Page 98 of Summer Love

It’s different from the beach. He kisses me slower, surer. His fingers settle at the nape of my neck, my breath tangles with his, the car barely sways.

When he pulls back, he’s not smiling. He looks serious, almost worried.

“Be my girlfriend, Summer.”

I shake my head. He can’t be serious.

“Jace… I leave for New York in five days.”

“Don’t see what that’s got to do with it.”

“I—”

“You don’t have to answer right now,” he cuts in. “We’ve got five nights left. We can head back to the others.”

He looks down at the lights of the park, then back up at me.

“Or… we could disappear for a while.”

“My place?”

He searches my eyes.

“Only if you want to.”

I slide my hand into his. Car 17 sinks back toward the lights.

A hand lands on my shoulder. I jump.

Noah’s right behind me, his face shiny with sweat. Car 17 creaks in the wind.

“Summer?”

I blink. The fog. The rust. The creaking metal.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say. “This place gives me the creeps.”

Noah doesn’t argue. We go back through the hole in the fence, one after the other, not a word.

I lead him to the edge of the cliff. We sit facing the sea, on a flat rock. The sun is coming up. A pink line widens above the horizon, the fog lifts in sheets, the ocean appears—dark, then gray, then blue.

Still red and soaked, Noah catches his breath. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand, spits into the grass beside the rock. Charming.

I haven’t even broken a sweat. The cool air prickles my arms.

We sit side by side, still, watching the waves smash against the rocks below. Jace showed me this spot, The Last Ride. The pros come here when conditions are good. For everyone else, it takes a lot of experience, a lot of ego, or a questionable survival instinct. “The Last Ride,” he’d said, smiling. “You catch the wave… and sometimes you don’t come back.”

Surfers have a sense of humor.

Once his breathing’s back to normal, Noah glances at me, then looks away.

“You okay?” he asks.

A laugh slips out of me.

“I should be the one asking you that.”

“I mean back at the park. In front of the Ferris wheel… you looked like you’d seen a ghost.”