I had a feeling something catastrophic was coming. Something that would strike a fire and set our little friendship boat ablaze until it burned down to nothing more than a pile of rubble at the bottom of the ocean.
I just had no idea that Harper Jennings would be the match.
CHAPTER 19
GRAYSON
The beach is packed full of people. The Fourth of July weekend visitors are already congregating, arriving by the ferry load. Harper is still running ahead of me, continuously looking back to make sure I’m following her.
Of course I’m following her.
I’ve spent the past sixteen days chasing after her. Up and down and back and forth and hot and cold and off and on. First she kisses me by the pool. Then the next day she tells me it was a mistake. Then that very same night she texts me and lures me out to the beach, where she proceeds to kiss me again, only to pull away and insist that it’s the last time. I’m already losing count of how many “last times” we’ve had in the past two weeks.
And I can’t just blame her. I know that. I’m just as desperate for her as she seems to be for me. What is that about? I can hook up with any girl on this island, and yet all I want is Harper. Mike’s Harper! It makes me sick.
I don’t want any of these beachgoers to see us together and assume something, so I stay several paces behind her, keeping her in my view the entire time. She leads me further and further away from the main beach, the population growing thinner as we go, until I realize where she’s heading.
The marina.
My father’s boat.
We’ve already hooked up twice on it in the past two weeks. It’s one of the few places on the island where we don’t have to worry about being spotted.
She runs ahead of me and jumps onto the bow. She looks back to flash me a seductive smile before ducking down the hatch.
I chase after her, checking the marina for nosy onlookers before hopping aboard and following her down the stairs. She grabs me and pulls me to her. We kiss so hard, we stumble over each other’s feet and go toppling onto the long, upholstered bench. She climbs on top of me, straddles me, her mouth hungering for mine.
Then, just like every other time, without warning she simply stops. She stands up and wipes her mouth, leaving me lying there, breathless and totally turned on.
She starts to pace the length of the boat’s small living room, running her fingers through her gorgeous blond hair. “What’s wrong with us?” she cries.
I sit up but don’t answer. We’ve had this conversation at least five times already, and it never changes.
“You’re Mike’s best friend.”
“You don’t need to remind me,” I grumble.
“This is so wrong. This is so wrong.” She collapses down next to me and starts to cry. I put an arm around her shoulders.
“Hey, hey,” I soothe. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay! I lie in bed at night thinking about how not okay it is. I promise myself it’s over. It’s not going to happen again. And then I see you, and, I don’t know, my resolve goes out the window.”
“I know,” I say softly.
“Do you?” She says it like a challenge. Like she doesn’t believe me. Like she thinks she’s in this alone.
“Yes,” I say a little too forcefully. “Do you think I like this? Do you think I want to betray my best friend? That night on the beach, when I tripped over you, I felt like my life was spinning out of control. I still do. But when we’re together, suddenly it’s like everything makes sense. Until my brain catches up to my body and I realize how fucked up it is, and then it all spins out of control again.”
Harper gets very quiet. “You think we make sense?” she asks, her voice so broken.
I close my eyes. “I think . . .”
I don’t know what I think. I don’t know how I feel. I just know that when Harper is around, I want to kiss her. I want to be with her. Like I’ve never wanted anything else.
I just know that I’ve hooked up with countless girls on this island, and no one has made me feel like this.
I sigh. “Yes. I think we make so much sense that it’s killing me.”
She sniffles, drying her eyes. “Do you remember the first time?”
I sigh. “By the kiddie pool? Yeah. It was only a couple of weeks ago.”
“No. The first time.”
I press my lips together, feeling another cocktail of guilt and nostalgia mix dangerously in my stomach. “Yes.”
I only let myself think about that night a few times a year. The rest of the time I keep it locked in a closet in the back of my mind. Like an old Halloween costume that you store in the attic. You don’t need to wear it, or try it on; you just need to know it’s there.
It was the night we played Spin the Flashlight in the garden shed—after Mike ran off, and the rest of us decided to go swimming in the beach club pool. It got late, and people started to go home. One by one our little group dwindled until it was just Harper and me left. We were having so much fun, I barely even noticed that we were alone until the night lights came on and I glanced around to find the rest of the pool empty.
We both started to shiver from being in the water for too long, and I noticed that my fingertips were wrinkly and Harper’s lips were almost blue. She suggested we get out, and I didn’t argue.
Silently we wrapped ourselves in towels and just kind of stood there on the cement, staring at each other, wondering who would speak next.
Maybe it was just me, but I felt like our “almost kiss” in the garden shed earlier was still lingering in the air, waiting to be acknowledged. Waiting to be finished.
Maybe that’s why I didn’t question her when she asked me to follow her. When she told me she wanted to show me something. When she led me right back into that garden shed.
When she pressed her cold, bluish lips to mine.
There was no lead-in. There was no talk. There was no time to prepare.
One moment I was following behind her, and the next she was kissing me.
It didn’t last long. Maybe a few seconds. The whole thing felt kind of impersonal. Perfunctory. Like a task you check off your to-do list. There was no tongue. No open mouths. No touching. In fact, my fingers never stopped holding the towel that was draped around me like a cape.
Our lips just came together, and then they came apart.
And it was over.
“Did you ever tell anyone?” Harper asks me quietly as I fidget with a seam in the fabric of the bench seat.
I shake my head. “Never.”
She laughs weakly. “Me neither.”
“So Mike still thinks . . .” I start the sentence, but I’m not sure if I can finish it. My thoughts and emotions and libido and conscience are all tangled up, and no matter what I do, no matter how many nights I lie awake searching for a solution, searching for a way to make this all okay, I can’t seem to untangle them.
“That he was my first kiss?” Harper finishes. “Yeah.”
I let my head hang forward. “This is so messed up.”
Harper is quiet for a moment before she asks, “Do you ever wonder what it would have been like if you and I had gotten together? Instead of me and Mike?”
I bite my lip, wondering if I should tell the truth, wondering how damaging it will be in the long run.
Of course I’ve thought about it. How could I not? Harper is beautiful and vivacious and impulsive. And that first kiss, way back when, set some tiny flame ablaze in me that I don’t think ever fully went out. Despite how I’ve felt about the way she’s treated Mike over the years, I’ve always found her attractive and, I suppose, even enticing in some way. But she was never an option. She was always off-limits. She was always Mike’s. Her future was already decided.
Just like mine.
Until they both weren’t anymore.
“Yes,” I finally admit. “More than I should.”
She sighs. “Me too. A lot more recently, though.”
I smile. ?
??Oh, really? My rugged good looks never did it for you before?”
She playfully slaps my arm. “Your rugged good looks always did it for me. It was that perfect tough-guy exterior that turned me off.”
The smile instantly vanishes from my face.
She must notice, because she rushes to explain. “You always seemed like you had it all figured out. You were Grayson Cartwright. Rich, talented, going places. It was impressive yet so intimidating. I always thought I could never be with someone like that. Someone who knows exactly where they’re going. Because I knew I’d always feel lost in comparison. And then when you tripped over me on the beach that day, I don’t know, it was like I finally saw the cracks. And I started to realize that we had more in common than I ever thought possible.”
A lump forms in my throat. It’s the worst thing she could have ever said to me. And the best.
She shakes her head, letting out a nervous laugh. “Anyway, ever since then I can’t help thinking about what it would have been like all those years. If that first kiss between us had led to . . . something more.”
“It never would have worked,” I say with confidence.
She looks slightly offended. “Why not?”
“We were never right for each other,” I tell her, letting it linger in the air for ten long, tense seconds, until I add the two words that I know I won’t be able to take back. “Until now.”
Her gaze snaps to me, her eyes full of questions. So many questions. Between the two of us there are enough unknowns to fill every boat in this marina.
Where do we go from here?
What happens now?
In what implausible scenario does this ever work out well for anyone?
I lean back into the bench with a sigh. Harper rests her head against my chest. “I mean, I feel bad about it and everything,” I admit, stroking her hair. “Obviously I do. But I also . . .” My voice trails off.
Can I say it out loud? Or is it just too horrible?
“What?” she asks, lifting her chin to look at me.
“I also haven’t felt this happy in a long time,” I whisper.
And there it is.
However awful it is. However inappropriate it is. However shitty it makes me as a person. It’s still the truth.
“What if . . . ,” Harper begins pensively, and then falls silent, like she’s lost her nerve.
“What if what?” I prompt her. If she has a suggestion on how to fix this whole mess, then I’m all ears.
“What if we just, I don’t know, tell him?”
I sit up straight and gently push against her shoulders until she’s looking at me. “About the garden shed?”
“No. About this.” She gestures between us. “About us.”
“No,” I say automatically. “Bad idea. Absolutely not.”
“Why? Mike and I aren’t together anymore. I broke it off with him. He’s probably moved on by now.”
“Probably moved on?” I spit back at her. “You clearly don’t know him very well. Only two weeks ago he was still talking about moving to New York with you.”
She bites her lip, clearly having forgotten that part of the conversation she overheard from behind the hedge in my yard.
“And even if he had moved on,” I continue, “it would still be a horrible idea. You’re not a guy. You don’t understand. There’s a code. You don’t date a friend’s sister, and you definitely don’t date a friend’s ex.”
She rolls her eyes. “Guys and their stupid codes.”
“They’re not stupid.”
“They’re too broad and inflexible. They don’t allow for exceptions.”
“That’s because there are no exceptions.”
“What if you fall in love with someone?” she asks, and then suddenly her body goes rigid beside me, and I feel like a stone has just lodged itself in my throat.
When did love enter the conversation? Is that what she’s thinking about? Does she think I might be falling in love with her? Is she falling in love with me?
My mind clamors for something to say. A change in topic. A baseball stat. Anything. But I’m drawing blanks.
Harper has fallen silent beside me, and I wonder if she’s trying just as hard to come up with something. But she must fail too, because the next thing I know she’s kissing me again. Kissing me to change the subject. Kissing me to erase the very words from her mouth. Kissing me because it’s about the only thing that seems to make sense between us.
And this time I don’t think either one of us is going to be pulling away anytime soon.
CHAPTER 20
MIKE
When I walk out of the hardware store, Ian looks like he’s just seen a ghost. He’s so visibly shaken up, I actually scan the street, fully expecting to see some horrific car accident or bike crash or downed pedestrian. But Ocean Avenue, the main shopping street of Winlock Harbor, looks the way it always looks in the summer: bustling with charm, and tourists with cash to spare.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, and he startles at the sound of my voice, even though I could swear he was looking right at me.
“Nothing,” he says quickly, glancing down the small alley that leads to the beach. “Did you get what you need?”
I shake my head. “They don’t keep boot vents in stock. They have to order them from the warehouse. It’ll take a week.”
“A week!” he practically shouts, as if I just told him I had only that long to live.
I give him a strange look. “Everything’s on a delay because of Fourth of July tomorrow.”
“But what about the roofing job?”
“I just left a message on Mr. Cartwright’s cell. I’m going to have to shut down until the parts come in. It’s actually a good thing. Now I’ll have some time to catch a few waves during the day and hang out with you guys. Maybe we can go to the beach.”
Ian’s gaze flickers again in the direction of the alley.
“Do you want to head down there now?” I ask, locking the truck. “I can leave the car here.”
“No!” Once again his reaction is totally over-the-top.
“Okaaay,” I say with a chuckle.
“Sorry. I just really, really need to get back to the house. I, uh, promised Grayson’s dad I’d check the mail while he was gone.”
Great. Now he’s acting weird too. First Grayson, now Ian. What have these two been smoking?
“And the mail won’t still be there later?” I ask.
Ian looks flustered. “It’s just that he’s waiting for a really important document, and I have to alert him as soon as it arrives.”
I shrug and unlock the door again. “Okay.”
Ian hops into the cab faster than a golden retriever who’s just been told he’s going to the dog park. I get in behind the wheel and shoot him another strange look.
“What’s gotten into you?” I ask once we’re less than a half mile from the Cartwright house.
He glances at me out of the corner of his eye. For a second I get the feeling that he’s going to confess something to me. Something big. Maybe he finally wants to talk about his dad. I admit, the thought makes me feel terrified and relieved at the same time.
“It’s just . . . ,” he begins hesitantly.
“Yeah?”
“It’s just . . . ,” he starts again, and I’m convinced he’s going to trail off once more, but then he suddenly blurts out, “It’s Grayson!”
I pull into the driveway of the house, shut off the car, and look at him. “What about Grayson?”
He rubs at his eyebrow, just above the fading purple bruise that you can barely even see anymore. Whatever he’s about to tell me is obviously incredibly difficult for him.
“It’s his sister,” he finally says, his voice shifting ever so slightly.
“Whitney?” I ask in surprise. This was definitely not what I expected him to say.
“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “She’s driving me crazy.”
I let out a laugh. “What else is new?”
/> “No,” he goes on, opening the door and hopping out of the truck. “I mean, she’s really driving me crazy. I can’t figure the girl out. Remember how she used to be so materialistic and stuck up?”
I hop out too. “Used to be?”
“That’s the thing. It’s like she’s undergone some strange transformation. She dresses in completely different clothes now. She wears glasses. Glasses! Whitney! And just a few minutes ago while we were in town, I saw her buying books.”
“Books,” I repeat, certain I must have misheard.
He throws his hands into the air. “Yeah! Books!”
“Like, real books?”
He chuckles. “Right? I’m so confused.”
“Aha!” I say, with sudden realization. “Now I get it.”
“Get what?”
“You,” I tell him. “When I came out of the hardware store, you looked, I don’t know, traumatized or something. Now I understand why.”
I swear I see Ian flinch, but before I can be sure, he’s smiling and nodding. “Exactly. I mean, Whitney Cartwright buying books? What could be more traumatizing than that?”
He starts toward the house, walking briskly, like something is chasing him.
“Wait,” I call out, and Ian turns around. “Didn’t you need to check the mail?”
It’s obvious from his expression that he completely forgot about that. He runs over to the box, pulls down the little metal door, and peers inside. “Nope. Not here yet,” he announces, and then he bounds up the front steps of the house, leaving me alone to figure out what I’m going to do with my unexpected day off.
I wonder what time Julie gets off work.
CHAPTER 21
IAN
I am a coward.
A big, fucking coward.
I’m spineless. I’m weak. I’m wasted space.
If my best friend was cheating with my ex-girlfriend, I would want Mike to tell me. And Mike is the kind of guy who would tell me! Because he’s a good person. Because he doesn’t deserve any of this. Because he’s not a coward like me.
I retreat to my room and pick up my guitar, strum a few bars of the song I wrote a few weeks ago. I’ve been tinkering with some of the chords and melodies, trying to get it just right. The sound of it now settles my roiling stomach somewhat, so I keep going, softly humming along with the melody.