Boys of Summer (2 page)

“Plans with
Mrs.
Metzler?” I jump back into the conversation. “How is the old Harpoon, anyway?”

Mike hates when I call her that. But I've always found the nickname so fitting. No matter what is happening between those two, no matter how far she wanders just out of reach, Harper Jennings always seems to have one sharp spear safely impaled in Mike's leg.

Mike scowls at me from behind his cup. I grin back, unfazed. Because this is just what we do. We bag on each other. It's what makes us . . . us.

See,
I tell myself.
This is good. Nice and casual. No one is asking questions. No one is whispering. It's just a normal summer night on Winlock Harbor.

Fake it till you make it. That's what my father always says.

Maybe he didn't fake it well enough. Maybe
that's
why my life fell apart.

“She's on the mainland visiting her brother. And we're taking a little breather.”

“Another one?” I blurt out, and immediately regret it when I see Mike flinch ever so slightly. It seems like Mike and Harper are constantly taking a breather. Sure, they always get back together in the end, that's just what they do, but the incessant up-and-down has to bother him. Even if he swears it doesn't.

I give him a hearty slap on the back, trying to recover from my misstep. “Well, perfect timing, then. It'll give you a chance to test the waters. See what you've been missing out on. Hey, I'll even let you have non-leggy Seashell Barrette.”

Mike shakes his head at my antics. “I'm not going to cheat on my girlfriend.”

“We know,” Ian and I say flatly in unison, and then break into laughter.

“My money's still on Red, White, and Blue,” Ian says, pushing his shaggy hair from his face. “I mean, look at her. She's hot
and
patriotic. What more could you want?”

“Is that the name of your next love ballad?” Mike teases. “ ‘Hot and Patriotic'?”

“You joke.” Ian points with his beer. “But that's just the kind of song that will turn me into a YouTube sensation.”

As I listen to my friends go back and forth in their usual jeering banter, I take another sip and peer over the rim of my cup at the two girls in question—a tall redhead in an American-flag top and shorter-than-short denim cutoffs, and a medium-height blonde in a sexy white sundress with a small seashell clipping back some of her hair.

No doubt, both of them are cute. No doubt, one year ago I would have been happy to show either one of them the inside of my father's sailboat.

But that person feels like a ghost now. A fun-house mirror reflection of myself.

Yet it's that very reflection I need so desperately to get back. A suit of armor I need to slip back on. Especially if I'm going to survive this summer in one piece.

I wince and rub my right arm. I downed four aspirin before I left the house, and my arm is still killing me. I need something stronger. Something that requires a prescription. But, unfortunately, prescriptions require honesty about how much pain you're actually in.

Seashell Barrette catches me looking and interprets it as an invitation to make her way over. Mike and Ian, still
ribbing, instinctively take a few steps back, clearing the way for her like jesters at my court.

The girl sidles up and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. The breeze immediately blows it right back into her face. “You're Grayson Cartwright, aren't you?” She bites her lip and rocks gently back and forth on her heels. Her intention for coming over is clear. It's written all over face. She's not here to sell me insurance.

My mind wants so desperately to turn her down, walk away, take off running, and not look back. But I remind myself that
this
is exactly why I'm here. For a distraction.

And God, does she smell good.

Just like summer.

The charm turns on automatically. Like a light bulb that responds to a double clap. I smirk back at her. “The one and only.”

She giggles and sips coyly from her cup. “I've heard things about you.”

“Good things, I hope?”

She tilts her head from side to side. “Just . . .
things
.”

I flash another grin, making sure this one triggers the dimple. They all love the dimple. “Lies, I tell you. They're all lies.”

She laughs again, tipping her head back. Her neck is long and slender, her skin the color of honey. When she looks back at me, her eyes actually sparkle.

“When did you get to the island?” she asks.

“Just today. You?”

“A few days ago. It's my family's first time here.”

I snap my fingers. “I knew I would have remembered you.”

Her smile broadens. And what do you know? She has a dimple too. “We used to summer on Nantucket, but my dad thought it was getting too mainstream.”

“Well, I can tell you with authority that Winlock Harbor is anything but mainstream. We like to think of ourselves as classy but eccentric. And it's a very tiny island. The kind of place where everyone knows everyone's name and everyone's business.”

“Oh,” she says, pouting a little. “That's too bad.”

I frown. “Why?”

“I'm not a huge fan of tiny.”

I clear my throat. “Which reminds me. I still don't know
your
name.”

“Sorry. It's Nicole. Short for Nicolette.”

“Pretty,” I remark, not because I have any affinity for those particular letters, but because that's what you always say when girls tell you their name.

“Your family has that big place down by the marina, right?” she asks.

I cock an inquisitive eyebrow. “You sure know a lot about Winlock Harbor for having just arrived a few days ago.”

She blushes. There's no denying she's adorable. And sexy. Her little white sundress is tight enough that the margin of error for imagining what's underneath is negligible. “Someone gave me a very extensive tour,” she explains.

“Was this the same someone who was saying all those nice things about me?”

“Maybe.”

“So what else did you learn on your little tour?”

She shrugs with one shoulder. “Lotsa stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Like how you're attending Vanderbilt in the fall as the first African-American starting quarterback in history.”

My smile collapses. “Not the first,” I mumble as I grab her cup a little too brusquely. “Let me refill that for you.”

“But I wasn't—” she starts to protest. I don't let her finish. I turn and plod toward the bar. She staggers after me, her wedge heels sinking into the sand with each step, making it difficult for her to keep up.

I place the nearly full cup down hard on the surface of the tiki-themed bar. Beer sloshes over the sides. “Top it off, please,” I say, nodding to the cup.

The bartender gives me a strange look. Not because I'm only eighteen—the Coral Bay Beach Club seems to operate by its own set of rules—but because there's barely enough room in the cup for more than a few drops.

He decides not to argue, though, and squeezes a dribble of beer from the keg's faucet until the cup is full again. I hand it to Nicole, who is now standing behind me. “Here you go.”

The charm is gone. My tone straddles the line between hostile and annoyed. I need to rein it in, get back to the easy breezy guy I seemed to have such a solid handle on just a few seconds ago.

She forces a smile. Totally fake. “Thanks,” she murmurs, but doesn't drink.

“You know,” I begin in a measured voice, trying to regain control of the situation. “It's really getting crowded out here. Do you wanna go someplace quieter? My boat is just a few minutes down the beach.”

She nods, her expression brightening. “Sure!”

I wonder if her extensive tour of the island included commentary on Grayson Cartwright's boat. If it did, she certainly isn't dissuaded by the implications of the invitation.

She sets down her untouched beer and reaches for my right hand. I flinch at the pain that shoots up my arm and quickly switch to her other side, hiding my grimace with a smile as I entangle my large dark fingers with her slender pale ones.

As I lead her away from the party, I can't help but notice how wrong and unnatural the whole thing feels, like I'm walking in a stranger's shoes. A stranger who just happens to look like me.

Fake it till you make it.

That's the plan, anyway.

When we pass the bonfire, out of the corner of my eye, I see Ian begrudgingly hand a twenty-dollar bill to Mike. Mike holds up his winnings to me like he's toasting my send-off.

I make a mental note to pay Ian back later.

MIKE

T
he house is its usual state of disaster when I get home. Someone let the dog onto the couch—whose idea was it to take in a stray dog?—and now there's more sand on the cushions than on the beach I just left.

I place the leftovers I scored from the clambake on the table and step over a pile of wet swim trunks and plastic shovels, just as a blur of bare skin and fur comes barreling past me, nearly razing me. Jake and Jasper have apparently invented a new game. It's called Tornado.

The boys—who are wearing nothing but their superhero underwear—jump onto the sofa, trying to get away from the matted, sandy creature chasing them. The dog—I think his name is Frank this week—jumps up after them, and there's a chorus of squealing and barking.

I shake my head. “Who's hungry?”

This gets their attention. It's the only thing that does. They leap off the couch in simultaneous kung fu kicks and come over to see what I've brought. The dog follows. He's clearly an optimist.

“Jasper, feed Frank,” I say.

Jasper lets out a whine and stomps his foot. “I fed him last night.”

“His name's Walter now,” Jake informs me.

“Fine. Jake, feed Walter.”

“I fed him this morning. It's Jasper's turn.”

I look from one identical pout to the other, trying to figure out if they're doing that twin prank where they trick me into thinking Jake is Jasper and Jasper is Jake until I finally get so confused that I just feed the dog myself. You would think after six years with these little villains, I would always be able to tell them apart, but you'd be surprised.

“You did not!” Jasper argues.

“Did anyone feed the dog this morning?” I ask, looking down at the brown-and-white wire-haired mutt sitting patiently at the foot of the table, waiting for his share. I should reward him for being the quietest of the bunch.

Jasper and Jake look at each other and then at me with blank expressions.

I laugh and uncover the plates of food. “You eat. I'll feed him.”

I scrape a portion of food onto a separate plate for Dad before the twins can devour it all, and place it on the kitchen counter. They may be miniature, but they can put away steamed clams like no one's business. Then I pour a bowl full of kibbles for Walter. He gobbles it up immediately, and I feel myself soften toward the poor guy. We found him wandering the streets behind Coconut's Market, looking for scraps. It's odd to find a stray dog on the Locks. Especially one who looks like him. All of the tourists bring their designer, pedigree, purebred show dogs to the island and wouldn't dare leave them behind at the end of the summer. The origins of this little mongrel are as mysterious as his breed.

“Mike!” I hear one of the boys scream from the family room. “Jake is hogging all the corncobs!”

“Share!” I call back, and then disappear into my room and close the door, temporarily blocking out the sound of the Metzler Twins' Last Stand.

I slip off my flip-flops and collapse onto my bed. Between a full-day shift maintaining the endless grounds at the club and the clambake, I'm totally beat and my feet are killing me.

I get exactly ninety seconds of peace before someone knocks.

“Come in!” I say.

I expect the boys to come barging in to tell me the dog swallowed a clamshell or something, but instead it's my dad who steps inside. “You think maybe you can keep them quiet? I'm trying to sleep.”

I snort out a laugh, and he flashes his typical goading grin as he hobbles into my room favoring one foot and sits next to me on the bed. I notice he's not using his crutches. I would bring it up if I thought it would do any good.

“You think maybe I could spike their milk with cough syrup tonight?” I joke back.

“Already tried that,” he deadpans. “The villains are immune.”

“Don't worry. I'm sure it's just a phase.”

Dad cracks up. It's a little private joke between my parents and me. We've been saying it since the twins were six weeks old and wouldn't stop crying all night. “It's just a phase.” When they turned two and were throwing dual temper tantrums in the middle of the grocery store, that was just a phase too. And when they were five and first learned the word “sex,” they thought it was
hilarious
to say it to every person they met. That was one of the more awkward phases.