Seeing her made me almost as happy as seeing my mess of cousins.
When we finished our coffees, we drove over to Brant Pointand walked toward the lighthouse. The cold wind bit our faces, and we ducked our chins into our scarves. A thin layer of crunchy snow covered the hard sand, and the water was a strange white-blue. The froth had frozen against the beach. Seagulls cawed, soaring through the air.
In the summer, tourists would have crowded around the lighthouse, childrenouching as seashells bit their feet, fishermen with their lines in the water. Now, though, we were the only people here. How different Nantucket was in the off-season, and I loved it. I loved the space, the cold, the uncrowded vistas.
I raised my face toward the thin sunlight. Now or never. “I did something stupid.”
Olivia pulled her jacket tighter. The wind whipped a strand of hair across her eyes, and she pushed it away. “My favorite way for stories to start.”
Myfavorite thing about Olivia was her lack of judginess. At home, I’d never admit to being messy. Whenever I’d evenslightlymentioned messing up, people seemed too amused, too pleased, which made me shrink into myself and swear to never own up to being less than perfect. Olivia, on the other hand, reveled in my messiness and shared her own disasters. “I told you how I’m, uh, getting ready to see Isaac.”
“Yes...”
“So obviously I have no idea how to talk to boys, and I don’t want to mess up with Isaac. I feel like if we could get over theawkward getting-together stage, we’d be so perfect. He’s just so... competent, you know? He’s so driven, he works so hard, he gets this cute furrow on his face when he’s trying to get something handled, he already knows about my family... Anyway. I don’t want to mess up my chance with him.” I swallowed. “So to help me win Isaac over, I asked Tyler Nelson to teach me how to flirt.”
“You didnot.” She practically crowed with delight. “Oh my god, Shira.”
“I know. I’m a mess. But Isaac is just so perfect. I have to dosomethingif I want a chance with him.” I told her everything as we picked our way over to the giant rocks at the base of the short lighthouse and stared up at the Christmas wreath with its giant red bow.
By the time I finished, it was closing in on one—time for me to get to Tyler’s and for Olivia to meet her family for lunch. “One thing,” she said as we headed back toward her car. “What if you fall for him again?”
“ForTyler?” I laughed. “I’m not an idiot. Fool me once, and all that. Besides, I wouldn’t want Tyler if I could have Isaac.”
“Love your energy,” she said, both skeptical and amused. “Guess I’ll have to wait and meet the guy.”
“He’s great,” I said. “You’re going to be blown away by him.”
Now I just had to ensure Isaac would be blown away by me.
CHAPTER NINE
Nervous energy ricocheted through my body after Olivia dropped me off at Tyler’s house. Was this ridiculous? People didn’t ask for flirting lessons outside of rom-coms, did they?
No. This made sense. When I’d needed to improve my math SAT, my parents got me a tutor; for piano and skating, I’d taken lessons. Practice made perfect; practice was practical. Besides, what was my other option with Isaac arriving tomorrow? Treat him the way I’d treated all the boys I’d liked in the past? Because I’d clearly done so well then.
Unlike last time I’d been here, Tyler’s house now looked alive, candles in the windows, wreath on the door with pine cones and a red-plaid bow. Icicles hung from the roof, and the blazing blue sky made the house look friendly and picturesque. I rang thebell, listening as chimes echoed inside the house. My stomach clenched.
A moment later, one of Tyler’s moms, Elena, opened the door. She looked surprised. “Hello, Shira.”
“Hi.” Ugh, I should have texted instead of ringing the bell. “I’m meeting Tyler?”
“Come on in. He’s in the morning room.” She led me inside. The aroma of freshly baked goods enveloped me: butter and sugar and cinnamon and nutmeg and ginger. “So nice of you to let him stay at Golden Doors the other night.”
“Of course,” I chirped. Sometimes I wondered if adults lived in a different universe than the rest of us, where they thought all teens got along. “What are you baking?”
“Gingerbread,” she said cheerfully. “It’s cooling now. A hassle, but Robin would kill me if I ever stopped the tradition. Would you like anything to drink? Water, tea?”
“Oh, um, a glass of water would be great.”
Armed with a LaCroix, I followed Elena past the living room, where a seven-foot-tall Christmas tree stood decorated in warm golds and reds, presents piled at the base. She stepped into another room, and I paused behind her, nerves stretched thin enough to snap. Tyler and I might have struck a bargain yesterday, but it hadn’t erased years of strain.
“Tyler, Shira’s here,” Elena said, then abandoned me.
I entered a room filled with light and low couches and plants.Tyler couldn’t have arranged himself to better advantage if he’d tried—and who knew, maybe he had. Sun streamed over him, picking up glints of gold in his wheat-blond hair, gilding his mysteriously tanned skin. (Shouldn’t his tan have died after a semester at NYU?) He wore a robe over his T-shirt and flannel pants; his feet were sheathed in slippers edged in cozy wool. A steaming cup of coffee sat on the end table beside him. He looked both decadent and laid-back, and I felt like throwing up.
“You’re wearing a robe,” I said instead, and instantly regretted it. Why couldn’t I have said something clever? Or evenhi.
He looked up, his eyes blazingly blue, which I’d somehow forgotten in the twenty-four hours since I last saw him. “You sound surprised.”
