“Sure,” I say. “Sounds great.”
“Good.” Her phone rings again, and she looks down at the screen. “I have to take this. Text me later.” She turns and walks away, her hair bouncing behind her.
“You can come out now,” I yell to Beckett once I see Juliana disappear down the sidewalk, heading back toward the hotel. “She’s gone.”
“Why didn’t you tell her I was here?” he says. “Now if she finds out, she’s going to know you lied.”
“Because,” I say. “She would have told Derrick. And she’s not going to find out.”
“But if Julia does find out—”
“Her name is Juliana,” I say, rolling my eyes. “You really need to get better with names.”
“I’m very good with names,” he says as we step back out onto the sidewalk. The sun warms my skin, and I turn my face up toward the sky, enjoying the way the heat feels against my cheeks. “In case you haven’t noticed, I have an amazing memory. I’m in all AP classes.”
“It’s impossible to be in all AP classes,” I say. “The school only offers three of them. And you’re not good with names, you don’t even know mine.”
“Of course I know your name,” he says. “It’s Pink.”
“My real name,” I say, even though I know he knows what I’m talking about.
He turns around in the middle of the sidewalk and stands in front of me, blocking me from moving forward. That same flush goes through me, the one that went through me this morning when he was standing so close to me near the car.
“I know your name,” he says softly. “It’s Lyla.”
“You just know because you checked the tag of my suitcase,” I say. I’m staring at his chest, because for some reason I don’t want to look into his eyes. It’s this weird unexplainable thing, like if I look into his eyes something . . . unstoppable is going to happen. Not that looking at his chest is much better. It’s hard and muscular and I can’t help but imagine what it would be like to reach out and slide my hands up under his shirt.
“No,” he says. His voice is still soft, and it’s lost its usual cockiness. “I knew before that.”
“Oh.” I swallow. My heart is hammering in my chest. “Then why did you ask me what my name was?”
“Because I felt like messing with you.” His voice is back to his normal, cocky tone, and just like that, the spell is broken. I shake my head, then move around him and keep walking.
“Oh, what, you’re mad now?” he asks, following me.
“No,” I say. “In order to be mad at someone, you have to actually care about what they think of you, or what they’ve done to you. And I don’t. Besides, if I was going to be mad at you, it wouldn’t be because you gave me some dumb nickname and pretended you didn’t know who I was. It would be because you sent me that note on the plane and then almost got me in trouble with Juliana.”
“You got yourself in trouble with Juliana. And besides, I thought you said she wasn’t going to find out you were with me. In which case, there would be no trouble for me to get you into in the first place.”
I feel like I’m on some kind of weird merry-go-round, like no matter what I do I can’t get out of the Beckett vortex.
Admit that it’s kind of fun.
My phone buzzes, and I reach down and pull it out of my purse.
Just an email.
From me . . . to me.
Before graduation, I will . . . learn to trust.
A memory bubbles up in my mind. Aven, Quinn, and me, standing on the beach with our phones out, scheduling our emails to be delivered on this day. Aven said something about how by the time we were seventeen, we might think the emails were stupid. Quinn didn’t think we would, but even so, we decided to have them repeat. Every couple of hours, throughout the day. So we wouldn’t be able to ignore them.
At the time, I thought it was so clever of us, and I had an image in my mind of seventeen-year-old me getting the emails at different points throughout the day, realizing how important it was for me to work on my trust issues and thanking fourteen-year-old me for being so clever. Now seventeen-year-old me doesn’t want to thank fourteen-year-old me—she wants to go back in time and throttle her.
I’ve already figured out my trust issues, I try to tell the past me. I’m fine. I have a boyfriend. I don’t have issues with men. If I had issues with men, I’d be with someone like Beckett. Someone unpredictable and crazy and unreliable.
“What’s that?” Beckett asks, trying to look over my shoulder.
“Just an email.” I shove my phone back in my purse.
“From who?”
“From . . .” Something tells me “myself” is going to sound a little crazy. Besides, the last thing I want to do is tell Beckett about my email from the past. Or my trust issues. Well, my past trust issues. “It was nothing,” I say.
“Then why do you look so disturbed?”
“I’m not disturbed!” I shake my head, trying to clear my thoughts. “Look, can you just take me to Derrick?”
“Sure.”
I follow him down the sidewalk, past the shops and boutiques, weaving in and out of tourists wearing Hawaiian shirts and sunblock.
I feel a little . . . unsettled somehow.
It’s okay, I tell myself. You’ll feel better when you’re with Derrick. You always do.
Of course nothing with Beckett can be that easy, because he insists on stopping for an ice-cream cone.
“What kind do you want?” he asks when it’s his turn in line. The ice-cream shop is near the end of Ocean Boulevard and is called Big Olaf. The line, of course, was out the door, but did that stop him? No. In fact, it just seemed to make him happier. “Must be a popular place,” he said cheerily when he saw the huge crowd.
“I don’t want any ice cream,” I say haughtily. It’s a lie, of course. I never don’t want ice cream. Especially on a day like today, when the sun is shining and the sky is blue and you can smell the ocean breeze.
He gives me an incredulous look, like he’s not buying it.
“A double-scoop Heath bar crunch on a sugar cone.”
Beckett raises his eyebrows. “Impressive, Pink,” he says, before turning back to the counter. “Two double-scoop Heath bar crunch on sugar cones,” he tells the girl taking our order.
A secret little thrill runs through my body at the fact that Beckett deemed my ice-cream order good enough to copy. Suddenly, I’m ravenous. Beckett passes me my cone, then pulls a napkin out of the dispenser and hands it to me.
“Thanks.” I start to pull out my wallet. “How much do I owe you?” He waves me away.
“It’s on me,” he says.
“Oh.” I’m not sure if that’s really appropriate. I mean, how would Derrick feel if he knew some other guy was paying for my ice-cream cone? Probably he wouldn’t be too thrilled. I think about how I would feel if the roles were reversed and I found out a girl paid for Derrick’s ice cream. Or, even worse, that Derrick paid for a girl’s ice cream.
“Oh, relax,” Beckett says as he pushes his way through the throng of people and back out onto the street. “It doesn’t mean anything. It was three dollars.”
“Thanks. I haven’t eaten anything all day. Well, besides the package of cookies on the plane.” I take a lick of ice cream, closing my eyes in pleasure as the sweet creaminess hits my taste buds.
“That doesn’t count.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” I say, satisfied. Derrick and I always fight about that—whether you can say you haven’t eaten all day if you’ve technically eaten something. I say you can, as long as you haven’t had a whole meal. Derrick says you can’t, because snacks are still food. Which technically I guess is right, but—
Wait a minute. Why am I thinking about disagreements Derrick and I have had? And why am I comparing him to Beckett? That unsettled feeling comes back into my stomach.
“Are we almost there?” I ask, suddenly anxious to bring this whole excursion to an end. This is really not how I should b
e spending my first day of vacation.
“Yes.”
We fall into silence as we walk down the street, licking our ice-cream cones and dodging people on the sidewalk. The streets are busy, filled with families leaving the beach, people heading out for an early dinner, and older couples poking into the souvenir shops. When we’ve passed all the restaurants and bars and gotten to the end of the road, Beckett leads me across one of the main streets and into a tiny parking lot. There’s a small sandy path at the end of it, and I follow Beckett as he starts toward it.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
And then I look up from my ice cream. The beach comes into full view in front of me and almost takes my breath away. That’s how beautiful it is. This is not like the kind of beaches they have in the Northeast, like the rocky ones on Cape Cod or in Maine. Here, the sand is pure and smooth and white, and it slides over my flip-flops and in between my toes, cool and perfect. The birds that swoop and slide in front of the bright-blue sky are exotic-looking, different from the gulls that populate the beaches back home. The ocean sparkles in the distance, the water a deep aqua, the sun shining as it bounces off the waves.
“Wow,” I say. “It’s gorgeous.” I’ve never been much of a beach person, but now, suddenly, I want to stay here. I want to lay out my towel and take a nap with the sun shining down on me. I want to spread out trashy magazines and lather myself with sunscreen and walk along the water so I can taste the salt in the air.
“It is,” Beckett agrees.
We both just stand there for a moment, taking in the scene.
“So is there, like, a restaurant or something on this beach?” I ask as we start walking again. I picture Derrick sitting out on a deck somewhere, eating crab cakes and French fries, his face already starting to get red from the sun. Derrick loves eating outside. Usually I’m not a fan—the wind always blows your napkins around and bugs end up in your food—but for this view, it would be worth it.
“I’m not sure,” Beckett says.
He’s walking faster now, navigating through the throng of people who have set up their towels on the sand. Which doesn’t really make sense. Why would he be heading toward the water? If Derrick is at some restaurant around here, shouldn’t we be walking down the beach, toward where he might be?
“You’re not sure if there’s a restaurant, or you’re not sure where it is?”
“I’m not sure if there is one. Or where it is.” He turns around and grins at me, and then keeps walking.
I frown and then pick up my pace to keep up with him. “But you said you were taking me to Derrick.”
“No, I said I was going to show you where he was.”
“Okay,” I say, not sure what the difference is. “So then where is he?”
“On the beach.” Beckett holds his arm out and swoops it around, like the beach is his own personal gift to me.
“Where?” I shade my hand from the sun and look around. But I don’t see Derrick anywhere.
“I don’t know.” Beckett shrugs. “He said he was going to the beach with Lincoln. So he must be here somewhere.”
“He must be here somewhere?” I look at him incredulously. “Are you kidding me? You said you knew where he was!”
“I do know where he is! He’s on the beach.”
“The beach is, like, four miles long!” I can’t believe this. I followed him around all afternoon, let him buy me a stupid ice cream, and now . . . nothing. He’s been messing with me this whole time.
“It won’t take you that long to find him,” Beckett says.
“It will take forever to find him!” I say. “Look at all these people.”
“Oh, come on,” he says, in that infuriatingly cocky way of his. “You can walk four miles. It won’t take you that long. Just text him and tell him you’re on the beach. I’m sure it will be fine.”
“It won’t be fine,” I say, deciding to leave out the part about how Derrick hasn’t been answering my texts.
Instead, I turn around and stomp off. But of course I can’t really stomp, because it’s hard to stomp on sand. So I sort of just . . . slink away. I expect Beckett to call after me, to tell me he was joking and that he does know where Derrick is after all. But he doesn’t.
I walk back down the sandy path and through the tiny parking lot and back onto the main street. People walk by me, happy and tan, laughing and joking, enjoying their vacations. But I’m in no mood for any of it. I’m too angry. I mean, who does something like that? Who leads someone on a wild-goose chase while knowing the whole time that they’re just messing around? What’s the point?
Maybe he wanted to spend time with you. And you wanted to spend time with him, too.
I shake the thought out of my head.
I’m so mad at him I could scream.
But I’m also mad at myself.
I never should have trusted him.
My phone buzzes then. I look down.
Before graduation, I will . . . learn to trust.
Wow. Universe one, Lyla zero.
FIVE
“PLEASE TELL ME YOU DIDN’T USE ALL THE hot water,” Quinn says. She comes out of the bathroom and looks at me accusingly, like using up all the hot water is akin to kidnapping a child or stealing someone’s life savings. “Please tell me” is one of her favorite ways to start a sentence when she’s looking for a way to blame someone for something.
I remember her, two years ago, standing in front of the school. The three of us raising our voices at one another, which was scary, because we never did that. On the rare occasions we had a disagreement, we’d sit down and work it out calmly. Aven forced us to—she was the peacemaker, the one who thought everything could always be figured out by talking. But before the yelling started that day, I remember Quinn saying, “Please tell me you’re not mad about this.”
But of course I was. I was so mad I couldn’t even look at them, couldn’t stop myself from yelling. Aven looked shocked when we started, and even more shocked when she finally started yelling back.
“I didn’t use all the hot water,” I say to Quinn now. “I’ve been out of the shower for at least an hour.”
“Right.” She sniffs and then rolls her eyes, walking back into the bathroom and slamming the door behind her.
It’s later that night, and I’m in my room getting ready for Juliana’s party. I’m not really in the mood for a party—after I left Beckett on the beach, I texted Derrick again (okay, fine, three more times), but he never responded. In the two years that Derrick and I have been together, he has never acted like this. He’s the perfect boyfriend. He doesn’t just disappear. And yeah, I know he’s mad at me for lying to him, but mad enough to blow me off all day? It doesn’t make sense. Something must be going on with him. But what? I can’t figure it out, and the more I try, the more anxiety I feel.
Anyway, I don’t really want to go to the party, but I can’t just bail. One, because Juliana’s been texting me to make sure I’m going to show up, and two, because I’m sure Derrick’s going to be there. Just because he’s been MIA all day doesn’t mean he’ll blow Juliana off—he knows she’d go bat-shit crazy. I wonder what that means, that Derrick’s willing to ignore me all day but that he’s not willing to ignore Juliana. Is Beckett right? Is Juliana in love with Derrick? Is Derrick in love with Juliana?
My stomach is starting to ache.
Must. Not. Think. Negative. Thoughts.
It’s going to be fine, I tell myself.
Once Derrick realizes I’ve done nothing wrong, once we’ve worked it out, we’ll be fine. In fact, we’ll be more than fine. We’ll be, like, all worked up and ready to have makeup sex. Which is the hottest kind of sex you can have. Not that I’ve ever had makeup sex. Obviously. But still. How awesome would it be to have the hottest kind of sex you can have the very first time you have sex? There will probably be all kinds of passion and romance. Derrick will throw me down on the bed and kiss me all over before having his way with me. A thrill runs up my spine.
/>
I think about the sexy underwear I packed just in case. A black thong and demi-cup bra.
“Why the hell didn’t I pack that bustier?” I mutter just as Quinn comes out of the bathroom.
“Wow,” she says. “Sounds like a personal problem.”
I open my mouth to reply with some snappy retort, but then I stop. Quinn is standing in front of me wearing . . . an outfit that is definitely not Quinn. She has on a red-and-white-striped skirt that stops way above the knee, and a white tank top that plunges so far down in front I’m afraid her boobs are going to pop out. Her hair falls in long waves around her shoulders, her eyes are brushed with metallic shadow, and a kiss of blush highlights the tan she must have gotten today.
“What the hell are you wearing?” I blurt before I can stop myself.
“Seriously?” she says. “You’re wishing for a bustier and you’re questioning my fashion choices?” She leans over the dresser in the corner and studies herself in the mirror. I watch, fascinated, as she wipes away a tiny smudge of mascara from the corner of her eye, then reaches into her purse and pulls out a lipstick. She paints her lips in a dark red, then drops the lipstick back into her bag. Then she steps back and fluffs her hair.
“Um,” I say. “Is everything okay?”
She turns around to check her butt out in the mirror, and my mouth drops. The gesture is just so . . . not Quinn. She’s not into makeup and dressing up and looking . . . well, hot. It’s not that Quinn isn’t pretty. It’s just the opposite, actually. She has this rich chestnut hair and blue eyes and fair skin and a few freckles sprinkled across her nose. She looks a lot like Kate Beckinsale. But Quinn has never been wrapped up in her looks. Sure, she’d do her hair and slap on some lip gloss, but when it came to getting all dolled up? No way.
“Everything’s fine,” she says. “Why do you ask?”
She pulls out some perfume and spritzes it all over her body. I’m surprised she knows the appropriate pulse points.
“Since when did you start wearing perfume?” I ask.
“Since, like, forever,” she says. But it sounds like it’s a lie. She gives herself one last long look, then squares her shoulders and tilts her chin up, like she’s trying to convince herself of something.