“What do you want?” I ask, making sure to keep my voice clipped.
He shrugs. “To make sure you got your stuff okay.” He pushes by me and into the room. “Nice room,” he says, looking around.
“I’m sure it’s the same as yours.” I don’t shut the door, because I don’t want him to get the idea that he can just stay here, like, lingering. He needs to leave. What if Derrick comes by? That would be disastrous. I poke my head into the hallway and make sure no one saw him come in. Phew. Coast clear.
“No, it’s different.” Beckett crosses the room and walks right out onto the balcony. “Nice view,” I hear him say.
If he thinks I’m going to follow him out there, he’s mistaken. He’s like a dog—if you reward him when he’s acting up, he’ll think he can get away with it. A few seconds go by, then half a minute, then a minute, then two. What is he doing out there?
“Well,” I say real loud. “Thanks for checking on me, but I’m kind of on my way out.”
“What?” he calls. “I can’t hear you from out here.”
I take a deep breath in through my nose and out through my mouth. It’s a trick I learned in a yoga class I took last year. It was a phys ed elective, which was kind of a joke. It’s impossible to feel relaxed and Zen when you’re sitting in the disgusting-smelling gym with boys playing basketball on the other side of the divider.
“I said I’m on my way out,” I call. “So I’ll have to see you later.” It’s a lie, of course. I don’t plan on seeing him later. Why would I want to see him later? Do I want to see him later? God, this trip is really not off to a good start.
“But you’re seeing me now,” he calls back. He sounds legitimately confused.
Well. Whatever. I’m not going out there. He can just sit there on the balcony as far as I’m concerned. Forever and ever. I’m not going to be following him around like some kind of sick puppy. I’m sure that’s what he’s used to, from all the stupid girls he’s dated. He’s probably convinced I’m going to come running out after him. Ha! Well, he definitely has another thing coming.
“So I noticed you have an inappropriate bathing suit laid out on your bed,” he calls. “Are you planning on wearing that anytime soon?”
I run out onto the balcony.
“What?”
He’s leaning over the side, inhaling the fresh air. A palm tree rustles in the breeze, sending the smell of sand and beach and ocean through the humid air. I cannot believe I am in this beautiful place and this is what I’m dealing with.
“Look,” he says, turning around. “I’m not judging you or anything. I just think that if you’re using that bathing suit to get attention from guys, you’re going to attract the wrong kind of guys.”
“I don’t need to attract attention from guys,” I say. “I have a boyfriend.”
“And you have to use a skimpy bathing suit to get his attention?”
“No!”
He frowns. “Then you do want to get attention from other guys?”
“No!” I take a second to gather my thoughts. “I’m wearing the bathing suit for me.”
“For you?”
“Yeah, you know, to feel good about myself.” It’s a canned answer, obviously. There’s no way I would wear a bathing suit like that just to feel good about myself. No one feels good about themselves in a bathing suit like that, unless you’re a bikini model. You’re too worried about sucking in your stomach and how your thighs look.
“You have to wear a bathing suit like that to feel good about yourself?”
“Look,” I say, annoyed now. “My swimwear is really none of your business.”
He nods seriously. “Fair enough.”
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to be somewhere.”
“Where?”
“I was just about to call my friend Juliana,” I say. “She’s having a party tonight, and I have to get the details from her.”
“Forget the party,” Beckett says, shaking his head. “Come hang out with me instead.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” I say. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Why not?” He seems confused.
“Because.” I cross my arms over my chest and look at him. “You’re creepy.”
“I’m creepy?”
“Yes.” I tick off the reasons on my fingers. “One, you drive a motorcycle. Two, you showed up at my room unannounced. And three, you have a preoccupation with my swimwear.” I take in another yoga breath. “Not to mention that talking to you is like talking to a three-year-old.”
“Yeah, well, talking to you is like talking to a forty-year-old. You need to loosen up.” But he doesn’t sound mad. Or exasperated. Or anything. He just sounds kind of . . . amused. And he’s looking at me with this little smirk on his face, like he has a secret about me.
I think about how he saw my inappropriate bathing suit. Then I think about how he asked me if I was going to be wearing it soon. Goose bumps break out on my arms, and I take in another long, slow, deep breath. “I think you should go.” But my voice doesn’t sound like I mean it.
“I think you should come with me,” he says, with that same maddening grin on his face. Then he shakes his head. “Actually, no. I know you’re going to come with me.”
“Oh, yeah? And why is that?” God, he is so cocky.
“Because,” he says, and shrugs his beautifully sculpted shoulders. “I know where Derrick is.”
“Derrick’s in his room.”
“No, he isn’t. He left with Lincoln Shrute.”
“Where did they go?” A slightly panicked feeling begins rising in my chest.
“Come with me,” Beckett says, “and I’ll show you.”
“You’re lying. Derrick wouldn’t have left without me.” He wouldn’t have. Derrick doesn’t do things like that. He doesn’t just . . . leave. Not without calling or texting to let me know. He just . . . he’s not a normal boyfriend. He’s nice.
He said he wanted space.
Beckett shrugs. “You don’t have to believe me. But if I leave, and you’re wrong, you might miss the rest of the day with him. Are you really going to take that chance?”
I take in a deep breath.
Before graduation, I will . . . learn to trust.
That stupid email. Why the hell am I thinking about it now? I don’t trust Beckett. And besides, that email definitely wasn’t talking about learning to trust shady guys who I’ve never had any history with. Was it? I’m beginning to get really confused. I think the humidity might be starting to get to me.
“Fine,” I say, grabbing my purse from the nightstand. “I’m coming with you. But you’re taking me right to Derrick. No funny business.”
Beckett looks at me like I’m an insane person. “I don’t believe in funny business,” he says.
It’s a lie, of course.
But what can I do?
I shake my head and follow him out of my room.
Before we get to the elevator, I send Derrick a text.
Where r u?
Trust or not, you have to make sure you cover all your bases.
Outside the hotel, the cobblestone walk is done in shades of orange and pink, giving it kind of a tropical feel. It’s so pretty, and not something you’d ever see back in the Northeast, where gray and beige seem to be the colors of choice when it comes to architecture.
As soon as my feet hit the first step, my phone’s ringing. My mom.
I’m tempted to send it to voice mail, but if I don’t answer it, my mom might freak out. She’s the type who does that kind of thing—can’t get in touch with me for one minute and then does something totally off the rails, like calls the school to find out exactly where I am. You’d think it would mean she’s overly involved in my life, but it’s actually the opposite—my mom is out to lunch half the time, so when she can’t get in touch with me, it snaps her back to reality and she immediately thinks she’s lost me somewhere.
“Who’s that?” Beckett asks, all nosy.
“No one.” My hand hovers over the button. Should I answer or not answer? I don’t want Beckett to hear me on the phone with my mom. First, because I’m going to have to lie, and second, because it’s just . . . I don’t know, weird to have a guy hear you talking on the phone to your parents.
I sigh and answer. “Oh, hi, Mom!” I say happily. I quickly run down in my head the list of things she might ask about, and then try to answer all her questions before she can ask them. “The flight was great, I got here no problem, everything’s good!” My voice sounds slightly frantic.
“Oh, good,” she says. “I’m so glad. So the late-bus thing worked out then?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Hi, Lyla’s mom!” Beckett yells.
“Who’s that?” my mom asks.
I ignore her. “So, ah, our class is about to take a trip down to the ocean. You know, to study some wildlife. The marine kind.”
“Oh, that sounds nice,” she says.
“It is.”
“Come on, Lyla!” Beckett yells. “We better get going, the marine wildlife isn’t going to wait. It has places to be.”
“Who is that?” my mom asks again. “Is that Derrick?”
“Um, no, that’s . . . that’s just my lab partner. For our marine wildlife project. Anyway, I should get going. Call me later, okay?” I trust that she won’t call me later, since she’ll be back to focusing on herself probably as soon as we hang up.
“Marine wildlife?” Beckett asks, amused.
“Yeah,” I say, daring him to ask me more. “I had to say something to get her off the phone.”
“Hey, I’m not judging.” He holds his hands up, like he couldn’t care less what I tell my mom, even though he so was judging. “Even if you are shady.”
I gape at him. “I’m not shady!”
“You kind of are.”
“How am I shady?”
“You lied to your mom about there being a late bus. You got onto my motorcycle when you don’t even know me. And you just told your mom about some bullshit marine wildlife project.” He ticks the reasons off on his fingers. “Oh! And you packed an inappropriate bathing suit.”
“Those things don’t make me shady,” I say. “They make me cool.”
He grins. “Touché.”
But before I can reply, I see something down the street that makes me stop.
Juliana. She’s holding a plastic grocery bag and talking loudly into her cell phone. I freeze. Oh, god. The last thing I need is for Juliana to see me with Beckett. She’s definitely not going to keep it a secret from Derrick. She has a big mouth.
I watch as she stops on the sidewalk and sort of shades her eyes from the glare of the sun. I can’t tell if she sees me, or if she’s looking at something else.
“Shit,” I swear. I grab Beckett’s arm and pull him into a souvenir shop.
“What the hell are you doing?” he yells as I drag him to the back of the store.
“Shh!” I hiss. “She might see us.”
“Who might see us?”
“Just . . . this girl.”
I crouch down behind a rack of sundresses and give him an expectant look.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
I yank at his arm until he finally sighs and crouches down next to me. “Why are we doing this again?” he asks.
“My friend Juliana,” I say. “She was out there on the street. And if she sees me with you, there’s going to be trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” he asks. He looks doubtful, like the kind of thing I’d think is trouble is really going to be nothing.
“She’s friends with Derrick.”
“So?”
“So she’ll tell him we were hanging out.”
He shakes his head. “It’s really sad that you and Derrick have such a non-trusting relationship.”
“Well, when you sent me that note on the plane, it kind of made it sound like something was going on between us.”
He rolls his eyes, like the idea is preposterous, and I try not to feel offended. “Look, is this really necessary?” he asks. “I mean, look at yourself. You’re hiding in the back of a store behind some nightgowns.”
“They aren’t nightgowns,” I correct. “They’re sundresses.” I reach out and finger one. The material is soft and slides through my fingers. They’re so pretty. I wonder if Beckett would mind if we stopped to buy one on the way out. “And if you knew Juliana, you would understand.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s always in his business.”
“Oh,” he says knowingly. “She’s in love with him.”
“No, she’s not in love with him,” I say, shaking my head at how wrong he has it.
“A girl who’s so worried about what you’re doing? Who’s friends with Derrick? She’s definitely in love with him.”
I ignore him and pop my head up over the sundresses and glance around the store: a family with a few kids, a middle-aged couple sifting through a bin of seashells, and a shirtless man with a huge belly looking at the beach chairs.
“There’s no one here,” I say, relieved. “She probably just—”
Juliana steps into my line of sight. She’s off the phone now and looking around the store suspiciously, her eyes flitting over the rows of beachwear.
Beckett pops his head up next to me and starts looking around.
“Get down!” I screech. “Get down right now!”
For once, he listens. I watch as Juliana starts wandering up and down the aisles, looking around. Crap. She obviously saw me come in here. She keeps walking, getting closer and closer to where we are. No way can I have her catch me crouched down here with Beckett. It makes me look way too guilty. I stand up quickly and pretend to be looking through the sundresses.
“Jesus,” Beckett hisses. “What the hell are you doing? She’s definitely going to see you now.”
“Yes, but at least she won’t catch me with you.” I move away from the rack of dresses, forcing myself to walk slow and casual, even though my heart feels like it’s going to beat right out of my chest. I head toward a display of little figurines made of sand and pick one up, studying it intently, like I’m really interested in buying it. Wow. Fourteen ninety-nine. For this little thing? That’s ridiculous. It’s probably not even made out of real sand. It’s probably made out of some synthetic substitute, the kind that can kill your child or your dog if they accidentally put it in their mouth. I turn it over, and sure enough, MADE IN CHINA is stamped in capital letters on the bottom.
They should be ashamed of themselves.
I keep it in my hand, though, because suddenly, I can feel Juliana’s eyes on me. She’s watching as I turn the sand castle over and over in my hand. It’s a little disconcerting, actually, the way I can feel her eyes boring into me. She has a very penetrating stare.
I wonder if Beckett’s right, if she’s really in love with Derrick. Has she been in love with him this whole time? Is she about to go crazy with passion and have some kind of psychotic break? I have a vision of her stomping over here and ripping the sand castle out of my hand and then using it to bash my head in. They’ll have to call the police. And my mom. And my mom will have to come down here, and it will probably take her forever because she’ll have to talk it over with her therapist and find out if it’s a good idea. At least, I think she would. That’s the problem with her self-realizations. She always has to—
“Yo,” a voice breathes into my ear.
I jump. I was so distracted that I didn’t realize Juliana is right next to me. Way to stay aware, Lyla. Everyone knows the first rule of avoiding getting caught doing something bad is to be alert. “Oh,” I say dumbly. I instinctively take a step back, and my hand squeezes around the sand castle I’m holding.
“Hey,” she says, giving me a huge grin. “What’s up, girl?”
“Oh, not much,” I say, “just looking for souvenirs. To, like, bring back to my mom.”
“Oh, good idea.” She re
aches out and takes the sand castle out of my hand. “This is cute. But there’s a used bookstore down the street. Maybe they’ll have some obscure psychology book or something.”
Annoyance sparks inside me as I realize Derrick must have told her about my mom’s path to self-discovery. “Thanks,” I say.
Juliana pushes her long curls away from her face. “So I thought I saw you come in here with Beckett Cross.”
“Umm . . .” I think about it, wondering if I should just tell her the truth. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with what I’m doing. In fact, Beckett is taking me to Derrick. It’s the only way I have to find him, actually. But I can’t take the chance that Juliana is going to get to Derrick first and spin the story. “No,” I say. I pretend to be peering around the store. “I mean, I think I saw him come in here. But he wasn’t with me.”
She bites her lip. Her teeth are blindingly white and perfectly shaped. “Okay,” she says slowly. She leans in close to me, like she’s going to tell me a secret. My first instinct is to back away, but something tells me that if I do that, it’s going to infuriate her. So I force myself to stay where I am.
“You know,” she says, “Beckett is not a nice guy.”
“Well, I don’t even know Beckett,” I say wildly. “I mean, of course I know him. He’s in some of my AP classes. But I don’t, like, know him know him. I’ve only maybe spoken, like, five words to him.” Shut up, Lyla! Shut up!
“That’s good,” Juliana says. “Because Derrick is such a nice guy, and you guys are awesome together.” She puts her hand on my arm, like she’s worried about me. “I just hope you guys can work this out. I know he really cares about you.”
No, I want to yell. He doesn’t just care about me. He loves me! We’re about to have sex! And besides, it’s none of her business. Why does Derrick have to tell her everything? And when did they have time to talk? Is that who she was talking to on the phone? And if so, why hasn’t Derrick called me?
“Thanks,” I say tightly.
“So are you going to come to my party tonight?” she says. “You totally have to. It’s going to be so fun. We’ll drink in my room, then maybe move it down to the beach?”