Despite Percy saying she wanted to claim me, she and Sam move to the back of the boat while we wait for the sky to turn black. I sneak a glance at them. Sam is handsome like Charlie, but there’s something softer about him. More boyish. Percy is sitting on his lap, and he’s looking up at her with awe. He pulls her to his lips, kissing her softly.
“They’re always like this,” Charlie says.
I look at him with disbelief.
“Tell me about it,” he says, but he’s smiling. “How come you didn’t mention that you spent a summer here?”
“It didn’t come up.” A half-truth. “But it was amazing. One of those formative teenage experiences, you know?”
“Sure.” He stares at me for a moment. “It surprises me, though.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t remember you.”
I look up at the sky, where the stars are blinking to life. “I guess I’m not very memorable.”
“Well, that’s bullshit,” Charlie says, and I turn back to him. “You know you’re hot.”
“I wasn’t digging for a compliment,” I say, a bit defensive. “It’s just true. And it was especially true when I was seventeen.”
“I don’t buy that. We were neighbors. I’m sure I would have noticed you.” The first firework whistles toward the sky, but neither of us turns to watch it. It bursts overhead, and the glitter on Charlie’s face shimmers in reply.
“Well, I guess you didn’t,” I say, before a series of bangs echoes around the lake. I settle lower into the seat and lay my head back, watching blooms of gold flower into the night.
“You must have seen us,” Charlie says. A dog with a bone. “We would have been on the water from dawn till dusk, and we weren’t quiet. Why didn’t you say hi?”
I can feel his gaze on me, but I don’t look. I feel each firework in my chest.
“I was shy,” I tell him. “I could have said hello, but I wouldn’t have known what to say next.”
“I can’t picture you as shy.”
I snort.
“Why is that funny?”
I turn my head to the side, and my breath catches. Charlie hashis arms behind his head, one ankle crossed over the other, the picture of ease, but he’s studying me with sharp intensity.
“It’s funny because I’m the turtle.”
Charlie looks appropriately confused.
“I have three siblings,” I explain. “Heather is two years older. Luca and Lavinia are twenty-four.” I can’t remember when or why we came up with the animal thing, but it’s fundamental to being an Everly child. “Heather is the lion, Lavinia is the flamingo, and Luca is the monkey.”
“And you’re the turtle.”
“Right. My family is full of big personalities. Aside from my mom, they’re all loud and opinionated and…I don’t know…brighter than me? I’m the quiet one, the level head,” I tell him. “And I’m still shy.”
Charlie frowns and we both fall silent. I look back to the display of red and white fizzling above us.
“You’re not quiet around me,” he says slowly, a minute later, as if he’s been thinking it over.
“No.” I turn to him. There’s something about Charlie that calms the part of my brain that constantly worries about saying the wrong thing. “But I would have been shy…back then, I mean.”
But I wonder if that’s true, or if I would have found him easy to be around when I was seventeen.
“I guess we’ll never know.”
