I nod, determined to have that level of confidence when I make that decision too. Sex is this abstract thing to me, but obviously something I think about and that people talk about all the time. I hear its eitherso hotandamazingor not at all worth the hype, depending on who you ask. I don’t feel ready now, but I don’t know if it’s because I need more time or because I haven’t met a guy I feel that comfortable with, yet.
“Do you miss him?” I ask. “Brian?”
“I did at first, but not anymore.” She sits up and takes a swig of water. “That reminds me—you got any cute single guys my age coming to your place for the fireworks tonight? Because I’m single and very ready to mingle.”
I scrunch my nose. “Sorry. Only Gregory, Ruby, and Julian. Oh wait, I invited Ned, and he said he might come! He’s a senior.”
She makes a face. “I’m not hooking up with the guy I need to work with all summer. That would be awkward as hell.”
I rub a hand across my opposite shoulder. “Well, feel free to invite your future husband, the lifeguard over there.”
Shelby considers this, nods, and flops onto her back. She shields her eyes with her hand and smiles. “I just might.”
I laugh and roll onto my stomach.
Later that night, as the first bursts of light fill the sky and my friends (plus, yes, lifeguard Luca) ooh and aah beside me, my phone buzzes with a text message.
Myles: watching the show?
I send him a selfie with the fireworks behind me. I’ve been taking pictures all night with my camera, handing them out to everyone who’s here. But this one’s just for Myles.
Myles: you’re beautiful, you know that?
Myles: I wish I was there
I can’t help the huge grin that spreads across my face, or the giddy sensation sliding across my skin. Gregory glances across the deck at me, eyes shining and smile wide, like he’s about to say something—but his expression falters when he clocks the lit-up phone in my hand. He turns back to the show and leans over to say something to Julian.
No one’s close enough to read my screen, but as I respond, I bend over my phone all the same.
Me: I wish you were too.
16PLAYLIST:summer anthems
BY THE TIME THEend of July rolls around, I’ve decided that summer without Kat might not be so bad after all. There are still times when I stumble across a memory with her and it’s like a punch straight to the gut, but I’m no longer obsessed with checking my phone. Now that I’ve settled into a routine of Pearl’s, trying to convince Gregory to love the ocean, and hanging with Shelby, it’s not quite as depressing. We talk once a week, maybe.
And as far as Kat’s concerned, everything in Kingfisher Cove is exactly as she left it. The one time she asked how it was going working with Myles, I kept it vague, and she quickly pivoted to talk about some tennis club banquet coming up.
Shelby and I have made it a habit to lie out on the beach at least twice a week, and my pale winter skin has been completely replaced with a deep summer glow. I’ve filled her in on all thelocal gossip and town lore, including the ongoing feud between Mrs. Porter and Mrs. Potter, competing florists in town, and the loosely held belief that Ula Tomkins didn’t move to Europe—she was abducted by aliens. The one topic I’ve steered clear of is Kat, and I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe I like having someone who knows me completely apart from her, like I’m a whole person on my own rather than a piece of the Kat-Amelia combination. Shelby knows I had a friend who moved at the beginning of the summer, but that’s it.
Gregory always works Wednesday evenings. (I just happened to notice it on the schedule. I wasn’t looking on purpose. Iwasn’t.) So I’ve popped by the last two Wednesdays after dinner to check on the cats. Fiona is still friendly and looking a little plumper with regular food, and we’ve made progress with Waffles. Or, rather, Gregory has. She still doesn’t seem to want to have anything to do with me, but he’s coaxed her close enough to pet her one and a half times. (We agreed on a half because while he swore he felt fur, I’m skeptical he actually made contact.)
He likes to text me random questions, like am I an organ donor (why/why not) or if I think I could live without electricity for a week. Twice now I’ve lingered at the store until he got off and we meandered to the beach for an hour or two before he went home. We’re working on his comfort level with the ocean, and I think he’s almost ready for prime time: swimming.
I learn that he’s decent on a skateboard, had a Goth phase in middle school (didn’t we all?), and if I’m ever driving along First Street in Phoenix, there’s an abandoned building defiled with spraypaint by Gregory and his friends. I still have yet to get my mystery playlist, though, or learn a single song he’s put on it.
He says masterpieces can’t be rushed.
And Myles? We’re having a blast at work, and him greeting me with a hug has become so frequent that if I had to hug ten guys with my eyes closed, I’d be able to tell his body apart from the rest. Shelby told me he asked her to switch a couple of shifts with him, and she’s convinced it was so he could work more with me. We also text most days and have talked about everything from the old house on the corner of town that we all swear is haunted to our greatest fears (Myles: spiders, and me: heights). I went to another bonfire party with him, and when leading me to a group of friends, he held my hand for approximately ninety seconds before some drunk kid fell backward and knocked us apart.
I analyzed that minute and a half for a good hour after I got home that night.
My guilt over this comes and goes like the tide, building in between Kat’s and my conversations or when I see something in my room that reminds me of our friendship, only to fade away the second I see his name on my phone screen.
I still don’t know about Anders’s Tweety Bird tattoo, but at this point I’ve decided it’s okay if that remains one of life’s great mysteries.
It’s a Tuesday afternoon at Pearl’s, two weeks before Summerfest, when Gregory walks in. I’m working the lunch shift, and so areMyles and Shelby, and we’re standing together at the hostess stand brainstorming what a group of scorpions should be called because we all think “nest” is too boring.
I smile right away when I see him. “Hey!”
