She grabs my hand and gently strokes the length of each finger.
I shift uneasily on my feet. “I don’t know. I can’t really think about that right now.” Then I pull my hand away from hers and start down the steps. “Let’s go to the beach.”
CHAPTER 37
GRAYSON
I’ve been waiting for Harper to meet me for the past thirty minutes, and she still hasn’t shown. She’s not answering her phone or responding to any of my texts, which is strange, because she was texting me like a fiend up until about twenty minutes ago, and then she just stopped. The little bubble said she was formulating a response, and the text never arrived. Like someone ripped the phone right out of her hand.
We haven’t talked much since our fight, and for the past week, ever since Mike showed up at my front door with my phone, we’ve kept our distance from each other. I’m not really sure what to do. Bottom line is we need to talk, which is why I suggested we meet on my father’s boat today.
Now I’m just waiting here like a chump.
I check my phone for the tenth time. With a frustrated exhale I finally come to terms with the fact that she’s not coming. I tap out one final text to her.
If you don’t want to see me anymore, how about you have the guts to tell me instead of just not showing up?
I hop off the boat and trudge through the marina toward town. As usual, Ocean Avenue is packed with people, every store open and overflowing. The tourists all want to make the most of the last few weeks of summer before Labor Day comes and we all head back to the real world.
It’s an unusually hot day today, so the longest line by far is at Scoops, the local ice cream parlor where Harper had a job three years ago. Mike, Ian, and I hung out there every day that summer. Mike and Harper would flirt relentlessly across the counter, and Harper would occasionally dish us out free scoops when her boss was out running errands.
Those were the simpler times. Before life turned into this big hot mess.
Today the line spills out onto the sidewalk and snakes around the corner. I’m just squeezing past the front door when it swings open and two people walk out, laughing and licking ice cream from oversize waffle cones.
I have to do a double take to make sure my eyes are not playing tricks on me, but no. It’s them.
Mike and Harper.
Looking like nothing ever split them up.
Harper sees me and freezes. Mike immediately looks to her, then to me, scrutinizing our reactions. I know this is a test. If either one of us reacts strangely, the game is up. He’ll know that all the bullshit I dished out about Harper and me being just friends was exactly that—bullshit.
I paint on the breeziest smile I can muster.
“Hey!” I put my fist out for Mike to bump. He does, but it’s a measured movement. And he doesn’t launch into our secret handshake like he usually does. “What a surprise. What are you two doing here?”
I try to shoot Harper a look of contempt, but I can’t manage to do it. Mike’s scrutiny is too intense.
“We just randomly bumped into each other,” Harper says with a winning smile. Unlike mine, hers looks 100 percent organic. “And we started talking, and then one thing led to another and we decided to come by Scoops for old times’ sake.”
Mike takes a lick of his mint chip cone and beams at her.
“So, you two,” I begin, but I’m not sure how I’m going to finish. And now I’m just standing here, pointing back and forth between them over and over again like an idiot.
This is why you’re supposed to think before you talk. This is why you should plan out entire sentences before you start them.
I clear my throat. “Everything’s fine between you?”
Harper bats the air. “Oh yeah. Everything’s great. We were just talking about that one time when Mike and I got trapped in the walk-in freezer and had to take off all our clothes so we could keep each other warm with body heat. Remember that?”
And now she’s laughing. And Mike is joining in. And they’re laughing together. Touching each other’s arms like they need help staying upright because they’re laughing so damn hard.
“When your boss found us . . . ,” Mike tries to say, but he can’t even finish. He’s too bent over in hysterics.
“There went my summer job!” Harper says, practically crying.
I try to join in, but my laugh ends up sounding like a chipmunk with a speech impediment. “That was hilarious!” I say, but it’s too loud. Too fake. Both of them stop laughing and shoot me equally curious looks.
“You okay, buddy?” Mike asks.
“Fine,” I say, once again trying to make eye contact with Harper, but she either isn’t getting it or is purposefully avoiding me.
“Anyway,” Harper says, “we were just going to head down to the beach and hang out. It’s so freaking hot! I can’t imagine doing anything else. Do you want to come?”
She says this like it’s nothing. Like we hang out together all the time. Harper and her ex and the guy she’s been secretly hooking up with all summer.
And that’s just the thing. Any other summer, this would be nothing. This would be normal. This would be just another day on Winlock Harbor. Which is why I really have no choice but to paint on another over-the-top, cheesy grin and say, “Sounds fun! Just like old times.”
So it’s settled, then. The three of us take off toward the beach. One big happy family. And as we go, all I can think is, Well, this should be interesting.
CHAPTER 38
MIKE
Well, this should be interesting, I think as Harper, Grayson, and I stroll casually to the beach. Harper walks in the middle, and for a minute I’m terrified she’s going to link arms with both of us and start skipping merrily down the street like we’re characters in The Wizard of Oz. Who would that make me? The tin man because I have no heart? The lion because I have no courage? Or the scarecrow, because this might just be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done?
I wasn’t able to follow Harper for long. After a few blocks she popped into another store and started browsing like she had nothing better to do on this scorching hot August afternoon than peruse the shops. And maybe she didn’t. Maybe that was her plan along.
Maybe she and Grayson are just old friends who occasionally meet up and talk.
Maybe I’m just the suspicious, delusional ex-boyfriend who can’t let go.
It’s funny, I’ve never been paranoid before. I’m not really a jealous type of guy. It’s not in my DNA. It used to drive Harper insane.
“How do I know that you love me if you never get jealous?” she would always ask.
I would kiss her forehead and tell her that her logic was skewed. It was because I loved her that I didn’t get jealous.
She would disagree, and we would almost always eventually end up fighting about it. Sometimes I wondered if she flirted with other guys just to try to make me jealous, and then when it didn’t work, she’d start the fight instead. Because at least it was something.
The feeling that has been twisting in my gut all week is so foreign and strange. I hate it. Every time I even consider the idea of Harper and Grayson together, my chest squeezes and my skin flushes with heat and my stomach turns with nausea.
Is this what jealousy feels like? Like you’re looking at the world through a fun-house mirror?
But after watching Harper walk into her third store since I started following her, I had to entertain the idea that I might have been wrong. That maybe she really was planning to shop all day.
When she came out of the store about ten minutes later, I tried to duck behind a lamppost, but she spotted me and started walking over. I fully expected it to be awkward. We’ve been avoiding each other for the past two months. And when we have accidentally bumped into each other, it’s been all fake waves and averted gazes and pretending we don’t have six years of history hanging between us like stale smoke.
Except it wasn’t like that this time. Harper was . . . Well, she was Harper. T
he same old upbeat, funny, bright-eyed Harper. She smiled when she saw me—a real smile. She threw her arms around me and hugged me—a real hug. Her fingers softly rubbed the back of my neck as she told me how good it was to see me.
And then she started doing that thing she always does when she wants to get back together. She started reminiscing about the past. She started finding excuses to touch me. She started laughing way too hard at things I was saying that weren’t even that funny.
If you’ve waited for Harper Jennings to come back as many times as I have, you start to pick up on things. You start to notice patterns. You look for them.
And for the past two months, I’ve been so convinced that this moment was coming. That eventually, Harper would come to her senses once more and we’d be back together again.
The problem is, now that the moment might be here, I’m not sure how I feel about it.
Particularly when Harper, Grayson, and I make it to the beach and I spot Julie waiting there with two reserved chairs. My heart doubles in size and then shrinks to no bigger than a pebble.
I almost forgot about Julie.
When did I turn into such an asshole?
Julie waves her arms wildly in the air to get my attention. I can feel Harper stiffen beside me. After six years with someone, you can just feel their energy shift the moment it does.
Unlike me, Harper’s DNA is loaded with the jealousy gene. And her finger is always on the trigger.
Not that she has any reason to be jealous now. She’s the one who broke it off.
“Hey!” Julie says brightly when we arrive, jutting her hand out. “I’m Julie.”
I search for traces of discomfort in her tone, or a flash of annoyance on her face. I search and I search, but I come up with nothing. Julie doesn’t seem at all put out by the unexpected additions to our little beach party.
Grayson is the first to grab her hand. He pumps it with way too much enthusiasm. “Nice to meet you.” He gives Harper a look I can’t quite translate. “I’m Grayson.”
“Ah yes,” Julie says. “The star quarterback. Mike has told me so much about you!”
I watch Grayson’s entire demeanor transform. I have no idea what that’s about, but I don’t really have time to analyze it right now. I’m too distracted by Harper’s reaction to Julie. Harper shakes Julie’s hand and introduces herself, but she looks like she wants to throw Julie into the ocean for the sharks to have their way with.
I step in, awkwardly trying to place myself between them. “Julie works at the kids’ camp. She’s been gracious enough to look after Jasper and Jake this summer while my dad’s leg heals.”
“Whoa,” Grayson says. “Those two? You should get a medal or something.”
Julie laughs. “Oh, they’re not so bad.”
Harper grunts. “They once superglued my shoes to my feet.”
Grayson chuckles, which warrants an evil look from Harper. “What?” he asks, holding up his hands in surrender. “You didn’t feel them gluing your shoes to your feet?
“In her defense,” I cut in, “we were really distracted.”
Grayson, Harper, and Julie all turn to me at once. Harper looks positively radiant, Grayson looks pissed, and Julie’s reaction I can only read as disbelief.
“Watching TV,” I’m quick to add. “We were watching a really good paranormal investigation show.”
“I love those paranormal investigation shows,” Julie says in her usual bubbly tone, and I could almost kiss her right there.
We all sit down. Grayson and I offer Julie and Harper the chairs, and we drop down into the sand.
Julie continues to yammer on. “There was this one—What’s it called? Ghost Trackers or something. It was so good. I’m totally already a believer, but I swear that house was haunted.”
“I think I saw that one,” I say, trying to keep the conversation going. But I’m getting absolutely no help from Grayson or Harper, who both appear to be sulking. For Harper I can guess at the reason, but for Grayson I have absolutely no idea.
And I suddenly feel bad. I’ve barely hung out with Grayson or Ian all summer. Between all the extra work and getting the twins to and from the beach club and my late-night walks with Julie, I’ve hardly had a moment to spend time with the guys.
Sure, Ian talks to me sometimes while I work, but it’s not the same. It’s not all of us together. Like the old days.
And after that awkward Fourth of July barbecue, I was starting to fear it would never be like the old days again.
“Where’s Ian?” I ask. “We should text him.”
“Probably making out with Whitney somewhere,” Grayson grumbles.
“What?” I spit out. “Whitney and Ian? But they hate each other.”
He kicks his toe into the sand. “Yeah. They think I don’t know. They think they’re doing such a good job hiding it—leaving the house separately, late-night swims in the pool—but I know. I live in that house too.”
Is that what’s bothering him so much? That his sister is dating Ian? His sister could do much worse than Ian Handler. Hell, his sister has done much worse.
“So, they’re, like, a thing now?” I ask.
Grayson shrugs. “They better be, that’s all I can say. He better not break her heart at the end of the summer when he goes off to LA or wherever to be the next One Direction.”
“Who’s Whitney?” Julie asks.
“Grayson’s sister,” Harper says, and I hear annoyance in her tone at having to explain something that she finds so basic.
I check my watch. It’s almost six-thirty. How much longer are we all expected to hang out here and pretend that this isn’t the most uncomfortable situation ever? I consider texting Ian and inviting him to join us, but if that’s going to make this even more awkward, then it’s probably better that I don’t.
I look around at our unlikely foursome—Harper in her lounge chair, looking like she’s sucking on a lemon; Julie smiling under her sun hat; and Grayson picking pebbles out of the sand and chucking them at his feet.
“I’m going for a swim,” Julie announces, probably as anxious to escape this distorted energy as I am. She jumps to her feet and slips out of her shorts. “Anyone want to join me?”
She directs the question at the whole group, but I know she’s really talking to me. I glance from her to Grayson to Harper. Everyone looks extremely invested in my answer. Too invested for my comfort.
No matter what I say, I’ve made the wrong decision somehow. But I just don’t think I can sit here any longer.
“Sure,” I say, standing up and pulling my T-shirt over my head. We run toward the surf and jump in. I don’t have to glance back at the chairs to know that Harper is pouting. But as soon as the refreshing water splashes up against my legs, I find it extremely difficult to care.
CHAPTER 39
IAN
This was a mistake. I don’t know why I suggested coming to the beach. I just needed to get away. I was feeling so claustrophobic and trapped back there. With Whitney’s probing eyes and words like “girlfriend” floating in the air, it was too much.
But this is the last place I should have tried to escape to. Even this late in the day, the beach is packed with umbrellas and bodies and coolers and tired, wet children running loose like rats let out of a lab cage.
We trudge through the sea of beachgoers, looking for a relatively quiet spot. Yeah, good luck with that.
We traverse half of the damn island before Whitney points to a big yellow umbrella near the next lifeguard stand and says, “Hey! There’s Grayson!” She starts to make her way over. I grudgingly follow.
As we get closer, I see that Grayson is not alone. Next to him on a lounge chair is a tall blond girl wearing a purple bikini and cutoff shorts. I stop walking when I realize that it’s Harper.
Seriously? This is still going on?
I was so convinced that they would have broken it off by now, that it was just a breezy summer fling. But that was more than a month ago, and now i
t looks like they’re in the middle of some heated discussion.
I try to veer off course, but Whitney catches my arm. “Come on, Brooder. Let’s go.”
“They look like they need privacy.”
She scoffs at this. “It’s Harper and Grayson. Why would they need privacy.”
If only you knew, I think as Whitney practically drags me over.
“Hey, guys!” she says, waving.
Grayson glances from Whitney to me, his expression unreadable. I give him an evil glare, which seems to only confuse him.
“What’s shaking?” Whitney drops into the empty beach recliner next to Harper, who looks incredibly annoyed by our arrival.
“Nothing,” Grayson mumbles. “We were just chatting.”
“Is Mike here?” Whitney asks.
Grayson nods toward the ocean. “He went into the water with some chick.”
Harper stirs at the comment, but I seem to be the only one who notices. There’s something in the air here that I can’t quite pinpoint. But it smells.
“Oh reeeaally?” Whitney shields her eyes and tries to peer into the water. “What’s her story?”
Grayson shrugs, looking pointedly at Harper. “Don’t know. She’s hot, though. I’d totally hit that.”
Whitney and I both flinch. It’s not the playful, charming kind of remark that Grayson is known for when it comes to girls. It goes deeper than that. There’s an almost spiteful quality to it.
Harper stands up with a huff, deliberately kicking sand onto Grayson as she slides her feet into her shoes. “You’re a dick.”
Then she storms away. I watch Grayson fume for a few seconds before he ultimately decides to follow her, leaving Whitney and me to stare at each other, dumbfounded.
“Okay, we clearly missed something,” she says.
I consider telling her what I saw between Grayson and Harper, but decide against it. Whatever is going on between the two of them is their problem. And it looks like a completely fucked-up problem that I don’t have the mental or emotional capacity to get in the middle of.
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