Page 15

Fifteen

Marco had offered Connor and me a ride to Stone Harbor, but Connor had an afternoon allergist appointment he couldn’t reschedule, so I volunteered to stay behind and leave a few hours later with him.

As an extrovert, Connor didn’t love long solo drives, and being alone with him today was thrilling .

Finally, no Lauren.

“She’s still upset I didn’t invite her,” he said while turning out of our neighborhood.

“Pretty pissed off.”

“It’s not your invite to extend,” I pointed out.

“We’re going to Marco’s house.”

“My words exactly.” Connor chuckled.

“Marco actually told me I could bring her, but…” He trailed off and shook his head.

But what? I wondered.

But she’s super clingy and you need a break from her?

Nevertheless, I smiled and punched him on the arm.

Because for once, Connor McCallister realized not every get-together needed to be “the more, the merrier.”

On the drive down, we moaned and groaned about our summer reading list, even though Connor loved audiobooks and I’d been reading a lot more lately.

Both of us cheered when we crossed Stone Harbor’s causeway and drove through town.

I’d been there before, so I smiled when we passed Bill’s Pancake House, the (bougie) Reeds hotel, and Hoy’s, the famous five-and-dime store.

My mouth watered when I spotted kids licking giant ice cream cones.

Soon enough, Connor slowed to a stop at the álvarezes.

Their house was simple, its shingles painted a pale sea-glass green with white shutters that matched their white picket fence.

A detached garage sat at the end of the crushed seashell driveway, and instead of a grassy front lawn, the yard was covered with beige pebbles.

It was a quaint Jersey Shore cape built in the 1950s set amid grand new homes, but I knew if Marco’s parents decided to sell it, they could get millions .

Marco had mentioned the cottage was less than a block from the beach, and now, I could see his family owned a double lot.

Someone would pay a king’s ransom to tear down their house and build some massive mansion in its place.

“Welcome!” Mrs. álvarez called to us, the cottage’s screen door slamming shut behind her.

I didn’t know her well but hugged her back when she pulled me into one.

“Marco and my husband are out grabbing some lobsters for dinner,” she said after hugging Connor, “but they’ll be back soon.” She gestured to the house.

“Let’s get you all set up!”

I immediately felt at home upon walking through the front door into the family room.

Eclectic paintings hung on the white shiplap walls, in between framed family photographs and wreaths made of seashells.

Built-in bookshelves showed off worn paperbacks and jars of sand.

Somewhere, a wind chime started singing.

Connor and I made eye contact.

I love this place , I mouthed.

“My sister’s family is here, too,” Marco’s mom said as she led us down the hall, “but we’ve shoved her kids in the back bunk room.” She stopped outside two doors across from each other.

“Connor, you can take Marco’s other twin bed.” She pointed to the right, then the left.

“And Mads, Carina’s room is all yours.”

“Thank you, Mrs. álvarez,” I said.

“We’re so excited.”

“Oh, please, call me Rose.” She smiled and waved a hand.

“I’ll let you get settled. Dinner will be around seven.”

Connor and I exchanged a look once she was gone, and I couldn’t help but laugh when he said: “When should I tell her I’m allergic to shellfish?”

***

We hit the beach at practically the crack of dawn.

“We’ve got to,” Marco insisted, somehow carrying two beach chairs and a red-and-yellow-striped umbrella, while also pulling a wagon loaded with beach towels, shovels, and his cousins’ sandcastle-making equipment.

“Otherwise, we won’t get a prime spot.”

Connor nodded midyawn.

He’d never been an early riser.

Marco had walked to the beach barefoot, but Connor and I kicked off our flip-flops in the dunes before we claimed our territory.

The white sand felt like soft sugar.

Our “prime spot” included an unobstructed view of the blue-as-could-be Atlantic Ocean and was only ten yards away from the tall white wooden lifeguard stand.

“Morning, Marco!” one lifeguard called, sporting a pair of aviators with a whistle around her neck.

She looked familiar, her golden-brown curls in a carefree messy bun.

“Hey, Grace!” Marco waved.

“Everett stationed somewhere else today?”

Ah , I realized as Marco wandered over to talk to her.

Grace Barbour.

I’d forgotten how many kids from our town spent the summer on the Jersey Shore.

After I put on sunscreen, I tossed the Sun Bum to Connor.

“You missed a spot,” I commented when he didn’t bother doing his back.

He sighed and handed over the sunscreen.

“Will you? Please?”

“It would be an honor.” I smirked and squeezed some lotion into my palm, but hesitated before rubbing it in, as if I were afraid of Connor’s skin scorching my hands.

My heart thudded once, twice, three times before I blinked and went to work.

“Mmm, that’s nice,” Connor murmured.

“I didn’t realize I would also be getting a massage…”

Heat rushed to my cheeks, and I was glad Connor couldn’t see me.

I hadn’t meant to give him a full-on massage.

It was just—well, running my hands over his shoulder muscles felt good.

“We have to wait twenty minutes for it to soak in,” I said, swallowing hard.

“Then we can go in the water.”

“That won’t be a problem,” he yawned for the umpteenth time as he unrolled his blue towel.

“I’m gonna take a nap.”

“You do that.” I nodded, then wasted no time in taking a picture of him passed out to post on my Instagram story.

I geotagged Stone Harbor.

Classic , Austin commented a minute later.

Meredith heart-eyed the photo and wrote: Beach days are the best days!

I liked her message before tucking my phone in my tote bag and pulling out a book.

Marco did a double take when he returned to our setup.

“ A Gentleman in Moscow ?” he asked.

“You’re reading it?”

“I’m about to,” I said as he dropped down into the beach chair next to mine.

“I’m not exactly dying to read Wuthering Heights for school, and you said this was good, so…”

Marco grinned.

“Amor Towles did no prior research before writing it,” he said, eyes shining.

“He’d never been to Russia and never took any Russian history courses in school. It was only after he finished the first draft that he visited Moscow. He moved into the Metropole Hotel to revise—” He grimaced.

“Sorry, I’m nerding out.”

“A bit.” I fought a smile.

“But as long as you don’t spoil anything, nerd away.”

“No guarantees,” Marco joked, and when he laughed, it was like the sun took the sound as its cue to shine brighter—the rays now sizzling against my skin.

I watched Marco lean back in his chair and run a slow hand through his hair.

“Swim after a few chapters?” he asked after cracking open his own book.

“We’ll be hot by then.”

“I’m already hot,” I murmured as I skimmed the book’s dedication.

“I agree,” Marco said smoothly, and it wasn’t until he’d pulled out his own book and started reading that I suddenly wondered whether he agreed with me—that it was hot today—or if he was in agreement about something else.

My pulse quickened.

I had to read A Gentleman in Moscow ’s first page three times before it made any sense.

***

After dinner that night, it was time to make what the álvarez family called the “Pilgrimage.” Marco’s dad and cousins hopped on their bikes and sped off toward town, determined to reach Springer’s Homemade Ice Cream before the line grew out of control.

“What would you two like?” Marco asked his mom before we followed on foot.

She and her sister were relaxing with sangria on the screened-in porch.

“Coffee? Maple walnut? Peanut butter cup?”

“We’ll split two scoops of maple walnut with marshmallow sauce.” Rose smiled and blew her son a kiss.

“Please and thank you.”

Springer’s had been the most popular ice cream place on the Jersey Shore since Prohibition.

Marco warned us that the line of people stretched down the block and turned the corner once the sun set, but it was mind-boggling to see it in real life.

There were even aspiring musicians entertaining the crowd; the atmosphere felt like a block party.

As we searched for Marco’s cousins, I took a video for Samira—the biggest ice cream lover I knew.

It was only after I texted it to her that I remembered she and Austin used to spend a day in Stone Harbor to celebrate their anniversary every year.

She’d once told me their first kiss had been after a game of miniature golf.

Oops , I thought, then shook the embarrassment away.

It wasn’t like Samira was still in love with my brother.

The last time we saw each other, she’d mentioned dating someone.

“Oh, jeez,” Connor said a few minutes after we found Marco’s family in line (if the people behind thought we were cutting, they didn’t say anything).

He pulled his phone from his pocket, the screen reading: Lauren B .

“Lauren B?” Marco said, seemingly amused.

“I have four or five Laurens in my phone,” Connor said, and I bit the inside of my cheek when he let his girlfriend’s call go to voicemail.

It’d have been terrible if I smiled.

“How’re things going with her?” Marco asked.

“Pretty well,” Connor said as we took a few steps forward in line.

“She’s cute and funny, and obsessed with lacrosse. We never run out of stuff to talk about.” He laughed, as if remembering a joke Lauren had made the other day.

“We have a lot of fun together.”

“So much fun you blew her off?” Marco teased.

Yes , I thought, heat rising to my cheeks.

Why?

Connor shrugged.

“It’s loud here. I’ll call her back later.” He looked at me and gestured ahead of us, to the white-and-brown-shingled two-story Victorian house.

Inside was a whirlwind of bright colors and controlled chaos.

“What’re you gonna get?”

“Oh,” I squinted at the menu board, mounted on Springer’s wide front porch.

We were still a little too far away to see it clearly, so I turned to Marco.

My guess was he had the flavors memorized.

“What do you recommend?”

“Hmm.” He stroked his chin, as if in deep contemplation.

“Let me think…”

Connor ended up getting black raspberry while I took Marco’s recommendation and ordered something called Drunken Cherry, but I wasn’t the drunken one later.

There had been plenty of sangria left when we got back to the álvarez cottage, and once everyone else had gone to bed and Marco’s lips turned scarlet, he suggested the three of us go for a late-night stroll.

“There’s nothing like the midnight stars and salt air,” he insisted, dreamy and wide-eyed.

“And the streets are empty, so we can hear the waves crashing on the beach.” He shook his head in wonder.

“There’s also a blood moon tonight.”

Connor glanced at his phone, then tossed it across the porch’s couch.

He still hadn’t called Lauren back.

“I’m in.” He took a sip of his Miller Lite.

Connor accepted any beer offered, but rarely finished them, tricking his friends into thinking he could really hold his alcohol.

“Mads?”

I drained my ginger-lime soda and grinned.

“Let me get a sweatshirt.”

The temperature had dropped during our walk back from Springer’s, so I went into Carina’s room to grab my favorite Champion crewneck.

I glanced at myself in the mirror; I looked happy after a perfect day on the beach with my sun-kissed face and salt-water-stiff hair weaved into two braids.

To pass the time in the Springer’s line, Marco’s cousin had twisted them into silly little buns.

Marco still had his sangria in hand when I returned to the living room, and Connor nursed his Miller Lite.

“Come on, guys,” I told them.

“No roadies.”

“Right,” Marco said.

“Open container law.”

“And the liquor law.” Connor set down his beer and nodded at Marco.

“Ditch the fruit juice, álvarez. We’re not twenty-one yet.”

Marco showed us his cup; only sliced orange, apple, and lemon remained, the red wine punch gone.

Part of me didn’t blame him; I’d taken a sip and it’d been delicious.

The other part shook my head.

He’d pay for it in the morning.

Marco clapped his hands together.

“Shall we promenade?”

***

“Hey,” I heard someone distantly whisper.

“Hey, sweet tart, wake up.”

“Mmm?” I mumbled before blinking until I clocked Marco crouched by the side of my bed.

“What…time…is…it?”

“Five thirty,” he answered.

“I thought—”

I groaned.

Five thirty meant I’d only been asleep for three hours.

Connor went to bed after our walk, but Marco and I’d hung out a while longer.

“Why are you here?”

“I thought you might want to see the sun rise. I tried waking Connor, but…”

“There is no waking Connor,” I told him.

“Only Connor wakes Connor.” I glanced over at Carina’s window and saw starlight slipping through her blinds.

“But yeah, I’ll come.” I sat up in bed.

“Give me two minutes.”

There were several other people and some dogs on the beach when Marco spread out a towel for us to sit on, but they seemingly disappeared the moment the sun broke on the horizon.

Blazes of red, orange, and yellow streaked across the sky, giving the clouds a heavenly glow.

The ocean had never looked so blue.

Marco whistled. “Best one this summer.”

“This feels like a dream,” I said.

“It’s not,” he said, flashing me a smile.

I would’ve taken a picture if his grin hadn’t been so quick; instead, I settled for a photo of the sunrise.

“How do you not have a hangover?” I asked Marco on the walk home, sun now bright in the blue sky.

“My mom has a pineapple juice–based witch’s brew that wards them off,” he said.

“I drank some before bed.”

I wrinkled my nose.

Pineapples were not my favorite.

Marco chuckled, and I blinked when we ran into Connor in the driveway.

Red-blond hair tousled from the morning breeze, he was holding a white bakery box.

brEAD AND CHEESE CUPBOARD, its orange sticker read.

“I was first in line,” Connor said.

“Yesterday you said you haven’t had a sticky bun in a while.”

I could barely do more than nod, amazed that he’d set such an early alarm.

Bakery hours were not Connor waking hours.

He winked and held up the box.

I felt something blossom in my heart, and in that moment, I realized no one knew me better.

Connor and me? Why had I been hesitating?

We weren’t Austin-and-Samira; we were Connor-and-Mads.

It was so obvious, so right .

Do it , I told myself.

Shoot your shot!

“I hope a dozen frosted is acceptable—shit.” Connor handed the box of pastries to Marco so he could dig his chiming phone out of his pocket.

“It’s Lauren. I’m sorry. I should talk to her.” He accepted the call, smiling a little.

“Morning, Laur…”

And just as quickly as my heart leapt, it sunk and hit me all over again: I’d totally and truly blown it by procrastinating.

Connor and I couldn’t be together.

Because he had a freaking girlfriend.