“Ugh, gross. Can we please just go?”
Tucker hit the ignition and spoke over the roar of the truck. “I’m just saying, Em. I have needs. A guy can be happy with appetizers only for so long before he needs a real meal. That’s just science.”
Science. The word instantly conjured Xander Ford. Because of course it did. My default setting. I should be my own default setting, and yet…
Tucker was frustrated, but so was I. Xander Ford was frustrating as hell, in ways I couldn’t explain, even to myself. Thinking about him made me mad and warm and irritated and like I wanted to laugh, all at the same time.
We’re just friends,I thought, trying to hold onto the irritation. But I had to turn my face to the window so Tucker wouldn’t see my smile.
***
Castle Hill Lighthouse perched on the western tip of the peninsula—the toe of the boot—and was abandoned a long time ago. The lighthouse keeper’s house had taken on a mythical, haunted status, and many people had tried and failed over the years to break in and climb up the tower. I don’t know who started it, but building a ginormous bonfire became the tradition: a new beacon of light while the old one stood rotting.
By the time Tucker pulled into the beach parking lot, the fire was roaring. A burst of orange and yellow against a dark sky full of stars, with the ocean beyond. A fat moon hung low in the sky, leaving a golden trail in the black water. At least a hundred students were camped on the grassy dunes of coarse, white sand, some with chairs and blankets, others standing in groups. Others, mostly guys, threw broken crates, driftwood, and beer packaging into the flames.
Tucker spotted some friends near the fire. “There’s Brent and Rory. Be right back, babe,” he said and jogged to greet his bros. I saw Delilah and Sierra talking with some people. I contemplated letting loose and getting wasted; there were coolers full of hard tea and beer on the side of the bonfire. But I wasn’t much of a drinker, and I’d hardly had anything to eat. If I got wasted, Tucker would get lucky. At least mostly.
I wasn’t hung up on sex, no matter what he might’ve thought. I just wanted…something more.
Something morewas fast becoming my motto for this school year.
Instead of heading for Delilah and Sierra, I wandered among the groups, chatting briefly with a few people but still looking, though I wasn’t sure who or what I was looking for.
And then I found Xander.
He stood with Dean Yearwood and Harper on the outer edge of the bonfire. They were all holding bottles of beer, and Dean was regaling them with some story that made them laugh. Harper and Xander looked good together. They made sense. Not like him and me, which was ridiculous anyway. He was a genius, and I was going to be Barbie for Halloween.
I turned up the hood of my pink sweatshirt and kept wandering until I found myself at the side of the lighthouse keeper’s house—boarded and locked up. I sat down on a bench that faced the ocean and took it in. Students walked by now and then, but mostly people left me alone. It felt nice being alone. Thoughts of Grant came to me. I wondered if he’d ever sat here during his senior year. If he worried about how to break away from Dad’s plans and be himself too. He must have, I thought, listening to the ocean’s little roars and hisses and missing him.
After a while, Xander appeared, beer bottle still in hand. He wore jeans, an old jacket, and ratty Converse, his tall frame lean with muscle. But then, everyone was tall to me.
“Am I interrupting?” he asked in a quiet tone.
“Not at all,” I said, smiling because I realized I came to this bench to be alone, and Xander was the only person I wanted to be alone with.
“Would you like something to drink? I can get you a beer or something.”
“No, thank you.” I nodded at the vast black ocean under the vast black sky. “It’s pretty out here, isn’t it?” I scooted over on the bench. “Here. Sit.”
“Thanks.” Xander sat down next to me.
Like being on our rock with him again…
The bench was small, and our arms touched along the lengths of his jacket and my sweatshirt. His denim-clad thigh brushed mine. Little tingles and shivers ran over my skin at all those junctures, but I told myself I was just cold.
“I heard you kicked ass at the row tryouts,” I said.
“Yeah, but I don’t think I made any friends, your boyfriend among them.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m going to take his buddy’s seat on the crew.”
“Quite confident about that, aren’t you?” I teased.
Xander shrugged one shoulder. “The coach seems to know what he’s doing; it would be stupid not to give it to me. Orion and I make a good bow pair.”
“What’s a bow pair?”
