Abbi whistles. “Long day,” she says. She turns over my bag of clothes and gasps.
“Did I do good?” I ask, walking over to the bed and shuffling through the items I got. A handful of tops, a pair of shorts, two skirts, and a couple cardigans, plus the dress I’m still wearing.
“Can I borrow this?” she answers, holding up ablack-and-white-checkered T-shirt I’d gotten for her. I can’t help but feel a little proud.
“I got it for you,” I say. “But I’ll need to borrow it for Paris next year.”
“Paris,” she says, hesitant, looking at me head to toe. “Paris.” The second time, she says it like she’s casting a spell for my luck. I cross my fingers and sit on the bed next to her.
“Paris,” I agree.
Chapter Fourteen
Sera
On Thursday, I meet Luke at the marina just before one, but as I walk down the dock toward his boat, Adam and Oliver are nowhere in sight. Luke is standing on the dock still, cell phone to his ear, an exasperated look on his face. As I get closer, I can hear him answering in terse one-word replies.
“Sure. Yeah. Okay. Did you tell Mom?”
He sees me and shrugs an apology as he pulls the phone away from his ear and mouths,My dad.I nod and let him finish, dropping my bag into the boat.
“I heard you,” he snaps. “You tell Mom. That’s not my job.”
His brothers spent the last few days with their dad, and he was supposed to bring them back to Northport today, but it sounds like something’s changed.
“Sorry,” he says to me, sighing. “I gotta call my mom quick.”
“It’s okay,” I say as I take careful steps down the slip and climb onto the boat, sitting on the edge. Luke calls Paula and tells her that he doesn’t have the boys because his dad decidedlast-minute to get them tickets to a bouncy castle fair out near his place and keep them for another night.
“Yeah. I guess he’s trying,” Luke mutters. “Okay, see you later.”
He hangs up and groans, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes.
“Do you want to reschedule?” I ask, not sure how to help. I’m used to my parents’ bickering over little things, but it’s always just between them. It’s strange to see Luke mad at his dad, who he used to idolize.
“No, I still want to go out. Do you?” he asks, a hopeful look in his eyes.
“Yeah, it’ll be nice. Like old times, right?”
His shoulders relax. “Yeah, great. We can head out to the sandbars off Sandy Neck. Go swimming?”
“Sounds great.”
Luke joins me in his dad’s old boat. It’s a twenty-one-foot motorboat with a front bench and a couple seats at the back, and a tiny shade top over the captain’s chair. Luke and I fight with the sunshade until it’s up. I secure the cooler Luke brought in the back. I peek inside, finding snacks I know the boys would love, plus some sour candy he must have gotten for me. The gesture makes me smile.
Luke starts up the boat, and I unhook us from the dock. We push off, falling into a rhythm as I remember what to do. When Luke and I were little, we’d come out with his dad almost every weekend, taking our deckhand duties way too seriously and helping him catch fish for dinner, so everything comes back to me easily.
Per tradition, we wave at the old empty lighthouse that leans off the edge of a rocky outcrop. As we pick up speed, I pull out my sketchbook and sit up front. Facing Luke, I start sketching out his face, his hands on the wheel, the way the dark water behind him is cut through by the wake of the boat. I finish the sketch as he maneuvers us into a spot above the bright sandbar where we can drop the anchor.
Luke makes sure we’re secure, then climbs up front to sit with me, carrying a couple seltzers.
“What are you drawing?” he asks, sitting against the front of the helm. I flip my sketchbook around and show him. He leans in and takes it from me, his face a carefully composed neutral expression.
“Wow, Sera, you’ve gotten even better. You did this in twenty minutes?” I smile, pleased, and take the sketchbook back.
“Thanks. Your face was hard to get with the shield in the way, though. Sit still.”
He smirks at me. “I didn’t agree to be your subject.”
