Chapter Twenty-nine

The sky’s gone clear, washed with stars that glitter like mica. The night feels clean and peaceful. Cass is walking me home. Of course. We’re both tired and yawning by now, quiet, but a whole different quiet than on the walk to the beach, or back to the Field House. Strange how silence can do so many different things.

We’re close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating off his body, but not touching, not holding hands the way we had up the hill. I find myself waiting for that again, for him to take my hand. Something that simple. A bridge between us.

Instead, he tips his head to the deep bowl of the night, where the clouds have already scudded away. A tiny light glitters in the distance, flickers. Fireflies. Like stars around us.

“The first maps were of the sky,” I quote.

“That’s right,” he says. “You remember that?”

Yes.

“That you had your theories on why. You thought they’d have been too busy escaping the mastodons, or whatever, to look up and want to draw what they saw.”

“Maybe it reminded them there was more to life than mastodons?” Cass says.

I move a little closer, graze the back of my hand against him. But still, nothing.

More to life than what you are scared of. I reach out, this second time, no mixed messages, interlace my fingers with his.

I don’t know if Cass knows that pulling off my shirt was easier for me to do than this . . . or apologizing about Spence.

But I think he might, because his fingers tighten on mine. Now we’re crunching up my driveway. The lantern outside the door is tipped crazily to the side, one orangey bulb lit, flickering, the other burnt out. I can hear Nic’s voice in my head, “Gotta fix that.” And Dad getting on him for not having done it already.

Cass leans down, turning to me. I feel a buzzing in my ears. One ear, actually. He brushes his hand next to my cheek, into my hair, pulls.

“Ow!”

“Sorry.” He opens his hand, smiles. “Firefly. You caught one.”

The dark spot on his palm stays there a moment, then gleams and lifts into the sky. Then Cass pulls me slightly to my tiptoes, as though I’m much shorter than he is, as though I weigh nothing at all, and kisses me thoroughly. “G’night, Gwen. See you tomorrow.”

* * *

It’s Christmas.

Or it feels like it.

The instant my eyes snap open, I get that jolt of adrenaline, that tight thrill, the sense that this day can’t help but be magical.

Except that waking up on December twenty-fifth on Seashell generally means listening to the pipes bang as Mom showers, hearing Grandpa Ben explain once again to Emory why he has to wait until everyone else gets up to see what Santa brought, hearing Nic call out, “Gwen, I don’t have to wrap this thing for you, do I? I mean, you’ll unwrap it in two seconds anyway.”

But now, warm summer smells blow through my window. Beach roses. The loamy sharp scent of red cedar mulch. Cut grass drying in the sun. I can hear Grandpa singing Sinatra from the small backyard garden. Mom echoing from the kitchen. “Luck be a lady . . .

I stretch luxuriously. It feels like everything is new, even though I’m in the same clothes I fell into bed wearing last night, and here’s Fabio, as usual hogging the mattress, legs outstretched, paws flopped, breathing bad dog-breath into my face. Still, it’s like all the atoms in everything have been shaken and rearranged.

If I keep on this way, I’ll be composing the kind of embarrassing poetry that appears in our school literary magazine.

But it’s the first time I’ve had a “morning after” that felt delicious, not nauseating—even though it wasn’t “after” anything but a lot of talking and some kissing.

Amazingly, Nic has left some hot water in the shower. I wash my hair, then spend a ridiculous amount of time rearranging it different ways, finally ending up with the same one as always. I yell at Mom because my dark green tank top is missing. She comes in, does that annoying Mom thing where she finds it in five seconds after I’ve been scrabbling through my drawers for ten minutes. Then she lays her hand on my forehead. “You all right, honey? You look feverish.”

“I’m fine, Mom. Do you think I should wear this green one? Or the burgundy one? Or just white?”

My nerves are jumping, like sparklers that light, ignite, flare, fizzle. She’s all serene. “I’m sure Mrs. Ellington won’t care, honey.”

I hold up one, then the next, then the next. “Which looks the best? Really, Mom—you need to tell me.”

An “aha” expression flits across her face. But she says simply, “The green brings out the emerald in your eyes.”

“My eyes are brown.”

“Tourmaline with gold and emerald,” Mom corrects, smiling at me.

I smile back, even though they really are just plain old brown.

I turn my back, pull on the green tank top. “You got through the storm okay?” she asks, beginning to refold the jumbled clothes in my drawer. “I didn’t hear you come in. Musta been out pretty late.”

“Um, yeah. We, uh . . . watched a movie. Made popcorn.” Kept our hands to ourselves.

“That Cassidy is a nice boy,” she offers mildly. “Such good manners. You don’t see that much in kids your age.”

This is one of the things about feeling this way. I want to grab on to every little bit of conversation about Cass and expand on it. Yeah, he’s always been very polite. He’s so . . . so . . . Do you think I should wear the khaki shorts or the black skirt?”

“The black one is a little short, don’t you think? Mrs. E. isn’t as conservative as she could be, but you wouldn’t want to push it. I thought he’d be full of himself. Kids who look like that usually are. But he doesn’t seem that way at all.”

“He’s not,” I say briefly but dreamily. Embarrassing poetry, here I come.

I glance in the mirror over my dresser, put on lip gloss, remember Nic telling me guys hate it because it’s sticky, wipe it off. Mom comes up behind me, puts her arms around my waist and rests her chin on my shoulder, staring into the mirror.

Dad’s always saying how alike we look, and generally, I don’t get it. I see nitpicky things like the gray scattered in Mom’s hair, or the way my eyes tip up at the corners like Dad’s, the crinkles at the corners of her eyes, the fact that she has a dust of freckles and I have none, that my skin is darker olive than hers. But today, the resemblance hits me as it never has before. I’m not sure why this is until I realize: It’s the optimism in our smiles.

All good, but I don’t know what to do with myself in the land of sunshine and butterflies. By the time I’m clattering down the steps in heeled sandals I never wear, my nerves are buzzing.

What if things are different in the light of day? How do I handle this, anyway? Do I run up to him when I see him mowing? Or is he going to want to keep things professional around the island?

Does this come easily to most people? Because I have no idea what the hell I’m doing here.

I listen for the sound of the lawn mower but can’t hear anything. No handy arrow pointing to a yard to say “Cass is here.”

Over-thinking. I’ll just get to work. I pick up my pace, then nearly scream when a warm hand closes on my ankle.

“Sorry!” says Cass, sliding out from under the beach plum bush by the side of the Beinekes’ house. “I was weeding. You didn’t seem to see me.” He slides back, stands up and beams at me.

Suppress goofy smile. “Um. Hi. Cass.”

He brushes off his hands—still gloveless—and comes around to the gate, slipping through it. Today he’s in shorts and a black T-shirt. “You can do better than that.” He loops his arms around my waist and pulls me to him.

“Where are your gloves?”

“Better than that too.” He drops a kiss on my collarbone. “Good to see you, Cass. I dreamed about you, Cass. . . . Feel free to improvise.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be wearing those work gloves? When you’re working? Because otherwise your poor hands won’t . . .”

Gah. I sound like Mom, or the school nurse.

I’m no good at this.

Luckily, Cass is good enough for both of us. “I missed you, Gwen. It’s good to see you, Gwen. I dreamed about you, Gwen. Yeah, haven’t gotten around to the gloves. More important things to focus on. Want me to tell you what they are?”

“Can I have a do-over?” I ask.

He nods. “Absolutely. Thought we got clear on that.” He shifts his hands over my back. I want to tell him not to do that, it’s got to hurt, but I’m not going to be the nurse anymore.

I trace the scar in his left eyebrow. “How’d you get this?”

“My brother Jake threw a ski pole at me in Aspen when I was seven. In fairness, I was making kissing noises while he helped his girlfriend put her boots on. Back when he had girlfriends. You were saying?”

“I—I—” Give up. “I don’t have any words today.”

“Good enough.”

Lots of kissing after this. Apparently too much, as a pair of ’tween boys walking by whistle, though one of them mutters, “Give her the tonsillectomy in private, man.”

Laughing, Cass pulls back, his hands still locked around my waist. “I have a bad feeling the yard boy is going to be more useless than usual today.”

“As long as you steer clear of the hedge clippers, it’s okay, Jose. I can think of a few uses for you.” I graze the corner of his mouth with my lips, nudging it open.

“Killing spiders,” he mutters, kissing back wholeheartedly. “Opening jars.”

“And so on,” I whisper.

“Look,” he says, pulling back after a while, for the first time seeming awkward. “I can’t see you tonight. I have another . . . family thing.”

“Oh, yeah, I understand,” I say hurriedly. “No problem. I have to—”

He catches my hands and waits till I turn my face back so I’m looking at him.

“This got set up before you and I figured things out—a command performance kind of deal. I’d much rather be with you.”

“Your grandmother?”

“And a few trustees from Hodges,” he says. “Fun times.”

* * *

Dad slams the screen door behind him that night, brandishing a crumpled piece of paper, laundry bag over his shoulder. “What exactly is this?” He drops the bag, flicks his hand against the paper. Irritation crackles off him as palpably as the smell of fryer grease. It’s eleven o’clock at night, so Castle’s must have just closed. Not his usual laundry drop-off time.

“What’s it look like?” Mom asks, unperturbed, barely glancing up from her book. “It’s a flyer for my business.”

I click off the television, looking from one of them to the other.

“You clean houses. That’s not a business.”

“Well, it sure isn’t a hobby, Mike. I clean houses and I want to clean more because We Need the Money. Like you keep saying. So I’m advertising.” She plucks the paper from his hand, running her finger across it. “It came out good, didn’t it?”

Dad clears his throat. When he starts speaking again, his voice slows, softens. “Luce. You know Seashell. They see these posted around, get the idea you’re hard up for work, for cash, and next thing you know, the minute something disappears, some little gold bracelet from Great-Aunt Suzy, every finger will be pointing straight at you.”

“Don’t be silly.” Fabio hurls himself onto the couch, gasping for breath from the effort, climbing into Mom’s lap. She ruffles his ears and he snorts with pleasure, eyeing the melting ice cream in her bowl, ears perked. “My clients know me better than that. I’ve worked for most of the families on Seashell for more than twenty years.”

Dad collapses next to her on Myrtle, rests elbows on his thighs, bows his head into his hands. A streak of white skin gleams at the back of his neck above the sunburn he probably got last time he went out on the boat. “Doesn’t matter. When the chips are down, you’re not in the Rich Folks Club.”

“Mike, you’re such a pessimist. Have a little faith in human kindness.” To my complete amazement, she ruffles Dad’s hair, nudges him on the shoulder. I don’t think I can ever remember seeing them touch, much less exchange an affectionate gesture. It actually gives me a lump in my throat, especially when Dad looks up, his hazel eyes big and pleading, a little lost, so like Emory’s.

“You never get it, do you, Luce? You still think that the whole damn world is full of happy endings just waiting to come to you. Haven’t you noticed Prince Charming hasn’t showed up yet?”

Mom’s voice is dry. “Yes, honey. That I’ve noticed.”

Dad actually cracks a smile.

I’m almost afraid to breathe. My parents are having a minute of truce. An instant of genuine connection. For a moment (honestly, the first in my life) I can understand why they got married (besides the me-being-on-the-way thing).

There’s a loud knock on the door. “Betcha that’s him now,” Mom says, smiling at Dad.

But it’s Cass. He grins at me, then looks a little sheepish. “I know it’s late,” he starts.

“Almost midnight.” Dad comes up behind me. “And who the hell are you?”

Cass introduces himself.

“Aidan Somers’s son, right? Coach Somers your brother? Lobster roll, mayo on the side, double order of fries?”

Cass blinks, momentarily confused. “Uh . . . Yeah, that’s Jake.”

“Bit late for a swimming lesson.” Dad surveys Cass, who is wearing a blue blazer, a tie, neatly creased khakis. “And you’re not exactly dressed for one, kid.”

“Don’t be silly, Mike. He’s come for Gwen,” Mom says, sounding as though this is the most natural thing in the world.

“I wondered if she’d want to take a walk with me,” Cass explains. “I know it’s late,” he repeats in the face of Dad’s glare.

“I’d love to,” I say instantly, grabbing his hand. “Let’s go!”

“Wait just a second,” Dad says. “How old are you, Cassidy?”

“Seventeen.”

“I was seventeen once too,” my father begins unpromisingly. “And I took a ton of girls to the beach late at night—”

“That’s great, Dad. You can tell us all about it another time.” I pull Cass out the door as Mom says, “A ton? That’s a bit much, Mike. It was just me and that trashy Candy Herlihy.”

* * *

“Are we ever going to leave my house without me having to apologize for my family?”

“Not necessary. I’m the one who showed up late.” Cass yanks at his tie, loosening it, hauling it off, then shoves it in his jacket pocket, opens the door of the old BMW, which is parked in our driveway next to Dad’s truck and the Bronco, pulls off the jacket and tosses it in. Then starts unbuckling his belt.

“Uh, strip in our driveway,” I say, “and Dad’s definitely going to think this is a booty call.”

He laughs, tosses the belt in, followed by his shoes and socks, pulls his shirttails out, bumps the car door shut. “Just felt like I couldn’t breathe in all that. I was headed home, saw your lights on . . . just wanted to see you.”

He takes my hand again and we head down the road. I love nighttime on Seashell . . . all the silhouetted figures of the houses, the hush of the ocean. It feels like the only time the whole island belongs to me.

“How were the trustees?”

“Stuffy as hell. Like the atmosphere at the B and T.” He takes a deep breath. “Not like this.” Then he tugs me a little closer. “Or this.” Ducking his head, he rubs his nose in my hair. I brace my hands on his shoulders, lean closer, feel warm skin under his crisp cool shirt.

He steps back. “Okay, island girl. Give me a tour? The Insider’s Night Guide to Seashell?”

“We could just go to the Field House,” I say, then wince.

“Not about a jumbo box of condoms, remember? Come on. You’ve got to have some secret places no one knows about.”

In the Green Woods, through the tunnel of trees, the forest full of night sounds, by the witch hat stone. There’s the low cry of an owl, loud over the distant rush of the water. Cass stops, hand on my arm.

“What?”

“Peaceful,” he says. He shuts his eyes, drinking it in. “Barbershop quartet night at the B and T.”

Almeida’s has done functions at the Stony Bay Bath and Tennis Club. I know he’s not kidding.

He stands there for a moment longer, then I whisper, “Come on, it’s better by the water.”

“It always is, Gwen.”

The moon silvers the creek, the bridge above it, gleams on the rocks. The breeze moves over the marsh, sweet with sea grass, the old-wet-wood smell of the pilings. Cass sits down, leans back on his elbows, and looks at the sky, deep indigo and cloudless. I hesitate, breathing in the cool night air. After a few minutes, I walk a few feet away, unbutton, kick my shorts aside and wade into the rushing water, dipping underneath, surfacing to let the current, stronger and faster near the surface than below, seize me.

Then what’s catching me are Cass’s hands at my waist, his legs brushing mine, chin dipping into the curve of my shoulder.

Because the creek flows from the salt marshes into the ocean, the water’s warm, half salty, half sweet. I taste it on his lips.

* * *

Like before, things move fast with us. Cass has quick reflexes, and I have curious, wandering, wondering hands. He pulled me out of the water, as certain of his destination—a circle of soft grass between the bushes at the top of the bank—as if he’d visited here before and kept the map in his head. This is where we will go. I lean back on one elbow, tipping my head to the side, as Cass’s lips skate slowly up from my shoulder to my ear, so lightly, his lips are soft as a breath, but still enough to blow almost every thought away.

“My traitorous body.”

That’s one of those phrases that pops up all the time in Mom’s and Mrs. E.’s books. A handy excuse for the heroines, like, “Gosh, I knew I should stop and be ‘good,’ but my traitorous body . . .

I’ve felt like that before. Or like I was one place and my mind off in the distance somewhere. Observing. Or trying hard not to.

But not now.

My body doesn’t feel as though it’s betraying me, separate. I’m not drowning out thoughts and focusing on sensations. I trace the long line of Cass’s jaw, dip a finger in a dimple, feel it groove deeper as he smiles. When I slide my hand up his side, brushing a drier path on the wet skin, the bump and groove of rib to rib, I feel him shiver, then the shake of him laughing a little.

“Ticklish?”

“Happy.” He cups the back of my neck with one hand, nudges at the top of my neckline, edges it lower. But well before it tips into something more than making out, we both pull back, me bracing my hands on his chest, him moving back, breathing hard.

“Sorry. I—only meant to—” That flush edges from the tips of his ears over the rest of his face.

“I know. But let’s stop here.”

He pulls the straps of my tank top back into position, head ducked, gives a quick nod.

“Not, um, forever. But tonight . . .” I falter. “Because I want—”

Cass cocks his head at me.

I want. The beginning of that sentence feels as though it will lead me into tall grass where I might get stranded. I try again. “I don’t want—”

“A jumbo box of condoms,” Cass says.

“I’m not taking that off the table. I mean, not forever. Because I— Jesus. This is awkward. Feel free to chime in anytime.”

“You get pissed off when I rescue you, Gwen.”

“I get more pissed off when you’re all calm when I’m—”

“Calm?” He sets his hands on my shoulders and gives me the smallest of shakes. “Hardly. ’Cause, no, I don’t want to stop now. I mean”—glancing down at where our bodies are still against each other’s—“clearly. But you’re right to. We’re right to.”

“Right?” I’m not sure what he means.

“A do-over, do better, a redo. If this”—he twitches his finger back and forth between us—“goes, um, there, again—”

“When,” I blurt. “When it goes there. Since we’re telling the truth here.”

He squeezes my shoulders, gives me a quick, hard kiss. “When. We’re doing it in a place and at a time we both choose. Not in the car or on a couch in some other random hurried way.”

“Not in a boat, not with a goat,” I say, unable to help myself. He did sound like one of Emory’s Dr. Seuss books.

“No and no,” Cass says, laughing. “We’re doing it in a bed. No goats.”

“You WASPs are so conventional.” I give his chest a shove.

“The first time,” he amends. “After that, all bets are off. And we’re doing it when we have more than just the one condom I’ve had in my wallet since I turned sixteen.”

Not for the first time, I wonder why he didn’t use that thing, or any other one, ages ago—what exactly he’s been waiting for.

* * *

Leaning against the railing of our porch, I only wait for Cass’s silhouette to be swallowed up by the night before hurrying down the steps again, in need of the rush, the peace, of jumping off the pier, swimming alone.

Swimming with Cass in the creek, bumping up against each other in the water, skin to skin, slip-sliding so close, then him ducking away, dodging me, was hardly calming.

God, isn’t it supposed to be the guys who can’t think straight? Whose bodies are screaming at their brains to just shut up because everything feels so good? Or is that another rumor someone started? Without thinking who it was going to hurt. Or just confuse.

The moon’s full, leaving Abenaki bright as day, but without the clutter. Except that there’s a lone car in the sandy beach parking lot, parked far over in the corner, nearly concealed by sea grass. But no silhouettes on the pier or the boat float.

I’m heading out on the pier when I hear it, slightly louder than the waves—this little groan, echoing in the dark. I freeze, look back over the beach, my skin prickling. See nothing but the usual tangles of seaweed and rock piles.

Must have imagined it.

But then comes the quiet rumble of a male voice, the higher pitch of a girl’s. Him questioning, higher pitched at the end, her laughing, throaty. I find myself smiling. Some couple taking advantage of the atmosphere, the moonlight, the privacy, just as Cass and I did. I scan the beach, finally spotting a couple far away, beyond the bathhouse, all tangled up in each other on a towel.

The girl says something; there’s a short burst of soft laughter. They’re too far away to hear any distinct words and—

I squint to try to identify them for only a second before realizing how creepy that is and edge back toward the pier.

Then a cloud shifts away from the moon, and the parked car is illuminated in a flash of silver.

Why on earth would Spence Channing be fooling around on a Seashell beach at midnight, when that house of his is like a damn hotel?

It occurs to me in this second that since he knew the exact body count in the hot tub, Cass was clearly at that party. What was he doing while his best friend was having “just sex”? Serving drinks?

How can two people be so different and still best friends?

Another—possibly awkward—question for another—less awkward—time. But not now. Now I take a running leap off the pier, soar, and sink into the cold, cleansing water.

* * *

I see the ash glow of a cigarette glimmering through the dark. My cousin’s sitting on our porch steps, just an outline against the light from the kitchen door.

I walk up, snatch the cigarette from his unresisting fingers, toss it to flicker out among the clamshells. “I thought the smoking was a one-time thing, Nico.”

“Yeah. Those one-time things.” Nic straightens, cracking his knuckles behind his neck, and slams the screen door—snap top half, rattle bottom half—behind him as he goes inside. His voice drifts through the door. “They have a way of coming back around, right, cuz?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He reaches for the bowl of popcorn that’s resting beside Myrtle, only to find that Fabio is nosing out the last of it. Our dog looks up at him, licking butter off his chops, and then, at the expression on Nic’s face, slinks behind the couch, forgetting, as usual, to hide his tail.

“It means what’s up with Somers? And you. Aunt Luce seemed to think something was going on.”

“Nic. What’s wrong with you? It’s not like you tell me everything. Like when were you gonna—”

“You can’t be married,” he cuts in.

tell me about the ring.

Wait. What? Are we talking about the same thing? “God, Cass hasn’t proposed,” I joke, not wanting to spook him. “We’re just—” I don’t know what we’re “just.” Or if “just”even works anymore.

“I didn’t mean Somers. I meant me. CGA.”

He leans back on Myrtle. I slide down next to him, bare back against the nubbly fabric, nudging his legs off to make room.

Nic rubs his bicep with a flat hand, jaw tight. He suddenly looks so much older than eighteen. “Hoop and I drove up there this morning. Had my tour. Gwen . . . I want it even more now. But I . . . what I didn’t get before . . . You can’t have any ‘serious personal responsibilities.’ That’s what they said.”

I squint at him, like bringing Nic into focus will bring everything else in too. “Who doesn’t have serious personal responsibilities? I mean, hello. What, you have to be an orphan and a social misfit?”

“You can’t have people you need to support.” Nic scrubs his hands up and down his face. “Kinda problematic.”

I pause for a second, then say, “Yeah, and it only becomes a bigger problem if you’re ring shopping at eighteen, cuz.”

Nic turns to me. “Wait—you know about that? We agreed not to tell anybody.”

“Viv didn’t fess up? Yeah, I know about it. You can’t keep a secret for ten minutes on Seashell. Someone saw you two at the mall.”

Nic sighs. “Vee’s hated this whole academy thing from the start. You know that, right?”

Viv’s worked hard to hide from Nic every hint of worry over his chosen career. Of course he guessed anyway, but . . . I trace my finger along the corner of Myrtle’s frayed bottom cushion. Say nothing.

“She wants me to stay and . . . settle down. Here. On Seashell. Forever.”

His voice cracks on the forever.

“You don’t want that?”

My cousin looks at me, brown eyes blazing. “I’m eighteen. I don’t know what the hell I want. Vivien—she’s my anchor. I love her. Always have. But . . . how can I tell how I’ll feel in four years? In eight, after I serve? I don’t. I’m not even supposed to.”

As if it’s my own life flashing before my eyes—because so much of it is—I see a thousand moments of Nic and Viv. Him balancing her on his shoulders for water fights at Sandy Claw. Her teasing him about his terrible tent-pitching skills when we set up camp in the backyard, then laughing hysterically as it collapsed around them in a billow of rip-stop nylon. Him borrowing this hideous maroon tux with a ruffled shirt from Dom D’Ofrio and showing up in it to take Viv to prom, then, after her horrified reaction, pulling a classic black one out of the trunk of the car, along with her corsage. The three of us lying on the dock looking up at the moon, waxing and waning, glimmering across the water, their hands always linked over our heads, even when I was the one in the middle. He choreographed his and Vivien’s first night together, like a master director, checking into the hotel early so he could scatter rose petals on the bed. When he finally lowered himself beside her, he whispered, “I want this to be perfect for you.” He was incredibly embarrassed when he found out Vivie had repeated that to me, but how could she not?

“But . . . but you’ve always known. I mean, you two have been together forever. It’s what you’ve always wanted. It was in the I WILL notebook.”

“I knew you read that thing,” Nic mutters. “Yeah, I mean . . . of course. Yeah, always. But I don’t . . . want only that.”

There’s this weird tingling in my hand, and I realize I’ve been borrowing Cass’s gesture again, my fist tight, my nails biting into the skin of my palm. Unclench. I take a deep breath, the way you do when you’re about to say something important and game changing. Then realize I’ve got nothing. No big, wise revelation to turn this moment around, back into familiar territory where I know the stakes. Nic rubs his fingers across his eyes. He looks exhausted, hollowed out, like after a tough meet where SBH has lost, badly.

“So!” I say, at last, too enthusiastic, like I’m promoting a product, suggesting a cool way to spend a free Saturday. “Why get engaged now anyway, Nico? Why not just tell her it’s CGA policy? Not your choice. Just life.”

“I said exactly that. Tonight. You should have seen her face. She got that panicky look, all blank faced and in-charge but blinking like she’s about to cry, trying to act like it’s all good.”

I nod. I know that look from when Al hisses at her after a function, ticks off on his fingers what she got wrong.

Nic continues, words tumbling out as though they’ve been shut behind a dam that’s broken now, water spilling everywhere, soaking everything. “Like she always does when we talk about what me getting into the academy means—the time I’m going to need to put in. Which is why I started with the ring in the first place. See, Viv . . . she knows exactly what she wants. Al and her mom are planning to retire in a few years. We can move into their house. They can take the RV, go cross-country. Her mom’s been researching it forever, they, like, already have this folder full of maps and stuff, the whole thing planned out. Their life, our life . . . We can run Almeida’s. Vee’s not even into going to college. I thought it would be good to make a promise to her. So she wouldn’t be scared. So she’d know I was always coming back to her. Like this . . . life raft. But now I am. Totally scared, I mean. Marco and Tony were working with us on Thursday, and they were laughing . . . laughing . . . about how Marco wanted to be in the Air Force, and Tony had this dream to be a pro wrestler and ha-ha-ha, we coulda been contenders. Like it was funny as hell that instead they were scraping barnacles off people’s yachts and repainting their freaking bathrooms instead of doing what they’d planned.”

I twist the hair at the nape of my neck, set it free, twirl it again, debating what to say, where even to start. “Well, Nico. Obviously I know nothing about successful relationships—”

He gives a brief bark of laughter.

“But . . . I’m pretty sure both people have to really want it for a marriage to have half a chance.”

“I love Vee,” he repeats. “I can’t imagine loving anyone else . . .” He trails off, ducks his head, pulling up his knees, resting his forehead on them. He takes a deep, shaky breath, mutters something I can barely hear.

“Nic?”

“But,” he says, and swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing hard.

I rub the back of his neck. “But?”

“But before that guy from the Coast Guard came to talk at school, I never knew I wanted that . . . so . . . there may be other things out there just like that that I can’t see yet.” He says the last part fast, the words all jumbled together, sliding his hand through his hair, slipping his palm back down to cover his face again, like he doesn’t want to look, doesn’t want to see the truth. What’s out there.

I don’t either. And for a bit, the silence stretches on. Because I don’t want this to be real, what’s happening here. Our now that makes all our thens so distant and so past.

But.

Vivien loves Nic with her whole, unfiltered, warm heart.

But he is my cousin.

So I draw in a breath too, square my shoulders, set my hand on one of his. Tell him the truth he needs to hear, instead of the one I want to believe in. “Not ‘may be other things,’ Nico. Are.”

He looks over at me, and to my shock, there are tears in his eyes. “I know. But I already feel like I’m cheating on her by wanting anything she doesn’t.”

I put my arm around his shoulder as he brushes his eyes with the heel of his hand. For a second, he rests his head against me, tips it onto my shoulder, burrowing in for comfort just like Emory does. He smells like sweat and salt and sand, like family, like Seashell. The night is still, still, except for the familiar summer sounds, the shhh of the tide, the bzzz-whhr of the crickets, a dog barking a warning into the night, far, far away. Fabio, who has been snoring under the couch, snuffles, passes gas, and falls silent. Nic and I can clearly hear Emory’s and Grandpa Ben’s sleep noises. Grandpa Ben: “Snuffle snuffle snuffle . . . silence . . . snort.” And Emory, who really does sound more like the snoring cliché: “RRRR . . . shhh . . . rrrr . . . shhh.”

“What about Em?” Nic asks, swinging his long legs over mine, kicking his foot. “Where’s he supposed to fit into the whole personal obligation thing?”

Yeah. Em. Dad telling me that if Nic left, I’d be the one picking up the slack with my brother. And when I go to college . . . what then? I rub my chest, pushing away the tightness there.

Because . . . can I even go to college now? Does that mean Em’s my responsibility forever?

Well, of course he’s my responsibility forever. Nic and I’ve talked about that, how we’ll probably end up dividing care for him for the rest of our lives, but both of us thought it would be later on, much later on. And it probably will be—Mom’s only thirty-six. But . . .

I love my brother more than I can find words to tell. But like my cousin, I want off-island. At least for a while. If I wind up, somehow, staying . . . I want it to be my choice.

“Cuz.” Nic touches my cheek. “S’okay. For God’s sake, don’t be the second girl I’ve made cry in three hours. I’ll figure it out.” He taps one of his temples, smiles at me. “I always do. And uh, speaking of figuring things out, anything you want to tell me about Somers?”

A much better place for my thoughts to go. I touch my lips, unthinking.

Nic gives me a slow once-over. “Oookay. Got it. No details. I only need to know one thing. He treat you right?”

“He’s been a perfect gentleman.”

“I’ll bet,” he mutters. His shoulders twitch as though he’s shaking off any image of me and Cass together.

“I mean, he—we—”

“Big picture only, for God’s sake. You happy, Gwen?”

“I am.”

“That’s all I need. I’m out.” He slides off Myrtle, heading for the outdoor shower, then turns back. “If that changes, you know I’ll kill him, right, cuz?”

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