“You’re onmyside,” I hissed after them, then raised my voice for Noah. “Coward.”
“Really? What about you? Plan to stay there long?”
“Maybe.”
He waded in, pulling his shirt off.
“What are you doing?” I squealed.
He balled it up. “Catch.”
To my utter surprise, I did. Noah turned around and strolled back to his friends.
I watched him go, holding his shirt above the water. What was his deal? He could have left me to fend for myself. He could have made me more uncomfortable, or ignored me.
Was he trying to preserve my theoretical modesty? (Which, to be honest, I was glad for, because I was one hundred percent not up for owning it per Jane’s suggestion.) I turned my back on the beach and shimmied into the shirt. When I’d made sure Noah had rejoined his friends and wasn’t looking, I darted to shore and tugged on my bikini bottom, then did some careful maneuvering to get my bikini top on beneath his shirt.
I should have pulled off his shirt and pulled my own on then. I should have. But summer nights were not made for should-haves.
Instead, I looked up and found Noah again, and not a minute later, he glanced my way (did this mean he’d been periodically glancing as I awkwardly got dressed? Hopefully not!). A moment later, he strode over. “Didn’t know you had it in you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.” I heard the smile in his voice. “I thought you’d be busy Nancy Drew–ing all summer. Isn’t this a waste of time?”
“Rumor has it you’re only young once.” I tugged at the shirt and glanced over at the crowd of people he’d emerged from. “Those are your friends?”
“Yeah.” I must have made some kind of face, because his eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Nothing. They look”—homogeneous and one-percent—“nice.”
“You have a terrible poker face.”
I knew I should keep my mouth shut, but I wanted to prod him, make him as uncomfortable as he made me. “The whole Nantucket vibe is a bit preppier than I usually go for.”
“Because you didn’t expect Nantucket to be WASPy,” he said dryly, and I couldn’t hold back a smile. “You’re kind of judgy.”
“Isn’t everyone?”
“I try not to judge anyone until I know them,” he said mildly.
Good lord. “Well, I guess you’re just a better person than I am.”
He grinned at me. “And I’ll have you know preppiness is actually very Jewish.”
“Sounds fake.”
“Ralph Lauren went to a yeshiva.”
“He did not.”
“His parents wanted him to be a rabbi. His name was actually Lifshitz.”
I laughed. “You’re making this up.”
“You can google it.”
“I will.” I looked over at his friends again, with their skins tanned and their hair lightened. “So you’re saying you’re preppy because you’re Jewish, not because you’re trying to fit in with the Nantucket elite?”
