Boys of Summer (26 page)

We stay like that for a long time. Not saying a word. Our fingers entwined, our gazes finding each other over and over again.

I know she wants me to kiss her. I
want
to kiss her. But
my mind just can't seem to send the message to the rest of my body. My legs and arms are frozen.

All those doubts that I never had time to think about with Harper come barreling into my mind now.

What if I mess it up?

What if I've been doing it wrong this whole time and Harper and I never knew because we never had anything else to compare it to?

What if it feels weird?

I've only kissed one girl in my entire life. How do you just kiss someone else and pretend it doesn't shatter your whole belief system to the core?

Julie takes a step toward me, blinking twice. Her face is so close to mine. Her lips are so reachable. My stomach begins to churn.

I can smell the faint scent of oranges on her skin. I wonder if she served them to the kids today. Or if she just naturally smells like oranges.

She smiles and lifts her hand, rests it on my cheek. Her eyes close.

I lean into her, but something just behind her snags my attention. Something out of place and foreign in my sacred space. A dark object near the fallen log.

I pull away, releasing her hand. I walk over to it and bend down to scoop it up.

Someone else has been here. Someone left their phone here.

I turn it on to see if I can deduce who it might belong to, and I'm bombarded by a barrage of text message notifications filling the screen. I stare in disbelief, my heart pounding in my chest.

Every single one of them is from Harper Jennings.

IAN

D
on't laugh,” I warn Whitney for the fifth time.

“I'm not going to laugh!” she yells, grabbing a cherry stem from the nearby basket and throwing it at me. It's the morning after our conversation on the bench outside Barnacle Books, and we're back in the woods in the middle of the island. We've been coming here for the past month, trying to stay away from the summer crowds. And especially trying to stay away from Grayson. I don't know how he would react if he found out about Whitney and me, and honestly I don't really want to know.

It's not that I don't care what he thinks. He's my friend, after all. But Whitney is the best thing to happen to me in months, and I think I deserve a little reprieve.

“Just remember,” I tell her, “I wrote it a while ago. When you were still a pain in my ass.”

“I'm still a pain in your ass,” she argues. “Just play already.”

I take a deep breath and glance down at the placement of my fingers. All lined up. Everything ready to go. The song is ready to burst out of me. I've been waiting all summer for the right time to do this, and now there's no turning back.

I start to strum. I keep my eyes locked on the strings. I can't bear to look up at Whitney, just in case she starts laughing. After four bars I sing the first verse, feeling the emotions of those words that I wrote more than a month ago come flooding back to me.

“She's at an awkward age.

Don't even try to make it better.

Her heart's a rain-soaked page.

She'll try to blame you for the weather.

Like some elaborate maze

You'll make it through if you remember

Where you've been . . .”

My voice is rough and scratchy, but it fits. It's a rough and scratchy kind of song. Unpolished and raw. Whitney hasn't uttered a word since I started. I plow on through the chorus, my strumming intensifying.

“If I'm wrong, what will she look like in the morning?

If I'm strong, what will bring me to my knees?

If I'm lonely in my world of make-believe,

What will she be?

Yeah, what will she be?”

It's not until I finish that I brave a glance at her. But her face is a blank page scribbled with invisible ink.

“You hate it,” I say, pulling my guitar off my lap. I return it to the case. I don't know what I was thinking, playing her this song, opening up this part of myself to her. It was a mistake.

She reaches out and gently touches my hand, stopping me. “No, I love it.”

I narrow my eyes at her, trying to gauge whether she's being sincere or not.

“I've never had anyone write a song about me before,” she goes on.

I laugh. “Sorry it's not a little more flattering.”

“It's flattering.”

I snort. “In what language?”

She leans in and kisses me, and I fall back with her on top of me. I wind my fingers into her hair and pull her closer. I swear I could stay here forever. I could live right here by this creek bed. Just the two of us. No other people. No friends. No alcoholic mothers waving CDs with home videos in my face.

This is where I want to be.

“Do you think anyone would come looking for us if we never went back?” she asks, propping herself on her elbows and staring down at me.

I smile, reaching up to touch her face. She's thinking the same thing that I am. Of course she is. Because this is perfect. Because we are perfect together, even if it took me twelve years to see that.

“I hope not,” I tell her, catching one of her curls with my finger and letting it wrap around the tip. She stopped straightening her hair. Now she wears it down and loose, the curls flying free. It's beautiful. She's beautiful. And I try to tell her as much as possible. But she always just rolls her eyes and kisses me again.

Which is fine by me.

“Grayson will come looking for me,” she says, bringing me back to reality with a thud. Just the sound of his name makes me feel a little nauseous. Not just because we haven't yet told him about us, but because I still have that horrible image of him almost kissing Harper Jennings in the alley
that day. I don't know if they're still together. I don't want to know. I don't want to think about him at all.

“He'd be mad if he found out we were . . . you know,” Whitney continues.

“I know,” I tell her with a coy grin, falling back into our easy cadence. It's been a silent, unspoken game between us for the past month. Neither one of us will actually say aloud what this thing is between us. Is it a relationship? A fling? A summer romance? We keep trying to trick the other one into defining it first, but so far neither one of us has succeeded.

“Yes, he'd be mad,” I agree, sitting up. “But you know Grayson. He always overreacts at first. He'll probably think I'm just playing you.”

“And are you?” She sits up too and grabs my chin, giving it a tug. “Just playing me?”

“If anyone's being played, it's me.”

She kisses my neck, lingering just long enough to make certain things stir. “Maybe you are.”

“I don't mind being played.” I raise my eyebrows.

She gives me a shove.

I pretend she's the strongest person in the world and fall down to the ground. When I push myself back up, Whitney is giggling.

“Do you think we should tell him?” I ask. “That we're . . . you know?”

She plays innocent. “No. I don't know. What exactly would we tell him?”

But I'm not falling for it. “Maybe we should just wait another few weeks.”

Whitney cocks an eyebrow. “Another few weeks? You think I'm going to be around for another few weeks?”

“I think you are,” I say confidently.

She laughs. “Well, aren't you cocky. What makes you so sure?”

“Because you can't get enough of me.”

Who am I right now?

I can't even fathom the words coming out of my mouth. I'm like an entirely different person. That's what this girl does to me. She renews me. She brings out some side of me that I never knew existed.

“Or maybe
I
can't get enough of
you
,” I say softly, and then I kiss her again. She climbs on top of me, putting one leg on either side of my hips, pushing herself into me. I immediately feel my body responding to hers. It's instantaneous. Just like everything else she does to me.

“So it's settled,” she says, pulling away and kissing my nose. “We're not leaving here.”

I nod. “Sounds good to me.”

She climbs off me and stands up. “We can set up a house right over there.” She points to a small embankment by the stream.

I stand too, taking a moment to readjust my shorts. “No. It should be up high.” I point to one of the trees hiding our existence from the rest of the world. “Up there. We'll build a tree house.”

“Yes!” she agrees giddily. “And you can wash the laundry in the creek.”

“Wait,
I'm
doing the laundry?”

She puts her hands on her hips. “Well, you don't expect me to do it, do you? You've seen how I grew up.”

“Fine, we'll hire someone to come do the laundry once a week. But that's it. No one else is coming to visit.”

“And over here”—she pulls at my hand and guides me to a perfect clearing, canopied by trees—“you can play your guitar and write more songs about me. But no more
of that angsty stuff where I frustrate the hell out of you.” She winks to let me know that she's joking. “I want a love ballad.”

“What
kind
of love ballad?” I clarify. “Are we talking Journey or Coldplay?”

“You're the artist. You figure that part out. But it should be about how obsessed you are with me.”

“Oh ho!” I say. “Who's the cocky one now?”

I pull on her hand, pull and pull until she's wrapped around me again. Until our lips are colliding once more and I can taste her. Until my mind is filled with nothing but lyrics about her.

“And for food,” she says, pulling away to continue our little game. “Ooh, I know!”

She tugs on my hand again, and I follow after her. She leads me through the trees and down a small dirt path. I can still hear the rushing of the creek somewhere to our left, but my view of it is obstructed by foliage.

“This is a pretty long walk just for food.”

“Shut up,” she tells me. “It's worth it.”

I recognize where we are even before we reach the clearing up ahead, and my heart starts to gallop in my chest. My hand slips from Whitney's grasp. Oblivious to my reaction, she keeps walking, turning around only to call, “C'mon. It's right up here. I've heard this is the best place to fish on the entire island.”

I shake my head. My lips feel numb. I will them to speak. “Let's go back.”

Whitney gives me a strange look. “Don't be silly. It's right up here. The creek turns into a huge, deep ravine, and there's a wooden bridge that crosses over it. It's, like, fifty feet high. I think it's called Cherry Wood Bridge or something.”

Cherry
Tree
Bridge, and I know it well.

And I don't want to see it. Ever again.

“I'm going back,” I vow, and before Whitney can argue or try to stop me, I turn around and begin trampling through the forest.

Whitney catches up with me before long. “Ian, what's the matter with you? What happened?”

“Nothing. I just think we should be getting back.”

I don't turn around to see her face. I know she'll be giving me that adorable pout I've come to love so much. And I know that this time I'll be able to resist it.

“Why?” she asks. “I don't understand.”

But I can't explain it to her. Or rather, I don't want to. Because I know it will ruin this perfect afternoon that we've built for ourselves. This perfect . . . whatever it is that we're doing together.

Although, as I gather up the blanket and food, and stuff it into my backpack, I can feel Whitney's apprehensive gaze on me, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I've already ruined it.

GRAYSON