys like me. So stay away.”

My glare was now officially a glower. “That won’t be a problem once you stop all but holding me down,” I said, waiting for him to move. He did, but it was still with that cocky grin. I hated that kind of grin. “And you can consider yourself warned that you are trespassing on my personal property”—I grabbed my pink beach blanket in explanation as an eruption of barking sounded behind me. I knew that dog was a kindred spirit—“and beware of dog.” I sneered up at him as he situated himself beside me, still in a straddling position. “You can go now.”

That wiped the grin from his face. “What?” he asked, the lines of his forehead pulling his gun-metal grey beanie lower. And what kind of a person wore a cotton hat to the beach on a scorching hot day? The mentally deranged ones I need to stay away from, that’s who.