Boys of Summer (31 page)

Oh, right?

What's that supposed to mean?

Mike drops into the sand next to me. “How you been, man? I haven't seen you around the house lately.”

“Yeah,” I say nervously, rubbing the back of my neck.

The truth is, I've kind of been avoiding him. Ever since that day I saw Harper and Grayson in the street, I haven't been able to look Mike in the eye. Whenever I'm around him, I feel incredibly guilty. Like
I'm
the one hooking up with his ex-girlfriend.

“Sorry about that,” I go on. “I've been kind of busy.”

Mike grins, eyeing Whitney. “I realize that now.”

Wait, does
Mike
know about me and Whitney?

I'm suddenly all kinds of confused.

“Where did Grayson and Harper go?” Julie asks.

I steal a peek at Mike, who seems to be noticing their absence for the first time. I drop my eyes to the sand and start digging a moat around my feet.

“It was really weird,” Whitney says, leaning back in her chair. “They had, like, a fight or something.”

“A fight?” Mike asks, and I don't miss the suspicion lacing his tone.

“Yeah.” Whitney is completely oblivious to his reaction. “He said something totally crass, and she stomped off and he went after her.”

Mike immediately starts scanning the beach. “Should I go find them?”

“No,” Julie and I both say at once, and for the first time I notice
her
reaction to all of this. Her bubbly demeanor seems to have fizzled just the slightest bit.

“You're right,” Mike says with a nervous stutter of a laugh.

“So you work with Mike?” Whitney asks Julie, still apparently unaware of the palpable tension in the air.

“Yeah,” Julie says, regaining a bit her of effervescence. “Well, sort of. He does ground maintenance at the club, while I work at the kids' camp.”

“Ground maintenance?” Whitney echoes, looking at Mike. “I thought you were doing roofing. Isn't that why you're always banging around on top of my house?”

“I'm doing both this summer. I'm trying to make as much money as I can before I leave for . . .” His voice trails off as he catches himself.

I know exactly what he was going to say. Because it's the same thing he's been saying for the past four summers. Ever since he and Harper came up with their big future life plan. They were going to move to New York together.

But now what?

Harper is having some dramatic fling with Grayson, and Mike seems pretty into this Julie chick.

What's he going to do when the summer is over in a few weeks?

What are
any
of us going to do?

We used to hang out on this very beach at night, talking about the future, thinking we had it all figured out. Grayson was going to play football. Mike was going to move to New York and live happily ever after with Harper. I was going to write songs and travel the country in a beat-up van.

That was back when things made sense. When things seemed easy and simple. Before my world was ripped in half by a suicide bomber.

Mike doesn't finish the thought he started, even though Julie appears to be waiting for the rest. He just lets it hang. Then he clears his throat and sidesteps the whole thing. “That's why I'm totally grateful that your dad has
been sliding some extra cash my way,” he says to Whitney. “That's really nice of him.”

Whitney cocks an eyebrow. “What extra cash?”

“For the roofing job,” Mike says. “He's been paying me extra on top of my invoices. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.”

“Huh,” Whitney says.

Mike's eyes dart suspiciously to her. “What?”

“Nothing. My dad just hasn't been around much this summer. Does he write you checks?”

“Yeah,” Mike replies cautiously. “He tapes them to the front door.”

Whitney shrugs, like it's no big deal, but I can tell Mike is still turning this over in his mind.

Then I see Whitney's expression change. It's a dramatic shift. Her mouth falls open and she lowers her sunglasses to stare at something behind me.

Mike must see it too, because his shoulders stiffen. I react to his reaction before I even know what I'm reacting to. Whatever it is, I instinctively know it's not good.

“Isn't that your mom?” Whitney asks.

And just as she asks this, I hear the yelling. I hear her voice. The surrounding area has grown eerily quiet. And I realize that it's not just Whitney and Mike who are staring at the lifeguard tower behind me. It's half the beach.

I slowly turn around, and that's when the hottest day of the summer suddenly freezes over.

GRAYSON

I
finally catch up with Harper near the beach club snack stand. That girl is in way better shape than I am. Even if I could throw a spiral without doubling over in pain, I would never survive Vanderbilt training camp in this state.

“Don't touch me!” she yells as I try to grab her arm to stop her.

“Keep your voice down.”

She only gets louder. “You're a pig.”

People are turning to look now. Check out Grayson Cartwright, the island playboy, finally being put in his place.

“Harper,” I try, keeping my voice low. “Please. Just talk to me.”

“No.”

She keeps walking down the beach. I groan and follow after her again. It isn't until we're halfway to the secret alcove that she seems to tire and slows.

“I don't want to talk to you,” she says without turning around.

“I'm following after you. I'm
chasing
you. Isn't that what you want? Isn't that why you run?”

This seems to get her attention. She stops but continues to face away from me.

I take a moment to catch my breath. “I'm sorry for what I said back there. I was mad. It was an asshole move.”

She spins around angrily. “
You
were mad? What the hell did you have to be mad about?”

“Um, how about you standing me up, for starters? And then when I finally find you, who are you with? Oh right! Your ex-boyfriend! Reminiscing about the past and hanging all over him. You think I don't know how you operate, Harper? You think I haven't paid attention all these years when you've kept my best friend hooked on your line like a damn fish? I know exactly what was happening back there. You were trying to get back together with him, weren't you?”

She looks positively livid. Her nostrils are flaring, and her arms are crossed over her chest, like she's trying to hold herself together.

“Is that really what you think?” she finally roars. “That I was trying to seduce him back?”

I cross my arms too, mirroring her stance. “Yeah. That's what I think.”

“You're an idiot.” She turns again and starts walking. This time I use every last ounce of wind power left in my lungs to run in front of her, cutting her off, making her look at me.

“I was
saving
you!” she screams into my face.

“What?”

“I was saving your ass. And mine.”

Confusion washes over me. Is she crazy? Has she totally lost her mind?

“He. Was. Following. Me.” She enunciates every word like I'm hard of hearing. “I was on my way to meet you, and
I sensed he was watching me. And then he actually started following me. He thought he was being so clever, ducking behind poles and buildings like an amateur spy. But I knew he was there from the start. So I had to pretend I was just going shopping. I hoped he'd eventually give up, but he didn't. So I pretended to run into him to try to throw him off the scent. Grayson, he
knows
something. Or at the very least he suspects something. If I had gone to your father's boat like we'd planned, it would have been all over.”

I fall silent, completely stunned.

He was following her?

That means he didn't buy my little story about the phone. At least not entirely. He didn't believe me. He doesn't trust me.

The realization hits me like a punch in the gut.

What has happened to us? When did we get to be these people? These strangers? When did we stop being friends?

Maybe about the time when I kissed the love of his life.

I suppose he's right not to trust me. Because that's what I've become. An untrustworthy person. Someone who fools around with my best friend's ex behind his back. Someone who lies to his face about it and then pads his paychecks to ease my own guilt.

Who is this person? I came to Winlock Harbor to find myself again. To escape the stranger I'd become over the past few months. And all I managed to do was get even farther away. To become less recognizable.

Harper is watching me closely, waiting for my response.

“I'm sorry,” is all I can think to say. And yet I feel like I'm speaking it to more than just her.

Harper is always surprising me. Always keeping me on my toes. She never does or says what I'm expecting her to do. But the thing that she does next surprises me most of all.

She steps toward me and throws her arms around me. She pulls me into a hug. She rests her head against my chest.

“What are we doing?” she whispers. I can feel her slender body shaking, but I don't dare pull away to see if she's crying. I don't think I could handle it if she were.

“I don't know,” I admit.

“You could lose him, you know?” she says. “You could lose your best friend. I could lose mine, too. Is it really worth it? Is
this
really worth it?”

I take a deep breath, inhaling her scent, her warmth, the way she makes me feel when she's this close to me—like no one else has ever made me feel. But that's the thing about inhales. They don't last. You can't keep that air trapped inside you forever. Eventually you have to breathe out. Eventually you have to let it all go.

“I don't know,” I say again, and somehow it's the most truthful thing I've said all summer.

MIKE

I
an launches out of his chair and stomps toward the lifeguard stand, where a small crowd of people has already gathered to watch the commotion. I immediately follow after him. He shouldn't have to do this alone. No one should.

It's not until we're much closer that I can actually hear what's being said, or rather
screamed
, by Mrs. Handler.

“I'm a grown woman! You can't tell me when I can or can't swim! And if you try to stop me, I'll call the police and have you arrested for assault.”

Oh no. This isn't good.

This is the drunkest I've seen her all summer. She's stumbling around, sloshing a plastic cup of red wine all over the sand. The tiny droplets at her feet look like blood.

Ian pushes through the onlookers and grabs his mom brusquely by the wrist. “C'mon, Mom. Time to go home and sleep it off.”

She shoves Ian away. “No! I won't! You can't make me! Why is everyone trying to make me do things I don't want to do?”

“Mom,” Ian says gently but urgently, “you need to calm
down. You've had too much to drink. I'm just going to take you back to the house.”

“You're not my son!” she spits, and I can see Ian's face redden with either anger or humiliation. Maybe a little of both. “I haven't seen you all summer. You just left me alone in that house. You're a horrible son. Your father would be ashamed of you, abandoning your mother in her time of grief.”

Ian's entire body has gone stone still. He looks like he's about to cry. I push through the crowd and try to take Mrs. Handler's hand. “Jackie,” I say in my most soothing voice. “It's me. Mike. We're going to take you home now, okay?”

She glares at me for a good ten seconds, as though she's trying to figure out where she knows me from. It's the longest ten seconds of my life because I know it can only end one of two ways.