This was ridiculous.

I couldn’t keep almost having a heart attack every time I saw these guys. They were campers. I was staff.

Three weeks, or more like two and a half weeks.

I was on day two and almost pissing my pants at just the thought of seeing Reese Forster.

I needed a trick. Something to help me calm down.

I needed to think of him naked.

My pulse skyrocketed.

Yeah. That wasn’t going to help.

I needed to... I went through some ideas.

Maybe I could just focus on his penis.

Another skip in my pulse. That wasn’t helping, because I thought of why I would see his penis, and whoa boy—I got lightheaded.

Think of him vomiting.

Nope. I just wanted to help clean him up.

Think of him taking a piss.

And there was that penis again.

The same with taking a dump.

He was naked. He was squatting.

There might’ve been a smell, but there was his body in all its glory. I’ve seen pictures of him playing without his shirt. Goooorgeous.

I bit my lip, squelching a groan. So not helping.

Damian.

That hit me like a bat to my chest.

Everything was gone—the nerves, the flutters, the feeling of just feeling. Thinking of Damian took it all away.

I swallowed over that bark lump. It wasn’t right, or it shouldn’t have been, that just a memory could strip someone of everything.

But it worked.

Owen and Hadley had been running behind on making breakfast when I came in for my coffee. They had a sick kid, so they had to keep taking turns going back to the house to check on little Noah until Owen’s mom got there. They had one of the two houses on the island. Keith had the other. (Boo, hiss) And speaking of Keith…

In another accidental-genius moment, I snagged a pair of radios and put one in the court and the other in the kitchen. Now I would hear if someone showed up, and like Owen and Hadley with their kid, I’d run out to check on the courts. Until then, I stayed in the kitchen to help with the food. The players were starting to trickle in, and I was behind the dish window again, waiting for Keith to show up for his coffee.

It was almost clockwork. Even after all these years.

Ten minutes till we started serving, he breezed in.

Khaki shorts. A green polo shirt. His Boss mug in hand. He filled it up, then entered the kitchen to talk to Owen. Seeing me, he stopped whatever he’d been about to say and blinked a few times.

I wasn’t about to defend myself for not sitting in an empty gym when my two friends had a sick kid and needed help. He was beyond an asshole if he was going to light into me for that. After staring at me a couple more seconds, he turned back to Owen.

Clearing his throat, he asked, “How’s the morning going?”

I tuned them out, going back to washing what dishes I already could.

I was on my third pan when I heard the players coming in.

The Damian effect was still with me. I’d felt it the whole morning since I’d let myself think of him, and it prevented my usual freak-out when the guys came in. I almost felt like a normal person. I was just standing here, doing dishes. No idiotic questions burst out of me like a backward fart, and I hadn’t even felt the usual amount of anger toward Keith when he came in. That would change, but for now, I almost felt melancholy.

As if sensing he was safe, Reese Forster walked in with Juan Cartion right behind him and a couple other players too.

Normal Charlie would’ve categorized every single person. I would’ve taken note of what they were wearing, how they were walking, how I thought they might’ve smelled. All of it.

But melancholy Charlie only looked at him a moment before finishing my pan and putting it through the washer.

See? Normal.

I could do this.

Thoughts of the ex-soulmate who had shattered me were going to be my friend for the next three weeks.

These three weeks were going to suck.

I inhaled, feeling my lungs tremble, and swallowed over a couple knives in my throat. My hands shook slightly when I reached for the next round of dishes, but then I firmed everything. Whatever. I could do this.

It’d been a year. I should’ve dealt with the Damian trauma long before now anyway.

I’d have to look up nearby therapists at this rate—or write my book. Shit. I’d forgotten that was the main excuse for coming out here. Yes. Maybe I should plan to actually work on that thing.

I don’t know why I looked up. Might’ve been the hairs on the back of my neck shifting. They didn’t stand up. It wasn’t that type of feeling that was trickling down my back, but it was an awareness.

I glanced up and that nice soft trickle ramped up in volume. I was scorched to the bone.

Reese Forster was staring at me.

He sat at a table a few yards away, and while his teammates were talking, he was looking right at me.

I paused with the dishes.

The whole thing only lasted a second or two, but the world melted away. I felt a pounding in my chest. Maybe it was my heart. Maybe it was Damian wanting to tear out of me. Whatever it was, I swallowed over that damn lump that seemed permanently lodged there, and I stopped what I was doing.

Until he looked away.

One of the guys spoke to him, and he turned to answer.

The spell was broken, but I felt the remnants still inside of me.