I bit my lip. This was the first time Tiff had mentioned the strange crackling energy that had spun up at the Summerween Festival. Had she, like Lara, noticed that it had somehow triangulated over Noah, Finn and me?
Then again, was that just wishful thinking? Wanting to be a part of something that, on some level, I’d always wanted to happen, no matter how much I went on about being ‘just like a sister’. Had Lara just got in my head about the boys?
The music switched to a Bangles song: ‘If She Knew What She Wants’.
Tiff chuckled as she nibbled at a slice of mango. ‘It’s your song, Molly.’
The ring on my finger fizzed uncomfortably. Worried that Tiff would grill me about it, I shoved my hand in my pocket. After all, sometimes ignoring something was enough to make it go away.
Chapter 10
HEARTS ON FIRE
The evening rolled around languidly, as they tend to do when you’re on vacation. In the four-or-so hours prior, I’d sent a couple of emails to Eddie about some of the extremely low-key sports events going on at the cove that I could cover (in case the croquet thing didn’t work out), had helped Rosie tape a wall she’d decided to paint, and had flipped through a magazine while taste-testing some of the cookies piled up on a fancy pink cake stand.
‘Sun’s low!’ shouted Finn, who’d just come in from the beach and was wearing nothing but damp shorts and a towel. This was standard Finn attire. ‘Off your butt, Molly: we’ve got a fire to build.’
‘Just so long as you do the lighting,’ I said. My fire-making prowess extended to a stick lighter and not much beyond. I was rather attached to my eyebrows and had no desire to lose them this evening.
‘You can even stand behind my Adonis-like form,’ teased Finn, striking a pose.
All right, so itwasquite Adonis-like. I averted my gaze before he could accuse me of staring. Which, of course, was what he wanted. It wasn’tmyfault I had eyes.
Never one to stand on ceremony, Finn pulled me outside, shouting, ‘Bonfire time!’ through his cupped hands, then hurrying over to rap his knuckles on Tiff’s bedroom windowand then on the door of Noah’s art studio. Cleo, who’d been napping on the windowsill, yowled.
‘I’m on a work call,’ shouted Mom from her room. ‘Let’s keep the commotion to a dull roar.’
‘Your clients will understand the urgency of the bonfire,’ Finn yelled back. ‘All deadlines can be pushed where bonfire nachos are involved.’
Giggling, the two of us raced down to the beach, where Finn had cleared a spot and stacked up some piles of dry branches and a few bits of wood from the storage shed.
‘Mom’s been talking about redoing the fence,’ he explained, rearranging a few twigs and some wood panels. ‘When she’s done with the light fixtures and the wallpaper, anyway. She’s like a one-woman home-renovation show. I swear that like ten furniture catalogues showed up last week. They wouldn’t fit in the mailbox.’
‘She’s definitely on a fixer-upper mission,’ I offered. I couldn’t help but think about the conversation from my beach walk with Mom earlier.
‘Just as long as she doesn’t touch the music room,’ said Finn. There was a moment of vulnerability to the statement, and he realized it. He hurried to deflect. ‘Or Noah’s art studio. He’d wither into a husk if anyone other than Cleo so much as stepped foot in there. Even you.’
Ouch, I must have snagged my new ring on one of the bonfire twigs somehow, because it smarted on my finger. I shook out my hand, waiting for the sharp zap it had given me to dissipate.
‘All right over there?’ asked Finn, pausing from where he’d been unfolding some of the lounge chairs stacked up by the bonfire spot.
‘I caught my ring on something,’ I explained, before flashing him a look at it. He pretended to swoon, apparently aware it was good form to always comment positively on a girl’s accessories. ‘But I still have all my fingers.’
‘That’s lucky, or I’d never be able to teach you to play guitar.’
I snorted. ‘I absolutely cannot imagine you teaching anyone to do anything.’
Finn broke into a wide grin. ‘Slingshot in the sixth grade ringing any bells? Also, lock-picking? Vodka-topping-offing? Roller-skating over the big hill? Golf-cart driving?’
‘That last one never happened,’ I protested.
‘But it could,’ said Finn. ‘Want me to bring it around? It’s about time you learned to drivesomething. And it’s easy. Go pedal. Stop pedal. Steering wheel. That’s pretty much it.’
I was tempted. The golf cartdidlook fun. And it moved slowly and was designed to stick to the small backroads, so it wasn’t like actual driving.
But before I could decide one way or the other, the rest of the family spilled out from the Pink House in a cacophony of coolers and rattling tinfoil-wrapped dishes.
‘Fashionably late, but they’re here,’ called Finn good-naturedly.
