Tag let go of the flannel and laughed into the night. “What was that?”
My voice was weak. “A kiss.”
I glanced away from embarrassment but then felt him coaxing me back. His knuckles brushed mine before our fingers mingled and soon entwined. Tag raised them, and I blushed as he swept me into his arms. One calm hand went to my lower back, the other splayed wide between my shoulder blades. “I wish you had come over,” I whispered. “I would’ve loved tomake bullet points and annotate maps and consult a rhyming dictionary with you.”
“I wish I’d come over too,” he whispered back, the two of us slowly swaying from the sea breeze. His muscles tensed. “But tonight has been okay, right? Besides some shit hitting the fan?”
“It’s been more than okay, Jester,” I said. “It’s even been—dare I say it—fun.” I felt him relax when I smiled. “Let’s just pray there’s no more shit.”
Tag smiled back. “All’s well that ends well,” he murmured, lightly kissing both my dimples before stepping back to look at me.
You’ve got my favorite smile on your face.
There was a moment of silence between us.
And then…
Andthen.
Tag and I were kissing, and oh—oh, his lips were soft and gentle but also sizzled like summer sparklers against mine. My stomach somersaulted as the kiss deepened, and it cartwheeled when Tag slid his hands around my waist to pull me closer. I rose up on my tiptoes and tangled my hands in his dark hair. “Hopscotch,” he breathed after several hammering heartbeats. “I don’t want this to fall apart. We need to—”
“I know,” I said, kissing his neck. “We need to get back to the clues.” I sighed. “Just not yet, Tag. Please. A little longer.”
For over a year, he’d been untouchable, but now—now I couldn’t help but throw caution to the ocean winds. The twinkling stars behind my eyes told me this was worth it.
“No, that’s not what I—” Tag began, but when I kissed him again, he released a groan and slipped his hands under my Dri-FIT. Everything in meached.We still weren’t close enough, even though our hips were now digging into each other. It felt excruciatingly wondrous.
“There’s the upstairs trophy room,” Tag whispered in my ear.
“Excuse me?” I smirked and slung my arms around his neck, sweat beading on my forehead. “Since when does the sailing team have enough trophies to fill a room?”
We stumbled back against the boathouse’s outer wall, laughing like the sun would never rise. “There might not be many recent ones,” Tag said after a fierce kiss. “But you’ll see plenty of first-place finishes from the sixties and seventies.”
I latched my fingers onto his belt loops. Another kiss, another kiss, another kaleidoscopic kiss. “Do you have one?” I asked breathlessly. “In your backpack?”
Tag’s shoulders sagged. “No,” he said, then coughed. “They didn’t, uh, make tonight’s packing list.”
And that was when it hit us like a gunshot—what exactly we were doing. Trying to make up for lost time when there wasn’t any to spare. We sprang apart and stared at each other, scared shitless. “Get your backpack!” I shrieked at the same time as he shouted, “Grab the keys!”
The only thing we had time for was a great escape.
SIXTEEN
The golf cart served as our getaway car, but it turned out a getaway car wasn’t truly a getaway car if you were taking what you wanted to get away from with you. Tag and I sat stone-cold silent, staring straight ahead as I drove.What is he thinking?I wondered, my pulse jetting away with the golf cart.Tell me, Tag. What are you thinking?
Although I didn’t even know whatIwas thinking. At least not clearly. Those fast and furious minutes between us had been amazing, but they now felt confusing. I still loved Tag, but did he feel the same way? Or his favorite partner in crime because we worked well together?
And what about Blair? Was I just the best person to distract him from her? Even if it was for the trillionth time, Taghadbroken up with Blair, but he hadalsoprotected her in a clue.
Had we only been caught up in the excitement?
My heart twisted. We’d created quite the mess.
And thus, I realized sadly,we won’t be discussing it.
There was no time for discussion if we were to finish hiding the clues by sunrise.
We did not return to Gilmore Lane; instead, I kept close to the water, driving on the widespread boardwalk that rambled along Ames’s beach. It would eventually pass my house. The perfect shortcut, especially at 4:00 a.m.
