Sunkissed Serendipity

Chapter 32

Julian

"Okay, are you guys done with your competiton?" I ask in irration as I watch my brother and Joe fall off the wakeboard. Leo, who was driving the boat, looks back at me and shouts, "Can you please take it out of their hands? They are being extremely demanding."

"Yeah, you're done." I let the both of them know as they reemerged on the water. Both of them frown at me, but I only roll my eyes and say, "Let someone else have a chance."

"We did," Jack says, and I'm glad that he isn't hiding away on this holiday. He had been quiet earlier, but I think doing a fun activity has really brought him out of his shell. He didn't play baseball with us, though, so I was a little scared back there. But now he was thriving out here in the water, arguing with Joe but laughing a ton nonetheless.

"We literally let the others get a chance," Joe says, nodding ethusiastically to his brothers. Harry rolls his eyes and says, "Yeah, for a little bit."

"Yeah, well, we still let you guys have a turn," Jack says, earning a high-five from Joe.

I sigh, shaking my head at the two kids, and say, "Yeah, well, I didn't and—" I look over my shoulder to find that Isla has gotten back to sitting down. Currently, she was scrolling through her phone, not following what was going on here. "Isla," I call out to her, and she looks up at me, dropping her phone on the seat. While she walks toward me, I say, "Isla and I didn't get a chance."

"That's because when we were looking for you guys, you were swimming so far out to the ocean," Jack says defensively. "I thought you guys just wanted to swim on your own."

"We didn't go that far out."

"You kind of did," Leo says from the front of the boat, his voice carrying out to the back smoothly. "We looked for you guys, but you were engaged in, I don't know, was it a third swimming race?" He tilts his head at me then, studying me for a moment before his lips pull up in a smirk. I already know he is going to say something teasing before he even opens his mouth. "What? Were you guys heading so far out to find privacy?"

"To do what, Leo?" I ask, not falling bait to how he was trying to get me to react.

"I don't know, you tell me," Leo says, pulling his shades onto his face and turning away from me. I give him a glare before turning back to the little kids.

"Okay," I say, clapping my hands and pulling the towel off my shoulder. Looking at Isla, I say, "Let's go. You want to wakeboard?"

She is hesitant to respond to my question, glancing at the water and then at me. "I don't know," she says, placing her hand in her hair where she was undoing the bun she did earlier. "I've never really gone wakeboarding."

"Well, you have to," I tell her with a smile. "It's really fun. I mean, it may be a little hard to hold on to the rope at first, but then it's very thrilling."

"I—," she says, but as I move closer to her, giving her a larger smile, she stops. She gives me a defeated sigh and says, "Probably should try it."

"Yes, I think that's a good idea," I say, watching as she drops the towel from around her body and looks up at me. She adjusts her swimsuit top, and it takes me a moment to realize that I'm staring at her. Or rather, at what she is doing, and unknowingly, I'm in a compromising position. I look away and toward the water instead.

Once she is done, she places a hand on my arm, something that I've gotten used to, and looks up at me. "Okay, I think we are safe to go."

"Okay," I say, heading to the side of the boat and getting ready to jump. I jump into the water, trying a dive, but instead really just fall into the water. As I move toward the wakeboards, Isla follows suit. I grab the strap of the wakeboard and pull it toward me. Passing it to Isla, I say, "There are feet shackles here to get better secure."