by A. S. Green
Bennet stumbles over his words. “Wow. Well, okay. If that’s what you want to do, then great.”
“Do you think people would come?” I’m getting excited about this now. We could cook hot dogs and make s’mores. I think I saw some roasting sticks in Calloway’s kitchen closet. Bennet’s encouragement was exactly what I needed, and now I get to plan a party! Yea! Except…
The silence on the other end of the phone line is more humiliating than if Bennet had just gone ahead and laughed out loud at my question. Oh, right, I think, the truth dawning on me. I’m the summer girl. Not exactly in the job description to be the social queen. I wait another second, but there’s still no response. I pull the ponytail holder out of my hair and twist it nervously around my fingers.
“Are you laughing at me?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “Not this time.”
“Great. Do you laugh at me a lot?”
“Sometimes.” I can tell he’s trying not to laugh now. “You are pretty entertaining. That is, when you aren’t scaring the shit out of me. But if you want to throw a party, I don’t find that funny. Brave, maybe? Confident, for sure.” He pauses for a second, then adds, “I like it.”
I breathe out. “So you’ll come?”
“I’ll have to check my schedule,” he says. “I’ve had quite a few offers lately.”
“Well, if you can’t—”
“What time?”
“Sunset?” I say.
“Sounds good.” I can hear cupboard doors banging in the background. It’s so loud it sounds like he’s only inches away from me.
“Do you think Natalie will come, too?”
“I don’t know how you do it, D’Arcy. I’ve had no luck trying to break into this crowd, but I’m sure if you invite Natalie, not only will she come, but she’ll bring her friends along.”
When I hang up, I catch a glimpse of Andrew’s face in the photograph on the bedside table. He looks like he disapproves. Someone who’s going home in ten weeks shouldn’t be so concerned with making friends. With a sigh, I turn the photograph face down and go into the kitchen to pack the perfect party picnic.
Chapter Twenty-Five
KATHERINE
Shortly after sunset, I drag the cooler through the front door and across the lawn to the edge of the cliff. It’s loaded with the usual: hot dogs, buns, graham crackers, chocolate, marshmallows, ketchup, and mustard, but I’ve also got a bag of mason jars and candles. Every party needs proper ambiance.
When I get to the edge of the cliff, I close my eyes and take a second to breathe. Opening them, I discover Bennet scrambling up the cliff toward me. He navigates the rocks with perfect ease.
“Are you part mountain goat, or something?”
He takes the cooler in his arms, as if it weighs nothing at all, and holds out his elbow to me.
“Watch your step,” he says as I touch my toe to the first large boulder. “If you look, you can make out a natural staircase, although you’ll have to really stretch for that third rock.”
He’s right. Upon closer inspection, there are a series of small, flat, footholds previously invisible to me. After a few scary moments, where I shriek a little too loud and cling to his shirt a little too tight, we reach the sand, where he’s already spread out a black-and-red buffalo blanket. Bennet abandons me with the cooler to resume his post by a rusty fire ring filled with the ash of previous fires.
He piles driftwood into a teepee formation, while I put sand in the mason jars and set the candles. I place them around the campfire, lighting them with Bennet’s fire starter. When finished, I brush the sand from my hands and take a look around. It’s perfect.
“Should I go get my own blanket?” I ask.
“Of course not,” he says. “Have a seat.”
His blanket is between the base of the bluff and the fire ring. The bluff is steep enough to provide a backrest when I sit down, and I lean into the natural lounge chair while the waves crash gently on the shore. The first faint stars are beginning to show themselves. The only thing to disturb the scene is Bennet’s rustling of newspapers as he crumples them into balls and shoves them under the tower of kindling.
“You look like you know what you’re doing.”
“Former boy scout,” he says, giving me a little salute. “Later, if you want, I can cook you some beans in the can and whittle you a spoon to eat them with. I think you’ll find I’m a handy guy to keep around.” He winks and—to my horror—my face flushes hot. Thank God it’s getting dark. And where is Natalie?
Her reaction to my invitation had been similar to Bennet’s surprised interest, but she said she was coming. If she ditches, this is going to be so incredibly awkward.
Bennet crouches low, his cheek practically in the sand, and blows into the base of the fire. The paper flares and the kindling takes. He stands up and watches the fire for a while, adding some more dry wood, then he comes over to stand by the blanket. He looks down at me but says nothing.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Well, it is my blanket,” he says. “Are you going to move over, or are you going to make me sit in the sand?”
I move over, and he sits beside me, his right leg pressed against my left. He leans back against the bluff and puts his left arm behind his head.
The night is silent, except for the lush lapping of the waves against the sand, the cracks and sparks of the campfire, and the bass drum of my heart slamming in my ears. My mind is racing as I try to think of something clever to say, but everything sounds dull in my head. He probably thinks I’m dull.
I bite the side of my lip and grasp at alternatives. It’s possible he’s the kind of guy who’s good with silence. Maybe he thinks this is perfect, sitting here, saying nothing.
No. That’s not it. I twist my fingers in the edge of the blanket. I wish I hadn’t asked him to come. He has become a temptation that I have no business succumbing to.
A streak of light flashes in front of me, and for a second I think I’m losing control of all my senses.
“Did you see that?” he asks.
“Oh, thank God,” I say on an exhale. “I thought I was imagining things.”
“Shooting star. Keep your eyes open. There’ll be more.”
I ponder that and continue to search the sky, finding Polaris then tracing the Big Dipper with my finger. When I’m done, I drop my hand back to my lap.
“That’s Ursa Major and Minor,” he says, “or the Big and Little Bear. That’s where the island gets its name. Do you know the story?”
I shake my head. “I’ve heard it called the little bear, but I didn’t know why.”
Bennet puts his warm hand over my cool one, gives it a squeeze, and my heart races. Our fingers slide together. He lifts our hands as one, and we trace the line of the Little Bear stars. I can’t look away from where our fingers are linked because holding Bennet’s hand is like a thousand gears and locks snapping into place in my head. Click. Click. Whirrr-Click.
“The Greeks believed that Zeus had a son with a mortal woman named Callisto, and that Zeus’s wife, Hera, got jealous so she turned Callisto into a bear.
“Then one day the son went hunting and almost killed his mother, so Zeus turned his son into a little bear and sent the mother and son up into the sky forever.”
He lowers our hands and rests them together at the top of his thigh, keeping our fingers locked. He acts like this is no big deal, but my whole body is shivering, and not because of the wind. My hand is on Bennet’s thigh. My hand is on Bennet’s thigh!
I look over at his face. I’ve slipped out of my skin and floated up into the sky like Callisto. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be doing this. I love Andrew. I’ve always loved Andrew. But the gods have been so, so good to Bennet. He’s maddeningly beautiful. Dammit, I’m weak.
Bennet must sense me watching him because he turns his face toward me. His eyes gaze into mine, holding them for an eternity, then they drop for a second to my lips, then back up again.
>
“I like you,” he says. Just like that. No messing around.
“Right,” I say, trying to be equally cool but failing miserably. “Because you find me entertaining. Isn’t that what you said?”
A grin slowly pulls across his face. “Yeah.”
There is an agonizing moment of hesitation. My stomach tenses then flutters. I don’t even know who moves first, only that the next thing I know his lips are crushed against mine, and they’re warm and firm and—God—they know exactly what to do.
His tongue slips past my lips and tastes sweet, like chocolate. My fingers press the defined muscles in his shoulders, one hand sliding down to his chest, feeling his heart beating against my palm. He is gentle, but I can sense the growing intensity in him.
Kissing Bennet is like stepping into the lake. At first shocking, then slowly I acclimate, sinking into the luxury of it. His hand wraps around my ribs, right below the swell of my breast, and I’m in way over my head, drowning in the sensations that overrun my body. No one has ever kissed me like this. Not even Andrew in all my wildest fantasies. Andrew. Andrew! Oh my gosh, what am I doing?
“Bennet?” I say, pushing myself away from him.
His breath is hot against my goose-bumped flesh, and a tingle of electricity races down my spine as his hand cradles the back of my neck. “Hmmm?” His eyes are still on my lips.
I keep my palm against his chest to maintain some distance. “I’m sorry. I don’t do things like this.”
“Well, you can not do it again, if you’d like.”
“What I mean is—” I smile despite my misgivings. Andrew’s had fun with other girls and it’s never made me think I don’t want a future with him. If I should have fun with Bennet, why should that keep Andrew from someday wanting me?
“It’s just that I really don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
“If that kiss is any indication, I think you are entirely wrong about that.” Bennet’s voice is low and throaty. He lifts his head, and a tiny smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. His hand cups my face, and his thumb strokes a line across my cheekbone.
“But if you’re not sure of yourself, D’Arcy, this island is the perfect place to figure it out.” He hesitates, and we lock eyes. Something shifts in me. The last remnants of uncertainty slip away.
“Listen,” he says. “I know we’ll blink our eyes, summer will be over, and you’ll be heading back to your life, and I know that’s nothing I’d ever go back to… We’ve got limited time, but we should do something with it, don’t you think?”
“Okay.” This is happening. I try to wrap my head around it. I, Katherine D’Arcy, am having a spontaneous, very unplanned, and definitely unscripted summer fling.
“Because I’m right. You’re as insanely attracted to me as I am to you.”
I exhale, letting my fingertips slip from the collar of his shirt and drag down the ridges of his abs. There’s no denying his statement. Even if I tried, my body would tell the honest truth. “Correct.”
He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, and his gaze skims the line of my jaw. “So let’s cut the bullshit and not waste any more time, shall we?”
“Sounds good,” I whisper, but it’s barely more than breath.
His lips curl into a smile, and his eyes spark. “We can start right now by getting back to that fantastic mouth of yours because it doesn’t look like anyone else is coming to this shindig. Were you kidding when you said you were going to invite some other people, because I can completely under—”
A clatter of tumbling stones corrects his assumption and makes me sit up fast, bashing my forehead against his.
“Ow!” We both cry out as Natalie takes her first step down the rocky embankment, exclaiming, “There you are!”
A beam of light hits squarely on me and Bennet, and I gasp. Bennet, intuiting what I need from him, practically launches himself from the blanket. He starts jabbing at the coals with a long stick. I wonder if Natalie noticed the two of us sitting so close together.
“How did you get down there alive?” Natalie asks. She’s followed by Rachel, Alli (who I can tell, even in the dark, has her eyes trained on Bennet), Bruce (whom I recognize from the gas station), and a second guy I don’t recognize at all. Elise hasn’t come, but then I guess, out of all of Natalie’s friends she seemed the least likely to bother. Or maybe she couldn’t get a sitter.
They all negotiate their way down. Alli is trying it crab-walk style. Rachel is leaping sure-footedly from rock to rock, landing on the balls of her feet, almost as if she were dancing. The beam of her flashlight makes crisscross swipes across the rocks.
“Hey,” I say, getting to my feet. “You made it. Bennet just got here, too.”
Natalie reaches the beach first, a yellow blanket looped over her arm. “This is righteous!” she says.
Then, in the glow of the campfire, I realize she’s suppressing a smile. She raises her eyebrows at me in a look that says smooooth. Natalie’s the only person I’ve ever met with sarcastic eyebrows.
“Meet Ryan,” Natalie says, gesturing to the guy I didn’t recognize. He’s prematurely balding with eyebrows that look like wings. She adds, “Rachel’s sometimes-boyfriend.”
Rachel jumps from the last rock down to the sand and swipes Natalie’s shoulder with an open hand. “But not tonight,” she says.
“Shit, Rach,” Ryan says with exasperation, “why did you invite me, then?”
“Give her a few minutes,” Alli says, giggling. “Her blood sugar’s low.”
“Nothing a few dozen s’mores won’t fix,” I suggest, pulling a bag of marshmallows out of the cooler and tossing them their way.
“Chocolate?” Rachel asks.
“Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.” I toss her the package and add, “Trust me,” when she raises her eyebrows.
Rachel snags the bag out of the air while Alli lays out her blanket close to the campfire. The wind is picking up across the lake, and the flames lick wildly, first left, then right. Smoke swirls upward. Bruce and Ryan hesitate and dodge the smoke, not sure where to sit. Ryan obviously thought he’d be sitting by Rachel tonight, but she hasn’t left any room for him on her blanket.
“Here,” Bennet says, offering Ryan a seat on a two-foot stretch of log. Ryan sits down, looking grateful that he doesn’t have to sit in the sand. Bruce loads hot dogs and marshmallows onto roasting sticks.
Natalie comes to stand by me. “Nice beach,” she says. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”
“Thanks,” I say. “It’s actually my first time down here.”
“Is it true you almost drowned your first night here?” Bruce asks. “Alli was telling me about it. Glad to see you survived.”
“Only slightly humiliating,” I say, though I’d nearly forgotten. It already feels like a million years ago. “And I waited until my fourth night.”
“Little Bear hasn’t had a summer girl die in years,” Bruce says. He flips up his hoodie and hunches his shoulders against the cool lake air. “It’d be a shame if you were the one to break the survivors’ streak.”
Bennet looks irritated and mumbles something about how that’s “not funny.”
“The streak?” I whisper.
“Don’t listen to them,” Natalie says. “But listen to this. We need to get things started for Summer Fest.”
“March’s fish fry?” Bennet asks.
Natalie seems pleased that he’s been on the island long enough to know. She tips her finger in his direction, and I can tell Bennet is happy for the acknowledgment. Natalie adds, “And Kate’s twenty-first birthday.”
I make celebratory jazz hands as they all turn to look up at me.
“Rachel and Alli, you’re on music,” Natalie says.
“What about the band?” Alli asks. I wonder if her sugary sweet voice annoys anybody besides me.
“Kate talked me into dropping the band so we have money for other things. Give me whatever you want for a playlist, but no polkas.”
&
nbsp; Rachel rolls her eyes, and Alli nods knowingly. Natalie continues for my benefit, “Once you see a dozen old men doing the Chicken Dance in badly wrapped togas…well…there’s a reason we’re all in dire need of counseling.”
“I heard you were helping to make it a whopper of a party,” Bennet says to me, his face bright with humor.
“You’ll be there, too, right, Bennet?” Alli asks.
He nearly chokes when Alli uses his name, and he shoots me a look of surprise. I roll my eyes. Bennet may be naive to what’s going on, but I’m on to her. Alli obviously doesn’t give a crap that I’m clearly here with Bennet. I mean, she might not have seen that kiss, but we are sharing a freakin’ blanket.
Still, I try not to get overly worked up about it because I can see how much the acknowledgment means to Bennet. The frosting on the cake is when Bruce grabs a football out of Natalie’s bag and pitches it to Bennet, like they’ve been friends forever. Guys are like that. A ball makes them brothers.
It’s too dark to play, I would think, but there’s a little light from the fire and a strip of moonlight on the beach. Rachel squashes a roasted marshmallow and Reese’s between two graham crackers while Alli gets up saying, “I’m going to go play with the guys.” She wipes the bit of sand from her knees.
“You can’t catch a football,” Rachel rasps.
“It’s not a football I’m interested in catching,” Alli says with a grin before running to catch up.
I’m watching her go when Natalie nudges me with her shoulder and whispers, “Don’t worry about Alli.”
I jerk my chin back in surprise. Am I that transparent? “Why should I be worried?”
Natalie shakes her head like I’m so full of shit. She glances at Rachel, who’s got a flaming torch of burned marshmallow hanging from her roasting stick, then she pulls me farther away from the fire.
“Don’t get me wrong. I love Alli. She’s my friend. But besides the capital T and A, she doesn’t have a lot to offer a relationship.”
Fifty feet beyond Natalie’s shoulder, Alli’s trying to get the football away from Bennet. She’s bumping her body against him in a not-so-subtle way that makes me feel kinda stabby. “T and A?”