“Have you been talking to Mads?” Connor jibed, but he caught my drift. He grabbed his to-go cup and popped off its plastic lid once he’d gotten cozy on the couch. I needed no invitation before snuggling into his side.
“My dad knows about us,” I said after he offered me a bite of ice cream. “He knows we’re…” I hesitated. “Having fun.”
“Okay, cool,” Connor said, seemingly unfazed. “Should I prepare myself for a talk?”
I giggled. “That’s not really his style.”
Because, as far as I knew, it wasn’t.
“Got it.” Connor nodded. “But just so you know, I am excellent at those talks.”
“Oh, yeah? You have references?”
He laughed, and the sheer delight in it made me smile and my heart spin around in my chest. I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt a glow like this before, or at least not in a very long time.
Don’t let it worry you, I told myself.You might be getting swept up, but you’re not getting swept away.
Eighteen
The next morning, Connor and I left the house after breakfast. “Where are you two headed?” my dad asked, and in response, I showed him Annie’s watercolor of the Aquinnah Cliffs. He carefully studied it, the expression on his face both mesmerized and puzzled. Captivated by the small painting’s intricate details but probably confused why Annie never displayed it for all to see. It was gorgeous.
He handed the watercolor back to me and smiled.
Do you want to come? I almost asked, but I knew he and Erica had plans to take the twins on a boat ride around Edgartown Harbor with Ashley and the boys.
The sky was so blue and the sun burned so bright that not even Connor’s roofless Jeep stopped us from sweating on the way to the western end of the island. “Looks like we aren’t the only great minds,” Connor commented while we searched for a parking spot. There seemed to be tourists everywhere. A family of five bobbed in bucket hats toward the cliffs’ historic brick lighthouse. Gay Head Light, I’d learned on Wikipedia. Back in thenineteenth and twentieth centuries, Aquinnah had apparently been known as “Gay Head.”
I could imagine all the jokes.
Connor maneuvered his Jeep in between a dusty Subaru Crosstrek and a black G-Wagon, the spacing between the cars so tight that I had to leap down through the trunk. “Nine-point-eight,” Connor quipped after offering me his hand to ensure I stuck my landing. Smiling, I laced our fingers together, and we set off for the iconic overlook.
Nearby, there were a series of small, cedar-shingled souvenir and snack shops. It hadn’t hit me how thirsty I was until I spotted a sign for freshly squeezed lemonade. Suddenly, I feltparched. “Should we get a roadie?” I pointed out the sign to Connor. The line wasn’t that long.
Ten minutes later, we climbed the overlook’s steps with refreshing drinks in hand. Sweat slipped down my back, but the lemonade packed a punch, its icy sweetness soon spinning through my veins. My body felt lighter, my head cooler. I started sucking it down so quickly that I didn’t notice one of the overlook’s warped steps. “Whoa there!” Connor’s arm slid around my waist before I could totally trip. My heart skipped as he raised a comically inquisitive eyebrow. “Do I need to confiscate that drink?”
I laughed. “Maybe.”
Fellow tourists greeted us up on the wide plank observation deck, their phones raised to snap pictures while a few childrenlooked through mega binoculars. My pulse began to pound once Connor and I weaved our way toward the edge, and not solely because his hand rested on the small of my back, gently guiding me. The Aquinnah Cliffs werebreathtaking, even more beautiful in person than in Annie’s painting. The bluffs practically rolled into the glimmering ocean, burnt orange and red clay streaks shining bright against the blue sky backdrop and surrounding tall green grass and yellow flowers in full bloom. “Wow,” I whispered.
“Wow,” Connor concurred, then motioned for me to give him my phone. “Let’s get this photo shoot started…”
“How do they look?” I asked afterward. He’d taken a burst, of course, even crouching down for a couple shots.
“Eh.” He shrugged. “Maybe one or two good ones.”
I rolled my eyes, knowing he was mocking me. “Hopefully there are one or two good ones,” I’d said at the Whaling Church, his reply making me now blush instead of flush.
You know you’re gorgeous, right?
Now, someone tapped his shoulder. A petite woman in a sun visor and sunglasses with a pair of binoculars around her neck. “Would you like me to take a picture of you two?”
“That would be great!” Connor smiled. “It saves us a selfie.”
She gestured for him to hand over his phone. We moved to stand side by side by the cliff’s edge, Connor wrapping his arm around my shoulders. His skin nearly scorched mine, but I didn’t hesitate before leaning into him. “Say cheese!” our photographer shouted.
We indulged her, kind of. “Provolone!” I called at the same time Connor went, “Mozzarella!”
We jolted out of our pose, eyes locking as if to say,What was that?
