I tried to catch it left-handed, afraid if I used my other arm, I wouldn’t be able to hide the pain. It was ugly. It fumbled through my useless fingers. I curled my chest around it, but it simply bounced off and knocked right into the spice rack, sending bottles of paprika, curry powder, and cumin crashing to the counter.
It still smells like an Indian restaurant in there.
I tried to pass it off with a laugh, but the suspicion on my dad’s face was unmistakable.
“Looks like you could use some practice.” He tried for a joke. It failed.
“Maybe later,” I said, attempting to sound casual as I opened the fridge. I took out a carton of eggs, milk, and every vegetable I could find. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it all—make the world’s most loaded omelet?—but I needed somewhere to point my gaze. I needed something to do with my hands.
Thankfully, my dad did what we Cartwrights do best: he avoided the issue altogether. He placed the football down on the counter and walked out of the room. After his footsteps retreated, I closed the fridge and stared at the ball.
It said more just by sitting there than my dad ever could.
Thankfully, he got called back to the mainland for some business and left this morning.
I down the rest of my beer and crush the cup. “Want another?” I ask Mike.
He seems distracted by something—thinking about Harper, no doubt—but he nods. “Sure. Thanks.”
I dash up to the bar just as someone turns around with two full cups in their hand and nearly dumps both of them down the front of my shirt. I jump back just in time to avoid the beer bath and look up to see Harper trying to recover her drinks.
Shit.
I feel a flash of anger at the sight of her standing there, dressed in an as-sexy-as-hell sundress, her lips stained bright pink. Why is she here? She had to know Mike would be here. Is she trying to mess with his head by flaunting her perfect little body at him? And who is that other beer for? Most likely some rebound guy she brought along. This girl is a real piece of work.
“Hey,” she murmurs softly, refusing to meet my eye. For some reason she looks embarrassed, obviously at having been caught lurking around this party. She knows I hate it when she plays these kinds of games.
“Hey,” I mumble dismissively as I step around her to the bar. When I glance back again, I don’t see her. Hopefully, she’s scurried off somewhere. Hopefully, to the other side of the island.
As I carry the beers back, I silently debate whether or not I should tell Mike that Harper is here. Or should I just try to discreetly lead him away and suggest we go hang out somewhere else?
But I soon realize it’s a moot point, because when I reach Mike, I find him staring intently at something on the other side of the pool. His eyes are narrowed and his stance is rigid. I follow his gaze to see Harper sitting on a chair in one of the cabanas, sipping her beer and chatting with Bree Olsen, another local girl who went to school with Mike and Harper.
Well, at least it’s not a guy.
I hand Mike his drink. He chugs half of it.
“She had no right coming here,” I grumble, trying to be helpful.
Mike scoffs. “She had every right coming here. It’s a public party.”
“Yeah, but you know what I mean. It’s an unspoken rule.”
Mike’s face is inscrutable, like he’s mentally chewing on something. Then he says, “I’m going to talk to her.”
I launch my good arm out to stop him. “No way. I can’t let you do that, man.”
“Why not?”
“Because she ended it. It will only make you look pathetic.”
Mike snorts. “She didn’t end it. She only said she was ending it. You know she never means it.”
I have a mental flash of Harper sitting on the beach last week, bawling her eyes out, babbling something about how messed up she is.
“Dude,” I say sternly. “How long are you going to let her keep this shit up?”
Mike finally diverts his gaze from Harper to me. I take that as a sign to keep talking. “I mean, seriously. How many times has she pulled this on you? Twenty? Fifty? A bajillion?”
Mike looks into his half-empty cup. “I stopped counting.”
I smack his shoulder with the back of my hand. “See what I mean? When is enough going to be enough? When do you finally recognize that she’s insensitive and manipulative? At what point do you finally get fed up and just, I don’t know, not be there when she comes running back to you?”
Mike sighs. He knows I’m right. I can see it in the surrendering slouch of his shoulders and the downward pull of his mouth. I hate that he’s so tormented like this. It makes my anger toward Harper flare up all over again.
“I’m going to talk to her,” I resolve.
“No,” Mike says, pulling on my sleeve. “Don’t. It’ll only make things worse. Besides, I think I’m going to leave anyway.”
“Not you, too.” I hate how whiny my voice sounds.
“Sorry, man,” Mike says. “I have to wake up early tomorrow. I’m starting a new job.”
“Another one?” I ask, surprised.
Mike looks uncomfortable as he finishes off his beer. “Yeah.” He swallows. “I’m trying to save up this summer.”
For some reason I get the distinct impression that Mike is lying. He’s never been very good at it. But I’m not going to pressure him. If there’s something he doesn’t want to tell me, then there’s a reason. And I certainly can’t argue with him having to leave early because of a second job. I mean, without sounding like a spoiled, rich asshole.
“Okay.” I finally give up. “But are you still coming by to watch Crusade of Kings tomorrow? Rumor has it douchey King Kleo is finally getting whacked.”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll see how I feel.”
Mike holds out his fist to me, and I smile. My hand moves instinctively, running through the steps of our secret handshake: fist bump, then two taps on the top, two taps on the bottom, finishing off with a palm-to-palm finger wiggle. The three of us made it up when we were eight years old, thinking it was the coolest thing in the world. We still break it out from time to time.
When we smoothly slide our hands away from each other, Mike laughs. This time it actually sounds genuine. Then he pats me on the back and disappears in the direction of the club’s main building. I turn my gaze to Harper. She’s watching him leave, a pained expression on her face.
Don’t go after him, I silently warn her. Don’t you dare go after him.
Thankfully, she doesn’t. She refocuses back on Bree. But just as she’s turning her head, her eyes find mine. I expect her to look away. I expect me to look away. But, for some reason, neither of us does.
That is, until another face appears right in front of me.
“Hi!” says a bouncy, high-pitched voice.
It takes me a moment to recognize the girl. Nicole. Non-Leggy Seashell Barrette from the last party. The one who stormed off my boat only twenty minutes after she stepped onto it.
What is she so giddy about? I thought she hated me.
“Hi,” I reply cautiously. I lean left to steal another peek at Harper over the girl’s shoulder, but Harper has already gone back to her conversation.
“How have you been?” Nicole says, and I immediately smell the booze on her breath. She’s tipsy.
“I didn’t think you’d ever want to talk to me again.” I’m surprised by my own bluntness, but I’m just not in the mood to play games tonight.
She bites her lip thoughtfully. “Yeah, about that. I’ve been thinking. I’m sorry about everything. It was totally my fault.”
Say what?
“I was drunk and came on way too strong,” she continues. “And there you were trying to be a gentleman about it and not rush things. It was sweet. And I totally overreacted. So I’m sorry.”
I’m 170 percent sure that’s not how it happened. She was half-naked in the bed, grinding on top of me, and I pushed her off and
said I wasn’t feeling it.
“I’m willing to give it another shot, if you are.”
I look into the girl’s hopeful (half-glazed) eyes, and I feel a tug of something familiar deep inside. I could do it. I could take her somewhere right now and we could hook up and I could be the same old Grayson Cartwright I came to this island to be.
But then, out of the corner of my eye, I see Harper Jennings stand up from her chair and start walking around the pool, toward the clubhouse. I automatically search for Bree and find her in a conversation with Noah, one of Mike’s friends from school. This means Harper is alone.
She’s going after him! The nerve of that girl.
“So,” Nicole says, bringing me back to the conversation. “What do you think?”
I place my hands tenderly on her shoulders and say in the gentlest voice that I have, “I just don’t think it’s going to happen with us. I’m sorry, Nicole.”
Then I take off after Harper. I may not be the same Grayson Cartwright who sleeps with random tourists anymore, but I’m still the same Grayson Cartwright who looks out for his friends. And I’ll be damned if I let Harper ruin another one of Mike’s summers.
CHAPTER 11
MIKE
As soon as I’m away from the pool, I feel the knot in my chest start to unravel. There was something about that party. It was suffocating. Not just because Harper was there. And not just because we had our first kiss in the deep end of that very pool. It was something else.
It was Grayson.
He’s always been a pretty wound-up kind of guy. He has his dad to thank for that. But tonight it was different. There was a desperation about him. An uneasiness. It was circling around us like flies around a carcass.
Or maybe Ian’s situation was just making him uncomfortable. I know it has been making me uncomfortable. The guy has been through so much, but I don’t know how to talk to him about it. I keep hoping he’ll bring it up first so I don’t have to pry, but he never does.
At first I was kind of bummed that I’d have to work all summer, but now, after tonight, I’m almost feeling relieved.
The shortest route to the other side of the beach club’s main building is through the kitchen. When I get there, something is burning in the oven.
I lunge for the controls and turn off the heat. When I open the oven door, the smell of burned bread stings my nostrils. I wave away the smoke, grab a pot holder, and remove a tray of charred biscuits from the rack.
I look around for Mamma V, the beach club’s head chef, and finally find her asleep in a nearby chair. It’s not like her to let things burn. I think about waking her, but she looks so peaceful. So instead I head into the supply closet, grab an oversize chef’s coat, and drape it gently over her like a blanket. I’m not sure why Joey, the owner of the joint, insists on ordering these chef coats from the uniform company when Mamma V refuses to wear them. She says only amateurs wear chef jackets. The real chefs—people like her—don’t need to prove themselves with fancy getups.
She startles and snorts when the fabric brushes against her skin, but then quickly settles back into her nap.
Mamma V is like a second mother to me. To Ian, Grayson, and me, really. She’s lived and worked on this island for longer than I can remember. Sometimes when I was a kid and my parents had overlapping shifts at their jobs, they would bring me here so Mamma V could babysit. I would hang out in the kitchen while she cooked. She would stand me up on a chair and let me put vegetables into the food processor or stir cake batter. Then, when I turned thirteen, she got me my first job washing dishes. Legally you’re not allowed to work in this state until you’re sixteen, but no one seemed to care. And definitely no one argued with Mamma V.
She also has never told anyone her real name. She insists that everyone call her Mamma V, even though she has no children. I always wondered what the V stood for. I asked several times growing up, but she’d always just wink or tweak my nose and then make up some obviously ludicrous answer like, “ ‘Mamma Velociraptor’ if you don’t scrub those pots hard enough.” Or “ ‘Mamma Vengeance’ if you get on my bad side.” Or “ ‘Mamma Very Pleased to Meet You,’ if I like the look of you.”
I’m almost to the back door when she snorts awake, looking confused and disoriented. Her face softens when she sees me. “Mikey!” she croaks in her usual smoker voice (even though she swears she’s never touched the stuff). She tries to stand, but it’s clearly difficult. I run over to help her up and feel a pang of concern.
How old is Mamma V?
I remember her seeming like an old lady even back when I was a kid. But I never recall her having trouble getting around the kitchen.
“What happened?” she asks, glancing around like she doesn’t recognize her surroundings. “Where’s my biscuits?”
I cringe. “I think they’re toast.”
“Not toast. Biscuits.”
“I mean they’re burned.”
She waves this away and hobbles over to the tray. I can see the distress etched into her face. And I can also see the moment she decides to conceal it. “Don’t be ridiculous. They’re supposed to be like this. I’m trying out a new recipe.”
I stare, dumbfounded, at the as-black-as-night biscuits, then back at Mamma V. “Are you feeling okay?” I ask.
“Of course, Mikey. I’m feeling fine. You go on home. I’m going to butter these biscuits.”
I’m anxious about leaving her alone, but when I linger in the doorway, she shoos me again. “Go!”
So I do.
It isn’t until I’m halfway through the grounds that I remember I left my phone in the employee break room this afternoon, and have to turn around. Normally I would just leave it and come back for it in the morning—I’ve never been overly attached to my phone—but my dad’s friend Dave is supposed to text me first thing tomorrow morning with the address of the roofing job.
I went to see him about it earlier in the week, just as I promised my dad I would. Dave was worried about the fact that I’ve never worked on a roof by myself before, but I assured him I would be fine. I’ve helped my dad on enough of his jobs that I’m confident I can hold my own.
I jog into the break room and yank open the door of my locker. My phone is waiting for me on the top shelf. I pocket it, slam the door, and spin around, coming face-to-face with a girl covered head to toe in every color of paint imaginable.
It’s that cute girl who tried to rescue me from not drowning last week, although it takes me a second to recognize her without the wet duck pajamas . . . and with the green paint in her hair.
“Hey!” I say, suddenly realizing I never actually got her name.
“Julie,” she says, reading my mind. “Kind of hard to believe that of all the words that came out of my mouth that night, my name wasn’t one of them.”
I chuckle. “That’s okay. I’m Mike.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“Your name came up the other day when I was talking to one of my coworkers. Apparently you’re a legend around this place. Have you really been working here since you were twelve?”
“Thirteen, actually.”
She shakes her head in disbelief. “Amazing.”
“Not really. It just means I haven’t had a life since I hit puberty.”
She laughs so hard, she actually snorts. It’s kind of adorable.
I glance down at her outfit. It’s the usual club employee getup: khaki shorts and a white polo shirt. Except hers looks like a badly replicated Monet. “Well, you apparently had an interesting day.”
She sighs. “Yeah. Remind me to never do craft hour after Popsicle time. Sugar rushes and wet paint don’t mix.”
I take a step back, admiring the artwork on her uniform. “I don’t know. I think you might have something here. Maybe impressionist.”
“Oh, no,” she deadpans. “It’s cubism all the way. When that five-year-old is dead, this polo shirt is going to be worth a fortune.”
I laugh.
“It looks good on you.”
It isn’t until her face flushes with color that I realize what I’ve said. Was I flirting? I certainly didn’t mean to. I’ve never been very good at the flirting thing. I’ve never really had to get good at it. Harper and I have been dating since we were twelve.
I try to backpedal. “I mean, the art looks good. Not the polo shirt. It’s hard to look good in those stupid club uniforms. Not that you look bad in it. It’s just, you know, a polo shirt.”
And now I’m rambling.
She giggles. “Well, I better go finish cleaning up the room. If you think my shirt looks good, you should see the walls.”
“Do you need help?” My mouth says the words even though my body screams in protest. I’m so tired, and I have such a long day tomorrow.
Thankfully, she says, “Oh gosh, no. I’ll be fine. I put on cheesy pop music and make a dance out of it. It’s probably not your type of music.”
The image of Julie dancing around the kids’ camp, scrubbing paint off the walls, makes me smile. “You’re probably right.” I start for the door.
“Mike?” she says, and her voice reveals just the slightest flicker of hesitation.
I turn around. “Yeah?”
She fidgets with the hem of her painted shirt. “I’m new to Winlock Harbor, like I said, and I was just wondering, since you seem to be a pro, if maybe you could give me a tour tomorrow. Show me around a little?”
My heart lifts, and then immediately plummets back down again.
Is she asking me as a date? Or just as friends? Are we friends?
“Oh,” I falter, feeling stupid. “I . . . I actually have to work tomorrow.”
“Right,” she says hastily. “Of course. Right. You work a lot. I get that. Totally. Okay, well, see ya.” She turns toward her locker and swings the door open.
I stand there like an idiot, my mind whirling. Suddenly all I can see is Harper in that amazing sundress tonight, laughing and drinking with Bree like nothing ever happened between us. And then suddenly all I can hear are Grayson’s words to me before I left.