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Nick woke up in a daze. At first he didn’t recognize his surroundings. His eyes focused and he realized that he was on his boat. He sat up and spotted Erica at the small table. “Hi.”

“Well, hello there sleepy. Did you have a nice nap?”

“I think so. How long was I out?”

“About 100 pages.”

“100 pages is a measurement of time now?”

“I don’t have a watch so you’ll have to do with 100 pages.”

“Ok.” He stood up and stretched and headed toward the small bathroom. He returned moments later and sat across from her at the table.

“So what’s the plan for the rest of the day?”

“As soon as I’m completely awake, I’m going to head to my island house.”

“What will we do there?”

“I don’t have anything planned. All I know is that we are going to have a nice romantic dinner of frozen pizza.”

She laughed. “Frozen pizza. Sounds delightful.”

“Of course it is.” He smiled and stood up. “You can stay down here if you want, but I’m going to start making our way to the island.”

“Stay down here? Are you nuts?”

“I don’t know. Am I?”

“It’s the middle of the day. I may as well be up there tanning.”

“If that’s the case, why were you down here when I was sleeping? You lost 100 pages worth of tanning.”

“Because I felt weird being up there when you were down here.”

“I wouldn’t have cared or known for that matter.”

She smiled. “That is absolutely true.” She followed him out of the below deck cabin. He went to the controls as she went to her blanket to lay out again. She placed her sunglasses on and lied down on her back. She glanced over at Nick and decided that lying out wasn’t what she wanted to do right now. She stood up and made her way over to Nick.

“I thought you were going to sunbathe.”

“I was. But then realized that I didn’t want to. So I decided to keep you company.”

“Do you want to steer?”

“Do I want to what? Uh, no. We’d crash.”

He chuckled. “No we won’t. I’ll be right behind you. Come here.”

She cautiously approached him. He stepped back and put her hands in the right positions. He placed his hands over hers and guided her to steer the boat. “Oh my god.” She smiled excitedly. She looked out at the water ahead of her and started to see land. “Hey, what’s that?”

“That’s my island.”

“Oh wow.”

He let her steer for a few more minutes. “The water is getting shallower. Let me take over to navigate her correctly.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth.”

He steered the boat to the dock that he built. He stopped the engine and jumped of the boat. He tied it and then went back to help Erica off. “Here we are. My little island.”

“It’s so beautiful. You said that you have a house out here somewhere.”

“I do. But you can’t see it from the water. I built it surrounded by trees so that other boaters wouldn’t be able to see me.” He smiled down at her and grabbed her hand and led her through trees. Soon they were approaching a clearing in the trees and she could see the house.

“You’re really surrounded.”

“Yep. I wanted it that way.”

“You could do anything you wanted out here and no one would know.”

“That’s why I love it.”

“Come on. I’ll give you a tour.” He unlocked the front door. The floor was a light hard wood and the first thing you see from the door is the beautiful winding staircase. He showed her the kitchen and then led her through the living room, which included the most current, up to date electronic equipment. He had a theatre size screen, a CD player and a DVD player. Surrounding the entertainment system was a collection of music and CD’s. He walked her past the laundry room. Before they headed up the stairs, he pointed out where the bathroom was.

She was in awe as he led her up the winding staircase. He showed her the bathroom. He stopped at one room but didn’t open it. This is my built in studio. The door is locked and the key is in my bedroom, which is why I’m not showing it to you.” He chuckled and turned toward the next room. He opened the door and inside there was an assortment of exercise machines and weights.

“Wow, your own private gym?”

“I find that I’m more motivated to work out when I don’t have to leave the house to do so.” He smiled and then led her to the last room. “This is my room.”

“Your house is so beautiful.”

“Thanks. That means a lot to me. I designed it. Well, not completely, I knew where I wanted what, but I had an actual architect draw up the blue prints. I draw comic books, not house plans.”

She laughed. “Well it’s gorgeous.”

“There’s one thing left to show you. Follow me.” He grabbed her hand and took her back downstairs and to the back door. The back door was sliding glass that led out to a deck.

“Hey Nick. More trees.”

“Yeah, there are lots of those.” He smiled.

She went outside onto the deck and he followed her. She saw the pool. “A pool?”

“And a Jacuzzi.”

“Well the Jacuzzi I can under stand, but what do you need a pool for when you have the ocean within walking distance?”

“Skinny dipping.” He said with a completely serious face.

“Wait, you go skinny dipping when you are here alone?”

He burst out laughing hysterically. “Sorry. I was only kidding. I’ve always been alone when I was here and it would be a little weird to skinny dip alone. The right company and I’d consider it.” He paused. “The real reason I have it is if I feel like doing laps or if for some reason I don’t feel like swimming in the ocean.”

“Well that makes sense.”

“Yeah it does. Are you ready for that frozen pizza?”

“Yeah, I’m starving.”

“Great, me too.” He went back into the kitchen and headed to his freezer. “Pepperoni or Cheese.”

“Cheese.”

“My kind of girl.” He opened the freezer and grabbed the pizza. He went to the cabinet and got a sheet. Once the pizza was out of its package he preheated the oven and placed it in. “It’ll probably take 15 to 20 minutes to cook.”

“Well that gives me plenty of time to get out of my bathing suit.”

“If you want, you can take a shower upstairs. There should be shampoo and stuff up there.”

“Are you trying to say I smell?” She turned to him, giving him a playful glare.

“Uh, no, I…I didn’t mean it like that. I meant that if you wanted to um, freshen, um, get the salt water out of your hair you could.”

She smiled at Nick. “Relax Nick. I was only playing.”

He sighed in relief knowing that he hadn’t offended her. “It’s no secret that I’m bad with words. It doesn’t take much for me to accidentally offend someone.” She smiled and headed upstairs toward the bathroom.

She entered the bathroom and then went back to the top of the stairs. “Nick, where are the towels?”

“In the closet right next to the bathroom.”

“Thanks.”

20 minutes later, she came back downstairs. She entered the kitchen as Nick was taking the pizza out of the oven. The smell of pizza hit her nostrils, and her mouth started watering. “Great timing.”

“I’ll say. I knew I was hungry but the smell of pizza made me realize that I’m a lot hungrier than I thought.”

“I was thinking the same thing. So I say, let’s eat.”

“Good idea.” He placed the pizza on the table and they started eating, making small talk throughout the whole meal.

Soon the pizza and the clean up were done. “So. Now what?”

“It’s almost sunset.”

“I’m not following.”

“Well then follow me to the shore and you’ll see a fantastic site.” They went outside. He grabbed her hand and started running through the trees. Once the trees cleared leading to the sand, Erica tripped and pulled Nick down with her. Their momentum caused them to roll through the sand. When they finally stopped, Nick was on top of her and they were laughing hysterically. Their eyes locked and the laughter soon subsided. Time seemed to slow down as he leaned down toward her. He captured her lips softly in a revealing kiss. Moments later, the kiss ended. Nick looked away embarrassed. He started to climb off of her. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” She grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer to her and kissed him.

They broke apart and faced the open water. Nick sat on the sand with his legs open and Erica sat in between his legs. He held her close to him as she leaned back on his chest. Soon the sun started to set causing a wonderful show of pinks, purples, blues and even a speck of green. “Thank you Nick, for sharing this with me. Today has been wonderful. I couldn’t dream of a better day.”

“Today was good. Although, I can think of something to make it even better.”

“And that is?”

He turned her around and kissed her gently. He pulled away slightly. His face was still hovering close to hers and she could feel his breath when he talked. “If you were my girl.” He kissed her again.

“You’re right. That does make today even better.”

“You don’t think that I’m rushing things. I mean we did only meet yesterday. And I did tell you that I wasn’t ready.”

“If you meet the right girl, all that can change in an instant. So yes. I would love to be your girl.”

Nick smiled. “Really.”

“Really. Now shut up and kiss me.”

“No need to tell me twice.” He kissed her again. Nick pulled away and looked out to sea and stood up. Once he was at the water’s edge he put his feet in the ocean, feeling the angry pulses in the water. He noticed black clouds approaching in the distance. “You don’t have to be anywhere tomorrow, do you?”

“No, why?”

“Because there’s an approaching storm. I don’t want to risk going out so we’re going to have to stay here.”

“That’s fine.”

He turned to her. “Let’s get back to the house before the storm hits. If my instinct is right, then this storm is going to be bad.”

“How often is your instinct right?”

“Almost always.”

They started back to the house as the rain started to fall. As the rain fell harder they started running. They entered the house and the air condition hit their chilled bodies to make them shiver. “Nick, these were my only dry clothes.”

“I’ll give you something to wear and we’ll put your clothes in the dryer so you can wear them home tomorrow.”

“Thanks.”

He gave her dry clothes to change into and then went into the kitchen to make 2 cups of hot cocoa. She came down moments later dressed in his clothes. He turned to her and smiled at the site in front of him. His clothes engulfed her. “Cute.”

She smiled. “I’m glad you think so. Where’s the laundry room again.”

“Here, I’ll take them.” He took her clothes down the hall into the laundry room. He set up the dryer and returned to the kitchen. He grabbed the two cups of hot cocoa and took them to the living room. “Pick a movie.”

She went over to his collection and browsed until she found one she liked. She was surprised to find that he had her favorite movie, “Titanic.”

She gave the movie to Nick to put in the player. She was afraid she’d break something if she put it in. “Titanic huh?”

“Yep. It’s my favorite movie. I was shocked that you have it.”

“AJ gave it to me as a joke.”

“A joke?”

“Yeah. When this movie came out, I kept getting confused for Leonardo DiCaprio. I had long forgotten about that and then he saw the DVD and that is how I got that movie.”

“Yep, that’s AJ for you.”

Nick put the movie in and settled on the couch with Erica. They started off sitting on the couch and Nick had his arm around her shoulders. As the long movie ran its course, Nick changed his position so he was lying on the couch. When Nick moved, she moved so that she was lying in the same direction as he was. He put his arm around her.

As the Titanic was about to hit the ice burg, the power went out.

“What? What happened?” Erica questioned.

“The power went out. Maybe that’s a good thing, because I’m getting tired. I think we should head to bed and hope that the power is back on tomorrow.”

“Sounds like a plan. I’m tired too. Today has been very eventful, but in a good way.”

“That’s for sure. Uh, Erica,”

“Yes Nick.”

“You can take the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“What?”

“Well, I only have one bed, and I’m letting you sleep on it. I’ll be on the floor.”

“You have that HUGE bed upstairs and you’re telling me you’re going to sleep on the floor.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Nick, we’re both adults. I think we can sleep on the same bed.”

“Are you sure? I mean I don’t want you to get the idea that I’m trying to take advantage over you.”

“I trust you Nick. AJ wouldn’t have set us up if you were a bad guy. Come on, let’s go to bed.” He grabbed her hand and they walked together to Nick’s room.
They crawled into his bed. He held her in his arms as they fell asleep thinking about the eventful, yet satisfying day.