Music blares from a massive speaker in the back of someone’s truck, and several people are dancing. I don’t know if it’s the heat or the reality that summer’s ending soon, but I’ve never seen so many of my classmates drunk. Chloe Sanders greeted me in French and kissed my cheeks when I arrived, and with the way Tanner’swaving all his buddies over, I’m pretty sure I’m about to witness my first keg stand.
“Definitely.” Julian seems thrilled by this.
“So who else is coming tonight?” Ruby asks.
“Um, everyone,” Julian replies.
She rolls her eyes. “I meant, like, which of our friends.”
He names off a few people.
“Shelby said she wanted to go to her grandparents’ place and change after work, but she’d come by after,” I add. “Myles gets back from California tonight, so I bet he’ll be here at some point too.”
“Speaking of Myles,” Ruby says, a gleam in her eye that she gets only when she’s got gossip to share. “I heard he’s got a thing for Kat.”
I choke on my soda, and Julian claps me on the back. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I croak. I arrange my face into something more neutral before turning to Ruby. “Where did you hear that?”
“Someone was talking about it at the pier the other day. Chuck, I think? Said Myles has been texting someone a lot but wouldn’t own up to who it was. Just that she’s a junior, and Chuck remembered Myles saying he was gonna get Kat’s number before she moved.”
“Huh,” I say. I wish my body would disintegrate into granules of sand on command. “Huh.”
Ruby and Julian give me identical strange looks.
“I just, I… Kat hasn’t mentioned it to me, is all,” I scramble. “Seems like something she’d tell me if it were true.”
Ruby nods like this makes sense, and Julian suggests that maybe Chuck was just “talking out of his ass.”
“Who’s talking out of their ass?” a familiar voice asks from behind me.
I’ve never been happier to have someone interrupt a conversation. I shake out my hands and the nerves from my fingertips.
“You, probably,” I say, hoping none of the awkwardness lingers from the last time Gregory and I were together. We texted some yesterday, but I’m still a little on edge.
His tall form sidles up beside me. “Thank you, darling,” he says, batting his eyes.
I blow out a relieved exhale, because he seems totally normal.
He’s wearing a white T-shirt, khaki shorts, and his usual baseball cap. The silver necklace shines in the light of the nearby bonfire. I noticed he stopped tucking it underneath his shirt after our beach conversation a few weeks ago.
“I can’t decide if it’s a good thing all these drunk teenagers are by the ocean when they need to vomit later,” he remarks. “Or if that’s environmentally irresponsible. What will happen to the sharks?”
“Don’t be too cocky,” I warn, eyeing the cup in his hand. “You could be one of them.”
“Nah,” he says. “I found this one empty on the ground and was just looking for a trash can somewhere.” I love that he’s cleaning up my precious beach. I’ve trained him well.
“That’senvironmentally responsible,” Ruby says. Julian asks if she wants to go dance, and we wave them off as Julian grabs Ruby’s hand and leads her away.
Now that it’s just the two of us, I turn to face Gregory. He smiles at me, and something about the sincerity and warmth in it catches me off guard. It’s like he’s finally happy because he’s talking to me.
Something shifts in my chest, and it knocks me off-kilter. This emotional whiplash is disorienting. “How’s Waffles?”
Gregory lets out a long, beleaguered sigh. “That cat, I swear.”
“What’s he doing now?”
“Yesterday he got the zoomies for, like, forty minutes straight. I’m talking tearing around the house like his tail was on fire even though my mom and I were just sitting on the couch doing absolutely nothing. Then, on one rampage from the kitchen to the laundry room, he made a pass by the couch, flew up into my lap, and passed out.”
