Borrow My Heart by Kasie West

Author:Kasie West [West, Kasie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2023-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

Rule: Most games worth playing have boundaries. Don’t date a guy who doesn’t have any.

“Have you ever taken any of the dogs from the shelter paddleboarding?” Asher asked. He’d spread a towel out and was sitting next to me.

“No. We should’ve brought Bean. Got that on video.” Before he asked me any more questions about my paddleboarding history I flipped it to him. “Have you ever taken your dog?”

“No, my mom thinks Buffy’s too little and that the creatures of the deep will eat her.”

“Smart mom.”

He laughed like I was joking.

I dug my sunblock out of my bag and applied some to my arms. “Are you okay, by the way?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

I nodded behind us, to where his ex-girlfriend had been fifteen minutes ago.

“Oh yeah. It was weird. I haven’t seen her since school got out. It just surprised me. I don’t…There’s no leftover feelings or anything.”

I raised my eyebrows, moving on to my legs with the lotion.

“Okay, no leftover good feelings.”

“What happened? You said she broke up with you, but why?”

He took a moment with that question, as if thinking about how to summarize the downfall of a relationship in one sentence. “She wanted more of me, I think.”

“You’re so open, though. How many layers did she want?”

“What I mean is, she wanted me more to herself.”

I put a quarter-sized dollop of lotion in my hands, rubbed them together, and applied the sunblock to my face. “Oh, she thinks you share yourself with too many people?”

“Yeah, probably,” Asher said thoughtfully. “That’s a good way to put it.”

We had the opposite problems. I shared myself with next to nobody.

“Well, share myself in the non-prostitute way,” he clarified.

I gave a breathy chuckle. “You only do it for free?”

His eyes went wide and then he let out a large laugh. “Exactly.”

“Is it all rubbed in?” I asked, facing him. “The sunblock?”

He studied my face for what felt like an eternity and then reached out and ran a finger along my temple. “Now it is.”

My cheeks were pink. I looked up at the sky like the sun was the culprit.

“Do you want me to get your back?” he asked.

One finger along my temple had set my face on fire. I couldn’t imagine what his hands on my back would do. I turned anyway, passing him the sunblock over my shoulder. You can’t like him, Wren, you are living a lie.

I stared out at the glistening water in front of us. A girl on a sailboat unfurled the sail, revealing large colorful fabric. Asher’s hands ran along my back, strong but gentle, massaging the lotion in. I hugged my knees to my chest. “I like how open you are,” I said. “It’s rare. It’s nice.”

“You’re nice,” he said.

“I’m really not.”

“You have me fooled.”

“I think I do,” I said.

He finished, capped the lotion, and tossed it onto the towel. I turned back toward him. His cheeks looked a little pink now too, but maybe it was just the blasted sun. I stole his hat off his head, freeing his beautiful mess of auburn hair, and put it on mine.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.