Chapter Eight

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I'm making coffee in the kitchen when I hear an insistent banging at the door

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I'm making coffee in the kitchen when I hear an insistent banging at the door. I open my mouth to yell for my mom to get it, but in my half-asleep morning daze, I remember that she was gone. She'd popped her head into my room and woke me up an hour before, telling me that she was leaving to work on taxes or something. I immediately slipped back into the land of nod for a while because I'd had a sleepless night, thinking of Diego.

"One second," I holler. Crap. The knocking comes again, sharp and loud.

"Hold on!" I run to the front door and fling it open.

Crap. The reason why I didn't get much sleep is standing there, looking seriously stunning in a pair of jeans and a tight red T-shirt that shows off his bronze skin. He's wearing those blue and white sandals I hate, though, and I try to concentrate on those instead of his sexy, warm brown eyes.

"Diego." I step back, half behind the door because I'm wearing a thin, long-sleeved cotton shirt that's white and practically see through, and pink pajama pants.

With black cartoon sheep.

He grins and walks inside. "Cute pants."

"Come on in. Make yourself at home," I say, crossly.

"Is that coffee? Smells great." He saunters toward the kitchen.

I roll my eyes and try not to grin as I shut the door. Diego can be totally oblivious to social cues sometimes. Or he's trying to tease me. I'm going with the former, though. The latter is too complicated to consider this early in the morning.

"I'm on my way to the mainland and thought I'd stop by," he says, hovering by the coffee pot.

I blink a few times at him. "Oh. Just in the neighborhood, hmm?"

He laughs. "Yeah."

I drum my fingers on the counter. "Maybe I've forgotten my Florida geography, but isn't my house on the west end of the island, and you need to go east to get off the island?"

"You always were better at directions than me," he murmurs.

I sigh. "So, what are you doing—"

He interrupts. "Listen. I couldn't get you out of my mind last night. I wanted to come by and say hi."

I'm not sure how to take this. Part of me is doing cartwheels. The other part wonders if he's only looking to get laid. Wait. Maybe there are no bad options here. I turn to the cupboard and take out two mugs.

"Do you still take your coffee light and sweet?"

He laughs. It was a joke with us. Light and sweet, just like you, he'd say.

I nod and open a cabinet. Then another.

"Since my dad died, my mother's changed where everything is. The sugar used to be in here..." I move some bottles and cups around reach for the sugar bowl on the second shelf. It's empty. I look again and see a big bag of sugar on the top shelf.

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