Page 189 of Summer Love

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Because if you’d rather we⁠—”

“Jace. Shut up.”

He smiles and kisses me. The kiss goes deeper.

The mattress is too narrow for two, but it doesn’t matter at all. Our clothes come off one by one. I reach for my toiletry bag at the foot of the shelf and take out a condom.

Then there’s nothing but his skin against mine, his mouth on my neck, his hands on my hips. When my fingers brush over his scar, he flinches, but his self-consciousness fades fast. I let my hands slide over that thigh I already know by heart.

He puts his hand on the back of my neck like he never wants to let me go again.

This time, the little voice that kept telling me I was only a bet finally goes quiet.

When I fall asleep, later, his hand is still in my hair.

I wake in the middle of the night.

A siren wails somewhere far off, then a car horn. New York is never really quiet, and the night is never really dark. City light filters through the window, orange and shifting. Jace sleeps on his stomach, head turned toward me, one arm draped around my waist. His breathing is slow, deep. Like he’s sleeping for the first time in days.

I watch him. He’s here, in my too-small bed, twenty-five hundred miles from Coral Bay.

My wrist rests in the small of his back. The braided bracelet—blue, turquoise, and white—lies right against his skin.

I close my eyes.

Six months.

CHAPTER 62

Summer

Three months later…

The wall clock reads 2:34 a.m. I haul the second suitcase off the baggage carousel—it’s heavier than the first, I’d forgotten. I grab a handle in each hand and head for the exit.

My right foot wakes up. I don’t slow down.

The arrivals hall is nearly empty. Behind the barrier, drivers wait, holding up name signs. I look for directions to the Monterey shuttles. The first one leaves at 4:00. Three hours on the road, and Miles is picking me up there in his Jeep.

I’ve slept two hours in the last twenty-four, I’m wiped, but I can’t sit still. Jace doesn’t know I’m coming—I wanted to surprise him. I can’t wait to see his face when I show up at Walker Surf School with my two suitcases…

“Summer!”

I jump and turn around. I spot Sierra Brooks: heart-shaped sunglasses on her nose, a pink feather boa around her neck, a crop top over high-waisted jeans. She’s waving a piece of cardboard over her head, where she’s written in glitter marker:

You tried to leave. Cute.

And underneath, smaller, a little crooked:

Coral Bay always wins

My eyes go wide. Next to her, hanging back a little, arms crossed… Noah.

It takes me a second to recognize him. He’s wearing the black NASA T-shirt—the one from the diner, the one from the run at Star Park. Three months ago, it was splitting at the seams. Now it fits him. He still has a bit of a belly, but his face has thinned out. He’s shaved—not very close, sure—and his hair’s kept its rough cut.