I laugh. “Yeah, this place is a bit nicer.”
He nods toward the phone in my hands. “Everything good?”
I smile. “Yeah, just checking in with my sisters.”
He pulls the towel around his neck. “They’ve grown up. I don’t know what I expected, but that night at your parents’ house I was shocked that Sophie had outgrown her knobby elbows and braces.”
My smile grows. “She’s still a force, though.”
“She always was.” His eyebrows rise. “She climbed the water tower when she was thirteen.”
My jawdrops. “What?”
Milo chuckles. “Imagine my surprise when my girlfriend’s little sister appeared on the platform with Trevor Emery.”
“Trevor Emery was inourclass!” I exclaim, my hand balling up in a fist at my side.
“I took care of it,” he says softly. “He knew if he dared to even blink in her direction again, he was toast.”
Milo protected my sister without me even knowing.
“Why didn’t you tell me then?” I ask.
“I didn’t want you to worry or be burdened with the intense hatred Sophie had for me for a while after that.”
I arch my brows, the past painting a picture in my head of a younger Sophie who sucked in her cheeks and looked at anything but Milo when he was lightly teasing her at the dinner table. I remember thinking it was odd. Sophie never could resist banter. I smile and shake my head. “That girl?—”
“Is going places.” He steals my sentence. “I like her van idea.”
“You do?” I hear the surprise in my voice.
“Sophie is bold in a way most people wish they were.”
“Bold or difficult?” I ask.
Sophie’s always had a wild streak—she snuck out, hosted parties, was the girl everyone expected to show up to make things a little more fun. When my dad had his accident and I came home, I slipped into the role of her second mother since our own was preoccupied with Dad’s recovery. We had so many fights over what was right or wrong, stupid or more stupid. I never understood why she wanted other people to have a reason to think less of her.
Now, my stomach knots over those arguments because I wish I would have been a little more like her. Snuck out a time or two, bent the rules slightly, cared a little less about my reputation and more about my own experience—about what I wanted instead of what everyone expected.
“We’re all a little difficult in our own way,” he says.
“I’m not difficult,”I say, my arms crossed.
“No, of course not,” he says before he takes the towel from his neck and attempts to snap me with its end. He narrowly misses.
“Hey!” I exclaim.
He laughs. “Want to go do something?”
It’s Saturday night. A Saturday night I’m not in Dusty Hollow, which means—there arethings to do.
“Like what?” I ask, rushing toward the balcony, pressing my thighs into the rails as I look out over the long strip of beach along the ocean. In the distance to my left, I see a Ferris wheel glowing in a rainbow of colors against the night sky.
Milo joins me on my right, leaning over the edge with me. “We could go do that.”
“It’s not too childish?” I ask, slightly sheepish, glancing up at him. It’s hardly anything list-worthy, and I brace for the look you get when you choose something just because you want it.
“I think it looks fun.” He grins down at me, and my body seems to wake up, my toes tingling.
